Phil74Camper wrote:Chris your 'ice on a spoon' analogy is like an ice cap sitting on land. It melts, and yes the water flows into the ocean and rasies the level. As it would with adding a melted ice cube from a spoon to water that is already in the glass. No argument - melting of land ice caps will raise the ocean.
BUT - the arctic ice cap is not on land, it floats on the top of the Arctic Ocean. If it was to melt, the total amount of water in the Arctic Ocean will not change, and neither will the level. Whether the floating ice is above or below the level of the water underneath doesn't matter. I vaguely remember this little science experiment from one of Julius Sumner-Miller's TV shows from years ago. "Will the water level rise in the glass rise when the ice melts? It didn't! Why is it so?"
If every human on earth was to die tomorrow, the Earth would quickly return to its pre-human state and within 1,000 years it would be difficult to tell we were ever here.
I dont think they are saying that its only the arctic ice that will melt though are they? I dont think there can be any argument that the planet isnt heating up. I want a reason why. Is the sun burning hotter? I want to know why I should just be prepared to sit back and watch our snow melt, the sea rise, the coral die, other plants and animal species die. I want an explanation. If we're such scientists then we cant just sit back and say "just because its always happened that way". "Why is it so?"
Solar and wind is definitely one of the answers. It works fine. It doesnt work so well at night, but then we dont use much after 7pm and the dinner is cooked. The coal isnt so bad if you just use it as one source of base load.
I have just built a fully insulated house, with eaves, solar hot water, rain water tank which supplies toilets and laundry, and still overflows into the street after 2 days of rain. I have only 2 small windows on the western side of the house. Lots of windows on the north south sides to allow flow through ventilation. There's an organic vege patch out the back. And I wouldnt even call myself an enviro nazi. I have my vices. All up it cost me about $5K. Thats nothing in the grand scheme of things. These should be compulsory for any new building.
If business were so frikken poor they shouldnt have air conditioning running in a shop thats open to the street all day. THey shouldnt have halogen lights burning throughout the shops, the office blocks which think they are doing a service by turning their lights off for one hour per year... thats just showing how much you are wasting every other hour of the year and how stupid and hypocritical the building managers are. My bosses put up black helium filled balloons everywhere for a week to show how much CO2 we were saving. Never mind that they were using the lifts every day day to replace them whihch would probably outstrip the few flouro lights that we swtiched off. Duh.
Any household air conditioner sold should come with a solar panel that can power it. Yes it wont work at night but its about carbon reduction, nobody is saying we are to acheive zero carbon emissions.
Cars under 1.6 litres should be tax/rego free. Employed people should get passes for public transport like schoolkids which are valid during peak periods. They should put security cameras at Oak Flats train station so that I can park my car there without it being broken into /attempted theft so that I can get back on the trains! They'd pay for themselves in a week fer christ sake! Or how about a direct bus service that doesnt go off and do a detour through every suburb it passes turning a 25 minute trip into an hour trip.
Maybe none of this will save the world but it would make the air cleaner and I wouldnt have to look at the dirty brown skidmark across the sky that bastard Sydneysiders send down to Wollongong.