Stop abusing other posters.

- John Mayer

(If you don’t understand, find out who Ted Turner is.)

Captain Planet: “Protect the environment, or I’ll f*cking kill you!”

That always works.

Eh, what? (Does a quick Google. *Boggles*)

That is crazy! Every single Commercial Greenhouse CO2 Generator I looked at burns *fossil fuels* directly to make CO2 – and most are designed to minimize the heat output!

(Thinks a bit and calms down.)

I suppose that current (or at least, the last few decades…) market economics are such that this is the “least cost option” to get a higher CO2 content in the greenhouse. At the very *least* I would expect smart greenhouse operators that need local on-demand CO2 generation to install fossil-fuel powered *electrical power generators* that have their humid, CO2-laden exhaust streams properly routed and monitored. If you are going to burn the fuel just to get the CO2 out of it, you might as well get some *work* out of the fuel!

And, of course, stationary gensets are readily switchable to bio-fuels. Heck, a properly constructed “agrichar” biomass gasifier setup could run a genset quite nicely, and provide not only power, heat and CO2 to the greenhouse but a carbon-enriched soil additive that could be used to increase the viability of the soil. Look up “terra preta” for why adding agrichar is a good thing. Here is a decent article about agrichar and terra preta.

As for Ted Turner, well, I’ve not much to say there, other than I’d love to be rich enough to be considered “eccentric”.

Later,
-cajun

Turner seems like he’s got his head on pretty straight. Really damn zany, but basically a good-hearted guy?

At least if you take the interview without a lot of prior context…

Oh well, good thing the United States has spent more on its military then the rest of the world combined for quite some time. Just prep for the insanity and I’m sure you’ll have as good a shot as possible of prevailing.

I’m sure that fortress they call an embassy in Iraq wasn’t built with the idea of it being used as a foothold for possible resource “securing” in the future.

I’m sure the US plans to pay back its foreign debt…

But….everyone seems really bright when they’re sitting next to Charlie Rose.

http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2007/02/global-warming-truth-or-dare.html

i don’t know science or statistics, so i don’t know what to make of it.

Say what you will about the 21st century, it’s a great time for dystopian fiction.

From a purely objective viewpoint, ‘catastrophism’ is justified if one is indeed facing a catastrophic threat.

“If this kind of prevision had the minimum chance of being true most biotech companies, most agricultural lobbies, most governments would be just freaking out.”

Really? You take a good look at the morons running things lately? George Bush gets his climate advice from Michael Crichton. Another possibility is that our ruling elites know it’s going to be very bad but they think they can ride it out. They may also see the population crash that would naturally occur to be a good thing.

Hydraulic empire. What a post oil, climate stressed, water stressed world might look like.

The Possibility of Hope – Children of Men Extra – Sober yet hopeful analysis of our possible future. A bit more accurate than Ted Turner’s.

The most fundamental reality at the present time is that the human species has overshot the capacity of the planet to sustain it. Both in terms of human numbers and in terms of the impact of these human beings on the planet. This is a very challenging situation and the first challenge it poses is really understanding it and accepting it. Because unless we understand the extent to which we’ve already damaged the planet, the extent to which climate change is already irreversible, then whatever we do to cope with environmental issues will have no real long term effect.

Alarmism and denial are really two sides of the same coin aren’t they? That coin is fear, it’s currency is impotence.

@ #20 Jardine & #30 JTF: Damn you both for beating me to it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0324197/

“Soylent Green…Now With More Caucasians.”

I’d be cautious in abandoning centuries worth of unbiased data demonstrating a clear link between warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons/increased precipitation/greater crop production.

What may seam counter-intuitive is the relationship between CO2 and plants. By doubling the amount of a crop’s exposure to CO2 (from 350ppm to 700ppm), its production output increases between 30-40%. These findings are not the speculation of one individual, or even one study- over 1200 separate studies confirm this. (this is also why most commercial greenhouses have CO2 generators)

I’m not trying to be a fun-sponge, but we’ll be viewed as hyped-up alarmists unless we stick to science to demonstrate the facts about global warming. Ted Turner’s comments appear to be ill-informed speculations, and only make it more difficult to draw awareness to the real and substantiated concerns regarding climate change.

IPCC estimates so far have consistently low balled the problem, and had to be revised upwards, every year. For example ice cap melting is accelerating beyond all predictions due to self reinforcing phenomenom like the melting ice lubricates more ice shifting which causes more friction which melts more ice which reflects less light which melts more ice, etc.

The basic problem is that the individual events they can predict tend to create other cascade effects which are more difficult to predict. There’s a growing realization that it’s likely to be worse than we can accurately predict because what we know is probably the best case scenario.

So, TT is using a more aggressive prediction than can be made with certainty. But, he’s right in acknowledging the predictions so far have failed to understand cascade effects, and if there’s another revision or two upwards, as there already have been several, what he predicts is where we’ll be.

It’s worth considering: how much do we want to risk catastrophe? What’s the insurance policy against catastrophe worth? Maybe 1% GDP? Presently we’re not spending even close to that to hedge risk.

Global warming means higher highs, and lower lows, and less time in between.

But by all means, shoot every single messenger if it helps your bottom line.

I myself, would rather die than eat a person. Not because I feel noble, but people are full of disease. I would be too disgusted.

And Pipenta, that was a beautiful post.

Broken Head

I was just a broken head
I stole the world that others punctured
Now I stumble through the garbage
Slide and tumble, slide and stumble
Beak and claw, remorse reminder
Slide and tumble, slide and stumble
Back and forth and back to nothing
Keep them tidy, keep them humble.

Chop and change to cut the corners
Sharp as razors shiny razors
Stranded on a world that’s dying
Never moving, hardly trying.

I was just a broken head
I stole the world that others plundered
Now I stumble through the garbage
Slide and tumble, slide and stumble.

- Eno Mobius & Rodelius – After The Heat (1978)

You’re right. Even George Bush was able to string together semi-coherent sentences and mostly avoid staring blankly when being interviewed by Charlie.

Don’t worry about the disgust, I’ve never experienced it but I have it on good authority the hunger is worse. Remember it is easy to be brave at the beginning of anything. After you’ve been beaten down a while, things change.