deGrasse Tyson & Nye on Climate Change

[Coach]

Jeezaloo. Is there still room on Mars 1?

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Better keep voting for the Conservatives because something or other, those other guys... they don't have our best interests at heart!

Originally Posted by rubecube

Come on, get it right. The other guys are in over their heads. They take their clothes off at charity events and smoke pot and stuff.

Don't forget, they are too sexy.

[Codes]

Originally Posted by photon

Oh and regarding science and the current government, was browsing this the other day.

http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/...al-indictment/

Along those lines, I heard through the rumor mill at the CFIA that the operating budget will be 65% of what it was last year, which was a bad year. Harper keeps pumping funds into the inspection side of things, which of course is important, but meanwhile the laboratory side of things (ie: diagnostics and research) are being decimated.

That has pretty huge ramifications on research (ie: there is literally no money). In my research lab, we're operating nearly exclusively off external grant money save the salaries of two PIs and one permanent technician. Everything else is grant based.

I know people like to make fun of government workers, but science (right now, anyway) is not like that at all. A lot of people are working a lot of extra hours for "the love of science".

[smoothpops]

the last episode of Cosmos was pretty great. it was all about climate change. I hope it reaches a lot of people.

[DiracSpike]

Not trying to be Incediary and please don't jump down my throat but can anyone recommend any good documentaries or articles that show a link between human derived ghg's and temperature? And I mean beyond just the fact that they've both been going up in the last few decades. Admittedly I haven't paid much attention to this issue or the science behind the acceptance of anthropogenic climate change and would like to get more educated. Working in oil and gas and reading the Calgary Herald opinion page doesn't really give one both sides of the issue.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Not trying to be Incediary and please don't jump down my throat but can anyone recommend any good documentaries or articles that show a link between human derived ghg's and temperature? And I mean beyond just the fact that they've both been going up in the last few decades. Admittedly I haven't paid much attention to this issue or the science behind the acceptance of anthropogenic climate change and would like to get more educated. Working in oil and gas and reading the Calgary Herald opinion page doesn't really give one both sides of the issue.

The last Cosmos episode was a quick and dirty summary of the science. Episode 12:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:...cetime_Odyssey

This site is good at debunking the most common denialist myths:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

http://www.realclimate.org/

I don't think there are really "both sides". The science is solid. Any dispute with the theory is not scientific, but economic or political.

This is the site of our local denialists. They write lots of letters to the Herald.

http://www.friendsofscience.org/

[photon]

Yeah the Skeptical Science one can be good because it often has a Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced tab for some of the issues that dig progressively deeper. They also tend have the most relevant science studies right there plus lots of references.

Also had these recommended to me:

https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Roy...nce-causes.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-expa...dp/067403189X/
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm#contents

[troutman]

Also, NASA:

http://climate.nasa.gov/

CO2 currently 399 parts per million.

http://www.ipcc.ch/

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) provides a clear and up to date view of the current state of scientific knowledge relevant to climate change.

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/219038.pdf

http://www.globalchange.gov/

http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/high...anging-climate

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/sci.../download.html

Summary of Key Points:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/pdf...sheet-2014.pdf

[SeeGeeWhy]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/246433...7644567497498/

[nik-]

Probably best to just not have children and prepare for our impending deaths.

I'm probably like 40% kidding with that statement.

[nik-]

Additionally, Canada, especially on the relatively seismically stable Canadian shield, should be leading in nuclear energy.

Can we look at Breeder reactors or IFRs?

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by nik-

Probably best to just not have children and prepare for our impending deaths.

I'm probably like 40% kidding with that statement.

A couple of years ago I was talking with a university environmental science professor who said he and his wife had decided not to have kids for that reason. I'm not nearly that pessimistic except when I read those letters to the Herald.

[troutman]

Congress Tells Scientists IPCC Climate Report "Not Science"

http://www.iflscience.com/environmen...rt-not-science

[DiracSpike]

Thanks for those links, that's quite the rabbit hole to go down and I'll have to tackle it sometime when I'm not at work. Climate is so ridiculously complicated it's pretty awesome how many different factors are at play that have different frequencies of effect.

[photon]

The details can get complicated, but I think in general the very basics of it are quite simple. We are an insulated ball in space after all so it boils down to how much energy do we get, how much gets reflected back into space, how much do we keep and how long do we keep it before it gets radiated back into space... And CO2 impacts how much we keep.

[Azure]

Wouldn't it work if there was a way to create plant growth in low moisture areas? I read the other day that rainfall in a drought stricken area of Australia resulted in a lot of C02 being absorbed by the eventual growth due to the rainfall.

There is some research being done about various water collection methods in dry areas throughout the world and using it to fuel growth of plants in the area.

[Dion]

Springs1

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Azure

Wouldn't it work if there was a way to create plant growth in low moisture areas? I read the other day that rainfall in a drought stricken area of Australia resulted in a lot of C02 being absorbed by the eventual growth due to the rainfall.

There is some research being done about various water collection methods in dry areas throughout the world and using it to fuel growth of plants in the area.

One of the episodes explained this really well. Basically you are right, as a plant or tree grows it takes CO2 from the air and uses the carbon to grow, and releases oxygen. However when a plant dies and decomposes, it releases the CO2 back into the air. Even if an animal eats the plant, the plant eventually turns back into CO2 as the animal burn the energy.

Where we get coal from is that when trees first evolved, it took millions of years for organisms to evolve that could break down the wood. So trees would die, fall, and eventually get buried. They would never get a chance to release their CO2 back into the atmosphere. Until now, when we humans dig it back up and proceed to burn it.

Same thing with oil and gas. They are all deposits of plants that never got a chance to release their CO2 back. Then we go and dig them up and start burning them.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by ken0042

One of the episodes explained this really well. Basically you are right, as a plant or tree grows it takes CO2 from the air and uses the carbon to grow, and releases oxygen. However when a plant dies and decomposes, it releases the CO2 back into the air. Even if an animal eats the plant, the plant eventually turns back into CO2 as the animal burn the energy.

Where we get coal from is that when trees first evolved, it took millions of years for organisms to evolve that could break down the wood. So trees would die, fall, and eventually get buried. They would never get a chance to release their CO2 back into the atmosphere. Until now, when we humans dig it back up and proceed to burn it.

Same thing with oil and gas. They are all deposits of plants that never got a chance to release their CO2 back. Then we go and dig them up and start burning them.

Ideally we could capture the carbon and sequester it as CaCO3.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by nik-

Additionally, Canada, especially on the relatively seismically stable Canadian shield, should be leading in nuclear energy.

Can we look at Breeder reactors or IFRs?

Is nuclear energy really a long term solution? The radioactive waste still gets stored on earth and it lasts thousands of years. I realize that the CO2 mass emissions far surpasses what the equivalent radioactive waste would be but annually storing tonnes of radioactive waste on the planet will one day likely result in severe consequences.