Gore: Cigarette Smoking 'significant' Contributor To Global Warming

I'm exaggerating a bit.

Coal burning....? Or coca cola burning? ; p

I'm not sure what does the worst of it all.

 

There will be economic opportunities as well as economic challenges. In fact many companies are discovering there are more economic opportunities in being "green" than challenges. Ironically being green tends to save companies vast amounts of money once they get over the hump of changing practices.

For instance white collar companies could let their employees telecommute more often. This would reduce the amount of office space needed saving energy and employees wouldn't need to drive as often saving even more energy. In some areas like California, factories are discovering their massive roof areas to be great places to place solar arrays to help generate electricity. With the associated tax breaks, this not only helps reduce their consumption of fossil fuels, but in the long run can help them save money (especially now that more efficient and cheaper solar panels are coming out). GE is now producing a new generation of more fuel efficient locomotives (https://www.getransportation.com/general/apps/freight_rail/evolution/overview.html). Over their life time each locomotive could save as much as 200,000 gallons of fuel compared to their predecessors. I also read somewhere that someone has developed a hybrid switch locomotive that has huge battery banks and can run off of either its diesel engine or the bank of batteries (remember that all diesel locomotives are actually diesel-electrics and have electrical traction motors).

The financial pain is nominal and mostly an upfront expense. There is a lot we all can do around our house and place of work that can make a tremendous difference without a massive change in lifestyle. Other things will require a reordering of our society (e.g. more telecommuting and less commuting for office workers and more fuel efficient cars).

Okay here are some simple things (some will save money and some will cost extra):
1) Replace traditional incandescent light bulbs with florescent light bulbs where possible (massive electrical savings).

2) In the winter keep the heat turned down two or three degrees more than normal.

3) In the summer don't keep your house so cool with the air conditioner (e.g. do the reverse of winter).

4) Combine trips with your car so that you don't need to drive so much.

5) Telecommute if possible.

6) Turn off lights that aren't needed

7) Install inline switches for all electronic devices (I bought those inline switches typically used for Christmas tree lighting). Unfortunately even in standby mode most electronics devices still consume considerable electricity (especially desktop computers). In fact, over its life time a microwave may consume more electricity keeping the stupid clock running than it does heating your food.

8) Buy the most fuel efficient vehicle you can that will still serve your needs (obviously a big family needs a bigger vehicle).

9) Car pool or use mass transit if possible.

10) Buy "green" electricity. Many areas let you choose your electricity provider and have a green/renewable energy option. While green electricity is more expensive, switching to 100% green electricity can cut your carbon footprint by 1/3 to 1/2 (really major).

11) Buy Energy Star rated (or equivalent rating system outside of the U.S.) appliances when you replace existing ones.

12) Share your shower with your spouse/partner. Not only is this more fun, but it can considerably reduce the amount of hot water used (unless you get distracted).

13) Increase the amount of insulation in your house and install double or triple pane Low-E windows (this can save lots of money on your heating/cooling bill). Windows are a major source of energy loss as even a Low-E double pane window only has an energy rating of R-2.5. In northern climates insulating blinds and/or shades can triple the R value of a window.

14) Don't waste water (especially hot water).

15) Recycle as much of your waste as possible.

16) Don't buy unnecessary junk (everything takes energy to produce so don't buy what you don't need).

17) Wash clothes in cold or warm water rather than hot water and only do full loads.

18) A fully loaded energy efficient dishwasher uses less energy and wastes less water than washing dishes by hand (crazy but true).

19) Don't buy disposable stuff.

20) Heat with wood or other renewable energies. A wood stove/boiler is more efficient than a fireplace. Don't forget to put a catalytic converter on your flue pipe to control particulate emissions.

21) Keep your car properly serviced and make sure tires stay inflated at the proper levels.

22) Ride a bike or walk instead of drive when feasible (no mud stripes).

23) Don't drive impulsively. Speeding and impulsive driving is hard on your car and reduces fuel economy. Start and stop in a smooth fashion. If you know the traffic light is going to turn red before you get there let off the gas earlier and coast in. This saves gas and puts less wear on brakes.

There's nothing too extreme in my list above and combined this might cut your carbon footprint in half or more without changing your lifestyle very much. Lots of little changes can add up to a big savings.

The big changes we need require new technologies for our vehicles and greener electrical generation.

 

Coal burning powerplants are the worst polluters all round, not just green house gasses. In part this is because of bad loopholes in the Clean Air act and in part this is because the Bush Administration has refused to enforce key parts of the Clean Air act (see: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/environmental/mercurypollution2005-pt2.html and http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/environmental/pseudoscience2004.html).

Of course Coal is a fossil fuel, so there is no way around the fact that a coal fired powerplant releases fossil carbon.

 

It does make sense, but I think it would be highly wise if states just put-in slowly...rather tame legislation throughout the country. Little mandatory requirements in lighting for businesses and then.... to literally sit a table with them and review huge lists like you gave me.

And then address the automakers and transport services.

Sell them, like you do; but also legislate them. By selling to them it's a lot less likely they'll get the flack that they are getting.

Yeah I read about one place that did something to this sort, and it's saving them a lot. I'm really suprised that real estate developers aren't putting those on their house as an add-on sell feature. I'm sure some do, but not enough.

For some reason your links never work....for me atleast.

That's quite a bit.

Like New York,,,ehhhhh? I'd say the amount of cars per person is really bad. We're such a SIZE driven country for cars (more engine or more size)....really, we're going to have to get the US car companies to stop making huge cars.

or atleast change the dynamic of them.

I did read the list, and I'll probably bookmark it. Nice.

Do you think this will happen in the near future?

 

If George Bush hadn't resisted the global warming issue at the beginning of his term there would have been time. Unfortunately now we are so far behind the ball on this issue that there is no time left. Literally if we don't start making big strides today and completely bring our green house gas emissions under control within ten years we could be looking at a completely irreversible global warming trend. Even if we do resolve our green house gas emissions problem within the next ten years we will still see the earth's temperatures rise another two degrees over the next fifty years before we can start to reverse the trend.

One of the best things that really helps reduce CO2 production is something called carbon offset or carbon trading (see: http://www.epa.state.il.us/air/erms/ ). Kind of like fishermen being issued a quota of how much fish they can harvest companies are issued a quota as to how much CO2 they can release in a given year with the total carbon emissions being capped. People and companies can then buy, sell and trade CO2 emission allowances just like another commodity. In this way a company can invest in greener technologies or buy more expensive green electricity and then sell their unused CO2 credits to a company that can not make these changes as quickly. At the same time private citizens and other organizations (e.g. Greenpeace) can buy these CO2 credits and take them out of circulation. Over time as CO2 emissions permits decrease in quantity the value of the remaining permits increase. This creates greater economic incentives to reduce CO2 production (e.g. can sell excess permits for a higher price) and makes it more expensive not to reduce CO2 emissions (e.g. permits become more expensive to buy).

Maybe a company is based in New York City and a wind farm isn't an option. Through Carbon offsets a company could offset their carbon emissions by helping to fund a green project elsewhere in the world (e.g. a solar power plant in California)

First here are a couple of good websites on the issue of car fuel efficiency:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/
http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/fueleconomy/

Internal combustion engine vehicles are hugely inefficient with only about 15% of the potential energy in gasoline actually going towards moving a vehicle forward so there is massive room for improvement in fuel efficiency (see: See: http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml ). Even if the fuel efficiency of vehicles were doubled we are still talking about only 30% of the potential energy in fuel going towards moving a vehicle forward.

The big problem we have had with legislating on this issue is that there are very powerful lobbying interests that do not like change and they use all kinds of tactics including junk science to try and convince law makers to not legislate higher standards. Simply look at George Bush's resistance on this issue through his first term in office as proof of this.

Here is a good article on this subject:
http://news.com.com/Silicon+vs.+CIG...+material/2100-1008_3-6121488.html?tag=cd.top

They are actually making the solar panels into a type of roofing tile such that they aren't as hard to install and don't look out of place.

It must be the closing ")" mark being at the end of the URLs. I've started placing a space between the URLs and the ")". I'll go back and fix my other posts.

I think I read or heard in the news that in the U.S. there are something like 280,000,000 cars for a population of just under 300,000,000 (counting every man, woman and child). This means that there are more cars in the U.S. then there are people who are old enough to drive them. The really tragic thing about this is that an incredible amount of energy (and thus CO2 emissions) go into manufacturing each car. By simply owning fewer cars (obviously we can drive all that we currently have) and taking good care of the ones we have such that they have the longest service life possible we can reduce our environmental impact and CO2 emissions produced by the simple process of building new cars. Detroit really doesn't want to hear this, but people need to buy fewer cars and keep them longer.

It has to. From both an environmental and a financial stance we can't keep going in the direction we are going. Even if global warming were not an issue, there is a finite amount of petroleum available to be reclaimed and it is getting harder and harder (and thus more expensive) to reclaim and refine the remaining crude oil.

No one technology or source of energy can solve our needs. It will have to be a blend of technologies and multiple energy sources to provide us with energy. In sunny areas like California the available roof space on the typical home is large enough for enough solar panels to supply the house with 60% - 100% of its electrical needs. The excess electricity produced during the day could either be sold back to the electrical grid (which would help provide extra electricity for day time uses like businesses and factories) or it could be stored in batteries/fuel cells for night time use. In windy areas individuals who have space for it could place windmills on their property to supply their electrical needs. A mix of large scale power plants (e.g. solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear and waste to energy) and small scale residential/commercial power generation could really go a long ways towards reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and the fossil carbon they emit.

 

I guess I can't fix the links in my eariler posts so here are the corrections:

Post #42: https://www.getransportation.com/general/apps/freight_rail/evolution/overview.html

Post #43: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/environmental/pseudoscience2004.html

 

If GWB denies global warming, how then does he "acknowledge" it as a "problem"?

Source? We've only been measuring weather and temperature here on the mother Earth for around 100 years.

 

If you read my posts you would see that I stated that GW NOW acknowledges global warming as an issue (I believe he even discussed it in his last State of the Union address). I also stated that in his FIRST TERM he denied global warming was a problem. In other words even GWB has changed his view point on this issue. This goes back to my earlier comment about politicians (even the most stubborn of them) shifting their position on issues as they come to understand them better.

Directly yes. Scientists can, however, indirectly measure temperature and climate changes in many ways for example:

1) By taking core samples of ice sheets we can look back at climate changes for hundreds of thousands of years by studying microscopic flora and fauna trapped in the ice as well as the chemical composition of gasses trapped in the ice.

2) By studying the tree rings of living, dead and fossilized trees scientists can learn a lot about the climate the trees are/were growing in. Oh by the way the oldest living tree is around 5,000 years old (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2817methuselah.html )

3) By taking geological core samples of the bottom of our oceans scientists can study the chemical composition of the shells of specific tiny organisms to determine the ocean temperatures at the time the organism lived. For instance for a given ocean temperature there will be a specific ration between the Oxygen isotopes O16 and O18. By measuring this ratio, scientists know exactly what the ocean temperatures were at a specific point in time for millions of years and from this know what the Earth's temperature was at any given time.

4) By studying the geologic records around glaciers geologists can gain an understanding of the history of specific glaciers including periods of advancement and retreat. When a glacier was in a period of retreat, scientists know that the climate was warming. When the glaciers were advancing, on the other hand, scientists know the climate was cooling.

5) By studying the bio diversity in fossil records and the distribution of various organisms scientists can get an understanding of climatic conditions at the time the fossilized animal lived.

Our knowledge and understanding of global warming and climatic conditions over millions of years isn't based on a few crack pot scientific studies. It is based on decades of research by thousands of scientists in many different scientific disciplines and with different political ideologies from around the world. The volume of evidence about global warming and man being the cause of it is now so overwhelming that arguing against is like arguing that the world is flat or that cigarette smoking is not harmful to one's health.

Want to read more? See:
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/world_warmth.html
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarming/
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/gwdebate/
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/
http://www.unep.org/themes/climatechange/
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10159-global-warming-nears-a-millionyear-high.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24732-2005Jan20.html
http://www.livescience.com/environment/060925_temperatures_high.html
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6098974
http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/commentary/wb/wb/xp-78168

 

Cow shit contributes more toxic gases than man. Let's all go cow tippin'.

 

Except for one small detail that I discussed earlier -- that is the difference between recent and fossilized carbon. Yes cows release carbon based greenhouse gasses, however it is produced from organic material (e.g. grasses) that was living only days earlier. This means that while cows do release greenhouse gasses the net amount of carbon in the atmosphere does not increase. Man on the other hand burns fossil carbon (coal, natural gas, oil, etc.) that has been sequestered in the earth for millions upon millions of years. Thus man is significantly increasing the net amount of carbon based green house gasses currently in our atmosphere. This is a very important difference.

Now we can solve part of our green house gasses issue by capturing the methane produced in cow crap and using this as a fuel source. This would eliminate some of our need for fossil fuels and thus reduce the net amount of green house gasses released into the environment. I actually saw an article on TV a couple months back about a farmer doing exactly this. Via the trading of carbon credits (carbon offset) I discussed a few posts ago, some company was paying the farmer to capture the methane from his cows waste and burn it to produce power to run his farm.

This type of methane capture technology is new and is not yet cost effective without someone buying carbon credits. In time, however, this technology will mature and become more cost effective. Eventually large dairy farms (and other livestock operations) may find this to be a very cost effective alternative energy source.

More information on this can be found at:
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/0605/ijge/gunning.htm
http://www.itdg.org/?id=biogas_christmas
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/farmmgt/05002.html

 

hey rick drudge now says the foley emails were a prank

http://www.drudgereport.com/page.htm

its must be true .... sucker

 

Obviously. Why would drudge lie!?

 

Ya apparently the masterminds behind the prank were Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Al Gore. It was all part of a liberal conspiracy to trick Republicans into embarrassing themselves.

 

And Nixon! Nixon is ALWAYS in on it too! Sometimes Robertson, but I'm not sure this time.

 

My own personal opinion "Global Warming" is the biggest myth thats ever been perpetrated on mankind. Just another excuse to strip away our freedom and individual choice.

We cant figure out or solve homelessness, hunger, poverty, peace, disease, racial strife. But somehow mankind has been able to figure out nature in the short amount of time that we have had the technology available. I just dont buy it.

 

Oh like thousands of geologists, climatologists, glacialologists and biologists have nothing better to do than perpetrate fraud to limit your personal freedoms. If our schools would do a better job of teaching science to our young people and people took some time to educate themselves about the scientific process we wouldn't still be arguing about this issue. If you truly believe that global warming is a myth, then you need to really take some time to understand issues rather than trying to show that it is some great conspiracy against you.

These are all red herring arguments. Addressing global warming isn't about striping away personal freedoms. It is about acknowledging we all have personal responsibilities. Besides you could probably reduce your personal carbon foot bring by 1/2 to 2/3 without having a real impact on your "personal freedoms". Also many of the things one needs to do to decrease their carbon foot print make a lot of sense economically and will help individuals save lots of money. How much would cutting your electric bill in half help your monthly budget? How about reducing your heating bills, would this help your monthly budget?

Reducing one's carbon footprint isn't just good for the environment. It is good for one's own finances.

This is a specious argument. Solving homelessness, hunger, poverty and strife are political problems not scientific problems. For instance, the United States already has the capability of producing enough food to feed the entire world.

 

what personal freedoms are being limited? Thats like saying, I can't dump mercuary into the rivers, my personal freedom is being limited.

 

The world would be better off if it applied scientific methods to solve the above problems, though.

 

Now that's a conpsiracy that really deserves tin foil , reminds me of the nutty religious fundamentalist christians who think evolution is a conspiracy against them

 

He is either none other than AnthonyCEA, or he uses the same mind altering drugs.

You're probably right. I mean we live in a world where we have to alter our Basketballs to make cows more comfortable. Come on!

Now conspiracy there. Some of us just happen to no the truth.