OT of an OT: Ethanol

[StarShadow]

As far as the crop used goes, I would recommend hemp. It grows well, even on marginal land, and can be planted/harvested 3 times per year.

[Ragnarok-X]

Thermodyne said:

Get out of the tour books and take a good look at Europe. I wouldn't advise drinking the well water.

Actually Kwok is right. Given you are looking at central europe and not china (with its waste-into-river-thingy) and russia (same).

[Renegade 13]

Will said:
Per-capita. It would be silly to look at total dollar amount going to a given area, you need to see how many people it is being spent on. If you just look at total amount, then yes, I could see where you get the idea that rural taxes pay for urban mass transit. But it's simply false, taxes from urban areas subsidize development in suburban and rural areas, not the other way around. And yes, while some things like major roads and military bases are for the benefit of all, the economy of the area immediately surrounding the (often rural) area gets a huge boost out of it.

Point taken. Of course, before being sure of the fact, I'd want to take a look at the actual numbers for my specific province and area, but you may be right.

Now, an "arrogant" way of forcing policy change would involve telling the other government they need to adopt certain changes, implement a tariff on their products that is very much in excess of the difference of costs based on the policy difference (take the above example, and make the tariff $100 instead of $10), threaten to put an embargo into effect, and 'accidentally' blow up a building during a training exercise. We're not talking about that though, are we now?

Well, my experience with US tariffs isn't exactly what you'd describe as positive. The US tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber and pointless, politically motivated bans on Canadian beef both had rather negative effects on me. The lumber tariffs were supposedly since our lumber was subsidized more than American lumber (which international committee's have repeatedly shown to be false and the tariffs illegal), yet the tariffs remain to today. And the illegal duties taken by American companies ($5 Billion worth) hasn't been returned to it's rightful owners.

In other words, my experience with American tariffs is that they are heavy-handed, intended to give American businesses an advantage domestically, and most of all politically motivated.

Of course, if it was a fair system of tariffs etc, and if the US wouldn't mind having tariffs imposed on them for having less advanced environmental policies than oher countries, then sure, go for it. Doubt your gov't would appreciate it though!

Thermodyne said:
The way I see it, much of the world has a lot of catching up to do on environmental issues.

I find this hard to believe, since the US has consistently decided against international treaties requiring a lowering of greenhousee gases. Yup, but it's the rest of the world that needs to catch up with the US...

Where the heck are you going to get the energy to till, plant, harvest, ferment, and refine the alky? Do you have any idea how much carbon is vented by an acre of tilled land? Do you have any idea how many regulated chemicals are needed to grow a crop like hybrid corn?

This carbon expenditure needs to be balanced against the equivalent amount of carbon emitted by traditional fuels. Not to mention the fact that once alcohol fuels become commonplace, they would replace the traditional fuels that are used to till the soil, plant, harvest, etc the ethanol, thus giving you a net emission close to zero.

Save that for someone who doesn't know better. You do not need a big Cummings Turbo powered 4x4 to get around in when the weather is bad. Hey, I feel your need, but I don’t buy the reason. I’ve got my full size Chevy 4x4 sitting out back. Biggest engine I could get in a half ton at the time. Heavy duty everything. But I drive a Honda Civic Hybrid to work everyday. And I’ve got a little 44 jeep that will go through any snow and muck that the truck will, on a quarter of the gas. Those big pickups could easily be replaced with smaller more fuel efficient 4x4’s. I have yet to see a farm that didn’t have tractors, wagons, and heavy trucks, what do you really need a big pick up for. Around here every farmer has several. The tax laws encouraged them to buy them. They ride around in them with 40 or 50 pounds of junk in the back and brag about how little fuel they use.


I won’t get into the rural vs. urban thing. I type way to slow for that. I will say that most big cities have a net loss on revenues. As do the rural areas. The revenue hogs are the outer suburbs where development has outrun infrastructure.

Oh, and while we are on the subject…….I thought that up there in the far north, people just got snowed in for the winter. That’s why all the birthdays are in the early summer

Point taken, most rural people do not need a big truck. For them, it is a luxury. And again I agree, no one needs a huge, powerful 4x4. It too is a luxury. But as you seem to agree, and drawing from my own experience, a 4x4 vehicle of some sort is necessary on a, for example, ranch. Yep, every ranch/farm has tractors, wagons, etc. Trucks are kinda useful though to haul those wagons when loaded with hay or something. Especially if it's muddy and slippery.

To be honest, if every farmer or rancher around your area can afford several heavy trucks...well they're a lot richer than almost all the ranchers or farmers around here

Yep, people do get snowed in for the winter. Doesn't mean you can stop feeding the cows.

I'll conceed that heavy trucks are not necessary, but some sort of 4x4 vehicle is.

[Renegade 13]

I have a question for those of you who might know. What's the big deal about greenhouse gases and global warming?

What I mean to say is, is there any conclusive evidence linking the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases and a rising average world temperature? Or is it the political maneuvering of environmentalists, or just spouted off by people who have taken one too many looks at Venus?

Do we really know that this is not a part of a natural cycle that the Earth goes through? After all, we don't exactly have detailed records beyond a few decades ago, and a few decades on a geological timescale isn't exactly an amount of time that would allow detailed conclusions to be drawn. And yet it appears that everyone is freaking out about "global warming". Or could it just be the media making a big deal out of nothing?

There have been times in the Earth's not-to-distant history when the Earth was a lot warmer globally than it is now. Something like 4-8 degrees C warmer at the poles. Life didn't become extinct after that happened! That suggests to me that this whole 'global warming' thing is a natural cycle.

What do you guys think?

[Phoenix-D]

"Life becoming extinct" is a pretty severe standard. There have been periods where 80-90% of all life on the planet died. You'd consider that pretty nasty, and it'd likely take *us* out, but it wouldn't fit that standard.

Read your statements again. "We don't have records beyond a few decades ago" and "There have been times when it was warmer than now" DON'T fit together.

The answer there is we do have records, care of trapped air bubbles in ice sheets and the like.

More to the point, global warming is a problem regardless of the cause. There are countries that will *cease to exist* if the sea level rises too much, and most of the human population lies close to a coast. Beyond that you have increased storm power, desertifcation of previous cropland, all sorts of unpleasant crap.

[geoschmo]

Renegade 13 said:
Life didn't become extinct after that happened! That suggests to me that this whole 'global warming' thing is a natural cycle.

Life, capital L, did not go exitnct, but many many species of life did. Some of the mass extictinctions in the past may have wiped out as many as 90% of the species. Yes life recovered, after millions of years. Nobody rational is saying we are going to wipe out all life on earth, but the question is whether we are going to make earth unihabitable for species H. sapiens.

In fact there are massive global cycles that have been going on and will continue to go on regardless of human actions. If past occurances are a good forecaster of future events, and there is no reason to think they aren't on the epoch-time scales we are looking at, then earth will get much colder and much warmer many times between now and when the sun uses up it's fuel and expands to swallow the whole thing up billions of years from now.

The question is whether our actions as a species are precipitating climactic change and speeding it up. If we have 50,000 years before the climate changes to make life here inhospitable that gives us a decent shot at achieving the technological ability to deal with it. Maybe we could get to where we really could change the climate in predictable ways, or if not we could leave and find another home, or perhaps genetically modifiy ourselves to adapt to the new conditions here.

But if through our actions we speed up that process so that the planet becomes inhospitable to us in 500 years, we are probably screwed as a species.

The question is whether or not we have the capability to effect such a change. A lot of good research says we do. There are some indications even that we've gone beyond the point where we can undo the damage we've done.

On the other hand, maybe we aren't really having an effect on the climate.

But I would rather think we are and find out later that we aren't, then think we aren't and find out later that we are.

Geoschmo

[Will]

We have precise temperature records dating back to sometime around the turn of the 19th century. And there's also things like core samples of ice in Antarcica that gives us a very good estimate of concentrations of atmospheric gasses and a reasonably good estimate on what temperatures were (varying amounts of gas would be trapped based on the temperature at the time it was frozen, and crystal structure of the ice will vary based on the conditions when the water froze).

Data from around 1900 back is going to be a lot more coarse than data that we have today, so that does affect estimates of the impact of the greenhouse gasses, since more detailed analysis is not possible. All we really have is aggregate data averages; the temperature in a certain approximately 10 year range in the past, in the area the ice was formed, averaged X degrees. Correlate to percentages of greenhouse gasses trapped. Studies have found a correlation to the calculated levels of gasses and the calculated temperature.

The naysayers for global warming point out that the estimated release of greenhouse gasses by human actions (including farmed livestock, vehicles, factories, etc.) is calculated to be only a modest percentage of the natural release. The only problem with this criticism is what Phoenix-D pointed out: large portions of the population of the world is in danger if sea levels rise even a little. Even the modest percentage accelerates the temperature increase, which accelerates the melting of ice at the polar caps, which accelerates the rising of sea levels and the rising of sea temperatures. Higher ocean temperatures mean bigger more powerful storms (see this year's hurricane season). Higher sea levels mean more danger from those storms and flooding, tsunamis, etc. There are lots of costal areas that are technically below sea level, and only have essentially a small ridge holding back the ocean.

So, the point is, do we want to accelerate the cycle and make sure the peak temperature is even higher than it would have been? Or do we want to cut back on our emissions and make sure that the damage is minimized?

[Renegade 13]

Read your statements again. "We don't have records beyond a few decades ago" and "There have been times when it was warmer than now" DON'T fit together.

My fault. I should have said "We don't have detailed, in depth records beyond a few decades ago". We do, however, have estimates based on ice cores, etc, that give estimates of past climates.

Some of the mass extictinctions in the past may have wiped out as many as 90% of the species. Yes life recovered, after millions of years.

The climate shift I was talking about, when temps. were a few degrees warmer than now was only about 140,000 years ago. There was no massive extinction event around that time (as far as I know), so this is why I doubt a climate 'shift' of a few degrees can wipe out many species on a global scale.

OK, another couple questions. Is there actually enough ice in glaciers, polar ice caps, icebergs, etc. to raise ocean levels beyond a few feet over what they are today, if they all melted? Lets say a meter of water was added to todays ocean levels. A meter wouldn't cause any significant damage to coastlines beyond making a few seawalls necessary. The area of the worlds oceans is ~361 Million square km. So, to raise ocean levels by a meter, you'd need an additional 361,000,000 x .001 = 361,000 cubic kilometers of water! Is there even that much ice in the polar caps/glaciers?

Another question: Is it possible to slow significantly the amount of CO2 that is emitted into the atmosphere without cutting back so much that we might as well be in the stone age again?

[geoschmo]

Renegade 13 said:
So, to raise ocean levels by a meter, you'd need an additional 361,000,000 x .001 = 361,000 cubic kilometers of water! Is there even that much ice in the polar caps/glaciers?

There is ten times that much ice just in Greenland. And another ten times that at the south pole. linky
The north pole ice is sea ice so as it melts it won't have much net change in sea level.

[Renegade 13]

Interesting...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ice_sheet says:
If global warming occurs, over the next century the Antarctic ice sheet is predicted to gain mass primarily because it is so cold that the extra warmth will not melt it significantly but will supply extra moisture; conversely the Greenland ice sheet is expected to lose mass through melting. These effects are expected to approximately cancel [3]. See: sea level rise.