Cascade Crew

[chevymad]

So here we are, fighting emissions regulations, getting looked down on by prius owners for ruining the environment.. when really its the ships. Check out this article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-pollution

Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world's biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world's 760m cars.

[blue89]

Holy crap! That's a lot of emissions. It's sad to think that they can burn whatever they want in international waters. I wonder what I would cost consumers to have this regulated?

[Xophertony]

[flea]

thats okay, this guy says the solution to global warming is more pollution...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/WireStory?id=7295178&page=1


I forgot, how do you make acid rain???

oh yeah I remember now its from sulfur getting into the upper atmosphere from factories and power plants. thats completely different than what this guy is talking about.

[aaron_sK]

[flea]

I know. thats sort of what my point is. But I think of it as pot of boiling water. if you leave that pot too long and don't add more water then eventually the pot goes dry. if however you add more water then you can boil water indefinitely. turn up the heat and the water boils out faster, add more water sooner. turn up heat pot boils dry faster add more water sooner, turn up heat....

Hows about we just stop turning up the heat and think for a minute.

Now I know this will be unpopular and I will be called all sorts of names privately and a few in print here. but here goes any way cause some one has to say it.

First, slow down the rate at which we are pumping out the greenhouse gasses. after all what can that hurt. don't just create more acid rain and uneven temps that will certainly have adverse effects.

Second, some one needs to convince me that this warming trend is even happening and at the catastrophic rate that it is being reported. Face it the planet is millions of years old with a history well established of warming and cooling, virtually all of it without the input from man. Mans input dates back to the industrial revolution; only a few hundred years ago. late 18th and early 19th centuries. Impact?? sure there is but how much.

Third is the ability of man to even measure the impact on the scale we are talking about. Global temp records were not kept till the second half of the twentieth century. How much variation was there in early temperature recorders? That is to say margin of error. How pure was the mercury used? how pure was the Glass in the thermometers? how thick was it? what were the insulating properties of it? how accurate was the method of reading it? do these variations account for a one or two degree difference?? Accuracy has only been truly established in the last twenty or so years, and twenty years out of millions is not a trend. thats like saying that because 11:00 AM was warmer than 10:00AM that the earth is warming up, forget about the fact that the day time high for my imaginary day is 25 deg F in summer in Tuscon AZ.

You see what I'm getting at lets establish a real baseline before flying off the handle and purposely pumping pollutants in to the air. pollutants that we know have caused the problems to begin with.

[flea]

oops long winded I be.

Need another Monster i guess.

[blue89]

Ya, we all need to quit putting CO2 in the air and start planting more tree's. We all hate $5/gal gas but it sure did lower demand!

[aaron_sK]

Wow flea, you're very passionate about this.

Just a couple things to point out, without making this hugely political:

1) Temperature trends are tracked by measuring ice layers at the poles. So you can't really talk about "variations in temperature records".

2) We have moved past the point where we can argue about whether this is the fault of humans, or simply a natural swing. It really does not matter. It's stuff like this that killed the dinosaurs. Arguing that temperature swings in the atmosphere are natural, doesn't actually stop those swings from radically altering the planet so it is no longer inhabitable. Whether or not this is our fault, we still need to stop it.

[HONDASLAYER]

[flea]

agreed on point 2.
but what I'm trying to say is that I really don't know how much we can actually control. Our own behavior/influence, certainly, but in so far as these swings do take place naturally (the degree to which doesn't really matter) how much power do we really have to alter the course of mother nature. Yes I know rivers can be dammed but the pacific ocean can't be moved 1 mile west to accommodate a desire for wider beaches. That is sort of the way I view the global temps, like trying to move the ocean. Again I believe we can do our part to change our own influence but that brings us to the question of exactly what role do we play in the grand scheme of things, and are we willing to step back to horse and buggy?

I'm all for greener energy, but it must be affordable or its a moot point. I saw a Toyota Prius Lic. plate was 50 mpg. really I'm not making it up. it was in McCleary WA any way it got me to thinking that my first car was a 78 Subaru wagon, I got 35 mpg. And it was dirt cheap. So how much am I willing to spend to fill up a little less often? Even My stock 305 Camaro got 30 mpg with my wife driving from the coast where I live to Moses Lake. 300 highway miles and she put 10 gallons in when she got there. I paid 1300 for my car and it looks better IMO than a Prius.

Any way You are right I am passionate but mostly about just getting facts. I don't see this as a political issue at all. Right now Green alternatives are a question of cost effectiveness and practicality not elephants and donkeys

Forgot about #1.
Even if they are taking samples from core Ice there is still a margin of error built in there. because they are using sampling to get their figures. And they are talking tenths of a degree. Is their statistical sampling really accurate to tenths of degrees? call me Skeptical on this one.
Again not trying to come off as a nay sayer here these are just questions that have crossed my mind. A statistical model showing a half degree warming trend over X number of years?? Is half a degree really so far outside the margin of error as to be deemed reliable? If so OK, but why does my local weatherman tell me todays weather is 50-55 highs and not 52.25-52.73 it seems to me its because science is simply not that accurate it can't be too many variables

[HONDASLAYER]

You know i vaigly remember some sci-fi tv show episode were there had been so many of a planets trees cut down that the planet could no longer handle turning all the co2 back into oxygen so the worlds scientists got together and the countries united in building giant air purifiers that rose high above the forests tree line to literally scrub the air clean. That sounds like an awsome idea of what to do. Giant air purifiers! just a thought.