Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
TradMike
Trad climber
Cincinnati, Ohio
|
|
|
Mar 25, 2019 - 09:14am PT
|
Splater^
I am not a climate change denier. I just know it is the least of our concerns with nitrates getting out of control on a global ocean scale. This will be the death of the ocean and all fish in it plus up to 85% of our oxygen source.
I am a population size realist - We are out of control.
Media will tell you our fossil fuel burning it the biggest problem. If you are truly concerned about global warming and what is causing it, listen up.
Methane is 100 times more effective at raising global temperatures than CO2. Lets pick a date before the global population shot up and look at methane and CO2 levels. Lets look back the last 200 years. CO2 has increased 142% in parts per million over that time. Methane has increased 238% in parts per million over that same time period. When you multiply methane's power vs CO2 as a heat trapping gas, you get Methane being 167 times more responsible for our heat rise than CO2. You must then ask yourself where is methane is coming from. The bulk comes from providing food for this gargantuan global population. Rice paddies alone are the biggest form of climate change. In fact, humans and our food production, waste and sewage are responsible for over half of the climate changing gas where nearly the other half are naturally occurring.
Sources of the most powerful greenhouse gas Methane (CO2 can't touch the power of methane)
Methane follows human population increase (why do we keep growing the population and more problems - practice two kids per family and the population will reduce slowly along with the bulk of our problems)
Rather benign CO2 (.5% responsible compared to methane) other than dropping the Ocean pH which is bad.
|
|
August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
|
|
|
Mar 25, 2019 - 10:09am PT
|
I am not a climate change denier. I just know it is the least of our concerns
I don't deny that cigarettes cause cancer. I just know it is the least of our health concerns. For instance, keep smart phones away from your head and don't stand under power lines.
|
|
Splater
climber
Grey Matter
|
|
|
Mar 25, 2019 - 01:11pm PT
|
TradMike,
most of what you wrote is wrong or misleading, whether you call it denial or trolling. Same as sketch. The basic science of GHGs and global warming is long settled.
Methane is approx 1/4 as big a problem as CO2 in the short run (30 years). Because it has a shorter life in the atmosphere it is about 1/8 of the problem in the long run (80 years). But it does go hand in hand with burning fossil fuels so it's part of the same problem - FOSSIL FUELS.
When you bring up methane, you are actually admitting that global warming caused by fossil fuels is a massive problem. You may have noticed that trumpy just killed the rules to control methane leaks. These emissions come from the same the fossil fuel industry whose lobbyists that have been lying for 30 years.
In addition, some increased emissions of methane are secondary feedbacks (to warming whose primary cause remains CO2). Methane sinks in tundra, swamps, and deep oceans are released by warming. Biological methane emissions increase with warming temperatures.
You bring up other problems only as a misleading distraction. The same way deniers have said for 30 years, "let's wait until the consensus is 99.999%" Rice paddies are only a small part of the methane problem. Livestock is a much more optional source that could be decreased, as could releases from shale, fracking, and leaks.
Those other problems you distract to are separate issues (overpopulation and nitrates) that serve only to detract from solving the issue of GHGs. You don't have an even remotely possible solution to population, so don't pretend that is the answer. GHG emissions actually do have a solution and alternatives.
WE NEED to REDUCE emissions caused by fossil fuel use and extraction!
That is all.
methane info:
https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases_.html
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/91564/what-is-behind-rising-levels-of-methane-in-the-atmosphere
https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-other-important-greenhouse-gas
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-led-study-solves-a-methane-puzzle
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-would-emit-methane/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621141154.htm
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/07122015/methane-emissions-texas-fracking-zone-90-higher-epa-estimate
|
|
Splater
climber
Grey Matter
|
|
|
Mar 25, 2019 - 04:14pm PT
|
Moose, You have your numerator and divisor and powers of ten mixed up.
Methane: 1860 PPB PARTS PER BILLION
CO2: 410 PPM PARTS PER MILLION = 410000 PPB.
That means there is 220 times as much CO2 as Methane.
"The 100-year global warming potential of methane is 28 to 32. That is, over a 100-year period, it traps 28 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide and 32 times the effect when accounting for aerosol interactions.[6]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane
So for the year 2100 timeframe, Methane is 32 / 220 = 15% of the total effect of CO2.
In the shorter run, Methane has more effect because Methane is shorter lived. So it's 20 year warming contribution is about 85 times that of the same amount of CO2. Again since there is 220 times as much CO2, the net short term total contribution is 85 / 220 = 39% of the effect of CO2.
(Which is about .28 of the total, plus there are other GHG gases as well)
https://www.sightline.org/2019/02/12/methane-climate-change-co2-on-steroids/
Many scientists think both numbers should be reported. Either way, the easiest way to reduce methane emissions is the same as reducing CO2: cut fossil fuel use.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials
In summary,
FOSSIL FUEL Use and Extraction is by far the main cause of global warming.
|
|
capseeboy
Social climber
portland, oregon
|
|
|
Mar 25, 2019 - 04:15pm PT
|
. One of those ways is lifting people out of poverty; it seems to be a reverse correlation between the wealth and the number of children.
I don't think the Pope is going to endorse BC any time soon. He likes keeping his poverty base where it is, believing in a better afterlife.
|
|
TLP
climber
|
|
|
Mar 25, 2019 - 04:31pm PT
|
One of the problems in these discussions is poor (or actually no) definition of units for the various claims. The atmospheric content of, say, methane or CO2 is usually in ppm or ppb, presumably that's by weight and not numbers of molecules. A single CO2 molecule weighs about 2.75 times the weight of a CH4 molecule. I'm not sure what units pertains to these factors of how much more effective of a GHG methane is: weight? number of molecules? It would be ideal to have this expressed in the same units as atmospheric content, but people usually do not say.
Regardless, I think Splater and Malemute have the basic point correct: CO2 is a much bigger issue than CH4, and the biggest, most readily controllable factor in climate change is fossil fuels.
With regard to reducing the rate of population growth, and hopefully someday actually heading toward a lower human population, the one factor that most closely correlates with lowering birth rates, and has even been shown to be a causal factor, is the level of education that girls receive. There are stacks and stacks of research papers showing this, here's one link: http://blogs.worldbank.org/health/female-education-and-childbearing-closer-look-data
Compulsory reduction of birth rates is never going to fly in the places it would have benefits, and shouldn't as it is morally tainted and vulnerable to all kinds of horrible abuses and adverse other consequences. But just focusing on female education will do just as much good, in fact more because you also automatically result with a more productive overall workforce, so politicians can get their sainted economic growth rates with a lower population.
Unfortunately there are strong cultural headwinds in some places, but this should be the point of emphasis, and birth rates will take care of themselves.
|
|
TLP
climber
|
|
|
Mar 25, 2019 - 11:13pm PT
|
Thanks Malemute. One has to be pretty focused about units when people throw around glib statements about what's more of an effect than something else. Then there's another level of unit fuzziness (sometimes) since you often see statements about X metric tons of emissions (X having a bunch of zeroes too). Is that of CO2 or of just the elemental carbon component? The good reports are typically very careful about this, but other sources and especially the intentionally deceptive ones, not so much. Plus, the weight of fossil fuels burned is only a fraction of the weight of emissions (unless that's calculated to be just the carbon).
|
|
TradMike
Trad climber
Cincinnati, Ohio
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 06:06am PT
|
I looked at the numbers in closer detail and wow there is some deceptive stuff out there. When you take decay into account with a time scale you can make Methane look a lot less of a factor. Based on an MIT study and scientific consensus and a 1 year scale, Methane has 120 times more potential to warm the planet vs CO2. The 20 year and 100 year assumes additional contributions stop so that is an unfair scale to look at the picture since they are both increasing with methane increasing at a faster rate. We haven't stopped our contributions.
Lets look at this differently since my generalization above were based soley on percentages over the time scale of temperature increase that was out of norm and on the rise. I was trying to get a quick comparison and that is an incorrect view.
Looking at this closer. Since 1800 the temps have taken off. Everything before that was more so in equilibrium so we will look what has changed.
CO2 has increased from 280 to 400 parts per million. Methane has increased from .75 to 2 parts per million. CO2 has increased 120 parts per million vs Methane at 1.25 parts per million increase over this time period from 1800. If Methane is 120 times stronger whouldn't that equate to (1.25)*120 = 150 for Methane versus 120 for CO2? Wouldn't that be Methane being 1.25 more of a factor than CO2? If so, They seem to be equally bad in the short term with Methane being a little worse but increasing faster.
It seems like a two pronged approach is needed, reduce emissions and reduce population. I'd have to argue that population is worse in the fact it seems equivalent to emissions or worse on a global warming scale but also has the added factor of other pollutions that may kill us sooner. Having seen an entire lake die from nitrate pollution and total collapse of oxygen it is a scary times we live in when you see the precursors of that same collapse starting in the Oceans.
|
|
monolith
climber
state of being
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 07:42am PT
|
|
|
TradMike
Trad climber
Cincinnati, Ohio
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 10:33am PT
|
Monolith, I looked up the radiative forcing and that is a simplistic measure of the gases with everything else being equal and does not take into account what happens up in the upper atmosphere with these gases and how it affects the radiative forcing of each layer. It sounds like CO2 is similar to water vapor and may actually replace water vapor for s similar net effect. The paragraph below states this phenomena. While increasing CO2 has less and less effect on radiative absorption as ppm concentrations rise, more powerful greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide have different thermal absorption frequencies to CO2 that are not filled up (saturated) as much as CO2, so rising ppms of these gases are far more significant.
"In terms of radiative factors, the heating rate in a layer of the atmosphere is a function of the spectrally-varying absorption/emission characteristics of the layer, the spectral fluxes incident on the layer, and the layer temperature. The absorption by a layer is a function of the abundances of absorbing gases in the layer. In the longwave spectral region in which carbon dioxide is a significant absorber (for wavelengths of about 12.5 micrometers and longer) water vapor is also radiatively active. For a wavelength at which water vapor is already significantly absorbing, the addition of an amount of carbon dioxide to the layer will cause relatively little increase in the flux absorbed by the layer and thus cause relatively little increase in the radiative heating of the layer."
|
|
August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 12:50pm PT
|
It seems like a two pronged approach is needed, reduce emissions and reduce population. I'd have to argue that population is worse in the fact it seems equivalent to emissions or worse on a global warming scale but also has the added factor of other pollutions that may kill us sooner. Having seen an entire lake die from nitrate pollution and total collapse of oxygen it is a scary times we live in when you see the precursors of that same collapse starting in the Oceans.
And as was already pointed out to you:
The US could things like shut down coal plants and switch to electric cars. That could be done legislatively with carbon taxes, my preference, or through mandates.
Unless you want to go all Nazi or China one-child, there is no simple fix for overpopulation. Most of the wealthy world, and even much of the semi-wealthy world, have birth rates at, or below, replacement levels.
In poor areas, the best/quickest method to get birth rates down are to educate females and raise standards of living. I think the US should more aggressively support both.
|
|
TradMike
Trad climber
Cincinnati, Ohio
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 02:00pm PT
|
It seems like we don't have a good clean energy source to charge our electric cars. There is hope in the fusion reactor. We could go all out on getting those figured out pronto. Wind and solar don't seem feasible on a large scale. The Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project is massive but will only power a million homes.
It would be hard to ask anyone to not have or only have 1 child. 2 is below replacement population so that seems like a good start without being a Nazi. Poor areas seem to be a crux. Not sure how to fix that. If you help them do they just grow in size even more? Offer help, if they keep to 2 or less kids? Nobody sees population as a problem and I get crazy looks anytime I mention it. I have even heard people mention the US could handle a billion more.
The next few years will be telling as to where the Nitrate problem will take us.
I'll go bury my head in the sand. Thanks for educating me. Sorry for being a jerk, I try to not offend.
|
|
TradMike
Trad climber
Cincinnati, Ohio
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 06:32pm PT
|
Malemute^
Now now lets not vilify anyone. I saw the same news and my jaw dropped. You must understand his upbringing and what has been preached for centuries. You can't undue this is short order. One must reason with them to show the true light. Religion has been very good but it does has some old thinking. I know many wonderful Mormons. They are the most understanding and reasonable people you will ever meet. They also can be reasoned with and won't blow up on you. He can be a friend in this battle for positive change. His reasoning in the innovation of the future generations must not be stifled. We just can't over do it.
I think politics can change once both sides hang out together and agree to disagree on a few things but find some common ground on the important stuff. It has become way too decisive lately.
|
|
TLP
climber
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 07:05pm PT
|
TradMike, I agree about not vilifying people who might be susceptible to reason, but Malemute didn't do that, he just provided the quote, which in my opinion is one of the most ill-informed statements I've seen from any public figure. It would be nice if people he'd listen to would reason with and enlighten him.
Re your statement Not sure how to fix that. , please read posts. The known, proven method to reduce birth rates in less affluent countries (e.g. Africa), and one that probably works for less affluent sectors in affluent nations, is educating girls. It's that simple, and should be totally non-controversial. So, we do know how to fix that, and it should be a huge foreign and domestic policy emphasis. Like, yesterday.
|
|
Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 09:16pm PT
|
It would be hard to ask anyone to not have or only have 1 child. 2 is below replacement population so that seems like a good start without being a Nazi. Poor areas seem to be a crux. Not sure how to fix that. If you help them do they just grow in size even more? Offer help, if they keep to 2 or less kids? Nobody sees population as a problem and I get crazy looks anytime I mention it. I have even heard people mention the US could handle a billion more.
I'm sure some of you guys are sick and tired of me posting that the population problem is solved, and that the big problem with population is that nowhere is planning for the contraction.
https://www.gapminder.org/answers/how-did-babies-per-woman-change-in-different-regions/
Does caring for poor children only result in more children? No. the opposite
https://www.gapminder.org/answers/will-saving-poor-children-lead-to-overpopulation/
|
|
Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 10:51pm PT
|
Can you say greenhouse gasses?
Sure, I knew you could.
|
|
TLP
climber
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 10:56pm PT
|
Ken M, I'd love it if you were right that the "population problem is solved", but it is very much not solved. The site you link says human population growth will level out or go negative by 2100, but that is extremely unreassuring. The sociopolitical and environmental stresses of our current nearly 8 billion people are pretty severe already; double that and add on top of it the loss of much arable land and other consequences of major climate change (just changes in patterns is a gigantic disruption). Now can you seriously say the problem is solved?
However, you are totally right that no one seems to be planning for population contraction, and in-migration doesn't seem to be popular in exactly the places (Europe) where the native population is getting smaller.
Nevertheless, of the challenges that are right in our faces, that's by a long way the smallest one, and far easier to address than any of the others.
|
|
Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
|
|
|
Mar 26, 2019 - 11:08pm PT
|
Damn TLP is nailing this sh#t.
Good job!
|
|
TradMike
Trad climber
Cincinnati, Ohio
|
|
|
Mar 27, 2019 - 10:57am PT
|
The population problem is slowing in some areas which is great. But we are killing Earth much faster than we can reduce to a sustainable society. I guess, I'll take the problems from contraction if I don't have to see this. Wait until it hits our Oceans where most the world gets its food. The toxins will create liver problems, numbness, respiratory distress and in some cases death.
Lake Erie - about to die from farming for this massive population
Anyone want to drink some fresh water?
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!