enviroment - where are we going

[Najdorf]

Its quite amazing to see the effects of industrialization on the enviroment.

Here are a few graphs...

Temperature:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

And enen more shocking CO2!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e9/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr-2.png

Saying that there wasnt nearly as much CO2 as there is now in the last 400 thousand years!

Unfortunately it looks like nobody cares. I mean, if economics-politics is driven by stupid targets such as the GNP, this won't stop.

It seems very much like the canadian guy who talks about the internet, people that have no clue are given the power.

Politics - economists look at everything in the 5 year run...

Ah, humanity has understood that it's a good idea to stop people from doing their interests in spite of others, but not in spite of the future.

[lightbringer]

It seems very much like the canadian guy who talks about the internet...

I think you mean Alaskan.

Ah, humanity has understood that it's a good idea to stop people from doing their interests in spite of others, but not in spite of the future.

It's not about people using their computers and their cars because they want to that's the problem, it's that they don't carpool, that they each drive SUVs, that they're not fighting for higher gas milage and alternate sources of energy. The problem (at least in America) is people don't give a rats ass about efficiency because they feel that if they can pay for it, that's all that matters. For example, my roommates last semester would *always* (unless of course they were sleeping) leave their lights on in their dorm room (and their computers, running stupid screen savers). They just didn't care.

[sealfin]

[...]that they don't carpool, that they each drive SUVs[...]

Related to this is my pet peeve at the moment here in the UK: whilst the government is talking about reducing pollution, they are making no incentives (unless I blink and missed those incentives; even biofuel(?) is apparently priced the same as diesel...) for the everyman or for business to make any changes - and the everyman and especially business will seemingly never make changes unless it is in their interest to do so...

Although what particularly pissed me off today was leaving a tube station to be confronted with a billboard for a car insurance company offering 2-for-1 insurance deals if your household has more than one car; if the government wanted to reduce car-related pollution, they might look into curtailing deals which encourage people away from somewhat cleaner alternatives like public transport...

[backslash]

Of course, if they really wanted to make us all use public transport they'd probably do something about the incompetent staff, unreliable service and 40 degree temperatures in the tube. I mean is a little ventilation really that much to ask?
:mad:

[Greywhind]

The problem as I see it cannot now be solved by simply reducing emissions. We are running out of oil, running out of ozone, and running into heat. I believe that the only way to really stop this mess and save everything is to fully switch from gas and burning fuel to some other source of energy. And I mean entirely. Within the next 10 years or so.

I realize that that seems impossible and I myself have doubts about our technological ability to FIND such a source of energy - but it has to be done.

Perhaps if we had looked ahead just 30 years ago and started the work then, we wouldn't have this problem.

But, wishing the past were different aside, something has to be done. NOW. First, we do need to try to reduce emissions to give ourselves longer to find a solution. Then, we have to ignore the stupid non-issues in politics like abortion and elect people who WILL DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM. There's no time for more mistakes or denial of the problem. It's there, and the next elections (in any country) need to prove to the government of that country that the people care about energy.

That's how I see it.

[Zwilnik]

It's also up to us to start doing as much as we can personally to reduce the damage we do. Governments take decades to swing around to doing what their voters want (except when it's in the interests of media tycoons or rich lobbyists) but people can decide to do things immediately.

Even if you're not making a world changing impact, at least you're not making it worse. It may also be that your effort influences somebody else to do the same, in which case you've done twice as much.

Personally, I've made it company and personal policy to reduce our energy usage wherever possible (including swapping 600W PSU PCs for 85-110W Mac minis running Windows) and making the company carbon neutral by paying for carbon offsets for the amount of carbon we generate each year. Our local council has a really good recycling system and we make sure we use it.

[igame3d]

We are running out of oil
There are over a trillion barrels of oil under the rocky mountain range,
it will be opened up for development in the coming year.

There are hundreds of thousands of square miles, if not millions, that could grow hemp for biofuel, but that plant has been
made illegal globally to ensure that the people who pump oil from the ground always have the cash and the power.

[Tools10]

If you don't mind me asking, what is everyone here doing about the pollution(possibly with Zwilnik as exception, sorry if I more or less stole your post)?
Do you sort your garbage?
Use collective transports?
Avoid using unnecessary amounts of electricity at home?
Try to enlighten your neighbours about what's happening to the world?

I can't say I'm actually doing something.
Sure, I use collective transports(mostly since I don't have a drivers license).
I sort some of the garbage's, use nature-friendly washing powders but I can't say I would go out of my way to save the world.

There isn't actually anything to discuss, we need to take care of the world better, but is anyone here actually doing it?
There is alternative electrical power(solar cells, different sorts of wind/water power, even nuclear power could be considered better) and there is alternatives to oil, however, if oil(or other dangerous energy sources) should ever be replaced there must be an awareness among the people and a wish for it to be so.
So, what's your part in all this?

[funkboy]

... and making the company carbon neutral by paying for carbon offsets for the amount of carbon we generate each year.
Could you explain what a carbon offset is, and what it actually does? I have never heard of it before... unless it just means planting trees.

In answer to Tools's post...
I use only LCDs (lower power consumption), and low power computers (Mac mini). My next car purchase will be a hybrid. I do not run air conditioning too much. I try to purchase energy star efficient appliances. I walk when I can, turn off the lights, and will be replacing my normal light bulbs with higher-efficiency ones soon. I will now bring my own bags shopping... in spite of the crazy looks people at the cash register give a guy when they bring their own bag. Seriously, I wish they'd give out so many shopping bags - how many shopping bags does a guy throw out in a year? It is absolutely ridiculous and a disgusting waste.

I reuse plastic bottles, and I recycle as often as I can. Recycling is really a crime here in the U.S. It is just very inconvenient in every place I've lived. How is it like where you live?

Do you know how much extra waste is going into garbage dumps from water bottles? It is enormous, a man I met from my state's Game and Fish department talked about a huge rise since water bottles like Dasani and Aquafina have become hugely popular. No more cans and they're generally easy (and cash-back) recycling.
But I try to reuse things as much as I can - I'm *really* trying to cut back on my use of plastic.

I can't say I'm doing great, but I'm trying, little by little, to do better.

[skrew]

In Australia its not too bad. I live in a house with my family, we have two recycle bins, one for paper and one for plastics and bottles. Both are adleast half full by the time the garbage men come. We have a worm farm for food scraps.

I don't have a drivers liscense and tram/train/bus everywhere since Melbourne has a pretty good public transport system. There are alot of energy saving intiatives going around at the moment, including bio fuel and recyclable shopping bags, which funnily enough have actually taken hold over here. Other than that, awareness is pretty high in high school over here, well private high school anyway.

I guess it will be people my ages mess to clean up in the next ten to twenty years. I have a pretty optimistic view, but if everyone just puts in a little bit it will all work out in the end, Or there will be a mass relocation to a distant planet called Earth Mark II :p

[igame3d]

Some interesting media to check out
Who Killed the Electric Car (http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/?detectflash=false)

The Future of Food (http://www.thefutureoffood.com/) used to be available online, don't know what happened to that.

Toxic Textiles-Pesticides drench most cotton products, including many we eat. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2815740106040065056&q=toxic+pesticides)

Trailer for The Corporation (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2574551386504171943&q=The+corporation) See the movie its mind blowing.
The Official Website (http://www.thecorporation.com/)
When the film gets to the part about pollution and how its sold and traded like gold but at the megaton levels, you'll probably want to have a bin handy for vomitting.

If you aren't depressed enough read Savage Inequalities Life on the Mississippi: East St. Louis, Illinois (http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Third_World_US/SI_Kozol_StLouis.html). When you are done, whip out google's map and just imagine all the East St. Louis' dotting the country, the continent, the world.

Maybe we need a super hero to save us all,
someone like Melvin from New Jersey
http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/t/toxaven.jpg

[BeyondCloister]

if the government wanted to reduce car-related pollution, they might look into curtailing deals which encourage people away from somewhat cleaner alternatives like public transport...

Fine in London where there is actually a public transport system that does not run at reduced services from 5.30pm or stop at 11.30pm.

Try living and working in parts of the UK where there is no such public transport system and people in the same home work 20 miles apart in different directions.

[Zwilnik]

Could you explain what a carbon offset is, and what it actually does? I have never heard of it before... unless it just means planting trees.



Planting trees is one form of carbon offset, although the company we do our carbon offsets through mostly does energy saving investments. So our 'guilt' money is currently funding energy saving projects in 3rd world countries and places like Russia by funding things that the locals can't afford to buy initially, but would massibly reduce their energy use and costs (one example is buying and fitting low energy lightbulbs in Russian schools, which reduces their power requirements and lowers the cost of running the school). The energy and CO2 saved in these sort of projects offsets the CO2 we're still emmiting.

We're using a company called Climate Care at www.climatecare.org but there are several others now.

One nice thing about the typical business model of a small games dev is that we all tend to work from home. Cutting out a daily commute slashes your energy usage, whatever car you have.

[igame3d]

Trees do not absorb most of the carbon dioxide from the air.

Its the oceans that do it, and the green life inside those oceans that covers over 70% of the planet. The oceans have absorbed so much carbon dioxide that they are turning into soda water, losing salinity and becoming acidic. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3136266.stm)

Trees and Green Algae also produce their own gases which contribute to climate problems.

[Zwilnik]

Trees do not absorb most of the carbon dioxide from the air.



This is true (although they do help). One of the reasons we went for a carbon offset company that didn't do tree planting was because trees also tend to get cut down, fall down or just generally catch fire so they're really more of a temporary carbon store.

[Duane]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok_420ky_4curves_insolation.jpg
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml

[igame3d]

Link 1) Climate/Chemical cycles for 400,000 years.

Apparently our most ancient ancestors began to thrive 60,000 years ago.

According to one estimate It took about 10,000 years before a pyramid was built, but the common belief is it took 30,000 years for those structures to pop up.

Either way that is the PEAK of the cooling/low chem period, for instance the last glaciation began 70,000 years ago and ended only 10,000 years ago. We are now living in the approaching peaks of the warming cycle .

What I'm getting at is that we have no record of mankind surviving these
conditions. Ice core data will not tell us how many species went
extinct 150,000 years ago from the climate change. If coast lines
get washed away in violent storms and rising tides, you don't get fossils
or any other evidence except maybe a 7,500 year old sunken city (http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/phikent/japan/japan.html) or two (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1768109.stm).

If we take the 7,500 year geuss-timates of archeologists, and compare it to the 10,000 year end of glaciation, and match it up with the provided chart, what do we find at around 7,500 years ago? Thats right the beginning of a steep
warming/co2 cycle.

Looking for things that did die approx. 150,000 years ago I find: Mitochondrial eve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve) How interesting.

Now according to the graph we are in a peak phase, lucky us.
How long does the peak last? And from the evidence we can
expect the next 100,000 years or so to cool off, if mankind
had not screwed up his world.

For instance Ice cores, can't tell you about smog stuck over a city for five days, news reports from just a few years ago can: 300 dead in Chicago, thousands
dead in Europe. Ice storms also don't tell us about storms all over the rest of the big globe, for instance 3,000 dead from Hurricane Katrina.

You can't look at only a single source of data and make any kind of prediction or absolute observation.

As for the second link, its from an "opinions" page.
What good is that unless its your own opinion, or that of group of independent scientists who are not being paid off by
a government or corporation to change the data. What do we know about the author? Well I'll tell you, a little research and you will
find Bob Carter's analysis of climate to be directly shot full of holes like American Cheese wrapped around a grenade.
Perhaps that is why his writing is on the opinions page and not in a scientific journal.
Anyone with a word processor can get on the opinions page.