Earth

The New York Times reports that ethanol production is actually worse than gasoline for its impact on greenhouse gases, here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?hp

Newsweek wrote a piece in their Aug 13 2007 issue which talks about global warming deniers. The link is here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20122975/site/newsweek/]

Slate explains the role of water vapor in global warming here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2182564/

The overwhelming consensus of climatologists publishing in peer-reviewed journals is that global warming is real, and caused largely by human activity. But a great many non-peer-reviewed papers exist - junk science, in other words. Grist for political advocates of doing nothing. Don't cite pseudo-science in rebuttal, you'll be wasting your breath. Stick to the peer-reviewed stuff.

Information about atmospheric carbon dioxide over the last 420,000 years is here:

http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications/warming_earth/scientific_ev...

A good discussion of Global Dimming is here:
http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/GlobalWarming/globaldimming.asp

A layman's summary of clathrates in the context of global warming is here:

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/methane/

A bit of useful trivia about hurricanes, how they form, and what influences their strength is here:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0915isabel/addl.html

Credits:

Opening photographs are courtesy of NASA, and are in the public domain.

Graphics are copyrighted by the Woods Hole Research Center, used here for educational purposes as permitted under US copyright law. Their web site is here:

http://www.whrc.org/

The closing photograph is by frogmuseum2, and is licensed under the Creative Commons. It can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frogmuseum2/125758559/

Music: Opus 28 No 6 (in B Minor) by Frédéric Chopin, performed by Paul Cantrell, licensed under the Creative Commons. Paul's web site is here:

http://innig.net/music/inthehands/

This video is copyright 2007 by Urgelt, CC Share-Alike 3.0. For more information about this copyright, go to
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en-us/

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• earth
• global
• warming
• science
• methane
• clathrate

[richardmann184]

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.

[Urgelt]

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.

[richardmann184]

@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.

[Urgelt]

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.

[knifegun101]

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?

[Urgelt]

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]

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.

[yougivemeoneOK]

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.

[bmw2go11]

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.

[92359hg]

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

[TheRorySteel]

@NOTgarycoleman I lol'd.