In the four years since you made this video,has there been any significant data that would justify your making an update video on this topic? I would very much like to see what you have to say.
I'm on hiatus from YouTube. I can't say if I'll be able to return at some point down the road.
Since I made the video, more evidence of methane clathrate liberation in the arctic has been turned up, especially by Russian scientists. The heating trend is accelerating. Ocean levels are rising faster than scientists had predicted. A possible counter is the sun may be moving into a cool phase, which it does every few hundred years. But it's not a strong enough effect to counter human activity.
@Urgelt I have read some articles on this subject,however,I've not found anything recent. This is one of my favourite video due to the fact that it has caught my attention to the point of desiring action if not actual action itself. This is a topic I would like to become more knowledgeable.Than you for making this video.
Search engines are your friends (mine, too). I recommend going to Google News, then searching with these terms: "methane arctic," "rising sea level," "climate change," and "Maunder Minimum 2011."
You'll turn up interesting stuff.
And a few articles by climate change skeptics, who cherry-pick data to "prove" that humans cannot have an effect on the Earth's climate. I read those, too. But that debate doesn't exist within the scientific community, only outside of it.
Do you think we might run out of oil before that happens? If the earth runs out of oil dosn't that mean all production of combustion engines will stop, and we use oil to make almost everything! So wouldn't that be a just a big of threat to us?
Remember, it's not oil per se that we need for manufacturing purposes. It's hydrocarbons. The Earth is lousy with the stuff, the product of more than a billion years of life processes. Oil is just the most convenient form of it.
Coal reserves are massive. Methane exists in outrageous quantities.
This isn't to say that other hydrocarbon sources will be easy or cheap to convert to what we need. But running out won't be a problem.
Read the Hopi Prophecies this has all been but predicated ........ you are a very very wise man .... thanks for being you .....BTW posted this in my Playlists - Profound Thoughts of the Very Wise ... it is all all just the math ,,,it is not a bad thing it called evolution .....Time renews itself it is all in the math - Einstein knew this too but because he only believed in science missed the obvious much like Darwin - it is survival of the adaptable not the fit they were whitemen
global warming is not necessarily from man made pollutants, this could merely be another cycle that the Earth takes, millions of years ago the Earth went through an ice age and warmed up, perhaps the Earth is still just warming up until it naturally cools down again.
Nearly all of the "anti-global-warming" agitation is funded by the energy industries, which will reap significant profits if people disbelieve science.
Judging from hundreds of thousands of years of antarctic ice cores, the current rate of CO2 change (+2 ppm/yr) is without precedent, and just happens to coincide with 7 billion humans burning fossil fuels at also unprecedented rates.
Go read the NASA site, you'll learn a lot of stuff you don't know.
@Urgelt yes, everyone seems to think that global warming is caused from burning fossil fuels even some NASA scientists however there is a lot we still do not know about our Earth so we cannot rule out other possibilities for the reason and cause for global warming. we have no real evidence that CO2 is a cause of global warming people were only scared into believing this was the origin because of simulations and it is a fact that the Earth has been through warmer times for millions of years
It's not just "some scientists at NASA." It's nearly all of the peer-reviewed climatologists in the world. NASA merely summarizes their findings.
Yes, it's been hotter in the past than anything we're likely to see in the next century. What's unprecedented is the rate of change, which has been accelerating since the beginning of the industrial era and is still accelerating.
There have been mass extinctions in the past, too, but that doesn't mean it's fun to live through one.
My opinion: if Earth becomes so inhospitable to our survival that we must live in arcologies and use space suits to walk outside, I think our species will simply go extinct. Truth is, we don't know how to operate arcologies very well. The subtleties are endless and baffling.
At present, we can manage closed environments for months at a time, but the economics of it are horrible, and self-sufficiency (no outside help to keep it going) is way, way beyond our grasp.
I'm always expect you to cut a rowdy ol' fart right in the middle of one of your gravity induced pauses. That's a good thing, by the way. I really enjoy your voice and videos, thanks!
If you ignore atmospheric methane depletion and just consider its properties as a gas, you get a higher greenhouse gas multiplier.
However, in the real world, a surge of atmospheric methane produces a surge in atmospheric methane depletion. Over the course of years, net greenhouse effect isn't a single number, but varies along a curve driven by a whole lot of variables.
Forecasting net greenhouse effect of a sustained methane release is difficult, because there are so many unknowns.
Can you please make a video about "atheism", what you think about it, and you being an athiest or not?...I'm an athiest myself so I believe there is NO "god". I'm interested in your thoughts about it.
the only "bad" thing that will happen because of climate change is humans will shink in population and reptiles will become the dominant species again dont kid yourself that human beings are the end of evolution. The earth has seen 99.9999% of life die. its normal!
Extinction is the rule, that much is so. It is rather unlikely - to put it mildly - our species will remain as it is until the Earth is consumed by the Sun's red giant phase, some billions of years hence.
What is unique about this broad extinction event is that a single species is causing it. That's a new thing.
And we are putting ourselves at risk, too. We may become our own doom.
How you feel about that depends on the strength of your empathy. If you care naught for others, if self-advantage is all that matters to you, if the suffering and deaths of our children concerns you not at all, then you will see no point in worrying about it.
It is a sad thing to observe that many, many humans have little to no empathy, and would not cross the street to rescue a dying child, let alone alter their personal habits to achieve the same end.
But other humans do have that store of empathy within them, and do feel concerned, and would like to secure a safer future for our own species, and for others as well.
Thus we find ourselves disagreeing on how to respond to the knowledge we have acquired about climate change.
Will we act? Or will we pursue self-advantage and ignore the consequences to our descendants? What future will our species create for itself, given the qualities of its members?
yes start with car drivers tell them to use electricity instead of the combustion engine oil - gas i think oil is the problem and unless star trek time machine does something were doomed
My thoughts on this subject aren't as important as those of climatologists. Go to NASA's site and spend some time reading through the articles on global warming. Look at the data they've collected on CO2 and temperatures.
Another good site to explore is Woods Hole.
The funny thing is, in past warming episodes in the geological record, warming *did* precede CO2 build-up. Not this time; the data is the other way around. That's one way we know what is happening is something new.
You seem to be assuming that increased temperature follows increased CO2 levels, but how can you prove that its not the other way around? Perhaps increased CO2 levels are the result of increased temperature, not the cause.
Global warming is definitely a reality, but I'm not so sure of CO2's role in climate change.
lets jus but the earth in a big ole plastic bubble..granted i know that would do nothing and block the suns heat and that wont be good but hey its an idea lol
No material known to us has the structural strength to build on such a large scale, or to withstand the stresses involved.
There is some talk of injecting this or that substance into the stratosphere to reduce sunlight reaching the Earth. That's more feasible... but the untended consequences might be very large.
hi terence long time no talk,have you ever read the book Polar Shift by the author Clive Cussler it`s well written and very well researched if that ever happens soon it would be an extinction event ,maybe this is what killed of the dinosaurs apparently NUMA has investegatsd these events and worked up a model of life expectancy if this ever happens as it has done in the past ,this i would say poses a much greater threat than any comet
No comet is going to hit us in 20 years or so, unless it's one we haven't yet detected.
There are, however, some near-Earth objects that might. These aren't comets, but rocky debris ranging in size from a grain of dust to several kilometers across.
Apophis is one of them - a large rock which will come close to the Earth in 2036. It's more than two hundred yards across, big enough to devastate a region. NASA gives the rock a chance of 3 in 1,000,000 of hitting us.
ah puuhh thx urgelt ^^ but if buy cahance that comet does hit us , do you think we have the technoligie to shoot it away or somthing ^^ sorry dumb question =)
The long answer is, scientists and engineers have been kicking this around a long time and have proposed some design approaches to the problem. The chance any of them might work has to do with how far in advance we learn of the danger. If we have several decades to work with, an awfully small nudge could do the trick.
Not that it would be easy.
The problem is we don't have good orbital data on most Near-Earth objects. So warning of a hit could very well be short.
Incidentally, Congress tasked NASA a few years ago to develop solid orbital data on most of the near-Earth objects that might threaten us.
Congress pretty much left the effort unfunded, though. NASA has made some progress anyway, but they're a long, long way from nailing all the large NEO orbits down.
99942 Apophis was discovered only when it had come quite close to the Earth in 2004. If it had been aimed at us then, there would have been no time to do anything useful.
In the long run, a direct strike by Apophis (and other NEOs) is nearly a certainty. But certainties like that tend to play out on geological time scales. The odds in any given century of a big strike are remarkably low.
It's pretty safe to predict that you'll die of some other cause.
But that will be cold comfort if a large NEO does hit, and it's by no means impossible that one might. I'm glad NASA is working to nail down their orbital mechanics.
not denying that pollution etc. is causing a grave danger, but...what if the warming of certain region is caused by earth's (or all planets and moons) rotation and axis changing?
Or perhaps continental drift? Solar cycles? Fluctuations in cosmic rays from outer space? Lots of variables exist which play into climate. The question is, how significant are they?
Science has found that they aren't significant at all.
There are crackpots and shills for special interests who used to deny global warming existed, and now claim it's due to something besides human activity. Their arguments change all the time, and have no science behind them.
thanks. i'm going to subscribe to your channel. you seem to make some very insightful commentary and analytical statements regarding important issues and i hope you continue making vlogs and such.
This channel is inactive for now, I'm afraid. I still read comments and answer mail here. I can't predict when, or if, I'll return to making videos.
Incidentally, the Earth's rotation is slowing. But the rate of change is slow. Think geological time, not decades or hundreds of years.
Precession of the axis proceeds more rapidly. The direction the axis points describes a circle once every 25,800 years. Precession affects climate, but it isn't responsible for rapid climate change.
You seem like a very smart man and keep on doing your videos everyone of them is great and with every video my opinion changes on you ( everytime incresing intelagance ) thanks , David
Ireland receives much of its characteristic climate from the Gulf Stream, which is a a warming influence.
Most climatologists expect the Gulf Stream to be weakened in the near term - the next century or so - as global warming progresses. It may even stop circulating tropical waters north for a time.
A cooler Ireland fits into their predictions. But a single record-breaking season isn't enough data to prove the point either way.
I used to play that song, and I haven't heard it since I played it, thousands of years ago.
Might you kindly point me to research relating to human arrival in North America that you mentioned in a response here? I've always been curious about migration to this continent but have never found much about it.. and the idea of a large extinction in the past, let alone an event resulting from American settlement, is itself extremely fascinating.
Thanks for your genuine and thoughtful commentary.
Read the Wikipedia article on the Quaternary Extinction Event.
Of particular interest is the rapid rate of large mammal extinctions which closely followed the arrival of the first human settlers on the North American continent, about 11,500 years ago. In a mere 1500 years, many species which were probably under pressure anyway from climate change (retreat of the ice age) succumbed to human predation.
To live. That civilizaton will fall, and re emerge again, thousands of times over, proving ouselves a thosand times over. and after all those years of lessobns, when we have learned everything there is to learn, build evgerything there is to build, we will discover what the meaning of life is, how valuable it is, and how privilged we are ot have it. and when the skies and the universe have no life anymore, we will go along kindfully, and lay to rest our legacy. That is where life ennds.
Humankind, as far as weve come, from cave drawings, to steam mills, to flying sky beasts that were impossible to imagine 100 years ago. Yet, weve done it, weve survived thousands upon millions of years. we were certainly one of the most brilliant species to have lived, but everything, inevitbly,must end. but when one thing ends, something better is created. Humankind is ignorant on a fact until we are hit by the hard effects. we will ignore pollution until it kills most of us. Then we will see.
Actually, there is quite a lot of evidence that the arrival of humans in North America precipitated a pretty big extinction event. Not as large as the event we're going through now, but a significant one nonetheless.
Native Americans have a mixed track record, both ethically and with respect to the environment. Pretty much like all humans, if you think about it. But it's true they didn't have much of an impact on atmospheric CO2.
There, you've made the point. People think they're so smart. That is probably the main problem. When someone thinks they're smart, you can never prove them otherwise.. Thus, they will live in their blindness, their whole lives..
Scientists *have* told governments to stop. That's the essence of the IPCC reports. We have to chart a new way forward; the old energy economy has produced a serious threat in the form of global warming.
Our government is dominated by corporate interests; there is no denying that. But that's only true because the citizenry permits it.
I think perhaps the time has come to stop permitting it.
Well if temperature rises, then so will rise the amount of water that vaporizes.
Those clouds will likely absorb most of the sun light.
The atmosphere will get very unstable, due to the large amount of energy the atmosphere absorbs.
And there likely will occur large storms of great scale on regular basis.
The clouds probably wont make things colder, since the clouds absorb the energy keeping the warmth in like a blanket, and keep absorbing it from the sun.
You're right, water vapor has a net greenhouse effect, and it will increase as the Earth warms.
I think this may be the first real test of our species since we emerged from the hominid line. If individual selfishness trumps common interest, it will put us into the grave.
But perhaps we will pass this test. I hope we will.
Either way, the test will answer fundamental questions about who we are and what we wish to become.
That is a question answered by each generation in its turn. Existence is not free; it must be won, and won again.
A single generation, failing that struggle, marks the end of a species.
Laissez faire selfishness worked for earlier generations, but it has brought us to this crisis. We must adapt to new circumstances, or we will become just another layer in the geological strata with all the other extinct species.
Indeed, generations have proven that by surviving.
I was speaking on individual level aswell.
True enough, if we do not unite, we likely will kill ourselves off. (if not with global warming, there probably are hundreds or thousands of other ways to accomplish that.)
Despite knowing that i still likely wont make a effort for the greater cause.
If I attempt to preserve nature, it will be because i enjoy nature.
(Not that i hate humankind, but i dont like it either.)
nature takes care of herself. Not saying that is good for humans but it is true. ANd how exactly do we know so much about the levels of certain gases in the atmosphere during times in the past when we didn't have the measuring devices then? Methane is nature and if it kills us all then fuck it. It happened to Mars. The universe will continue. It doesnt need us.
Antarctic ice contains very tiny samples of air when it forms, and gives accurate results going back for more than 400,000 years. Going back millions of years is harder, but it can be done with (with larger uncertainty) using sedimentary cores.
Earth will indeed go on. My concern is for us. Though our origins are animal, I think we are gradually, haltingly, becoming something else. Something new. I'd like for us to have the chance to discover what it is.
Well like the saying goes, "If you want to hear god laugh, tell him your plans." haha. I hope we get to become whatever it is we are becoming before we melt away or freeze to death or are harvested by aliens from the Sirius Star System lol. If they need Ice for the polar caps or whatever they can get it from here. It was snowing today and its almost May. Have a good one folks, I will be in a corner somewhere going through my 2012 consciousness shift ;-)
Yes, the data shows global warming. Global warming happens and always has and will happen. But is it human influenced? No-one actually can say for sure yet, temperatures are rising but it's still not clear whether it'll rise in a catastrophic fashion thanks to human involvement. This is what I have learnt, anyway. Whether I'm right or wrong, DO NOT trust the media on this at all.......... do not....
I rely mostly on credible scientific sources, not the media.
But you are not correct when you say "no-one actually can say for sure yet... " Scientists have a completely persuasive case that humans are causing climate change.
But we have two problems: 1) many of us lack the education to comprehend the case (it's very technical), and 2) there are special interests who want us not to believe the case, and are propagandizing like mad to protect their interests.
As for catastrophe: if global warming continues long enough, it will be catastrophic. Truth. There are questions about the details: how bad, when. But it's a sure thing that catastrophe is headed our way unless we change course.
Dearest Urgelt... I have had your video 'What Is Dance to Me?' on my favourite list for at least 2 years, I have shown it to many of my friends, who have all been moved by your lovely voice and your deeply human words.... You are a light in a dark world... Thank you :-)
In order for Earth to become another Venus, the oceans would have to boil into the atmosphere.
Could that happen? Probably not.
If the clathrates cut loose, it's going to cause very rapid climate change. Some areas on the Earth may become uninhabitable. Extinctions, maybe including us... it's a very bad scenario.
But if atmospheric methane jumps, biological processes will start to remove it. It'll take thousands of years, probably. But I don't think the oceans will boil away.
In context to your video info. the new york times also stated that studies of chlorinated water would be crystal clear water fresher than from springs to every household. So take what they print with a grain of salt.
Oh, indeed. The NYT can be wrong. The mere fact that an idea appears in its pages does not guarantee its truth.
I pointed to this article because it offers a reasonably clear explanation of the idea that ethanol as a transportation fuel consumes more petroleum than it replaces. The NYT is by no means the only source for this idea.
great video.let me tell you in a few words what i think.i am afraid that in 10 years the most we are gonna have ww3.there is not enough food for 6 billion people.not enough water.i know this might sound extreme but is the salution that earth needs without atomic bombs though.lol.just a stupid comment.ignore it if you have something bad to say about it.
Let's face facts. Human political systems tend to embrace war.
So long as the population rises amid constrained or declining resources, the likelihood of our political systems indulging in another world war will rise, too.
I think avoiding it is possible, but not at all easy.
Lots of things can help - controlling our population, switching to cleaner energy generation methods, electrifying transportation, lowering our thermostats, growing our own food, eating less meat, inflating our tires... the list is practically endless. There's no shortage of things to try. The only questions are whether we'll bother... and what our children's fate will be if we don't.
Its great to see that more and more people care about earth. We need to wake up...otherwise our children will have to live on another planet some day!
Lots of people are thinking about global terraforming.
It may come to that. But we've got to be careful. Anything we do to the ecosphere will carry risks of bad outcomes, some of which we may not see coming.
The Times article gave comments condemning cutting down rain forest in Brazil to grow soybeans and supporting growing sugar cane for biofuel. I am now upset/pleased with Brazil. They are certainly doing the wrong/right thing.
Ambiguity is fueling the indifference about this debate. Will that continue?
There are now an estimated 33,000,000 with AIDS. We've only known this disease for over 20 years. If people would rather die than use self-preservation, what chance for Global Warming?
Much of the ambiguity arises from special interests. The auto industry wants internal combustion engines to be in the mix, so ethanol makes sense to them. Agriculture likes it, too. Traders and financial firms love carbon credit trading. Even coal companies are getting into the act with "clean coal."
These special interests have money to pay for air time, column space, and fake science. There will always be disinformation floating around to confuse people, because confusion enables profit.
Answering your second point: people don't prefer to die. But many are indifferent if someone else is doing the dying.
With global warming, death will be visited most heavily, at the start, on the poorest nations. I doubt the death rate in Bangladesh matters very much to the boardrooms at large corporations.
It should matter, though, because our entire civilization could unravel. The poorer nations will only be the start.
most greenhouse gases come from volcanoes and algae in the ocean, humans contribute very little to greenhouse gases. the earth will warm then cool agian, global warming is just a anti-capitalism and democracy movement
there are conflicting scientific views as to how much clathrate melting rates will be affected by current warming trends. but if there's any consensus in the energy industry, it's that extracting methane clathrates is certainly the last resort and may be decades away. the scientfic research involved in clathrate extraction is progressing too slowly.
Entirely correct. How much warming is needed to set off clathrate deposits and trigger a climate phase change is not known.
That doesn't mean it isn't worrying to climatologists. It is.
Extraction isn't a solution to the danger posed by warming clathrate deposits, for many reasons. Economic viability is missing, for starters. Even if it becomes economically viable, it would probably take a century or more of sustained industrial effort to tap more than a small fraction of them.
If we do not switch soon to non-CO2-emitting energy sources, it won't matter how long our natural gas lasts. Our civilization will fall, and our continued survival as a species will be in doubt.
If we do switch, there will be plenty of natural gas for our other needs. It's also feasible to manufacture it or mine methane hydrate deposits.
In other words, there's enough natural gas available to see us through to a bright future - or to see us to our extinction.
Nice to see a video on the topic of global warming that actually bothers researching facts and doing some real thinking instead of just sounding a trumpet for either side mindlessly.
I've heard some very sinister things about scientific funding only being allocated to groups whose findings tow the government's line on global warming though - at least here in the UK. Don't know how much truth there is in it but that could severely impact our ability to find the correct solution to the problem.
Governments do sometimes interfere with objective science. President Bush certainly has done so in my country.
For the most part, peer review keeps biased science out of the reputable science journals. People like Bush who champion fake science can be challenged from these bastions of objectivity, and made to look like idiots.
All bets are off if the Rupert Murdochs of the world start buying up science journals. Science needs unbiased gatekeepers; it would be very ugly without them.
Most definately. From what I understand of the peer review system, it isn't perfect, but it's certainly a lot better than having a single appointed body for the same purpose.
Here in the UK, our government is chapioning environmentalism... supposedly. The only real action they've taken on it so far though is deterrent taxes, and from what I've heard they're not even pumping the money into alternative energy research. That doesn't seem much like tackling the problem if you ask me.
Everyone's waste and abuse is someone else's paycheck. Every interest is a special interest. The point here I think is that we as people all are happy to hear what we want to hear. When we are told we have a simple answer to a complex issue that requires no change in our personal lives we seldom dig too deaply for fear of what we may find. Who will go for a second opinion when the doctor tells you what you want to hear? Anyone who thought about it would know alcohol as a fuel is not the answer.
But corporate executives (and by extension, their lobbyists) aren't ordinary people thinking wishfully. They're experts. They know the energy costs for ethanol because they're making ethanol. They know the impact on food prices because they're selling food.
It's perfectly fine with them if you want solve global warming - just do it somewhere else. Make giant space mirrors or something. But don't mess with their interests.
It's a moral deficiency, not a matter of intelligence.
Pork? ya, and a lot of wishful thinking. It would be nice if it did work, in every other respect ethanol is the near perfect fuel. But this all has to be made from some kind of carobhydrate. Even in the 70's and 80's when Brazil was running their cars on it they where making it from sugar cane. Cane farmed in what once was rain forest. It propped up sugar prices and worked but at what cost? How many Trees? This I fear is more then pork it is pure stupid
As per: "The New York Times reports that ethanol production is actually worse than gasoline for its impact on greenhouse gases, here" Am I the only person that saw this coming? way back in 1975 the FIRST time this idea came up I pointed out how stupid this was. When it takes X2 energy in oil to produce X energy in alcohol what kind of math do you need? When you burn food what happends to the price? When price goes up will we not cut down trees to grow crops? Do ypu have to be a palm reader?
I'm afraid you're right, Sam, and you saw it long before I did. Or the New York Times, for that matter. Ethanol is pure pork, not a solution.
When we let special interests dictate our energy policies, it should be no surprise that the only ones who benefit are those selfsame special interests.
But isn't this happening natural? millions of years ago where dinosaurs lived the climate of the earth changed as well. just like the electromagnetic field of the earth itself. it is a living planet at least. Live means change, doesn't it? Islands disappear but then other ones appear
The answer is, yes, change is the one constant in Earth's history. It's never been static.
The rate of change is the problem. Atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures have never changed this rapidly before, so far as the geological record can show.
Fast changes produce mass extinctions, and that's our big concern. If a large chunk of the biosphere dies off, humans - who perch at the top of the food chain - might be at risk of extinction, too.
The leading theory to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs involves a very large oceanic meteorite strike. It happened 62 million years ago.
Now that's some seriously rapid climate change.
One thing to keep in mind is that scientists don't think global warming will occur on a perfectly steady track. Geological evidence is strong that climate can go through extremely rapid phase changes - and we may see such a phase change, if methane clathrate deposits let loose. Things could get ugly.
Energy is the key, I think. If we have abundant energy, it will take a lot of pressure out of the situation, and we will have options. Desalinization, for example.
But we'd better get that energy from non-CO2-emitting sources, or things will just keep getting worse.
The film 'The day after tomorrow' to my mind said a lot about the future one day but I am no scientist
I simply commented as my dear friend whom I know in South Island said they are paying huge gas prices there too and she said hopefully it would stop as they have found coal.
I just worry about things like the aged, the animals and the environment as many others do - thanks for your answer -take care then
Sometimes the obvious needs stating, and restating so people actually get it, right? Let's just hope we can reverse the damage we've done so far eh, I like to think that I'm helping out in this by buying a diesel car to run on vegetable oil, but I still have my old gas guzzler I can't bear to get rid of...
The destination is to end all burning of fuels for energy and transportation.
I think the future of transportation is all-electric. The shortcomings of electric propulsion we are familiar with today will be overcome with better designs and lower prices. Not quickly, but it will happen.
hmmm, i see you've taken quite an interest into this case, well this is quite a popular topic to talk about however there are many unanswered questions still to answer. The majority of our youth don't give a s**t about our descendants but if you think about it we don't either. I bet you leave quite a few of your appliances on stand-by. We think we have a great knowledge but all of us are the same level.
All it takes is to have a little bit of faith, im not religious, but hey. 5 star
It's going to be a big challenge to get off of burning fuels.
It was a big challenge to go to the Moon in 1969, too.
In both cases, the challenges arrived at a time when technology was *just* reaching the point where they were doable. Not just feasible, but within reach of our economic means, too.
I'll be an early adopter of one "green" technology this year, if all goes well. That's one thing consumers can do: help jump-start the alternative energy market with their purchases.
It's not only sad to see our earth, our home, being destroyed, but see people having become so materealists that they just simply choose to lay back and let the problem "roll" as they say. Its truly sad. I get the fact that people have to do something fr ther plnet, but sad as it is, people need a leader, somebody to show them, because as I said, they have just become so completely dependant on the "commercial" way of life.
Well, Earth is not being destroyed. It'll be around for several billion more years.
The only question is what will happen to its cargo of life.
The "commercial way of life" is indeed part of the problem. But I think we must look to it as a source for solutions, too. Our population simply cannot be sustained by pre-industrial methods. I think we must guide it in the right direction, but we can't afford to trash it.
There's a pretty good chance that medical science is not very far from extending life. Aging is just a genetic degenerative disease, after all. If it can be understood, it can be treated.
Either: o Life extension will be reserved for elites, or o We will impose unprecedented limits on breeding, or o The population will rapidly expand to the point of ecosystem collapse and a die-back, possibly outright extinction.
So the newest product on the market will be targeting our basic instinct, our survival? Oh, its brilliant, whether we strive for eternal life, or we're afraid to face death. It seems like medicine nowadays is more harmful than beneficial.
Oh, life extension is beneficial, to be sure. For the individual.
We're going to have to wrestle with an unpleasant fact. What is good for the individual is not always good for the group.
An individual desires reproductive freedom and life extension both, naturally. If he and everyone else gets what they want, we get a die-back. Not right away, but it won't take all that long once life-extension is widely available.
It's not here yet, though. We have time to consider our options.
Blind-faith Religion does not help understanding of this serious concern! Like most, I have no quarrel with decent moderate secular christians, muslims, buddhists etc. However, what we believe whether we acknowledge it or not can effect society in a negative or positive way. So, if your religious belief won't fit freely into an informed secular democratic society, then your non-secular blind faith, is un-democratic, non-secular, seriously deluded and a threat to all Humanity!
Some scientists are now saying that geoengineering may become necessary. Vast projects are being discussed, such as injecting a million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere annually to increase the Earth's albedo.
Unintended consequences are likely, but it may become necessary to try such things.
The common thread linking the NASA photos is this: there is a glacier in each one, somewhere. Some are obvious, others less so.
Glaciers are retreating all around the world, at a rate unprecedented in historical times. I think it's fair to say that even if we take aggressive action to curb our greenhouse gas emissions, it's too late for most of them.
The question that proponents of catastrophic global warming have never answered to me is, that during many points in earths billions of years the CO2 levels were up to 30 times as high as they are now. During the Cretaceous the CO2 levels were six times what they are today and the temperature was on average about four degrees warmer, the land was covered mostly by tropics and life thrived. Why is this CO2 different from the CO2 in epoch's past?
A scientist might give a more complex answer, but mine is this. What is different is the rate of change - mere centuries instead of millions of years.
There is nothing in the geologic record that mirrors what is happening now. Nothing.
Rapid climate change could trigger a massive extinction event, and that's what has scientists worried.
A rapid warming trend will reshape continental coastlines dramatically in mere centuries, or even decades. People who are trying to live on the land that gets reshaped will migrate or die; migrations impact everyone else. Rapid change could also mess up our food production and have other grave economic and environmental consequences, not all of them foreseeable.
If we let it get out of hand, it's conceivable we may go through a major population die-back, and that would not be at all fun.
In the four years since you made this video,has there been any significant data that would justify your making an update video on this topic? I would very much like to see what you have to say.
richardmann184 6 months ago
I'm on hiatus from YouTube. I can't say if I'll be able to return at some point down the road.
Since I made the video, more evidence of methane clathrate liberation in the arctic has been turned up, especially by Russian scientists. The heating trend is accelerating. Ocean levels are rising faster than scientists had predicted. A possible counter is the sun may be moving into a cool phase, which it does every few hundred years. But it's not a strong enough effect to counter human activity.
Urgelt 6 months ago
@Urgelt I have read some articles on this subject,however,I've not found anything recent. This is one of my favourite video due to the fact that it has caught my attention to the point of desiring action if not actual action itself. This is a topic I would like to become more knowledgeable.Than you for making this video.
richardmann184 6 months ago
Search engines are your friends (mine, too). I recommend going to Google News, then searching with these terms: "methane arctic," "rising sea level," "climate change," and "Maunder Minimum 2011."
You'll turn up interesting stuff.
And a few articles by climate change skeptics, who cherry-pick data to "prove" that humans cannot have an effect on the Earth's climate. I read those, too. But that debate doesn't exist within the scientific community, only outside of it.
Urgelt 6 months ago
Do you think we might run out of oil before that happens? If the earth runs out of oil dosn't that mean all production of combustion engines will stop, and we use oil to make almost everything! So wouldn't that be a just a big of threat to us?
knifegun101 6 months ago
Not at all.
Remember, it's not oil per se that we need for manufacturing purposes. It's hydrocarbons. The Earth is lousy with the stuff, the product of more than a billion years of life processes. Oil is just the most convenient form of it.
Coal reserves are massive. Methane exists in outrageous quantities.
This isn't to say that other hydrocarbon sources will be easy or cheap to convert to what we need. But running out won't be a problem.
Urgelt 6 months ago
use gas! =global warming
use batteries! =massive waste after
use water! =what will we drink?
use corn! =food prices go way up
simply put, we NEED to figure out how to make extremely efficient solar panels and very light cars that do not require multiple batteries for power.
bmw2go11 7 months ago
Read the Hopi Prophecies this has all been but predicated ........ you are a very very wise man .... thanks for being you .....BTW posted this in my Playlists - Profound Thoughts of the Very Wise ... it is all all just the math ,,,it is not a bad thing it called evolution .....Time renews itself it is all in the math - Einstein knew this too but because he only believed in science missed the obvious much like Darwin - it is survival of the adaptable not the fit they were whitemen
92359hg 9 months ago
Comment removed
92359hg 9 months ago
global warming is not necessarily from man made pollutants, this could merely be another cycle that the Earth takes, millions of years ago the Earth went through an ice age and warmed up, perhaps the Earth is still just warming up until it naturally cools down again.
TheMultiFirestarter 1 year ago
Where does this "perhaps" come from?
Nearly all of the "anti-global-warming" agitation is funded by the energy industries, which will reap significant profits if people disbelieve science.
Judging from hundreds of thousands of years of antarctic ice cores, the current rate of CO2 change (+2 ppm/yr) is without precedent, and just happens to coincide with 7 billion humans burning fossil fuels at also unprecedented rates.
Go read the NASA site, you'll learn a lot of stuff you don't know.
Urgelt 1 year ago 2
@Urgelt yes, everyone seems to think that global warming is caused from burning fossil fuels even some NASA scientists however there is a lot we still do not know about our Earth so we cannot rule out other possibilities for the reason and cause for global warming. we have no real evidence that CO2 is a cause of global warming people were only scared into believing this was the origin because of simulations and it is a fact that the Earth has been through warmer times for millions of years
TheMultiFirestarter 1 year ago
It's not just "some scientists at NASA." It's nearly all of the peer-reviewed climatologists in the world. NASA merely summarizes their findings.
Yes, it's been hotter in the past than anything we're likely to see in the next century. What's unprecedented is the rate of change, which has been accelerating since the beginning of the industrial era and is still accelerating.
There have been mass extinctions in the past, too, but that doesn't mean it's fun to live through one.
Urgelt 1 year ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again... we don't need a self sustaining arcology to live on mars... we're going to need it to live on earth...
AspiringPotato 1 year ago
My opinion: if Earth becomes so inhospitable to our survival that we must live in arcologies and use space suits to walk outside, I think our species will simply go extinct. Truth is, we don't know how to operate arcologies very well. The subtleties are endless and baffling.
At present, we can manage closed environments for months at a time, but the economics of it are horrible, and self-sufficiency (no outside help to keep it going) is way, way beyond our grasp.
Urgelt 1 year ago
@Urgelt
Probably. I mean, if we can't manage to live in this environment responsibly we probably can't design, create, and manage our own...
AspiringPotato 1 year ago
I'm always expect you to cut a rowdy ol' fart right in the middle of one of your gravity induced pauses. That's a good thing, by the way. I really enjoy your voice and videos, thanks!
NOTgarycoleman 1 year ago
@NOTgarycoleman I lol'd.
TheRorySteel 1 year ago
I am a huge fan of your video's
keep making them :)
gothicoth 1 year ago
Actually Methane is not 8, but 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide.
Georgij92 1 year ago
If you ignore atmospheric methane depletion and just consider its properties as a gas, you get a higher greenhouse gas multiplier.
However, in the real world, a surge of atmospheric methane produces a surge in atmospheric methane depletion. Over the course of years, net greenhouse effect isn't a single number, but varies along a curve driven by a whole lot of variables.
Forecasting net greenhouse effect of a sustained methane release is difficult, because there are so many unknowns.
Urgelt 1 year ago
I love your videos so much man but I went to go watch more and they're all so old, why no new uploads?
magicidiot12345 1 year ago
Ok, that's fine, and thanks anyway.
sanchez6395 1 year ago
Can you please make a video about "atheism", what you think about it, and you being an athiest or not?...I'm an athiest myself so I believe there is NO "god". I'm interested in your thoughts about it.
sanchez6395 1 year ago
Like most people, I do have an opinion about religion. I just don't give expression to it here.
Why? Because religion divides people and motivates them to seek the company of those who agree with them.
The topics I've introduced here ought to be worthy of discussion by anyone; I don't want to drive anyone away.
Urgelt 1 year ago 10
the only "bad" thing that will happen because of climate change is humans will shink in population and reptiles will become the dominant species again dont kid yourself that human beings are the end of evolution. The earth has seen 99.9999% of life die. its normal!
anthonyc3po 1 year ago
Extinction is the rule, that much is so. It is rather unlikely - to put it mildly - our species will remain as it is until the Earth is consumed by the Sun's red giant phase, some billions of years hence.
What is unique about this broad extinction event is that a single species is causing it. That's a new thing.
And we are putting ourselves at risk, too. We may become our own doom.
Urgelt 1 year ago
How you feel about that depends on the strength of your empathy. If you care naught for others, if self-advantage is all that matters to you, if the suffering and deaths of our children concerns you not at all, then you will see no point in worrying about it.
It is a sad thing to observe that many, many humans have little to no empathy, and would not cross the street to rescue a dying child, let alone alter their personal habits to achieve the same end.
Urgelt 1 year ago
But other humans do have that store of empathy within them, and do feel concerned, and would like to secure a safer future for our own species, and for others as well.
Thus we find ourselves disagreeing on how to respond to the knowledge we have acquired about climate change.
Will we act? Or will we pursue self-advantage and ignore the consequences to our descendants? What future will our species create for itself, given the qualities of its members?
Urgelt 1 year ago
I do not know the answer. I do not know what the future will bring. But I do know that the answer depends collectively upon all of us.
We are not helpless. As no other species in Earth's rich biological history before us, we have the ability to understand and to choose.
It remains to be seen whether we will care enough about our own fate to bother.
Urgelt 1 year ago
yes start with car drivers tell them to use electricity instead of the combustion engine oil - gas i think oil is the problem and unless star trek time machine does something were doomed
bobodd5 1 year ago
Earth is creating its biggest mistakes. Which is Humans. Humans is as good as extinct.
background001 2 years ago
My thoughts on this subject aren't as important as those of climatologists. Go to NASA's site and spend some time reading through the articles on global warming. Look at the data they've collected on CO2 and temperatures.
Another good site to explore is Woods Hole.
The funny thing is, in past warming episodes in the geological record, warming *did* precede CO2 build-up. Not this time; the data is the other way around. That's one way we know what is happening is something new.
Urgelt 2 years ago
You seem to be assuming that increased temperature follows increased CO2 levels, but how can you prove that its not the other way around? Perhaps increased CO2 levels are the result of increased temperature, not the cause.
Global warming is definitely a reality, but I'm not so sure of CO2's role in climate change.
I'd like to hear your thoughts.
aminordistraction 2 years ago
lets jus but the earth in a big ole plastic bubble..granted i know that would do nothing and block the suns heat and that wont be good but hey its an idea lol
gannon1op 2 years ago
It's an idea with a lot of flaws, I'm afraid.
No material known to us has the structural strength to build on such a large scale, or to withstand the stresses involved.
There is some talk of injecting this or that substance into the stratosphere to reduce sunlight reaching the Earth. That's more feasible... but the untended consequences might be very large.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Are you Walt Whitman?
oruga101 2 years ago
iam glad to be here anyways
bodo635 2 years ago
Me, too! :-)
Urgelt 2 years ago
hi terence long time no talk,have you ever read the book Polar Shift by the author Clive Cussler it`s well written and very well researched if that ever happens soon it would be an extinction event ,maybe this is what killed of the dinosaurs apparently NUMA has investegatsd these events and worked up a model of life expectancy if this ever happens as it has done in the past ,this i would say poses a much greater threat than any comet
celticbhoy14 2 years ago
The theory that the Earth's axis could shift dramatically and suddenly was first proposed in 1852. It's a fascinating idea.
Science dashes our hopes. The last major axial shift was 50 degrees in 20 million years. It happened about 800 million years ago.
Axial wandering does occur, but at a rate of 1 degree per million years or less.
NUMA is Cussler's own creation, not an independent science authority.
Fiction is free to entertain fun what-ifs. But it's only entertainment. :-)
Urgelt 2 years ago
hi urgelt
did you here about that comet in 20 years or so thats gonna hit us?
reedeema 2 years ago
No comet is going to hit us in 20 years or so, unless it's one we haven't yet detected.
There are, however, some near-Earth objects that might. These aren't comets, but rocky debris ranging in size from a grain of dust to several kilometers across.
Apophis is one of them - a large rock which will come close to the Earth in 2036. It's more than two hundred yards across, big enough to devastate a region. NASA gives the rock a chance of 3 in 1,000,000 of hitting us.
Urgelt 2 years ago
ah puuhh thx urgelt ^^ but if buy cahance that comet does hit us , do you think we have the technoligie to shoot it away or somthing ^^ sorry dumb question =)
reedeema 2 years ago
The short answer is, no.
The long answer is, scientists and engineers have been kicking this around a long time and have proposed some design approaches to the problem. The chance any of them might work has to do with how far in advance we learn of the danger. If we have several decades to work with, an awfully small nudge could do the trick.
Not that it would be easy.
The problem is we don't have good orbital data on most Near-Earth objects. So warning of a hit could very well be short.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Incidentally, Congress tasked NASA a few years ago to develop solid orbital data on most of the near-Earth objects that might threaten us.
Congress pretty much left the effort unfunded, though. NASA has made some progress anyway, but they're a long, long way from nailing all the large NEO orbits down.
99942 Apophis was discovered only when it had come quite close to the Earth in 2004. If it had been aimed at us then, there would have been no time to do anything useful.
Urgelt 2 years ago
thx urgelt , ill go build me a bunker , your invited =)
reedeema 2 years ago
It had better be deep! :P
In the long run, a direct strike by Apophis (and other NEOs) is nearly a certainty. But certainties like that tend to play out on geological time scales. The odds in any given century of a big strike are remarkably low.
It's pretty safe to predict that you'll die of some other cause.
But that will be cold comfort if a large NEO does hit, and it's by no means impossible that one might. I'm glad NASA is working to nail down their orbital mechanics.
Urgelt 2 years ago
they better be ^^ its not gonna work like in the movie armageddon ^^
reedeema 2 years ago
not denying that pollution etc. is causing a grave danger, but...what if the warming of certain region is caused by earth's (or all planets and moons) rotation and axis changing?
MaladaptiveCatalyst 2 years ago
Or perhaps continental drift? Solar cycles? Fluctuations in cosmic rays from outer space? Lots of variables exist which play into climate. The question is, how significant are they?
Science has found that they aren't significant at all.
There are crackpots and shills for special interests who used to deny global warming existed, and now claim it's due to something besides human activity. Their arguments change all the time, and have no science behind them.
Urgelt 2 years ago
thanks. i'm going to subscribe to your channel. you seem to make some very insightful commentary and analytical statements regarding important issues and i hope you continue making vlogs and such.
MaladaptiveCatalyst 2 years ago
This channel is inactive for now, I'm afraid. I still read comments and answer mail here. I can't predict when, or if, I'll return to making videos.
Incidentally, the Earth's rotation is slowing. But the rate of change is slow. Think geological time, not decades or hundreds of years.
Precession of the axis proceeds more rapidly. The direction the axis points describes a circle once every 25,800 years. Precession affects climate, but it isn't responsible for rapid climate change.
Urgelt 2 years ago
This is a real wake up call. Great video once again, Urgelt.
ANTHONYxTK4 2 years ago
pretty interesting video urgelt its good to know about global warming cus we are destroying this earth withouth even knowing
ETV101 2 years ago
Ah, no, we aren't destroying the Earth.
We're killing off species, though - at an incredible rate, one of the six largest extinction events in the history of the planet.
Earth will go on, and so will life. It may take millions of years before diversity rebounds, but it will, eventually.
But we might not have descendants around to appreciate it.
We call ourselves intelligent. I think it's past time we proved that assertion, and put our intelligence to work on our own survival.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Dear Urgelt
You seem like a very smart man and keep on doing your videos everyone of them is great and with every video my opinion changes on you ( everytime incresing intelagance ) thanks , David
motodave319 2 years ago
IT WILL BE LIKE LIVING ON MARS
Iski20121 2 years ago
Not so much, heh.
Urgelt 2 years ago
in ireland this summer we've had the coldest summer of the last 100 years! explain that?
FINN589 2 years ago
Global warming deniers often bring up this question, phrased for this or that locale. The question itself rests on two assumptions which are false:
1. What is true for the entire globe must be true everywhere equally.
2. A general warming trend will not include any variability or local counter-trends.
Warming will *not* occur everywhere equally; and variability in climate has always been and will always be quite wide.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Now as to Ireland specifically:
Ireland receives much of its characteristic climate from the Gulf Stream, which is a a warming influence.
Most climatologists expect the Gulf Stream to be weakened in the near term - the next century or so - as global warming progresses. It may even stop circulating tropical waters north for a time.
A cooler Ireland fits into their predictions. But a single record-breaking season isn't enough data to prove the point either way.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Whats the music playing?
ciscoh 2 years ago
Lovely, isn't it? It's Chopin's Opus 28 No. 6 in B Minor, performed by Paul Cantrell. Who, I might add, performed it superbly.
Expand the text box to the right of the video. I've included links for all photos and the music.
Urgelt 2 years ago
I used to play that song, and I haven't heard it since I played it, thousands of years ago.
Might you kindly point me to research relating to human arrival in North America that you mentioned in a response here? I've always been curious about migration to this continent but have never found much about it.. and the idea of a large extinction in the past, let alone an event resulting from American settlement, is itself extremely fascinating.
Thanks for your genuine and thoughtful commentary.
cactusleaf 2 years ago
Sure, glad to.
Read the Wikipedia article on the Quaternary Extinction Event.
Of particular interest is the rapid rate of large mammal extinctions which closely followed the arrival of the first human settlers on the North American continent, about 11,500 years ago. In a mere 1500 years, many species which were probably under pressure anyway from climate change (retreat of the ice age) succumbed to human predation.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Lovely! Thank you again!
Caty25cat 2 years ago
To live. That civilizaton will fall, and re emerge again, thousands of times over, proving ouselves a thosand times over. and after all those years of lessobns, when we have learned everything there is to learn, build evgerything there is to build, we will discover what the meaning of life is, how valuable it is, and how privilged we are ot have it. and when the skies and the universe have no life anymore, we will go along kindfully, and lay to rest our legacy. That is where life ennds.
TheChicagoComedian 2 years ago
Humankind, as far as weve come, from cave drawings, to steam mills, to flying sky beasts that were impossible to imagine 100 years ago. Yet, weve done it, weve survived thousands upon millions of years. we were certainly one of the most brilliant species to have lived, but everything, inevitbly,must end. but when one thing ends, something better is created. Humankind is ignorant on a fact until we are hit by the hard effects. we will ignore pollution until it kills most of us. Then we will see.
TheChicagoComedian 2 years ago
The american indian lived the right way.
The simple life. Not an easy life. Its to late we cant go back. people think there so smart. Well this is what we get.
yougivemeoneOK 2 years ago 4
Actually, there is quite a lot of evidence that the arrival of humans in North America precipitated a pretty big extinction event. Not as large as the event we're going through now, but a significant one nonetheless.
Native Americans have a mixed track record, both ethically and with respect to the environment. Pretty much like all humans, if you think about it. But it's true they didn't have much of an impact on atmospheric CO2.
And you're right, it's too late to go back.
Urgelt 2 years ago
There, you've made the point. People think they're so smart. That is probably the main problem. When someone thinks they're smart, you can never prove them otherwise.. Thus, they will live in their blindness, their whole lives..
Vocet57 2 years ago
If the global warming gets to seriously dangerous level scientists will tell gouverments to stop ,
Its to the gouverment do to something with that information but as long they can earn money on it they dont care.
maximanimo 2 years ago
Scientists *have* told governments to stop. That's the essence of the IPCC reports. We have to chart a new way forward; the old energy economy has produced a serious threat in the form of global warming.
Our government is dominated by corporate interests; there is no denying that. But that's only true because the citizenry permits it.
I think perhaps the time has come to stop permitting it.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Well if temperature rises, then so will rise the amount of water that vaporizes.
Those clouds will likely absorb most of the sun light.
The atmosphere will get very unstable, due to the large amount of energy the atmosphere absorbs.
And there likely will occur large storms of great scale on regular basis.
The clouds probably wont make things colder, since the clouds absorb the energy keeping the warmth in like a blanket, and keep absorbing it from the sun.
So is my unintelligent ques.
Woodsyone 2 years ago
But im quite sure that global warming wont stop in the near future.
Most people concern themselves, fore most with themselves.
And to prevent that global warming, amny things would have to be changed, that in turn would cause discomfort to many people.
Well something will survive, things will start again.
And we are in a way unique beasts.
Only kind of creature, that practices the refined hobby of self-annihilation.
Both accidental and intentionally.
Woodsyone 2 years ago
You're right, water vapor has a net greenhouse effect, and it will increase as the Earth warms.
I think this may be the first real test of our species since we emerged from the hominid line. If individual selfishness trumps common interest, it will put us into the grave.
But perhaps we will pass this test. I hope we will.
Either way, the test will answer fundamental questions about who we are and what we wish to become.
Thanks for your comment, Woodsyone.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Thank you for answering.
Well the chance that some percentage of humans survive certainly exists, though it may be small.
One thing is certain in this world, that is that noting is certain. Or atleast i see things so.
Woodsyone 2 years ago
Well i personally dont worry about the fate of human race.
If it perishes then it simply wasnt worthy to possess the gift of life.
(Yes i believe that life isnt a birth given right, it a privilege.
I find it annoyng how people claim that they have a right to life, while they exterminate other life without concern, or even a reason.)
In the other hand, i enjoy my time in forests, should they disappear i would be quite troubled. My individual selfishness.
Woodsyone 2 years ago
Are we worthy to exist?
That is a question answered by each generation in its turn. Existence is not free; it must be won, and won again.
A single generation, failing that struggle, marks the end of a species.
Laissez faire selfishness worked for earlier generations, but it has brought us to this crisis. We must adapt to new circumstances, or we will become just another layer in the geological strata with all the other extinct species.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Indeed, generations have proven that by surviving.
I was speaking on individual level aswell.
True enough, if we do not unite, we likely will kill ourselves off. (if not with global warming, there probably are hundreds or thousands of other ways to accomplish that.)
Despite knowing that i still likely wont make a effort for the greater cause.
If I attempt to preserve nature, it will be because i enjoy nature.
(Not that i hate humankind, but i dont like it either.)
Woodsyone 2 years ago
nature takes care of herself. Not saying that is good for humans but it is true. ANd how exactly do we know so much about the levels of certain gases in the atmosphere during times in the past when we didn't have the measuring devices then? Methane is nature and if it kills us all then fuck it. It happened to Mars. The universe will continue. It doesnt need us.
spokaneman1983 2 years ago
Antarctic ice contains very tiny samples of air when it forms, and gives accurate results going back for more than 400,000 years. Going back millions of years is harder, but it can be done with (with larger uncertainty) using sedimentary cores.
Earth will indeed go on. My concern is for us. Though our origins are animal, I think we are gradually, haltingly, becoming something else. Something new. I'd like for us to have the chance to discover what it is.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Well like the saying goes, "If you want to hear god laugh, tell him your plans." haha. I hope we get to become whatever it is we are becoming before we melt away or freeze to death or are harvested by aliens from the Sirius Star System lol. If they need Ice for the polar caps or whatever they can get it from here. It was snowing today and its almost May. Have a good one folks, I will be in a corner somewhere going through my 2012 consciousness shift ;-)
spokaneman1983 2 years ago
You, sir, are no stranger to irony. :-)
Urgelt 2 years ago
I love your videos, they are all so intelligent and well made.
On the topic of climate, I doubht that we humans will change our ways before great catastophs have already struck us.
It is my hope though, that we will, and I am doing the small things I can do in my every day life.
I give my hope to change, and also, I give it my strenght.
Deniecu 2 years ago
So long as our population continues to rise, it's difficult to be optimistic.
There are indeed things we can do, though, individually and collectively. It's time to roll up our sleeves and get busy.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Yes, the data shows global warming. Global warming happens and always has and will happen. But is it human influenced? No-one actually can say for sure yet, temperatures are rising but it's still not clear whether it'll rise in a catastrophic fashion thanks to human involvement. This is what I have learnt, anyway. Whether I'm right or wrong, DO NOT trust the media on this at all.......... do not....
imamacyoureapc 2 years ago
I rely mostly on credible scientific sources, not the media.
But you are not correct when you say "no-one actually can say for sure yet... " Scientists have a completely persuasive case that humans are causing climate change.
But we have two problems: 1) many of us lack the education to comprehend the case (it's very technical), and 2) there are special interests who want us not to believe the case, and are propagandizing like mad to protect their interests.
Urgelt 2 years ago
As for catastrophe: if global warming continues long enough, it will be catastrophic. Truth. There are questions about the details: how bad, when. But it's a sure thing that catastrophe is headed our way unless we change course.
Urgelt 2 years ago
Dearest Urgelt... I have had your video 'What Is Dance to Me?' on my favourite list for at least 2 years, I have shown it to many of my friends, who have all been moved by your lovely voice and your deeply human words.... You are a light in a dark world... Thank you :-)
3232siobhan 3 years ago 2
WOW URGELT ur a very intelligent individual the earth may need u soem day! but until then quit worryign so much lool
TheRealWeedMan 3 years ago
Urgelt, make another video please!!
Desovamed 3 years ago 2
In order for Earth to become another Venus, the oceans would have to boil into the atmosphere.
Could that happen? Probably not.
If the clathrates cut loose, it's going to cause very rapid climate change. Some areas on the Earth may become uninhabitable. Extinctions, maybe including us... it's a very bad scenario.
But if atmospheric methane jumps, biological processes will start to remove it. It'll take thousands of years, probably. But I don't think the oceans will boil away.
Urgelt 3 years ago
In context to your video info. the new york times also stated that studies of chlorinated water would be crystal clear water fresher than from springs to every household. So take what they print with a grain of salt.
EraofAwakening 3 years ago
Oh, indeed. The NYT can be wrong. The mere fact that an idea appears in its pages does not guarantee its truth.
I pointed to this article because it offers a reasonably clear explanation of the idea that ethanol as a transportation fuel consumes more petroleum than it replaces. The NYT is by no means the only source for this idea.
Urgelt 3 years ago
great video.let me tell you in a few words what i think.i am afraid that in 10 years the most we are gonna have ww3.there is not enough food for 6 billion people.not enough water.i know this might sound extreme but is the salution that earth needs without atomic bombs though.lol.just a stupid comment.ignore it if you have something bad to say about it.
florand 3 years ago
Fearing another world war is not stupid.
Let's face facts. Human political systems tend to embrace war.
So long as the population rises amid constrained or declining resources, the likelihood of our political systems indulging in another world war will rise, too.
I think avoiding it is possible, but not at all easy.
Urgelt 3 years ago
carpooling is a solution
chocolate45689 3 years ago
Carpooling helps.
Lots of things can help - controlling our population, switching to cleaner energy generation methods, electrifying transportation, lowering our thermostats, growing our own food, eating less meat, inflating our tires... the list is practically endless. There's no shortage of things to try. The only questions are whether we'll bother... and what our children's fate will be if we don't.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Have you seen THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL?
if not then i think you should see it.
TDTESS:If you live the earth dies, if you die then the earth lives.
castme13 3 years ago
Its great to see that more and more people care about earth. We need to wake up...otherwise our children will have to live on another planet some day!
I second your analysis @Urgelt
NitremArts 3 years ago
I'm thinking of it in terms of global terraforming
iknowthatyouwillfind 3 years ago
Lots of people are thinking about global terraforming.
It may come to that. But we've got to be careful. Anything we do to the ecosphere will carry risks of bad outcomes, some of which we may not see coming.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Ive stopped traveling by car since 3 years :D
now i go to school with my awesome bike :)
bike FTW
FoXMaSteR001 3 years ago
Bicycles are an excellent solution for short trips.
Carrying cargo on one is a problem, though. If you're shopping for a load of groceries, a recreational bike isn't much use.
I think that's a problem with a solution, and I hope to have more to say about that within a few months.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Volverhurts, since industrialization, humans have contributed less than 1/3rd of the atmospheric CO2 concentrations now present.
I think you are suggesting that unless we contribute more than half, or some other arbitrary amount, what humans do will have no effect.
Your view is derived from a source other than climatology science.
I'm not anti-capitalist. I'm all for democracy, though; you nailed me on that one.
Urgelt 3 years ago
The Times article gave comments condemning cutting down rain forest in Brazil to grow soybeans and supporting growing sugar cane for biofuel. I am now upset/pleased with Brazil. They are certainly doing the wrong/right thing.
Ambiguity is fueling the indifference about this debate. Will that continue?
There are now an estimated 33,000,000 with AIDS. We've only known this disease for over 20 years. If people would rather die than use self-preservation, what chance for Global Warming?
earthpet 3 years ago
Much of the ambiguity arises from special interests. The auto industry wants internal combustion engines to be in the mix, so ethanol makes sense to them. Agriculture likes it, too. Traders and financial firms love carbon credit trading. Even coal companies are getting into the act with "clean coal."
These special interests have money to pay for air time, column space, and fake science. There will always be disinformation floating around to confuse people, because confusion enables profit.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Answering your second point: people don't prefer to die. But many are indifferent if someone else is doing the dying.
With global warming, death will be visited most heavily, at the start, on the poorest nations. I doubt the death rate in Bangladesh matters very much to the boardrooms at large corporations.
It should matter, though, because our entire civilization could unravel. The poorer nations will only be the start.
Urgelt 3 years ago
most greenhouse gases come from volcanoes and algae in the ocean, humans contribute very little to greenhouse gases. the earth will warm then cool agian, global warming is just a anti-capitalism and democracy movement
VOLVERHURTS 3 years ago
there are conflicting scientific views as to how much clathrate melting rates will be affected by current warming trends. but if there's any consensus in the energy industry, it's that extracting methane clathrates is certainly the last resort and may be decades away. the scientfic research involved in clathrate extraction is progressing too slowly.
mattji 3 years ago
Entirely correct. How much warming is needed to set off clathrate deposits and trigger a climate phase change is not known.
That doesn't mean it isn't worrying to climatologists. It is.
Extraction isn't a solution to the danger posed by warming clathrate deposits, for many reasons. Economic viability is missing, for starters. Even if it becomes economically viable, it would probably take a century or more of sustained industrial effort to tap more than a small fraction of them.
Urgelt 3 years ago
sorry forgot the T on last
not3but1 3 years ago
i heard supposibly natural gas resources are only going to las 41 more years
not3but1 3 years ago
If we do not switch soon to non-CO2-emitting energy sources, it won't matter how long our natural gas lasts. Our civilization will fall, and our continued survival as a species will be in doubt.
If we do switch, there will be plenty of natural gas for our other needs. It's also feasible to manufacture it or mine methane hydrate deposits.
In other words, there's enough natural gas available to see us through to a bright future - or to see us to our extinction.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Nice to see a video on the topic of global warming that actually bothers researching facts and doing some real thinking instead of just sounding a trumpet for either side mindlessly.
I've heard some very sinister things about scientific funding only being allocated to groups whose findings tow the government's line on global warming though - at least here in the UK. Don't know how much truth there is in it but that could severely impact our ability to find the correct solution to the problem.
pentherapy 3 years ago
Governments do sometimes interfere with objective science. President Bush certainly has done so in my country.
For the most part, peer review keeps biased science out of the reputable science journals. People like Bush who champion fake science can be challenged from these bastions of objectivity, and made to look like idiots.
All bets are off if the Rupert Murdochs of the world start buying up science journals. Science needs unbiased gatekeepers; it would be very ugly without them.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Most definately. From what I understand of the peer review system, it isn't perfect, but it's certainly a lot better than having a single appointed body for the same purpose.
Here in the UK, our government is chapioning environmentalism... supposedly. The only real action they've taken on it so far though is deterrent taxes, and from what I've heard they're not even pumping the money into alternative energy research. That doesn't seem much like tackling the problem if you ask me.
pentherapy 3 years ago
Yeah, that's not enough.
It's more than the US is doing with its national policies, though.
It's going to be quite a large job to get our governments moving in the right direction, it seems.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Thanks for responding to me. Just wanted to say again that I really like your style, I'll definately be subscribing. Keep up the good work!
pentherapy 3 years ago
Well there is plenty of that going around too.
realsamwise 3 years ago
Everyone's waste and abuse is someone else's paycheck. Every interest is a special interest. The point here I think is that we as people all are happy to hear what we want to hear. When we are told we have a simple answer to a complex issue that requires no change in our personal lives we seldom dig too deaply for fear of what we may find. Who will go for a second opinion when the doctor tells you what you want to hear? Anyone who thought about it would know alcohol as a fuel is not the answer.
realsamwise 3 years ago
True.
But corporate executives (and by extension, their lobbyists) aren't ordinary people thinking wishfully. They're experts. They know the energy costs for ethanol because they're making ethanol. They know the impact on food prices because they're selling food.
It's perfectly fine with them if you want solve global warming - just do it somewhere else. Make giant space mirrors or something. But don't mess with their interests.
It's a moral deficiency, not a matter of intelligence.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Pork? ya, and a lot of wishful thinking. It would be nice if it did work, in every other respect ethanol is the near perfect fuel. But this all has to be made from some kind of carobhydrate. Even in the 70's and 80's when Brazil was running their cars on it they where making it from sugar cane. Cane farmed in what once was rain forest. It propped up sugar prices and worked but at what cost? How many Trees? This I fear is more then pork it is pure stupid
realsamwise 3 years ago
Their intelligence is aimed at self-interest at the expense of the rest of us, but they aren't stupid.
Don't underestimate special interests. They are smart and dangerous.
Urgelt 3 years ago
As per: "The New York Times reports that ethanol production is actually worse than gasoline for its impact on greenhouse gases, here" Am I the only person that saw this coming? way back in 1975 the FIRST time this idea came up I pointed out how stupid this was. When it takes X2 energy in oil to produce X energy in alcohol what kind of math do you need? When you burn food what happends to the price? When price goes up will we not cut down trees to grow crops? Do ypu have to be a palm reader?
realsamwise 3 years ago
I'm afraid you're right, Sam, and you saw it long before I did. Or the New York Times, for that matter. Ethanol is pure pork, not a solution.
When we let special interests dictate our energy policies, it should be no surprise that the only ones who benefit are those selfsame special interests.
Urgelt 3 years ago
But isn't this happening natural? millions of years ago where dinosaurs lived the climate of the earth changed as well. just like the electromagnetic field of the earth itself. it is a living planet at least. Live means change, doesn't it? Islands disappear but then other ones appear
sionatube 3 years ago
Excellent question, Simone.
The answer is, yes, change is the one constant in Earth's history. It's never been static.
The rate of change is the problem. Atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures have never changed this rapidly before, so far as the geological record can show.
Fast changes produce mass extinctions, and that's our big concern. If a large chunk of the biosphere dies off, humans - who perch at the top of the food chain - might be at risk of extinction, too.
Urgelt 3 years ago
yep, humans the top of the food chain and all.
the dinosaurs back then maybe thought the same way. They were also at the top and then the environment changed.
Experts told about a giant volcano in north america which erupted and then the whole planet was covered in ashes and dust and a great ice age came.
But even though this mass destruction of life came, a few life forms survived.
I wonder if this will be the case this time again and if the earth will be clean after the disaster.
sionatube 3 years ago
The leading theory to explain the extinction of the dinosaurs involves a very large oceanic meteorite strike. It happened 62 million years ago.
Now that's some seriously rapid climate change.
One thing to keep in mind is that scientists don't think global warming will occur on a perfectly steady track. Geological evidence is strong that climate can go through extremely rapid phase changes - and we may see such a phase change, if methane clathrate deposits let loose. Things could get ugly.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I wonder who will be involved into the "great downfall", if there is one.
it seems that humans already search for another way to get rid of themselves...through war. (sadly)
sionatube 3 years ago
It worries me, too.
Energy is the key, I think. If we have abundant energy, it will take a lot of pressure out of the situation, and we will have options. Desalinization, for example.
But we'd better get that energy from non-CO2-emitting sources, or things will just keep getting worse.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Just got a letter from a friend of mine and they have discovered coal under the ground in South Island New Zealand!!Interesting!!
xian19sarah 3 years ago
We're not going to run out of coal.
The question is, if we keep burning it, can our descendants live through the consequences?
It doesn't look good, to the peer-reviewed scientists who study climatology.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree-
The film 'The day after tomorrow' to my mind said a lot about the future one day but I am no scientist
I simply commented as my dear friend whom I know in South Island said they are paying huge gas prices there too and she said hopefully it would stop as they have found coal.
I just worry about things like the aged, the animals and the environment as many others do - thanks for your answer -take care then
xian19sarah 3 years ago
I knew this already! it was showed on Daily Planet a long time ago...
Ebaum744 3 years ago
Yes, indeed. I'm not breaking any new ground in this video, just stating the obvious and joining the conversation.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Sometimes the obvious needs stating, and restating so people actually get it, right? Let's just hope we can reverse the damage we've done so far eh, I like to think that I'm helping out in this by buying a diesel car to run on vegetable oil, but I still have my old gas guzzler I can't bear to get rid of...
Ebaum744 3 years ago
It's a small step towards our destination.
The destination is to end all burning of fuels for energy and transportation.
I think the future of transportation is all-electric. The shortcomings of electric propulsion we are familiar with today will be overcome with better designs and lower prices. Not quickly, but it will happen.
Urgelt 3 years ago
This one hit me to my core...so true...so true
sonikalkemy 3 years ago
Me, too, sonikalkemy. Me, too.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I love my planet!
JamesGT1 3 years ago
It's a good place to live.
I hope we can keep it that way. The solar system doesn't particularly need another Venus.
Urgelt 3 years ago
It's the ONLY place to live.
RealityEngines 3 years ago
hmmm, i see you've taken quite an interest into this case, well this is quite a popular topic to talk about however there are many unanswered questions still to answer. The majority of our youth don't give a s**t about our descendants but if you think about it we don't either. I bet you leave quite a few of your appliances on stand-by. We think we have a great knowledge but all of us are the same level.
All it takes is to have a little bit of faith, im not religious, but hey. 5 star
mehowee 3 years ago
It's going to be a big challenge to get off of burning fuels.
It was a big challenge to go to the Moon in 1969, too.
In both cases, the challenges arrived at a time when technology was *just* reaching the point where they were doable. Not just feasible, but within reach of our economic means, too.
I'll be an early adopter of one "green" technology this year, if all goes well. That's one thing consumers can do: help jump-start the alternative energy market with their purchases.
Urgelt 3 years ago
It's not only sad to see our earth, our home, being destroyed, but see people having become so materealists that they just simply choose to lay back and let the problem "roll" as they say. Its truly sad. I get the fact that people have to do something fr ther plnet, but sad as it is, people need a leader, somebody to show them, because as I said, they have just become so completely dependant on the "commercial" way of life.
solputo 3 years ago
Well, Earth is not being destroyed. It'll be around for several billion more years.
The only question is what will happen to its cargo of life.
The "commercial way of life" is indeed part of the problem. But I think we must look to it as a source for solutions, too. Our population simply cannot be sustained by pre-industrial methods. I think we must guide it in the right direction, but we can't afford to trash it.
Urgelt 3 years ago
That's not quite the message I'm sending in this video, heh.
I'm not much for prophetic dooms. Yes, we're skating on thin ice, but our fate is in no-one's hands but our own.
Urgelt 3 years ago
The music in the beginning is beautiful - can anyone tell me what it is?
musicyard 3 years ago
It's identified in the text box (upper right portion of this page). Open the text box by clicking on "more info."
Urgelt 3 years ago
Chopin, from 24 preludes op. 28:
prelude n. 6 B minor (si mineur)
ferdinandoalbeg 3 years ago
Please, don't manufacture more than one offspring per capita.
tatkonerez 3 years ago
I wonder if that will be enough.
There's a pretty good chance that medical science is not very far from extending life. Aging is just a genetic degenerative disease, after all. If it can be understood, it can be treated.
Either: o Life extension will be reserved for elites, or o We will impose unprecedented limits on breeding, or o The population will rapidly expand to the point of ecosystem collapse and a die-back, possibly outright extinction.
Lousy choices, huh.
Urgelt 3 years ago
So the newest product on the market will be targeting our basic instinct, our survival? Oh, its brilliant, whether we strive for eternal life, or we're afraid to face death. It seems like medicine nowadays is more harmful than beneficial.
tatkonerez 3 years ago
Oh, life extension is beneficial, to be sure. For the individual.
We're going to have to wrestle with an unpleasant fact. What is good for the individual is not always good for the group.
An individual desires reproductive freedom and life extension both, naturally. If he and everyone else gets what they want, we get a die-back. Not right away, but it won't take all that long once life-extension is widely available.
It's not here yet, though. We have time to consider our options.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Blind-faith Religion does not help understanding of this serious concern! Like most, I have no quarrel with decent moderate secular christians, muslims, buddhists etc. However, what we believe whether we acknowledge it or not can effect society in a negative or positive way. So, if your religious belief won't fit freely into an informed secular democratic society, then your non-secular blind faith, is un-democratic, non-secular, seriously deluded and a threat to all Humanity!
danielnz1 3 years ago
As, the more enlightened a society, the more free, secular and civilized. Secularism, is free-will and empathy.
danielnz1 3 years ago
There are many reasons doubters give for ignoring peer-reviewed scientists on the subject of global warming.
Whatever their reasons, they pose a grave threat to our children.
Urgelt 3 years ago
we need more solar, wind, water, and nuclear power if we wanna stop global warming.
ficus50 3 years ago
Yes, I think we have to get away from burning fuels for power and transportation.
It may not be enough, though. Things are looking more dire by the year.
5 years ago most climatologists were worried that the North Pole might be ice-free within 50 years.
3 years ago a few bold climatologists raised the warning flag that it might happen as soon as 2030.
Now it appears that it may occur this year or next, if weather is favorable for it to happen.
Urgelt 3 years ago
This is a big deal, because the arctic ice pack reflects a great deal of sunlight into space. It's a tipping point.
Larger tipping points loom ahead. It's a mistake to assume that global warming will proceed linearly.
Urgelt 3 years ago
Some scientists are now saying that geoengineering may become necessary. Vast projects are being discussed, such as injecting a million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere annually to increase the Earth's albedo.
Unintended consequences are likely, but it may become necessary to try such things.
Urgelt 3 years ago
I think the second shot was of the Seatle/Victoria BC area... It certainly looked like it.
5emster5 3 years ago
The common thread linking the NASA photos is this: there is a glacier in each one, somewhere. Some are obvious, others less so.
Glaciers are retreating all around the world, at a rate unprecedented in historical times. I think it's fair to say that even if we take aggressive action to curb our greenhouse gas emissions, it's too late for most of them.
Urgelt 3 years ago
The question that proponents of catastrophic global warming have never answered to me is, that during many points in earths billions of years the CO2 levels were up to 30 times as high as they are now. During the Cretaceous the CO2 levels were six times what they are today and the temperature was on average about four degrees warmer, the land was covered mostly by tropics and life thrived. Why is this CO2 different from the CO2 in epoch's past?
Air420 3 years ago
A scientist might give a more complex answer, but mine is this. What is different is the rate of change - mere centuries instead of millions of years.
There is nothing in the geologic record that mirrors what is happening now. Nothing.
Rapid climate change could trigger a massive extinction event, and that's what has scientists worried.
Urgelt 3 years ago
A rapid warming trend will reshape continental coastlines dramatically in mere centuries, or even decades. People who are trying to live on the land that gets reshaped will migrate or die; migrations impact everyone else. Rapid change could also mess up our food production and have other grave economic and environmental consequences, not all of them foreseeable.
If we let it get out of hand, it's conceivable we may go through a major population die-back, and that would not be at all fun.
Urgelt 3 years ago
The video made me cry
smartie305 3 years ago
Chopin's glorious piano composition alone can do that to me.
But my purpose isn't to make you sad, but to make you aware. Together, we need to find solutions.
Urgelt 3 years ago