Earth Day and Environmentalism

[milefile]

In Spielberg's AI New York City was under water. They did a good job portraying it. Just the head and torch of the Statue of Liberty visible above the water, etc.

There is a much better graph out there but I can't find it. It breaks it down into thousand year increments and really shows, much better than this one, the spikes and how the recent past of Earth's climate is an anomaly in that is it is unusually stable.

 

[Red Eye Racer]

k thanx

How about this for an enviornmental question:

Is it better to save money and stick with gasoline, or should we change economics to accomidate a hydrogen based fuel (it's only exhaust is H20), or a less time efficient, electric based?

 

[milefile]

We should change and use gasoline only for performance cars and motorsports. Basic transportation should be changed due to it's sheer volume.

 

[Red Eye Racer]

NPR,.. for the next half hour (3:30-4) will be discussing ALL of this ,... I'll report when it's over.

 

[milefile]

Which show? It's only 12:30 here. I'll listen on my way home.

 

[Red Eye Racer]

Talk of the nation - Science Friday w/ Ira Flado(sp?)

 

[Red Eye Racer]

That was very interesting, I recommend the listen if at all possible.

The main topic was the extinction, or, De-volution of the planet.

Basically, we're 1/2 way through the age of animals at this exact moment (age of animals estimated at 1 billion years long). 500 million years from now, the sun will brighten by another 5%, the result being a displacement of all the earth C02 out of the atmoshphere.

Anothe example of life extinction is the release of Methane Gases due to continental shift. Supposedly, 4 out of the 5 major ecological extinctions have been linked to the gas (the fifth was the ever so popular metor that struck the gulf of Mexico). Supposedly, the same moment in the global warming process that those gas excreasions occured, is the gsame moent we'r ein now

The backed up my info concerning the short term. Like my Micgigan example, they stated that in 200 years, the climate in the state od Washington will be able to support Palm Trees and crocodiles

The end of my notes conclude with our talks of the ice age. We're at the end of a current ice age (the one we survived). An ice age consists of 90,000 years of ice and 10,000 years of no-ice,... we're ending the no-ice stage now. They stated that during the tough part of the ice age, it moves so much, that it creates strong enough winds to make it impossible for us to fly an air craft in the lower atmosphere They also talked of the mass migration that will occur, and that we will survive, but many millions will die of starvation.

That's all I got out of it in the time I had to listen,.... very interesting stuff 👍

 

[milefile]

It's also worth noting that they mentioned the average lifespan of a species is six to seven million years... also very interesting. We're still babies even at the longer estimate of a 200,000 year old species. *phew*

I can't decide if this thread has gone off topic...?

 

[Danoff]

milefile:

There is no reason solar power should be in the underdeveloped state it is, other than money. The funding is not there because the established (and corrupt) power suppliers keep it that way. We made it to the moon in less than a decade. We could be “solar dependent” in as much time if the people who control the funding were motivated.....

Same as above. We have bombs and missles that can fly up your nose but we still can’t harness the limitless power in wind. It speaks volumes about what is considered valuable.

As and aerospace engineer, I really hate this sort of argument. It took us the entire history of humanity to get to the moon. There is no way that you can say we went to the moon in 10 years. It's not possible. We had the technology, it was just a matter of using it to go to the moon. We knew how to make rockets and space suits and re-entry vehicles, it just took a directive to hone those skills into one particular mission. The knowhow took all of history, the application (and a little refninement of the knowhow) took 10 years.

Same goes for bombs and missiles that can fily up your nose. This is the result of GPS, which is nothing more than a few dozen satellites that transmit radiowaves. It's not that fancy. We knew enough about aerodynamics to guide aircraft (missiles count), we knew how to transmit radiowaves, it just took the need for that particular application to make it happen.

There is no doubt that we need solar cell technology. Who doesn't want to get rich off of the gazillions of solar panels you could sell if it offered cheap energy. The problem is that we don't actually have the technology (whereas in the other cases we did). We will have the technology though. Rest assured, it is being consentrated on (probably even more than rocket technology was prior to the first moon landing).

My point is that it is not fair to say that because we landed on the moon 10 years after someone figured out that we already pretty much knew how, doesn't mean that we can do anything that anyone can dream up in 10 years or less.

Science takes time.

 

[milefile]

So you're saying no more can really be expected, and that solar technology is advancing as fast as possible?

 

[Danoff]

ledhed:

You would think that an intelligent species would have evolved well enough to know that by destroying its enviroment it is destroying it means to sustain itself.
Or does it speak less to the intelligence of the creature and more to its arrogance ? I'm inclined to put my vote in the arrogance column.

Perhaps it speaks of an intelligent creature that is smart enough to know how to use non-renewable resources - yet still hasn't quite figured out how to take care of all of its needs with renewable resources. My vote goes in the - we're working on it - column. We only just invented cars and airplanes in the early 1900's. Obviously we all know that destroying the environment is destroying our non-renewable resources and that's not good for the future. But in the meantime, buring coal and oil allows the scientists who are shaping that future to drive to work and have electrically powered computers and lights.

Science takes time. In the meantime, we should use what we know how to use in order to further our pursuit of the ultimate balance of technology and environment.

 

[Danoff]

Milefile:

So you're saying no more can really be expected, and that solar technology is advancing as fast as possible?

No.

The entire population is not working on solar technology, therefore it is not advancing as fast as possible. Some scientists are working on medicine. Others are working on computer technology…. My point is that solar technology is advancing at a fairly rapid rate and it will continue to advance at that healthy not-too-fast-for-our-own-good-stop-everything-else rate.

My point is that there are people working on the problem right now. We’ve got a crack team of scientists working on this very problem so that we can make our solar powered satellites last longer (big incentive for companies with satellites) and so that the other thousands of applications can become reality. All of this of course spelling big $$’s for people who want the technology as bad as you do.