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The Enviroment/Pollution thread


ledzep

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fuck it seems that I can't read the news now a days without seeing at least 1 article about how fucked up the enviroment is getting..

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4086809.stm

 

Why does it seem that nothing is getting done? Fucking Bush turning down the kyoto pact, trying to get everyone in an SUV.

 

The Bush administration is currently using the same logic when it comes to the enviroment as the newly industrialized nations in 1800s.

 

The enviroment is worse now than ever before, and more importantly is getting worse at a faster rate than at any point before.

 

We have the technology why the fuck dont we use it? Yea sure its cheaper to stick to fossil fuels and shit, but this shit is LIFE OR DEATH!

 

I am seriously worried that I'm going to have to raise my kids on a planet where we have to walk around in micro-enviroment suits or some shit.

 

post your thoughts.

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dude dont worry we will all die long before the world gets to bad for the other species, shit what you dont think the planet can fight back, ebola, aids, cancer, etc etc. dont worry within the next 50-100 years most of the human race will die.

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OMFG THE DODO IS EXTINCT!?!!?!

 

RIP!

 

Unfortunately humans have a fairly high survivability rate and are able to adapt to live in a diverse variety of climates. It doesn't mean I will enjoy sucking down smog and drinking poison. Eventually the only thing that will be left are cockroaches and politicians.

Where is weapon x on this?

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Guest KING BLING

This is one of the most ridiculous article I've read. "Man goes crazy kills 5 babies - garbage men excited for less poopie trash!" I hate everything...

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/15...g.ap/index.html

 

 

Earlier spring from global warming, say researchers

 

ITHACA, New York (AP) -- As the first signs of winter push into the Northeast, researchers have some good news for fair weather fans -- spring is coming earlier than it used to.

 

The lilacs say so.

 

In one of the most comprehensive studies that plants in the Northeast are responding to the global warming trend, Cornell scientists and their colleagues at the University of Wisconsin found lilacs are blooming about four days earlier than they did in 1965.

 

David Wolfe, a plant ecology professor at Cornell whose research will be published in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Biometeorology, said nature's calendar is changing due to an increase in greenhouse gases.

 

"It's not just the weather data telling us there is a warming trend going on. We are now seeing the living world responding to the climate change as well," Wolfe said Tuesday.

 

The Cornell study is consistent with other examinations involving the biological impact of rising temperatures, but those studies have been much more limited in geographic scope.

 

Earlier this year, Harvard University scientists also reported finding evidence of earlier flowering in specimens at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, while botanists at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. found the city's Japanese cherry trees are blooming about a week earlier than they were 30 years ago.

 

According to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell, the average annual temperature in the Northeast has increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900, which is slightly higher than the global average of 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

The greatest rate of warming, though, has occurred during the winter months (December to February) with an average increase of almost 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years -- a rate that has accelerated over the past 30 years to 4.4 degrees Fahrenheit, Wolfe said.

 

Cornell researchers analyzed data from 72 locations throughout the Northeast where genetically identical lilacs were planted during the 1960s and 1970s as part of a joint U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded project involving Cornell and the University of Vermont.

 

The lilacs were planted to help farmers predict planting and harvest dates, but have now provided scientists with a historical record of bloom dates.

 

The Cornell study also included apples and grapes at four sites in New York, which Wolfe said were blooming six to eight days earlier than in 1965.

 

While some may revel over an earlier-arriving spring, Wolfe cautioned that the warming trend has many implications -- and not all good.

 

It could, for example, favor some invasive species and alter important interactions between plants and pollinators, insect pests, diseases and weeds.

 

"If the interdependence and synchrony between animals and plants are disrupted, the very survival of some species could be threatened," Wolfe said.

 

Climate change also could affect plant and bird migration patterns, animals' hibernation patterns, reproductive cycles, woodland composition, plant pathogens and the availability of plant food for insects and animals.

 

On the positive side, the warming trend is extending the growing season in the Northeast by several days -- although hotter summers can negatively affect some crops, such as apples and grapes.

 

Most scientists anticipate the increase in greenhouse gases -- and subsequently, the warming trend -- will continue, so it's important researchers more broadly monitor the consequences for crops, animals and natural areas, Wolfe said.

 

Heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane are produced mainly by industry, automobiles and power plants. Climatologists say the gases absorb infrared radiation and trap heat in the atmosphere.

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we've been seeing biological evidence for a long time of environmental damage. one of the scariest i've heard is the dying off of coral reefs. it only takes an increase of 1 degree in the oceans for the coral reefs to die off. we have lost ALL of them in the indian ocean and many, many more are going fast.... this could collapse the entire oceanic ecosystem.

and the monarch butterflies were almost wiped out a few years ago because of a cold snap in mexico.

i've actually witnessed birds not migrating because of temperature changes.

i dunno there is a ton of crap going on....

check these people out, they are good peoples...

 

http://www.ucsusa.org/

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from adbusters:

 

*edited because they posted the article

so I dont need to continue misquoting it:

  • THE ENVIRONMENT
    A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
     
    We, the people of the future, like the twenty thousand generations who came before us, have the right to breathe air that smells sweet, to drink water that runs pure and free, to swim in waters that teem with life, and to grow our food in rich, living earth.
     
    We have the right to inherit a world unsullied by toxic chemicals, nuclear waste, or genetic pollution. We have the right to walk in untamed nature and to feel the awe that comes when we suddenly lock eyes with a wild beast.
     
    We beseech you, the people of today: do not leave your dirty messes for us to clean up; do not take technological risks, however small, that may backfire catastrophically in times to come. Just as we respectfully ask that you not burden us with your deferred debts and depleted pension plans, we also claim our right to a share of the planet’s ecological wealth. Please don’t use it all up.
     
    We, in turn, promise to do the same. We grant these same rights and privileges to the generations who will live after us; we do so in the sacred hope that the human spirit will live forever.
     
    A curse on any generation who ignores this plea.

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I want to see an age of megacapitalism. where the earth is totally dominated by capitalist superstructures and the only remaining wild life is inside a glass dome.

 

lets use every oil to the last drop. more guns, more bombs, more soldiers. police state USA is the only way. Protect us against everything. cars for everybody on earth. lets make a paved 6 lane highway from new york to moscow over the atlantic ocean.

 

(this was entirely sarcastic incase you dont understand.)

 

Has anyone read that the chances of the entire planet being wiped out in a major freak accident are 1 in 455 and based on that we should colonize another planet as soon as possible?

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I see more selfishness in this thread. That is the problem. See, who gives a fuck about us when there's tons of species dying off every day. Stop thinking about just the humans. The whole mentality is fucked up, and it doesn't work for our benefit.

 

Shit, I ain't gonna start talking about this shit on 12oz; it gets me going. And I'm drinking, so I'm a little volatile.

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save the planet:

kill yourself.

 

 

seriously though, get the FUCK over YOUR GODDAMN CARS.

i am going to be laughing my freezing ass off when all the oil is gone and society collapses.

 

the peak of oil production may have already come.

we are already fighting wars over it.

a good friend of mine pointed out, we are drilling the fuck out of oil, we are sucking up every last drop like a fiend. .and what does that mean for the earth? why is the oil there? does anyone even consider that all those oil deposits don't exist solely for the use of stupid humans? maybe it actually serves a purpose? and now we've pulled most of it out of the earth.

hahahaaa.

we are just going to screw ourselves.

i am not as worried about other species because i know a ton of em will withstand the abuse we heap on ourselves. bacteria and cockroaches will be around forever.

 

only 2% of the energy used in the world comes from clean or natural sources like solar and wind power. even water power from hydroelectric dams wreaks havoc on the environment's balance.

 

hahahahaa!!!

we'rekillingourselves

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Hhahahahaa!!! Cynical symbols...

 

I've wondered about that too... like what if drilling of the oil deposits and draining them destabilizes the tectonic plates and could cause massive earthquakes like the one that occured in the ocean recently....

makes you wonder....

 

*oh and if we are not already at hubberts peak, we will be soon. with cost of production rising AND demand we have serious, serious, serious problems on the horizon....

I've been looking alot at homesteading stuff. alternative energies... living off the grid etc....

going to pick up some tesla stuff soon.

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barely a blip on the radar..

earlier this month there was a MASSIVE oil spill off the aleutian islands in alaska.

and in case anyone was wondering, Exxon is STILL fighting the fines levelled on it after Valdez: they have not paid a single cent in damage claims to alaskan residents.

 

Efforts under way to contain Alaska oil spill

Search called off for ship's missing crew members

 

Saturday, December 11, 2004 Posted: 7:12 PM EST (0012 GMT)

 

(CNN) -- Authorities struggled Saturday against adverse weather conditions to determine the extent of an oil spill from a Malaysia-flagged cargo vessel that foundered in frigid waters off Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

 

"We're still hoping to get wildlife people out there," said Jill Owesny, spokeswoman for the Unified Command, which includes the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Coast Guard.

 

Booms have been laid in an effort to protect salmon streams, and helicopters were headed to the site to assess the extent of the spill, she said.

 

The 738-foot Selendang Ayu, carrying soybeans from Tacoma, Washington, to China, lost power to its main engine Tuesday before running aground and splitting its hull on the northern shore of Unalaska Island, near fertile fisheries and a sea lion habitat. Unalaska Island is about 800 miles (1,280 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, Alaska.

 

Twenty of 26 crew members were rescued, and searches for the missing took place Thursday and Friday, despite estimations that a person could survive only three hours in the 43-degree water.

 

The Coast Guard suspended its search Friday night.

 

The water was rough Saturday, with 14-foot seas expected to increase to 24 feet and winds between 35 mph and 50 mph, Owesny said.

 

The freighter was carrying 483,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil and 21,000 gallons of diesel fuel, according to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Owesny said Saturday it was not yet clear how much fuel had spilled.

 

The Coast Guard has enlisted three commercial vessels and crews to skim the water and place booms in the environmentally sensitive salmon lakes and streams affected by the spill.

 

"Oil recovery by skimmers and vacuum pumps can be very effective early in the spill," the Coast Guard said Friday in a news release. "Very little of this viscous oil is likely to disperse in the water column. However, only 5 to 10 percent is expected to evaporate within the first hours of a spill. Consequently, the oil can travel hundreds of miles in the form of scattered tarballs by winds and currents."

 

Some birds have been spotted swimming in oily water, the Coast Guard said Friday.

 

Meanwhile, 10 surviving Selendang Ayu crew members were to meet with National Transportation Safety Board investigators at Dutch Harbor, Alaska. The NTSB is the lead agency investigating the marine casualties.

 

Friday night, the managing director for IMC Shipping offered "its sincerest condolences to the families and friends of the lost crew."

 

In a news release, Peter Chew also thanked the Coast Guard and the Dutch Harbor community. Wednesday, a Coast Guard rescue helicopter crashed en route to the ship. The four crew members were not injured and were rescued.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/11/alaska.oilspill/index.html

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  • 3 weeks later...

Why the Sun seems to be 'dimming'

By David Sington

 

 

 

Scientists have been studying solar measurements for decades

We are all seeing rather less of the Sun, according to scientists who have been looking at five decades of sunlight measurements.

They have reached the disturbing conclusion that the amount of solar energy reaching the Earth's surface has been gradually falling.

 

Paradoxically, the decline in sunlight may mean that global warming is a far greater threat to society than previously thought.

 

 

The effect was first spotted by Gerry Stanhill, an English scientist working in Israel.

 

Cloud changes

 

Comparing Israeli sunlight records from the 1950s with current ones, Dr Stanhill was astonished to find a large fall in solar radiation.

 

"There was a staggering 22% drop in the sunlight, and that really amazed me." Intrigued, he searched records from all around the world, and found the same story almost everywhere he looked.

 

Sunlight was falling by 10% over the USA, nearly 30% in parts of the former Soviet Union, and even by 16% in parts of the British Isles.

 

Although the effect varied greatly from place to place, overall the decline amounted to one to two per cent globally every decade between the 1950s and the 1990s.

 

Dr Stanhill called it "global dimming", but his research, published in 2001, met a sceptical response from other scientists.

 

It was only recently, when his conclusions were confirmed by Australian scientists using a completely different method to estimate solar radiation, that climate scientists at last woke up to the reality of global dimming.

 

My main concern is global dimming is also having a detrimental impact on the Asian monsoon ... We are talking about billions of people

 

Professor Veerhabhadran Ramanathan

Dimming appears to be caused by air pollution.

 

Burning coal, oil and wood, whether in cars, power stations or cooking fires, produces not only invisible carbon dioxide - the principal greenhouse gas responsible for global warming - but also tiny airborne particles of soot, ash, sulphur compounds and other pollutants.

 

This visible air pollution reflects sunlight back into space, preventing it reaching the surface. But the pollution also changes the optical properties of clouds.

 

Because the particles seed the formation of water droplets, polluted clouds contain a larger number of droplets than unpolluted clouds.

 

Recent research shows that this makes them more reflective than they would otherwise be, again reflecting the Sun's rays back into space.

 

Scientists are now worried that dimming, by shielding the oceans from the full power of the Sun, may be disrupting the pattern of the world's rainfall.

 

There are suggestions that dimming was behind the droughts in sub-Saharan Africa which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the 1970s and 80s.

 

There are disturbing hints the same thing may be happening today in Asia, home to half the world's population.

 

"My main concern is global dimming is also having a detrimental impact on the Asian monsoon," says Professor Veerhabhadran Ramanathan, professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at the University of California, San Diego. "We are talking about billions of people."

 

Alarming energy

 

But perhaps the most alarming aspect of global dimming is that it may have led scientists to underestimate the true power of the greenhouse effect.

 

They know how much extra energy is being trapped in the Earth's atmosphere by the extra carbon dioxide we have placed there.

 

What has been surprising is that this extra energy has so far resulted in a temperature rise of just 0.6 degree Celsius.

 

This has led many scientists to conclude that the present-day climate is less sensitive to the effects of carbon dioxide than it was, say, during the ice age, when a similar rise in CO2 led to a temperature rise of six degrees Celsius.

 

But it now appears the warming from greenhouse gases has been offset by a strong cooling effect from dimming - in effect two of our pollutants have been cancelling each other out.

 

This means that the climate may in fact be more sensitive to the greenhouse effect than previously thought.

 

If so, then this is bad news, according to Dr Peter Cox, one of the world's leading climate modellers.

 

As things stand, CO2 levels are projected to rise strongly over coming decades, whereas there are encouraging signs that particle pollution is at last being brought under control.

 

"We're going to be in a situation unless we act where the cooling pollutant is dropping off while the warming pollutant is going up.

 

"That means we'll get reducing cooling and increased heating at the same time and that's a problem for us," says Dr Cox.

 

Even the most pessimistic forecasts of global warming may now have to be drastically revised upwards.

 

That means a temperature rise of 10 degrees Celsius by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable.

 

That is unless we act urgently to curb our emissions of greenhouse gases.

 

You can see more on this report on Thursday's Horizon, BBC Two, at 9.00pm GMT.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4171591.stm

 

and some good news:

 

Detroit goes to work on its green image

 

By Stephen Evans

BBC North America business correspondent

 

 

Sometimes you might think that the big auto-makers are a branch of Greenpeace or disciples of the Sierra Club or followers of Friends of the Earth.

Ford takes great pride in showing off the grass roof of one of its factories in Detroit. Its executives point to the bee hives in the shadow of the plant as though the company's prime product was honey. General Motors urges people to "Get Green".

 

 

Demand for hybrids has sparked a swift response from car makers

At the North America International Auto Show in Detroit this week, the companies are falling over themselves to assert their green credentials.

 

Ford unveiled a hybrid version of its Escape sports utility vehicle - an sports utility vehicle (SUV) powered by a "hybrid" engine that can switch between petrol and electricity as a fuel source, so economising on the burning of gasoline.

 

General Motors presented a prototype of its hybrid SUV called GMC Graphyte and insisted it has several models in the pipelines. It's working with DaimlerChrysler on new engine technology for hybrids.

 

Legislation and awareness

 

What has changed is that the industry now thinks the demand is there, or rather, that it will be there.

 

Thad Malesh of the Automotive Technology Research Group said he expected as many as fifty hybrid models on the US market by 2010.

 

The research firm, JD Power and Associates, sees hybrid sales of over 500,000 vehicles by 2010, or nearly 3% of the overall US market.

 

The American car-makers have been driven by a variety of forces.

 

Legislation is on the way, particularly in California where the state is set to insist that the emission of greenhouse gases from exhausts is cut by about 30% in the next ten years.

 

And it's a regulation backed by California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger (despite his endorsement of the Hummer), so it's likely to happen.

 

 

GM insists its GMC Graphyte is the first of many hybrids

 

And there does also seem to be some popular demand for greener products. Americans have seemed far less aware of environmental issues than Europeans and Japanese. perhaps because of wide open spaces in America give the illusion that the environment is limitless.

 

That, though, seems to be changing, at least in the rich markets of California and the East Coast.

 

Prius ahead

 

The Detroit auto-makers also fear that the Japanese have stolen a march on them.

 

Motown is still where car company executives mingle with automotive journalists to discuss strategy for the year ahead

 

 

 

Detroit: The industry meets

 

Toyota sold some 54,000 of its popular Prius hybrids in America last year, double the sales of 2003.

 

That remains a drop in the ocean compared with the seventeen million vehicles that were sold in the market, but demand is out-stripping supply, no doubt helped by movie stars like Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio, who are members of the Prius club.

 

Global warming

 

All this has to be put into perspective.

 

The Detroit car-makers have changed, there's no doubt about that. It wasn't so long ago that they seemed loath to admit that there was such a thing as global warming. let alone that burning gasoline might cause it.

 

Now, they accept it: Ford recently published a newspaper advert saying simply: "Global Warming. There. We said it."

 

But they'll be driven by the market and the market still likes big, powerful petrol engines.

 

As General Motors' Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz, put it: "Right now the drive for more and more power in cars is way larger than the drive for more and more hybrids."

 

To emphasize the point, GM unveiled its fastest car ever, the new Corvette Z06, as well as the Cadillac STS-V, powered by a supercharged V-8 engine that delivers the most horsepower of any Cadillac.

 

The trick will be to get power plus fuel-economy. The car makers haven't turned into herbivores quite yet, but they do now realise that fuel economy may sell cars and make them money - eventually.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4163967.stm

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Everybody wants to point their fingers at everybody else on this pollution thing. There is no doubt about the fact that more people means more consumption of all natural resources. The solution is for people to stop increasing the population. In order for that to happen, we must cut the birth rate to below 2.1, which is the level required to maintain a stable level of population. If the birth rate falls below 1.9, the population begins to shrink. In all industrialized countries, the birth rate is coming down. In Italy, for instance, the birth rate is about 1.8, and massive immigration from the Balkan nations is rapidly changing the Italian culture. Many Italian villages have no children. Young people, in order to have a middle-class life, must move to the city. The villages are becoming little more than collections of elderly people waiting to die. Children are rare in many villages.

 

The birth rate of the U.S. would be falling, except we have massive immigration of people from Latin America and Asia, most of whom intend on having numerous children. The same thing is true in every industrialized country. Industrialized nations are effectively being punished for doing the right thing (limiting population growth voluntarially) and "developing" nations (more PC bullshit) are being rewarded for not limiting population growth.

 

Look at the flaming, putrescent cesspool that is Mexico City. This is the future for the United States, unless the American people choose to do something about illegal immigration NOW. It's so easy to be all politically correct about illegal immigrants---just wait until you find yourself living in Third World L.A., nation wide. Then tell me how great it is.

 

People destroyed passenger rail service economically because flying or driving your own car was quicker and less hassle for the well-to-do. That left transcontinental buses for the poor. It won't be too many more years before private ownership of automobiles will go the way of the passenger pigeon, the dodo bird and the buggy whip industry.

 

In order for the U.S. to stop consuming 50% of the entire world energy supply, we MUST have convenient, cheap, efficient public transportation. The bigger U.S. cities, which are presently pretty much out of control, need to be safe, clean, and law abiding, in order for the more affluent sectors of society to feel comfortable living in urban areas. People commonly commute an hour or even two, EACH WAY to work. That is ridiculous, and would be totally unnecessary in a city where social chaos is brought under control.

 

I commute about 45 minutes to work every day. There is a bus line near my home, but at the time of night when I get off work (11:30 p.m.) it only runs once per hour. The chance of getting stuck for a couple of hours, 15 miles from home, at midnight is not appealing. I bought my home thirteen years ago in a stable, middle-class neighborhood which had schools with a good reputation. My daughter was about ten. Between then and her graduation from high school, my neighborhood went from middle-class, mostly white to lower-working-class, majority black and Latino. Gangs have proliferated, gang tags are everywhere. Crime skyrocketed. Most of my white neighbors said "To hell with this," and moved either to smaller outlying towns, or out into the country.

 

Most middle-class people will not tolerate this sort of uncontrolled change in their quality of life. They don't have to, they have enough money to pull out and move farther away from the city.

 

Don't blame white flight and "commuterism" on cars. Place the blame where it belongs--on lawbreakers and ignorant thug behavior, and unstable neighborhood demographics. Those of us that stayed have developed a sort of seige mentality. Every day, it's like "What new offensive bullshit is going to happen today?" Many of my neighbors do not have a CLUE about how to behave appropriately. The desire to move away from these assholes is getting more intense all the time. Why should I stay? I can afford to move farther out, and the more fucked up they behave, the more I think about doing just that. Of course, I will burn more gas, but so fucking what? It would be worth it, just to get away from these shitheels.

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