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Climate change ?

The Tohoku tsunami was implicated directly as the cause of one of the most recent (about fifty square miles) Antarctic ice break-offs.

It's seasonal, as well, however, it appears the break-offs are happening at an alarming rate, as reported by those who monitor such things.

Giant iceberg breaks off from Antarctic glacier | Reuters (about another huge break-off in 2010).

They know the contributing factors, not the least of which is ongoing global warming.

When some try to dismiss global warming by pointing out data on the other factors, they're making a big mistake, it appears.
 
You can see climate change by what grows where. Spruce and fir prefer montane environments. If you find traces of pollen, cones, etc, where the trees don't grow today, it suggests that it WAS colder. The same with warmer weather plants -
Look where Kudzu has been found:

Kudzu was discovered July 2009 in a patch 110 m (360 ft) wide and 30 m (98 ft) deep, on a south-facing slope on the shore of Lake Erie near Leamington, Ontario, about 50 km (31 mi) southeast of Windsor.[25] Leamington is located in the second warmest growing region of Canada after south coastal British Columbia.
Ecologist Gerald Waldron made the Leamington find while walking along the beach. He spotted the kudzu instantly, having read about its destructive expansion in the southeastern United States. Wikipedia

Certain deciduous trees are migrating northward also. Since plants and animals are not under the control of politics but follow growing conditions and food sources, I should think they would be decent indicators of something going on.
 
I agree with alleviating climate change - we can't stop the natural changes. But I am suspicious of some of the claims - especially from those who can make a buck from it.

We've had wrong solutions before. Like fluorocarbons and the ozone layer. Everyone said they were safe.

Reducing anything that could form a rain/snow nuclei, which would put more water in the water cycle and more clouds, should be beneficial but there are still tradeoffs. Electric cars might be a good idea, but you still need power to charge them. So far - hydrogen technology that emits water is looking like a better solution, but no real push or whatever for growth.

The other problem is food. More and more growers are growing corn for flex fuel. This is making animal feed and other corn products more expensive. Since the fuel is mostly used in cars, this will hurt those who don't own a car and are close to or just over the poverty line.
 
Go check out the 1012 Old Farmer's Almanac. It has a list of major volcanic eruptions and by how much each cooled the temperature.
Tambori was a +7, Mt St. Helen's +5
 
zuben el genub said:
The other problem is food. More and more growers are growing corn for flex fuel. This is making animal feed and other corn products more expensive. Since the fuel is mostly used in cars, this will hurt those who don't own a car and are close to or just over the poverty line.
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And . . .

Alcohol evaporates, it absorbs water, and it cannot be transported easily. It cannot be stored easily. What's more, if you were to devote the entire country to growing corn for fuel, we would have about 3 or 4 months worth. We reqire oil for transporting the stuff as well.

Corn can be wiped out by any number of diseases. Corn cannot replace oil because there are more than 300,000 things we get from oil.

Corn was and will always be a bad bet as far as our needs are concerned. And you are correct, when you grow corn for fuel, it causes increased food costs. This has already been demonstrated.
 
Bob Maxey said:
And . . .

Alcohol evaporates, it absorbs water, and it cannot be transported easily.
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Alcohol can be transported safely. About as safe as any combustible liquid. If you do not believe me, google it. Brazil has been using alcohol for everything for a very long time. 94% of all cars sold in Brazil has been ethanol cars. Everything you posted has not happen in Brazil.

Do we need to use petroleum, yes. But we need to use about 1/1000th as much as we do today. Can you get away from gas, yes you can. By using a lot of different energy sources and not depending on one limited resource.

Lets face facts. 99% of the all the gas we used today, we don't need to use. 1 train can pull 54 full truck loads of goods, 1 mile on a gallon of gas. Which means that instead of burning 900 gallons of gas for 54 trucks per 100 miles. A train can pull the same load for 100 gallons. But yet 70% of all the goods ship in this country is shipped by trucks. Which means, just in the gas required for shipping, you could reduce the amount of gas needed by 9 times, just by shipping it by train.

The average commuter train have a huge gas mileage. For 1 mile per gallon usage, a train can carry 465 people. Or if you want 465 passenger miles, per gallon of gas. Even at 40 miles per gallon and 5 people per car. It would take 600 gallons of gas to move 465 people, 5 per car, with 40 mile per gallon, 100 hundred miles. A passenger train can do the same for about 100 gallons of gas. A bus is worst. You would need to stuff 9 people in a 40 miles per gallon car to equal 1 bus.

We could move to a petrol free system, but we will need to build out of the infrastructure first.
 
RiverOfIce said:
Alcohol can be transported safely. About as safe as any combustible liquid. If you do not believe me, google it. Brazil has been using alcohol for everything for a very long time. 94% of all cars sold in Brazil has been ethanol cars. Everything you posted has not happen in Brazil.

Do we need to use petroleum, yes. But we need to use about 1/1000th as much as we do today. Can you get away from gas, yes you can. By using a lot of different energy sources and not depending on one limited resource.

Lets face facts. 99% of the all the gas we used today, we don't need to use. 1 train can pull 54 full truck loads of goods, 1 mile on a gallon of gas. Which means that instead of burning 900 gallons of gas for 54 trucks per 100 miles. A train can pull the same load for 100 gallons. But yet 70% of all the goods ship in this country is shipped by trucks. Which means, just in the gas required for shipping, you could reduce the amount of gas needed by 9 times, just by shipping it by train.

The average commuter train have a huge gas mileage. For 1 mile per gallon usage, a train can carry 465 people. Or if you want 465 passenger miles, per gallon of gas. Even at 40 miles per gallon and 5 people per car. It would take 600 gallons of gas to move 465 people, 5 per car, with 40 mile per gallon, 100 hundred miles. A passenger train can do the same for about 100 gallons of gas. A bus is worst. You would need to stuff 9 people in a 40 miles per gallon car to equal 1 bus.

We could move to a petrol free system, but we will need to build out of the infrastructure first.
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I did not say it cannot be transported safely, just cant be easily transported.

As for the need for oil, you clearly do not understand what comes from oil. Google that.

And yes, facts would be nice.
 
Here's another man-made additive:
Groundwater greed driving sea level rises - environment - 25 September 2011 - New Scientist

It's called center pivot irrigation and it does raise crops. The Ogallala aquifer is getting depleted. Center pivot is not the most conservative way to water. Too much water exposed to evaporation. Drip is probably the most effective, but too expensive to change over.

We had a lot of people using well water during the last bad year of the drought just to keep lawns green. They posted big signs saying "well water"

What also upset a lot of people is HOAs wanting bluegrass which is a water hog. People tried xeric, and the HOA made them replant grass. The city finally put a stop to that with water conservation measures.
 
I reckon in a hundred years or so we will be having mass desalination projects to get back the water we have pumped out. Dont see any other sustainable option
 
Bob Maxey said:
I did not say it cannot be transported safely, just cant be easily transported.

As for the need for oil, you clearly do not understand what comes from oil. Google that.

And yes, facts would be nice.
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With that logic, we should stop shipping gas, because it can not be done easily.

Name one product that comes from oil, that can not be produced by other means.
 
RiverOfIce said:
With that logic, we should stop shipping gas, because it can not be done easily.

Name one product that comes from oil, that can not be produced by other means.
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I suggest you read about oil derived products, modern polymers, manufacturing, and the organic chemistry of petroleum.

I can't believe your post is serious and you do not know that oil provides hundreds of thousands of consumer products that can only come from oil. The reason we can't derive the tens of thousands of products we need by other means is because oil is chemically different.

Vast numbers of materials and products can only be manufactured using chemicals derived from oil. Chemicals like precursors and/or catalysts derived from oil are required to start the reactions that produce other materials. Very complex.

Perhaps the word you are looking for is 'alternative.' And there are alternatives. We can replace oil based fabrics with cotton, for example, but we cannot grow enough cotton to meet the need.

A polymer derived from corn (for example) might not hold up over time or it would be too costly to use. And if we decide to get our plastics from materials like corn, we can't grow corn for food or for fuel.

We need oil, and for far more than just gasoline. And yes, some products can be replaced with natural alternatives. The problem is these materials might not be suitable for every use. Like cellulosics. They can come from all natural materials. They can come from cotton as well as wood, hence the term, cellulosic.

I understand a little thing or two about plastics. We can produce certain plastics from materials other than oil. For example, Casein and Celluloid (Cellulose Nitrate) My absolute favorite plastics out of the thousands of different plastics on the market or passed long ago into history. I am a rabid Casein and Celluloid Fanboy, actually. Both are oil free and we can grow or raise the required raw materials.

Casein comes from milk and it is "coagulated" using rennet or an acid. Pour some milk into a pan, heat it, add some vinegar and the mass produced is casein plastic. No oil needed. But we cannot raise enough cattle; their farts alone would ruin the environment due to cow-made global warming.

Celluloid is a beautiful polymer but a 25mm thick block can take a year to produce. Cellulose Nitrate is an explosive so you can't even ship the stuff without jumping through DOT rules. Both were widely used but replaced by other materials because of the production issues, theater explosions, women burned alive from wearing celluloid (Gun Cotton) fabrics.

We have so many plastics today because we are great at figuring out the chemistry. And in most cases, oil is the only answer and for many, many reasons other than the ability to manufacture something from non-oil derived materials. And we know that we have vast deposits of oil still to be pumped.

Bottom line, we cannot get rid of oil without disrupting the economy in ways you can't begin to fathom. Life without oil is impossible, period.
 
Why it's important to use oil carefully and cleverly. Some strict fuel regulations in the US for instance should be brought in
 
Bob Maxey said:
I suggest you read about oil derived products, modern polymers, manufacturing, and the organic chemistry of petroleum.
Bottom line, we cannot get rid of oil without disrupting the economy in ways you can't begin to fathom. Life without oil is impossible, period.
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Bottom line, I don't think that you have answered the question.

So I will state it again. Name one product that is currently being produced by oil that could not be produced from another renewable resource?

I know the answer, none. Every product we produce can be make from some renewable resource, but is made from oil because it is cheaper. The whole reason we are seeing a shift away from oil at this point, is because most of the industries that produce plastics from oil, produced it at $45 a barrel.
 
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