Global warming: Which of the following best represents your views?

[Grubendol]

karen, I think most rational liberalists like myself would wholeheartedly admit that there are natural cycles, as others here have indicated, the problem is not only the frequency of the peaks and valleys, but also the general trend. There are still peaks and valleys, but each valley is less deep and each peak is higher than the last, so the overall trend has been a warming since the first fossil fuels were burned by man. We are having a dramatic effect on the natural cycles of earth and if we're not careful it will be at the detriment of our children's lives.

[DragonLensmanWV]

ummmm.......is that what I said? First of all I would like to point out the God promised no more floods so I think we are safe on that front.

Of course I am not fine with that. What did I say that led you to believe that? I already admitted there is a problem the point we disagree on is how much of that is man made. Since the population is growing how do you suggest we stop the increase in pollution? More people= more cars, more landfill, more potential for more pollution etc, etc, etc.

There are wacky right wing nut jobs too, I never said it was an exculsive lefty thing. I am guessing by the above comments along with the Rush one earlier that you think I am a right wing kool-aid drinker. Not so my friend.

I apologize then. I had a molar removed and they had given me some strong pain pills, which, as I look back on my post, did seem to make me a bit more strident than usual. Still, I think in this case you're buying whatever Al Gore isn't selling.;)
I just have formed the opinion that the right wingers would not have had such a problem admitting global warming is a problem if it was someone other than Gore who is getting all the press about this. How many times have you heard speculation that this is a prelude to a Presidential run? If you look at the spectrum of people talking about global warming it is apparent that the right wing seems in general to be more dismissive of any evidence. Heck, even Fox News is trying their best to discredit the whole scenario. Seems every time I pass it by scanning the channels they have another talking head on with the subtitle: Global Warming:Fiction or Fact?I don't watch it because I actually DO WANT fair and balanced reporting, so I tend to trust BBC a bit more than the US networks.
And I have Norwegian, German, Scottish,French,Canadian, Aussie, and Kiwi friends that ask me why the US seems to be in denial about it.
I have to tell them that I think the wrong party is in power right now.

[AngryFish]

Rbaker,
As I understand it another “consensus” among scientists was reached some time ago in order to prove another theory. That consensus states that the laws of thermodynamics are laws in the broad sense of the word but as demonstrated by the facts of the evolutionary process of life on Earth, parts of the universe can appear to operate outside the guidance of these “laws” so long as the system as a whole obeys them, for example, The Second Law which I believe states all systems degrade…Science is one of the most political “non-political” pursuits there is. The big problem is that those in the field almost universally fail to recognize let alone admit their own personal bias.

[rinselberg]

[MOVEL]A single volcano contributes more to global warming than all human activities ... Global warming is such a control issue ... what a great way to demand that people do what the liberals want ... I suggest that you all review the Laws of Thermodynamics ... People seem to ignore all the planetary changes that took place long before we were so densely populated or used so much Aqua Net ... "The sky is falling ..."[/MOVEL]

[rinselberg]

That’s why most environmentalists are so wholeheartedly against nuclear. It produces clean [carbon-free] energy [but it would take about 200 years before the electrical power from a nuclear plant would offset the "dirty" or fossil-fuel resources that were required to construct it ...]

I believe that figure of about 200 years is way off the mark. I haven't spent a lot of time on this, but the estimates that I'm seeing are from 1 to 10 years - even on websites with an anti-nuclear agenda; for example:

Again, as a result of peak oil, the resurgence of nuclear energy comes cloaked ... in "greenwash" rhetoric ... ignoring the level to which greenhouse gases are A) emitted during construction of nuclear power plants that will take several years to finish, and B) need to deliver electricity for 10 years before any net depreciation in carbon emissions is registered.

Source: http://oilsandstruth.org/topics/nuclear


Here's a recent report from another website, The Oil Drum. It was compiled by a physics prof at the University of Melbourne. It confirms (or confesses) that Australia has a large uranium mining industry. Nevertheless, if you look at the source of the figures in this report, I think it has a lot of credibility:

Vattenfall finds that averaged over the entire lifecycle of their nuclear plants, including uranium mining, milling, enrichment, plant construction, operating, decommissioning and waste disposal, the total carbon (carbon dioxide) emitted per KW-Hr of electricity produced is 3.3 grams per KW-Hr of produced power. Vattenfall measures its [carbon] output from natural gas to be 400 grams per KW-Hr and from coal to be 700 grams per KW-Hr. Thus nuclear power generated by Vattenfall emits less than one one-hundredth as much carbon for the same amount of electricity, vs. their gas and coal-fired generating plants.

In other words, compared to their gas and coal-fired plants, their nuclear plants put less than 1% as much carbon into the atmosphere, when it's averaged over the expected lifecycle of their nuclear plants.

There is a belief that the energy costs and greenhouse emissions of nuclear power are such that they require 7 years of operation to become carbon neutral because of the embodied energy in construction and the energy cost of uranium mining. We find nuclear to be much better than that, so I think it helps to do some back-of-the-envelope calculations to estimate the reasonableness of our calculations. The Forsmark reactors, normalized to 1 GW output, have a total mass of about 1 million tonnes, most of which is steel and concrete. If we assign the total mass to concrete and assess one carbon dioxide molecule per molecule of silicon-dioxide (a substantial over-estimate), we get less than 2 million tones of carbon emitted directly from construction. A 1 GW coal-fired power station consumes 3 million tonnes of coal per year, emitting 10 million tonnes of carbon. This is as much or more than five times as much carbon, compared to the nuclear plant construction project - and it's per year, not just once.

In other words, construction of a new 1GW "nuke" can be expected to put two million tons (tops) of carbon (carbon dioxide) into the atmosphere. If the "nuke" were not built, and if the same amount of electricity had to be obtained from a 1GW coal-fired facility, that would put 10 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere - year in and year out. The "nuke" only has to be constructed once.

The report also concludes that when electricity is generated by nuclear power, only 1% of the product (electricity) is offset in the negative direction by the energy that is used to mine the uranium ore and convert it into the feedstock for the nuclear reactors.

The preceding figures are taken from the independently audited Vattenfall Environmental Product Declaration for its 3090 MW Forsmark nuclear power plant in Sweden ... Vattenfall is a large European energy utility that operates a variety of energy generation technologies including Nuclear, Hydro, Natural Gas, Coal, Oil, Peat, Biomass, Wind and Photovoltaic. The Vattenfall report was selected because it was independently audited and includes the complete nuclear lifecycle ... including the long-term disposal of the radioactive waste.

Finland and Sweden have the most comprehensive national plans for nuclear waste disposal on the planet.


PS. Don't drink the Michael Crichton kool-aid that another poster brought up on the first page of this discussion!