“Give me half a tanker of iron and I will give you an ice age.”- Russ George

Originally posted by Donkey_Dean
The notion that we should learn to completely manage this world and do away with the natural order is out there...

...There will without question come a time when humankind will completely manage the atmosphere or face certain extinction. The AGW crowd should be pushing for technology like this, instead of cutbacks. This is a step in the right direction!

A year or two ago, I started a thread in the 'Fragile Earth" forum that dealt with this idea. I asked this question to everyone:

IF science ever discovers that global warming is a completely natural process (and I'm say "IF" for the sake of argument -- please don't come back with evidence that it is or isn't natural. This is a "Thought Experiment")...but IF we find that the warming of the earth's climate is natural, do you think that the "Eco-minded" people out there would welcome trying to artificially cool the Earth, or would that completely go against their core values of not doing anything that affects the Earth's climate?

What I mean to say is that the "Eco-minded" are always trying to say that humans should strive not to affect the Earth's climate in any way -- but if it is found that the Earth's climate is rising through natural processes, would they be for or against that idea of not doing something to the Earth to try and cool it down through some artificial means?

Or should they be consistent in their message and not do anything to affect the Earth's climate either way -- i.e., if the Earth's temperature goes up naturally and polar bears go extinct, should they let that happen "because it's natural"?



[edit on 7/22/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

I've got one to three graphs that can explain a great deal. Just look at this graph and think .... This is where we are and this is where we have been. Remember that when the water level goes down the ice mass goes up....

en.wikipedia.org...:Sea_level_temp_140ky.gif

en.wikipedia.org...ost-Glacial_Sea_Level.png

commons.wikimedia.org...:Holocene_Sea_Level.png

EDIT NOTE: I can't seem to paste the links properly...... sorry.



[edit on 22-7-2009 by jeffsmathers]

All I can say is we need to plant trees in mass to clean the air and we need to get more of a oxygen supply into the water.

Just so that I got the line of events straight.....here we go:

Seed oceans with Iron and Plankton go NUTS!!!!

Fish and whales eat Plankton and do well.

Plankton go NUTS and absorbs a significant ammount of carbon from the atmoshpere.

Trees have nothing to "breathe" and begin to die. Not long, all plant life on earths surface "smothers" and begins to die.

Now all the animals on Earths surface begin to die. Soon, all humans die.

Yup! This plan sounds like a surefire way to solve the problem alright!

if you think things are bad now wait untill theirs 12 billion or 15 billion people trying to live on limited resorces.
getting rid of extra co2 aint gonna feed em all
& plenty of them are gonna want 50 foot plazma tv`z & cheap air tickets 2 cars
& all the latest gadgets not to mention all the extra fossil fuels needed to make this happen.
humanity realy needs approx 2.5 planet earths to sustain our present life styles when the next 10 billion or so humans arrive we gonna need maybe 7 planet earths to sustain our selves & maybe 1 planet earth to use as a garbage dump.
kinda puts things into perpective eh ?
humans are f##cked because humans are currently in the process of breeding them selves into extiction

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Donkey_Dean
The notion that we should learn to completely manage this world and do away with the natural order is out there...

...There will without question come a time when humankind will completely manage the atmosphere or face certain extinction. The AGW crowd should be pushing for technology like this, instead of cutbacks. This is a step in the right direction!

A year or two ago, I started a thread in the 'Fragile Earth" forum that dealt with this idea. I asked this question to everyone:

IF science ever discovers that global warming is a completely natural process (and I'm say "IF" for the sake of argument -- please don't come back with evidence that it is or isn't natural. This is a "Thought Experiment")...but IF we find that the warming of the earth's climate is natural, do you think that the "Eco-minded" people out there would welcome trying to artificially cool the Earth, or would that completely go against their core values of not doing anything that affects the Earth's climate?

What I mean to say is that the "Eco-minded" are always trying to say that humans should strive not to affect the Earth's climate in any way -- but if it is found that the Earth's climate is rising through natural processes, would they be for or against that idea of not doing something to the Earth to try and cool it down through some artificial means?

Or should they be consistent in their message and not do anything to affect the Earth's climate either way -- i.e., if the Earth's temperature goes up naturally and polar bears go extinct, should they let that happen "because it's natural"?



[edit on 7/22/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

It is all doomed anyway, and that was my point. Eco minded = suicidal minded. Polar bears will be short lived affair, as will humankind if we do not pull ourselves out of this mindset and focus clearly on survival in the future. The conservation idiots should be tolerated only as long as it takes to develop the knowledge and technology to ensure our independence from the environment.

A planet wide city should be the goal or our children’s children’s children. Yes I know the resources do not exist for such a venture, and that’s the point. This goal will force humankind to the stars, and we all know that is the only real hope we have to stave off extinction.

The current C02 scare should be met with technology to scrub it from the atmosphere, we would likely get it wrong but it’s a step in the right direction. There will without any doubt come a time when humankind will have to completely manage things like this or die out.

We may like to think we are up above it, but we must adapt or face certain extinction! We need more people, a trillion even! Screw nature and the delicate balance, humans should completely manage planet earth, and seek our resources from the heavens. It is the only hope for humankind.

Should we regulate the human population just to cater to some bears who are 100% destine to go extinct? Hell no!!!

Our species will only get one shot at this! How do you think humankind may escape extinction?


[edit on 22-7-2009 by Donkey_Dean]

I can see it now...dump iron particles all over the worlds oceans....carbon is sequestered...THEN and only THEN do we find out that the carbon that was sequestered through this mechanism is much NEEDED to sustain life as we know it....leading a new campaign to spew as much carbon as we can...alas, it's too late...Al Gore and his global warming team have sunk the human race by leading us down a path of irreversible damage to the environment.

Just my 2-cents

Originally posted by cooler
if you think things are bad now wait untill theirs 12 billion or 15 billion people trying to live on limited resorces.
getting rid of extra co2 aint gonna feed em all
& plenty of them are gonna want 50 foot plazma tv`z & cheap air tickets 2 cars
& all the latest gadgets not to mention all the extra fossil fuels needed to make this happen.
humanity realy needs approx 2.5 planet earths to sustain our present life styles when the next 10 billion or so humans arrive we gonna need maybe 7 planet earths to sustain our selves & maybe 1 planet earth to use as a garbage dump.
kinda puts things into perpective eh ?
humans are f##cked because humans are currently in the process of breeding them selves into extiction

That’s a load! Struggle is the father of things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.

A massive population demands we adapt/evolve. It really is the only hope the human race has for survival, as it may be the only path that will lead us to the stars.

We face certain extinction otherwise friend. Maybe humankind should be pushed towards exstiction? At least then the whales would be safe from us right?

If humankind does endure. I think people will look back at our time and exclaim “That primitive idiocracy was nearly the end of us. What the hell was a whale good for anyway.” As they get ready to attack an alien civilization and take their resources.

Its survival not a fairy princesses day dream.

P.S.
Every man woman and child on Earth could have 2 acres in Texas.



[edit on 22-7-2009 by Donkey_Dean]

Originally posted by skeptic_al

Originally posted by SwatMedic
I'd like to see some laboratory testing and data before we let this guy start filling up the oceans with iron.

Test in a lab, if that goes well, test in the field on a very small scale.

Then show us all with the data that this indeed does work.

Then his bandwagon will fill.

There is already millions of tons of Iron on the Ocean floor, it looks
like Planes , Ships and Subs. There in every ocean scattered everywhere.
This doesn't even count the Number of Cars in Rivers
across the Planet. And then there's the empty Food Containers thrown overboard by Ships.

I hope this is sarcasm... Just because something has iron in it doesn't mean it can be "metabolized" by the environment in a way that will effect positive climate change...

This has to be the most incredible marketing scheme in the history of modern man. In essence, profiting off of the weather. My stupid weather person can not predict today's forecast with any less certainty than I can and yet I am supposed to buy into the fact that we can some how change atmospheric conditions in order to possibly manipulate a hypothetically driven computer model that could be correct. I'd rather give my money to Sally Struthers for her Adkins, err...kids.

And as for cold... forget it. I like the idea that early humans migrated to get away from falling temperatures and move to places where plants and animals still were plentiful. Sure we have advanced to the point of controlling inside temperatures and have produced warmer clothing, but that doesn't mean I personally enjoy taking 15 minutes to put on 6 layers of clothing to check the mailbox. I can't knock you all that like cold weather. I am horribly uncomfortable in anything below 45 degrees F, but I do very nicely in weather around 80-85.

Historically, natural changes to the environment meant that life had to change to adapt to the new environment. This has been happening for a billion years now. Balance is preserved in almost every case. Note that this doesn't mean that all species survive.

The only time this doesn't work is when an external or artificial force changes the environment too quickly for life to evolve to meet the changes.

I'm surprised at how many people don't think that mankind's current progress on this planet can't affect climate change. You just need to look at the sky in a crowded city and see that it is. Over a long enough period of time, this will affect the global climate AND our evolution. I doubt we'll end up surviving as a species unless we learn to adapt our technology that's causing the change or adapt the way that we live in the environment.

reply to post by Donkey_Dean


as you put it, mans struggle & our need to adapt to things i agree with, but the thought of say 15 billion people on earth all using resorces & when i look at the current 6 billion & counting dealing with things, well.....i suppose we could all sleep standing up to save some space & try & share a banana with 5 people.
all i can say its gonna be a hell of a struggle.
maybe your also correct our answer maybe in the stars ?.
but untill some thing like is an option humanity will have to struggle on with ever dwindleing resorces vs an ever expanding population.
all it takes is 2 super powers & not enouph resorces, then what ?
so no i dont think co2 ocean experiments are going to help humans or the oceans.

Originally posted by Unnoan
I can't knock you all that like cold weather. I am horribly uncomfortable in anything below 45 degrees F, but I do very nicely in weather around 80-85.

How about 85 degrees with 100% humidity? How about 100 degrees with 100% humidity?

THAT is the direction it's going...

Originally posted by cooler
reply to post by Donkey_Dean

 

as you put it, mans struggle & our need to adapt to things i agree with, but the thought of say 15 billion people on earth all using resorces & when i look at the current 6 billion & counting dealing with things, well.....i suppose we could all sleep standing up to save some space & try & share a banana with 5 people.
all i can say its gonna be a hell of a struggle.
maybe your also correct our answer maybe in the stars ?.
but untill some thing like is an option humanity will have to struggle on with ever dwindleing resorces vs an ever expanding population.
all it takes is 2 super powers & not enouph resorces, then what ?
so no i dont think co2 ocean experiments are going to help humans or the oceans.

Yes I am not really addressing our current needs. My point was originally to say that technology like this needs to be explored because we will be required to manage the atmosphere soon enough. We are doomed unless we make some serious strides in this direction. The CO2 dilemma is a perfect place to start to learn and explore. Cutbacks are not the answer rather we need technology to clean it up.

Star

[edit on 22-7-2009 by Donkey_Dean]

Well, I wish we would figure out something. I mean the rest of the planets are warming too. Once we fix ours we can go fix those planets as well. What a joke...

There are issues with the iron seeding, like some have mentioned.

The other issue that hasn't really been touched on yet is that it is a band-aid solution at best, if it even can work on a mass scale. While we might sequester more CO2 out of the air and such, we're still pumpin git out in enormous amounts, we're still polluting, we still have that mystical trash island out in the middle of the ocean and so on. The problem is still here, and we're not doing anything about it.

Originally posted by CoffinFeeder
There are issues with the iron seeding, like some have mentioned.

The other issue that hasn't really been touched on yet is that it is a band-aid solution at best, if it even can work on a mass scale. While we might sequester more CO2 out of the air and such, we're still pumpin git out in enormous amounts, we're still polluting, we still have that mystical trash island out in the middle of the ocean and so on. The problem is still here, and we're not doing anything about it.

If we have a solution its not a problem! Things like this need to be explored. We will always pollute, but one might hope we could better manage the affair. Cutbacks are not the answer technology to mitigate and lessen our imapct is key.

[edit on 22-7-2009 by Donkey_Dean]

Originally posted by cooler
reply to post by Donkey_Dean

 

as you put it, mans struggle & our need to adapt to things i agree with, but the thought of say 15 billion people on earth all using resorces & when i look at the current 6 billion & counting dealing with things, well.....i suppose we could all sleep standing up to save some space & try & share a banana with 5 people.
all i can say its gonna be a hell of a struggle.
maybe your also correct our answer maybe in the stars ?.
but untill some thing like is an option humanity will have to struggle on with ever dwindleing resorces vs an ever expanding population.
all it takes is 2 super powers & not enouph resorces, then what ?
so no i dont think co2 ocean experiments are going to help humans or the oceans.

Seriously?

The problem is NOT how many people we have

It's how the people are ACTING and LIVING that's the issue there.

This planet could support 44 billion people on 1/4 of the land we're using right now, IF WE DID IT RIGHT.

But that's the problem. No one wants to give up their ways of life, and want to "spread their wings", "divide and conquer". Instead of using the land we're possessing in correct ways, we're wasting the efficiency we could easily have, with the technologies we have available RIGHT NOW, let alone if we put our minds to it to develop them further.


But no. We've set up a system of pure waste. Build things to break, so that the consumers will have to buy em all over again, and keep the profit margins up.


Don't feed the lie, man. The problem is NOT how many we have. It's how those whom we have are LIVING.

reply to post by Donkey_Dean


any doctor will tell you, prevention is better than cure,
so cut backs being a preventative action gets my vote, common sence is to not make a co2 problem any worse but to find alternative ways of doing things.
& as for other ways of dealing with co2 a better way than acean experiments
in my opinion may be to put co2 deep under ground in rapidly emptying oil wells & gas wells, i think their is co2 refinery in germany testing this process but like oil & gas cost money to extract, co2 will cost money to put it in deep wells.
also i think on global scale experiments, monsanto & global gm crops are a cood example of how things can & do go wrong & also have unforseen reactions with native plants cross breeding & the like, this is also a food chain experiment & involves insects, adding iron to oceans is also likely to have negative reactions in unforseen ways, & any tests done in one part of the ocean may react differently in another part.
monsanto global experiments & ocean co2 experiments should not go ahead

Originally posted by pieman
we know that where we add something to the environment the results are unpredictable at best.

what is being suggested is that we screw around with a complex system we don't fully understand in order to fix a problem we shouldn't be causing in the first place.

fixing an imbalance we caused by creating an imbalance elsewhere seems like a stupid idea to me, it's that kind of idea that caused all the issues in the first place.

what we actually need to do is take some responsibility for own own actions, not something that is hugely popular with the childish mind but something that people will have to understand eventually.

Ahh, so the truth comes out.

The issue isn't about saving the planet. It's about restricting freedom by strangling human progress. And what better way to do so than to create a bunch of slaves that have to live in squalor.