I'm guessing at you made this remark with the intention of implying that the free market [is the entity most responsible for the pollution of our planet. It wouldn't make much sense otherwise - non-market forces pollute all the time. In fact, the biggest environmental catastrophes of demonstrable harm of all time were created by governments. Take the Aral Sea, for instance, an entire sea destroyed by the Soviet government. The worst industrial accident in history(in terms of human casualties), which took place at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India (or maybe it was Bhupal, I can't remember) wasn't caused by Union Carbide. It was caused by faulty equipment in the plant, equipment built to standards specified by the Indian government using government-approved labor.
Had union carbide been allowed to do things the way it wanted to, there would have been no disaster and the plant wouldn't have been in such proximity to a residential area. The Indian government made UC put the plant in such a stupid location because its economic planners in the region reasoned that it would be best to put the plant in an area accessible to workers made very poor and without modern means of conveyance by their economic planners. To this day there has been no legal action taken against Union Carbide by the Indian government, other than a fine. That's because the Indian government isn't really keen on finding itself liable for the disaster.

Here's another one. In the late eighties, the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground and spilled about 40,000 tons of crude oil into the waters off the coast of Alaska. Thousands of marine animals were incapacitated and eventually died. Thousands more were saved by diligent volunteers and professionals who were funded in part by Exxon. The cost to Exxon was tremendous. In addition to being ordered to pay expenses for government cleanup efforts, Exxon had to pay millions to try to restore its image and the costs of lost business and investment can't even be calculated, but they were probably high. Believe it or not, some people are still outraged over that spill; Some call for stiffer penalties to be imposed upon Exxon whilst others call for outright nationalization. Exxon has not caused a major spill since.

In 1991, however, the Iraqi government purposely dumped about 200,000 tons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf in an attempt to deter a landing by US Marines. Evidently, no one in the Iraqi government ever met a US Marine. If they had, they would have known that a few thousand tons of crude oil would not stop us from staging an assault. Most Marines I know would have been more than happy to charge ashore with a veneer of slimming and terrifying black goo. Damn, most of the Marines I know probably would have set the stuff on fire so they could look like vengeful wraiths rising from the depths of hell. Then they would have played rock music....

....Man, that would been the coolest sh** ever. It matters little that we would most likely have been incinerated, along with our boom-boxes, in the process. Ah, to trade everything for a few moments of imperishable glory! Or perishable glory. Whatever. A free flag for every man who dies!
Marines are stupid like that.

Unfortunately, Marines have officers to do their thinking for them and the officers decided to simply select another avenue of approach. It wasn't as cool, and there was no rock music to be had, but it worked, and the decision of the Iraqi government to dump nearly a quarter of a million tons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf remained incredibly idiotic. But no one gives a sh** about that. Given the outrage that the Exxon Valdez spill generated, one would think that the Persian Gulf spill, which was an intentional action by a government, would have generated enough anger to rouse an army of environmentalists fixated on invading Iraq (preferably covered in burning oil while rock music plays) and making it pay for all the fish and other soggy animals that the spill killed, but it didn't. I suppose animals are less cute when the state tells you that you should go to war.

Speaking of state-caused maritime environmental disasters, I also seem to remember a certain central European nation that sanctioned the torpedoing of ships carrying God knows how many tons of oil, non-biodegradables, and chemical toxins in the interests of furthering a state agenda. Nobody cares about the environmental impacts of that decision. In fact, I hear that some people actually play simulations that recreate the experience. Imagine that.

Moving on, I should probably also mention the state sanctioned activities of the ethanol industry, the aluminum industry, the energy industry, etc etc.

It may also interest you to know that the single largest polluter on the face of this planet at the time of this writing is the Chinese government, followed closely by the Indian and Russian governments. The largest polluter in the US is the US government. Of course, those facts don't take into account the cumulative pollution generated by the activities of business or those of the people, but it's interesting, nonetheless. People who are not employed by the government outnumber those who are employed by the government by a great degree in every nation, ever. It is hardly surprising that they generate more total environmental impact.

Is the free market mostly responsible for the pollution of our world? You tell me.

Yes, they do that. What would you propose as a solution? We can't eliminate the market because trade is how we advance and develop as a society. If we did not trade, we would be forced to resort to our own personal abilities as a mechanism for survival. We can't control or direct the market because no one is smart enough to do that effectively. Don't believe me? Fine, provide me with a complete synopsis all agricultural trade in Munster, Germany and provide your recommendations as to how it could be made more efficient, and do it before the next update of the consumer and price-driven agricultural futures market. I have 2:36 GMT
on my watch, making it early afternoon where you live. I'll give you a grace period for the time it takes you to see, read, and evaluate this post. Actually, I'll give you a grace period of twenty years to formulate an effective recommendation on agricultural policy for this day alone. Ready? Go!

We cannot eliminate or control the market, but we can control the state that establishes the laws under which the market operates. We cannot predict how the market will be used or abused, but we can penalize fraud and infractions of good laws by using a limited and responsible state.

Of course, states do not become limited and responsible by themselves. They are, after all, comprised of people, and people are not necessarily subject to reason, responsibility, or altruism. Therefore, the state must be chained and bound by a very clear set of laws enforced by an armed populace. A state rendered powerless by these measures has no appeal to capitalists. What's the use in lobbying if there is no power to lobby for? It would be a waste of capital. Business must then turn to the next most viable course of action that will lead to success: competition.

It is one thing to say that people should adopt an enlightened government, it is quite another to actually make it happen. Again, you have fallen prey to the ideal of the philosopher-king, albeit in a slightly different form.
Have you found religion, Sky? :DL

That's odd, I often feel the same way about you.

My ideology is that of self-determination. It is moral, just, and proper to allow people to pursue their own goals. It is immoral to prevent them from doing so, especially by force. That goes for everyone, not just states. I am not so presumptuous as to believe that I know what is best for everyone. My beliefs are not representative of those of all other people, and their beliefs are not representative of mine.

No matter how you try, you cannot prove that pure capitalism has ever brought the peoples of any nation to a lower state. Empirical evidence indicates the exact opposite - that people given self-determination will be more prosperous.


Actually, I can avoid it and so can the rest of humanity. We can do so by getting rid of the easy-out business often seeks by co-opting the state.
Show me one example of a harmful, non-natural monopoly that wasn't assisted by the state and I may reconsider my opinion.

Also, I will point out the fallacy that capitalism only works in small communities. You may not have noticed, but capitalism actually fuels the world economy in the form of trillions of transactions made by billions of people every day. There is no need for a governing authority. People engage in mutually beneficial transactions. If the transaction is not mutually beneficial, it will not take place. Governments try to tax, regulate, or otherwise hinder these transactions for their own reasons, but they are never entirely successful. In the most extreme examples, a black market is formed and there is a predictable increase in violent crime.

You have a brilliant mind, Sky, but that does not mean that you can predict the best socioeconomic policy for nations comprised of millions of people. Others have tried, and they have all failed. I'll name Keynes and Marx, but there are many others. Conversely, some of the greatest economists in history simply adopted a policy of doing nothing. Xiaoping abolished price controls and established "special economic zones" where free trade was allowed and encouraged. Those zones have propelled China to the success it enjoys today. Ludwig Erhard brought Germany from the brink of economic collapse after WW2 by simply eliminating the price controls and production quotas that the allies imposed.


I suspect that we may go around in circles on this forever, Sky. You obviously have an inspired view of what the future should be like, but you have yet to show me exactly how it could be accomplished, other than to posit a nebulous theory of neo-feudal government.


Now, I ask you to weigh the progress that humanity has made through the past couple of hundred years through capitalism against the possibly imaginary harms of global climate change posited by the state. What is your verdict?

To my knowledge (this is not my area of expertise, though I am trained in scientific methodology), we can't say for sure as we do not have any evidence other then very recent evidence. In our present case CO2 levels are definitely preceding temperature changes, and a large chunk of the CO2 is being generated by us (this is concrete data). However in natural cases of temperature change we do not have any evidence of which came first, as ice core samples can not be dated precisely enough to tell. Personally I would suspect that it is a combination of both at work, feeding off each other.

What you see are called a positive feedback loop and a negative feedback loop. Feedback loops feed off themselves, forming a cycle that either is ever increasing, or ever decreasing, until it hits some natural limit, it will then eventually reverse. There are many possible triggers for starting a feedback loop of this kind, such as eruptions, drought (forest fires and less CO2 absorption by plants), comet/meteor strikes, increased/decreased activity from the sun, even earth wobble relating to the sun.

Anyhow I'll give you a simplified example of a feedback loop

Lets say that the loop in this case is triggered by the sun increasing it's rate of fusion (energy release), temperature starts to climb a degree or 2 on earth, this eventually warms up the oceans, and causes the oceans to release some stored CO2. The CO2 causes the temperature to increase a little more, and the ice starts to melt. The ice acts as a light reflector, and water as a light absorber, so this means more energy from the sun is being converted into heat, which causes the temperature to climb more, and then we enter the loop of co2 being released, ice melts more, water floods the land giving more absorptive surface area, etc.

Eventually this will peak and stabilize, the chain will break, and sooner or later the sun will start producing energy normally, or under producing it. Then everything will happen in reverse: oceans cool and absorb more CO2, temperature drops a bit more, ice begins to form and the oceans slowly recede, etc.

The reverse of this example is how ice ages can start.

It is not a perfect representation of the global climate, as CO2 distribution globally is not at all even, but it does give us a very good idea of what was going on as global CO2 levels do tend to rise and fall by similar rates. Geology can also give us an idea of what was happening, but the margin for error is much larger I believe. The main advantages of ice samples are that they trap the actual air from that period of time, and rock to my knowledge does not. I am sure though that it has been checked against modern readings and models.

Honestly, I have yet to see anything that proves even remotely close to beyond reasonable doubt, that any funny business took place. All I have seen is emails being taken totally out of context, scientific jargon like 'trick' being misinterpreted (which I find ironic as modern parlance uses the word in a very similar way), and other easily explainable things. Also last I checked NASA had nothing to do with the hacked emails. Is it possible that maybe some funny business did take place? Sure anything is possible, but the chances that the entire scientific community studying global warming were committing scientific fraud is beyond absurd. Mostly what I have seen is a bunch of screaming, yelling, and distorting from the usual media people.

I am not very familiar with the European Warming period, other then it has been scientifically debunked. Evidence is that while the summers were warmer, the winters were cooler, which means there was no warming period. Further there is geological evidence backing up the CO2 and temperature evidence from the ice core samples. We can tell that oceans rose during periods of warming/high CO2 levels, and shrank during cooling periods, we can also match up the ice ages with the data.

Honestly I don't believe anything near drastic enough will be done. I have said before we are heading towards very troubled times. We need to dramatically cut back on the number of humans on the planet (loose at least 5-6 billion), if we want to keep reasonable life styles for all and not trash the planet in the process. Also I will add that global warming, if it continues will alone cost vast sums of money, as about 70-80% of the human population live in locations that will be flooded when the ice is all melted. That is excluding the damage that will be caused as the power of storms increases due to the available heat energy. I don't think the world economy has a prayer of surviving it.

We won't, evidence is we are already started a positive feedback loop, in this case triggered by all the CO2 we are releasing. Which is causing all the other stuff I mentioned in my example. The only way we will break that loop is to either develop technology that can consume massive amounts of CO2 from the environment, or cut back our emissions to extremely low levels (and cut our population down).

Global warming itself isn't going to get us, but it probably will push our overstressed global ecosystem over the edge, which could well take us out with it.

You are very kind. I try my best to be as objective as I can be with what I present. For me it is not about belief in one side or another, but simply what the science says about it. If strong conclusive evidence suddenly points in the opposite direction, then that is the direction I would go.

I understand the workings of a feebback loop. That has been well documented as far as global climate is concerned.

You mentioned the increase in storms both in numbers and intensity, would this act as a trigger to reverse the feedback loop at some point? What is the ability of rain or snow to absorb CO2.

1) cutting down population by such large numbers (5 or 6 billion) is not a option, at least short of nuclear war and that doesn’t seem to be a great idea.

2) cutting down on CO2 to a point that will make a real difference without committing economic suicide doesn’t seem to be much of a plan either and with out population control would fail anyway.
People generate CO2 by just being alive. Someone mentioned earlier about 22 lb. per day times 6 billion that is a lot. Possibility more than the use of carbon fuel.

3) That would only leave developing technology that can consume massive amounts of CO2 from the environment as a real option.

Is there an economical way to brake down Co2 to O2 and carbon that may be a better option? If not, would research into the idea not be warranted? I’m sure that some use could be found for the pure carbon thus putting a profit motive in play.

There is no economic gain in limiting CO2 production. The current Cap and Trade idea is non profit one at best and will do little to address the problem and there is no incentive to limit CO2 as the added cost is simply passed on to the consumer who has no choice but to pay. Not to mention that some of the big polluters will simply not play along.

The trick is to make it economically profitable and let private enterprise find the solutions.

The world leaders seem hell bent on spending trillions of dollars on something so why not a vast reforestation program. On the surface that may sound stupid but we cut down all those trees in the first place.

Cutting down the rain forest in South America and Africa is problematic in the first place and replacing them would be beneficial to everybody by providing jobs in some of the poorest countries around. The slash and burn method yields poor farm land and in a few years new fields need to be cleared. Would it not be better to improve farming in these areas and save more forest. Reforesting would than supply the lumber that is needed thus adding a profit motived.

There are vast areas in the western US that would lend themselfs to forest.
Before you laugh I recently flew form Reno, Nevada to Phoenix, Arizona, that’s about 700 miles and the only thing you could see from 30,000 ft. was Las Vegas, everything else was empty land.
The biggest problem is water but there is a solution to that, bring in sea water form the coast. Use solar power to pump the water and desalt it. There is plenty of sun power here in the west. Actually a better idea would be to use the Colorado river water for this and sea water to supply the coast.
If vast numbers of the population are forced to relocate because of rising oceans than a livable habit will already exist inland and we will have done something to help the ecosystem.
Australia is another option and I’m sure there are other suitable locations else where.

The question is how much CO2 would say a hundred square miles of forest consume?

Just some thoughts on what we might do instead of what they are talking about. Putting the money in the right place.

Magic

About the same as gets released when the water converts to water vapor in the other part of the cycle I would expect. Also I did not say storm numbers would go up, but rather that their strength would increase, due to the increase in heat energy available to feed them.

Nope I don't see it happening, at least not until we have burned through most of the available resources, and it becomes fight or starve. Then the population numbers will drop fast.

I can't argue with that. Anyhow here are the figures: people breathing (2006, 6.6 billion world pop) 2,409,000,000 metric tons. CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use alone (2006) 28,431,741,000 metric tons. That doesn't include CO2 production from our concentrated farming practices (animals breathing), or their byproduct gases such as methane, which are also greenhouse gases. This is partly why human populations need to drop by several billion.

There is a lot of ongoing research into it, including using algae to absorb it then burying the algae. Using it for economic purposes would defeat the purpose as we are trying to reduce the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Eventually it could perhaps be developed into a cycle as a renewable energy source.

I don't see the economic gain in global warming either, I see massive economic losses coming from the problem.

Private enterprise is one of several key reasons we are in this mess, they haven't shown any interest in fixing things, unless they can make good money doing it, but that money isn't available.

The politicians are doing what they always do, trying to make it look like they are doing something, when really they are doing nothing but waste money and line their and their friends pockets in the process. Problem is reforestation is a dead end, as the wood will be re-harvested and the CO2 once again released back into the atmosphere, so it does nothing to solve the problem we are in. I do agree with you though that slash and burn is wasteful. Now if the forests were left to act in a natural way, then CO2 would be put back into the earth, as the wood would only release part of its CO2 when decaying, and the rest becomes part of the earth. But that isnt profitable. Also a lot of the land that did have forests, has been too badly damaged by our actions to replant forests.

Those lands are not at all suitable for forests, aside from the lack of water, the soil quality is virtually non existent. We can't turn desert into forests. Most of the land isn't even suitable for farming of any kind.

Problem is clean fresh water reserves are rapidly dwindling, even in the US. We waste vast amounts of it trying to water lawns and golf courses in a desert, use massive amounts of it trying to farm land that isn't well suited for farming (and pollute much of it in the process). Then there is all the water based pollution we cause. There are already concerns that the US is going to run out of fresh water (consumption will surpass production, natural or otherwise). Also global warming will negatively affect this as the weather patterns will change along with many other things (such as no more spring runoff due to no more snow).

Australia is the most unsuitable location you can think of, other then a full desert like the Sahara. There are very few freshwater sources, and those are being used at great cost trying to farm the land, with dismal results. The soil is not suited for farms or forests, and the Australian government has spent piles of money trying to prove otherwise.

The final answer is none if that forest gets cut down and consumed, the wood will eventually be burned, and the CO2 will go back into the atmosphere.

I appreciate your ideas, and certainly agree that the money could be put into better use. Personally I support research into finding solutions to the problem, but I still think we will need to cut down on carbon emissions all the same, and we still need to cut down our population size dramatically; I just don't see it happening anywhere near soon enough. Humanity tends only to learn its mistakes, long after the consequences have come home. We then quickly forget them and make them again. I think we have to come to terms though that one way or another, this is going to cost us big time. Skybird wrote a good essay on rationality and human survival if you want to read it, it covers some of this stuff we are discussing.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=159065

My though on reforestation was that soil conditions could be improved by chemical means at first and start a cycle of natural soil building via decaying leaves and trees and underbrush. Properly planted trees would make it very easy to control underbrush by plowing it under and building soil. It would at some point become self sustaining . We are talking about a long term solution to a long term problem.

The soils in the South West are not that poor. There are areas in California that produce tons of alfalfa in vast irrigated fields. It can be done if there is enough economic benefit.

I guess that there are two problems with the idea.
First the use of energy to produce the necessary fertilizer would possibility exceed the benefit.
Second is as you say, the release of CO2 as a result of decaying matter but if that matter was buried then much of the CO2 would be released into the soil.

The final answer is none if that forest gets cut down and consumed, the wood will eventually be burned, and the CO2 will go back into the atmosphere.

At least here Lumber, as opposed to wood, is used as building material and is most often buried in land fills at the compilation of it’s life cycle so the CO2 would be released into the ground.

The idea isn’t that far fetched as it may at first seem, with the proper application of technology it may just be feasible.

Fresh water is going to be a problem in the not too distant future in many areas so the money spent on salt water purification will be spent anyways. I just saw a thing on the news a few days ago about a new method of doing it, wasn’t paying too much attention so I didn’t get any details but apparently it was very efficient. Of course the environmentalist didn’t like it as it sucked up fish.

I appreciate your ideas, and certainly agree that the money could be put into better use. Personally I support research into finding solutions to the problem, but I still think we will need to cut down on carbon emissions all the same


The biggest obstacle to cutting down on carbon emissions is environmentalist. Even if reforestation was feasible there is some small rodent out there that would stop the whole project.

There are several solar projects in California that are on hold because of environmentalist objecting one thing or another. There is a lot of talk about solar power here in Nevada
but I would suspect the same kinds of problems with that.

There was some time ago a large dam project that was scraped because of a Snail Darter, I believe it was. The hydroelectric power and fresh water would come in handy about now.

Skybird wrote a good essay on rationality and human survival if you want to read it, it covers
some of this stuff we are discussing.

I gave it a quick look last night, not so sure I go along with some of what he says but he may be more right than wrong, I’ll read it a little more thoroughly later.

It’s certainly been a interesting discussion so far I’ve enjoyed it.


Magic

Speaking of climate change and energy consumption, etc. My Favorite British Author, Mil Millington, had a nice short article detailing his energy strategy. :haha:

It would take many decades for a sufficient layer of soil to form, also the trees need proper soil to start with. The bigger problem though is water leeching, as the soil material (and I use that term loosely, its more sand and rock then vegetative matter) does not hold water. Then there is the problem of too much sun and too high temperatures for most trees to survive.

Lots of California though is not suitable for growing economic crops. There are also a lot of farms that need government subsidizing to stay economically viable. The government is paying them to grow crops there pretty much, even though it costs more then it produces.


Well a natural forest is a good thing, aside from the general environmental benefits. CO2 does get released by rotting vegetative matter, but a lot of it gets trapped in the ground.

To save landfill space, most of this stuff is now burned for energy, and then dumped, so the CO2 does get released. Of course then there is the problem of landfill space to begin with, but that is another topic.

Its not a bad idea, but I think it should be done on areas that were once forests at least. There is a natural reason why forests never grew in certain areas, as the ecosystem is totally incapable of supporting them. Also we would be destroying other ecosystems in the process.

Well killing off fish is a problem yes, especially with the state of the world's oceans. There are some problems though, such as what to do with the excess salt when done in a large scale (can't just dump it directly back in the ocean as that will cause other problems), and other potentially unforeseeable consequences. Right now the technology is still expensive.

Reforestation doesn't cut back on carbon emissions from humans. Also biodiversity is something the world needs, as we have been extincting vast numbers of species, which could have major consequences for us later on.

I am not certain solar and wind are going to be solutions or not. On the small scale it doesn't matter much, but done on the very large scale, it brings the potential for causing problems. There is no such thing as free energy, you always take it from someplace. Who knows what the consequence of absorbing large amounts of solar and wind energy in isolated areas will be. Also dams do not generate fresh water, and can be very environmentally destructive, though the energy can be cheap and is fairly clean.

Don't expect you to agree with all of it it, I don't entirely agree with everything either. But the arguments he brings up I feel are worth considering all the same. :DL

Good :DL

Well maybe your right , reforestation would be a long shot.

By the way would you be interested in several thousand acres of FINE south west property. :haha:

Magic

Possibly, that area can be very beautiful as it is, though I don't do heat very well (I sometimes shock people by going between classes with out my jacket on in the middle of winter). :03: At least I hear the nights are cool. :DL

Anyhow I don't think reforestation is a bad idea at all, but it just needs to be done in the right places. Also we do need oxygen producers like trees, particularly with the large scale deforestation going on in the world. Plus trees do help filter out the air.

One of the really dumb things we like to do though is build housing on top of prime farmland and forestland. Most major cities in North America are that way as the early cities needed to stay close to the food production areas or timber resources. Unfortunately though the cities spread out and consume all the good farmland. In Canada the classic example of this is Toronto, which use to all be prime farmland, but most of the farms were sold to housing development.

I'm in the midst of reforesting 104 acres of Maine wilderness as I type this.

:yeah:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multime...01_659048a.jpg
:rotfl2:

The cartoonist forgot the unicorn :rotfl2: :haha:

So where's the ark this time for the climate change believers? :)

I hear the blueprints are in Turkey on Mt Ararat. :hmmm: