People are looking at ways to stop the ice-caps melting so the water level doesn’t rise (as you probably know!) but isn’t there a “shortcut” solution whereby we store water sealed in big containers in the desert so the level doesn’t rise, or get rid of it some other way (make a law that everyone in the world has to have an indoor swimming pool, or fire loads of space rockets filled with water into space or something)? Then we could have the nice weather, with no bad effects.
I’m going to go under the assumption that this is a serious question.
The rising water level from increased global warming is just one of the bad effects. But let’s look at your water idea:
If the global oceans have their water level rise by even 1 foot, it would take a phenomenal amount of energy and effort to try and “store” that water somewhere other than the ocean. If it was placed into swimming pools (remember, the ocean is salt water, so it would all need to be treated first), it would just evaporate and re-condense in the hotter environment, and end up back in to ocean. Building tanks to hold the water would be seriously impractical. And blasting it into space??? At the current $10,000 or so a pound it currently costs?
Some of the other bad effects of global warming are:
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Destruction of many key species necessary for higher animals to live, especially in the oceans.
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The hot regions of the earth would become even hotter, possibly leading to a massive societal upheaval as now habitable countries become deserts.
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A spread to previously cooler climes of disease-bearing insects, leading to epidemics of Dengue Fever, Malaria, Plague, etc.
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Failures of crops around the world, leading to potential famine and economic collapse.
and so forth.
First, to address the OP, Removing water from the oceans to maintain seal level is a rather hopeless task. Remember, the Earth’s surface is 70% water. If we removed enough sea water to lower the level 1 ft., we would have on hand enough water to cover the Earth’s land surface to a depth of 2’-4”. That’s a lot of swimming pools. I’ve heard a similar proposal; dredging the ocean floor, but again, where do you put the muck?
Since you brought up the subject, though, I have to point out that global warming caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect is a theory based on very shaky evidence. The only thing we know for sure is that atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen about 28% in the last 50 years, and now stands, on average, at 370 ppm.
Everything else you have heard is hype or conjecture.
We do not know if burning fossil fuels has contributed significantly to this increase.
We do not know if this increase is causing, or will cause, global warming.
We do not know if a warming would, on balance, be harmful or beneficial.
There are some observable data on the subject, to wit:
The average temperature of the Earth has not changed in 50 years.
The polar ice caps are not melting.
The sea level is not rising, in fact it may have fallen in the last 160 years.
Below are some links on the subject you may want to read, but, in short, your time will be better spent if you find something else to worry about.
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/ross1841.htm
http://www.vision.net.au/~daly/
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/ac200098.shtml
In my experience as an environmental engineer, there are no short-cut solutions to environmental problems. I think Anthracite addressed the OP well.
Or half-wit, anyway. (no offense, really!..I just couldn’t resist the joke.)
There are observable data to show the opposite too. I agree that Global Warming is not proven, but it’s not disproven either. I’ll leave the rest to Great Debates.
You bet yer ass it’s a hopeless task. Them damn seals breed like rabbits.
Phobos, I agree that this belongs in GD, but referring to the data in my above link, the NOAA satellites say the Earth has warmed 0.1[sup]o[/sup] C in the past 21.5 years. Of course this record is seriously skewed upward by the 1998-99 El Nino. If you factor that out, there’s actually been a cooling trend. The surface “record” shows a warming of about 0.3[sup]o[/sup] C in the first half of the twentieth century, followed by 30 years of stability, after which it starts to climb, for reasons that have nothing to do with actual global warming, as I’m sure you know. In short, I stand by my statement.
Re melting polar ice caps, I hope you aren’t thinking about the latest “the North Pole is flooded” scare so effectively ridiculed by Ms. Coulter. We had a mess of stories last winter about accelerated Antarctic glacial movement, but none of them showed any increase in total ice loss.
I hope your “experience as an environmental engineer” has taught you to look at all these claims skeptically, and to not base your actions on faulty information.
UncleBeer, Mea culpa. Don’cha just love spell checkers?
Everybody seems to think that the much-hyped global warming is a bad thing-I think it is probably mostly a good thing. For example:suppose the earth’s temperature is indeed rising-doesn’t this mean that Norther canada/Siberia might well become prime farming lands? Also, suppose the seas rise a bid-won’t there be MORE snaofall in the temperate regions?-skiing in Colorad is bound tpo get better! And-al lot is made of certain species dissapearing-well, how about the species that will be aaable to EXTEND their range? Example-when the Greenland sea warmed up in the late 1940’s a thriving fishing industry arose, as cos and other fish migrated into greenlandic waters.
Also, please be reminded-we are in an INTERGLACIAL period-most of where I live now was under 10,000 feet of ice 100,000 years ago.
Plus, the thought of palm trees in new England pleases me.
BTW, don’t take my post to mean that I believe global warming is actually occuring, or what the source of said warming is. Quite honestly, I’m in the “undecided as of yet” category on both issues. I was laying out some of the negatives of global warming should it occur.
FTR, “undecided as of yet” is a good position to take on these issues, as I can’t be flamed for being a “radical eco-terrorist Democrat alarmist extremist”, nor can I be flamed as a “baby-seal killing pollution-loving Republican death monger”. 
storing water at lower laditudes are not the answer - it will slow the rotation of the earth
the solution, very simple - launch a solar shade into orbit to reflect some of the sunlight headed to earth back into space
i thought the SDMB was a place where those of education and discernment and a modicum of intelligence gathered. ‘mea culpa,’ as TNTruth said. give me a little time to get my act together here, but i spent an entire year of high school debating global warming, and there are definitely a few things that we do know.
fossil fuels does in fact produce CO2 and SO2, which do in fact cause what’s popularly known as the ‘greenhouse effect,’ in other words a positive feedback in the warming cycle. the figures on how much atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen since industrialization set in are astronomical (as it were).
as far as the net effects of warming on earth, i have yet to see any mention of Anthracite’s very good points… Famine and Disease, which are nothing to be trifled with, and Biodiversity, which is crucial. Not only is warming bad for biodiversity, excess levels of CO2 itself are on face harmful to floral biodiversity. as far as the supposed beneficial climatic changes, that’s just bunk. palm trees in new england? you think you’ve seen a refugee ‘crisis’ in eastern europe, try turning the whole area into a desert. the fight for arable land becomes vicious as more and more population try to squeeze into less and less space. not to mention the rising water level further compounding problems with living space. not to mention that you’d be trading your palm trees in new england for the destruction of the US grain belt.
please give me a mo’ to go look at TNTruth’s sites and find some of my own, hopefully. while i do that, here’s something theoretical to chew on. if you accept the idea that there is some chance of ecological problems due to global warming, or fossil fuel emissions, occurring some time in the (near) future, wouldn’t it make some sense to address it now? because if it is true, and we are beginning a vicious cycle, aren’t we gonna feel awfully foolish in a few years when it’s too late to do anything about it.
and some general figures to keep y’all busy:
in the past 100 years…
the world’s population has quadrupled
the glocal economy expanded 14-fold
energy use increased 16 times
industrial output went up by a factor of 40
water use rose nine times
CO2 emissions went up 13 times
and humans in the 20th century used 10 times more energy than their forebears during the entire 1000 years before 1900.
it’s a serious question, but we don’t have the answer, yet. there is evidence on both sides and most people ‘in the know’ will admit that nothing is conclusive.
Should we just stop using fossil fuels and go back to a subsistance society?
even if global warming is real - I say go burn the stuff and burn more - expand our technolgy enough so we can leave this rock behind to burn up in it’s CO2 greenhouse.
even to the most brain-addled greenpeace eco-terrorist! NUCLEAR POWER!
We can powerour economy very nicely with uranium (if the anti-science crowd will let us). The consequences:
-OPEC is reduced to poverty! (great news)
-our electricity is cheap
-the by-products of nuclear fission can be used to heat water for laundries, factory processes, etc.
-we re-employ our excellent nuclear engineers
AND-we have 1000-year supply of uranium!
There is NO alternative, but the NUCLEAR one!
I once thought about this problem, and had the crazy idea of a bunch of giant pumps pumping water thru a series of pipelines to the coldest part of the antarctic/arctic where it could freeze again. Didn’t say it was a good idea. Said it was a CRAZY idea. I once started a thread asking why there wasn’t a “Manhatten Project” underway to make fusion feasible; after all, when I was in school it was always touted as a possible clean, long-lasting fossil fuel alternative.
White Lightning, (I like the moniker) Just a quick thought before I have to log off for a while:
You stated in your post, “If you accept the idea that there is some chance of ecological problems due to global warming, or fossil fuel emissions, occurring some time in the (near) future, wouldn’t it make some sense to address it now? because if it is true, and we are beginning a vicious cycle, aren’t we gonna feel awfully foolish in a few years when it’s too late to do anything about it.”
This is a pretty good description of the precautionary principle, but I have a couple of problems with the principle anyway. The first is that it’s based on the calculations insurance companies use to calculate the cost of any given disaster. They do quite well at it, enough to make a profit, but their figures are based on probability, not uncertainty.
There is a world of difference between the two.
My second problem is that according to the precautionary principle, the normally preferred course of action in a situation with uncertainty levels as high as this one is to wait and see. With time, and study the uncertainty level should drop. But in the case of global warming, we are told to change are ways now, or we MIGHT fry.
Can you tell me why that is?
Just curious. How big would this shade have to be? Where would it be parked? Assuming a very thin shade (to save weight) what’s to keep it from collapsing in space?
(I know the answer was a joke, but it would be fun to have a serious answer to it.)
> People are looking at ways to stop the ice-caps melting so the water level doesn’t rise
Why would it rise? The water would replace the ice. Nothing’s being added.
Rush Limbaugh made a similar claim. His analogy was that the ice caps melting is no big deal, because after all, when ice cubes melt in a glass, the water level doesn’t rise because the ice cubes were displacing water anyway. Of course, as we all know, Antarctica is most certainly not an ice cube. It’s a land mass covered with ice and snow. Care to guess what will happen if/when that ice melts?
[Just curious. How big would this shade have to be? Where would it be parked? Assuming a very thin shade (to save weight) what’s to keep it from collapsing in space?
]
- it would have to be calculated from the % of time it would deflect light that would normally hit earth and the % of actuall light blocked. - I would guess it would be an easy calc. but I’m not going to do it for nothin’
2 easy centrifical force, it’s been proposed for a solar sail. all you have to do is spin it enough so it keeps itself fully expanded.
missed the parking question
1a. it could be in any orbit and only reflect light when it is directly between earth and the sun, or where the SOHO is, at a stable orbit directly between earth and the sun and work all the time
If an iceberg melts, then the sea level will not rise, since the iceberg displaces exactly the same volume as the water would. But the trouble is that there is a lot of ice on land. When that ice melts, it runs into the sea, raising the sea level. We know for a fact that sea levels fluctuate. 20,000 years ago you could walk from Siberia to Alaska, or from Australia to New Guinea, since there were mile thick ice sheets covering Canada and Northern Europe. And at other times the current Antarctic and Greenlandic ice sheets were completely melted, and we had a shallow sea where the great plains are now.
TNTruth: We can measure that glaciers in Alaska and Canada are retreating. Now, I beleive that they have been retreating for the last 10,000 years, when the last glacial ended. We don’t know if the change is anthropogenic. But the fact is that it doesn’t matter if the change is anthropogenic or not. We know for a fact that the climate changes all the time…sometimes colder, sometimes warmer, sometimes drier. Even without humans it changes. So sorting out the signal from the noise is difficult and probably futile.
That doesn’t mean that the climate isn’t changing, it is changing and will continue to change whether we stop burning fossil fuels or not.
What the people who are concerned about global climate change have to realize is that we are not going to abandon industrial civilization. It won’t happen, not even if industrial civilization destroys the planet. What we should do is figure out a way to continue industrial civilization in a way that is not harmful. For instance, although CO2 is a major greenhouse gas, it is not the only one. CO2 would be very difficult to reduce, but we can much more easily reduce SO2, NOX, particulates, etc, with much less cost. And of course, greater efficiency is a win-win…we save money by not buying as much fossil fuel, and we emit less CO2.
The fact is that we know so little about the climate that we can’t predict what it will do. But there are many things we can do that would be good to do whether global warming is happening or not. How about we do those things first?