Scientific American digs deep on climate change

August 28, 2006 10:33 AM

Anyone interested in climate changeor is still wondering about it's potential effects and possible solutions should check out this must-read Special Issue of Scientific American. Here is a freebie article they have posted online called A Climate Repair Manual.
posted by jacob hauser (11 comments total)

I second the FPP. The medley of articles was excellent.
posted by Farengast at 10:49 AM on August 28, 2006

I never made it past this part: But too much of a good thing--in particular, carbon dioxide from SUVs and local coal-fired utilities--is causing a steady uptick in the thermometer. SUV's are causing Global Warming? Huh. I see a lot of gas burnung cars on my freeways, not just SUVs either. Bullshit.
posted by hardshoes at 11:51 AM on August 28, 2006

Maybe not SUVs alone, but most probably all co2 emitting activities are more then likely to contribute to greenhouse effect ; which is a proved FACT but you may argue that on planetary scale the experiment 1. has marginal effects 2. the effects will be felt only in year 6969 so you don't give a flying fuck.

Consider that maybe the SUVs and human activity is NOT causing , or is not the primary cause of increasing levels of CO2 in atmosphere, another probable FACT. If that is true, then why bother ?

Why bother turning off the cars if we are going to die anyway ? Let's have a fest before it is all over ! This toga toga toga bullshit attitude is idiotic..why crash spectacularly if you can crash many more times if you save the goddamed planet ?

Yet if you don't have control, you can't save shit ! Maybe it's a good idea to figure out ways to reduce our emissions of co2 _without_ returning to middle ages..now that's a mission that makes a lot more sense to me then going back to the frigging moon collecting fuel for a fusion project that doesn't even work yet !

But I guess NASA friends would disagree with me or prioritize space research ; the problem is not, for me, prioritizing ..rather is measuring returns..a reduction of ozone hole dimension is "measurable" and its ratio of decay or rebuilt can be "measured" as well....it's a little more difficult to measure the effects of as mission on the moon or on mars and also who is going to benefit from it immediately and the potential fallbacks.
posted by elpapacito at 12:17 PM on August 28, 2006

SUV's are causing Global Warming?

A 4000 lb SUV moving a 170 lb person to his place of work is more overkill than using a 2000 lb sub compact car. They both pollute, one more than the other. We're not gonna stop polluting. That doesn't mean we're not obligated to pollute less.
posted by Bearman at 12:21 PM on August 28, 2006

Don't care because I'm too busy body-checking slow-mo performance artists into the varnish display at Home Depot.

Duh.
posted by mph at 12:34 PM on August 28, 2006

SUV's are causing Global Warming?

A 4000 lb SUV moving a 170 lb person to his place of work is more overkill than using a 2000 lb sub compact car. They both pollute, one more than the other.

And don't forget that they enjoy relaxed economy standards thanks to their classification as light trucks. So not only are they worse in general, they're permitted to be worse than they need to be, even though they aren't operated in a manner consistent with the intent of CAFE standards when they were first formulated.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists:

Today a car that gets approximately 27.5 mpg, like a Volkswagen New Beetle, will emit 54 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the burning of gasoline over its lifetime. An SUV that gets 14 mpg, like a Lincoln Navigator, will emit over 100 tons of CO2 over its lifetime.

posted by mph at 12:43 PM on August 28, 2006

Misused apostrophes make Mother Earth sad.
posted by thirteenkiller at 12:53 PM on August 28, 2006

"Don't care because I'm too busy body-checking slow-mo performance artists into the varnish display at Home Depot."

Hey, nobody can say I'm not doing my part to improve to world.
posted by keswick at 1:26 PM on August 28, 2006

keswick: --I'm also aware that human nature being what it is, we are not suddenly going to do a complete 180 and take steps to eliminate or even mitigate the effects of climate change.

Would it really be that hard? The EU countries appear to be on track to stabilize their CO2 emissions, using the same cap-and-trade system that the US used successfully to reduce its SO2 emissions. Gregg Easterbrook has an article in the latest Atlantic Monthly (subscribers only, unfortunately) arguing that the problem isn't really that hard
posted by russilwvong at 2:27 PM on August 28, 2006

More climate change discussion. Hooray! These always go well.

Just to throw some fuel on the fire: I quite enjoyed State of Fear, shitty science be damned! Michael Crichton writes a damn fine read-it-on-the-plane trashy novel.
posted by antifuse at 5:18 PM on August 28, 2006

probable FACT

probable facts are gonna destroy us.
posted by twistedonion at 1:13 AM on August 29, 2006