Climate Poll

[hmmm_tea]

Haven't had a poll for ages and just got back from the Dana Centre so have a lot of debatey thoughts on my mind, so...

[Poll #664784]

Comments

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

Your questions are too loaded!

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

The first one is certainly, but I felt it had to be there as a start...

but the others?

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

The issues in the Middle-East are forcing Bush to admit he might have to look into alternative energy sources, etc, so in that way the "War on Terror" is actually a good thing?
Implies by default it is a bad thing.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Yes, ok, skip that one if you think the war on terror is a good thing anyway then...

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

What is the thinking behind "Assuming there wasn't any global warming due to pollution or anything like that, should we then try to prevent the natural occurance of the next ice age to prevent human death" ?

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

I was curious...

the vast majority of our recent evolution has been outside an ice-age, so we've naturally developed to live in a non-ice age environment. Is it best to keep it that way?

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

Why would we want to allow something to happen that would cause mass deaths?

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Why have so many people said no to preventing it then?

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

When I read the question I felt like it was leading me to agree to doing something now which I wouldn't agree with... so that's why I was about to click no.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

You're clearly reading far too much into this...

I'm not used to being taken that seriously! eeek!

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Climate changes of of tens of degrees can happen in a single decade (e.g. Younger Dryas); I suspect that's not something we can hope to counteract at current levels of technology, merely to adapt to.

It's not only the Middle East that's causing people to look at routes to energy independence - consider Venezuela and Russia (the latter having been throwing its weight around regarding gas rather than oil, but the lesson is the same).

AIUI nuclear energy does not require fresh fuel supplies "on tap" the way oil/gas do, and the source are in any case more stable (Canada and Australia are top producers by a fairly comfortable margin). Wind and tides don't require any fuel imports at all of course but I don't think anyone seriously believes you can run a modern economy on just those.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

that's not something we can hope to counteract

Yes, but I didn't mention counteracting I mentioned minimising. ie is it best to invest money to try to reduce the amount the temperature changes by or to develop ways to cope with a massive temperature change if you could only do one or the other?

nuclear energy does not require fresh fuel supplies

Yes, but what do you do with the waste?

anyone seriously believes you can run a modern economy on just those.

Maybe not entirely using current technology, but every little helps...

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Yes, you have to do something with the waste. But that's true of combustion-based power sources, too. Nuclear waste, however, is easier to localize than CO₂...

There's only so much energy available from wind and wave, no matter how good your technology. (And these aren't necessarily pollution free either: suck the KE out of air or water and we might well find that various living things - not just surfers - were taking advantage of that energy.)