“Carbon Credits” do not lower carbon levels. They simply assume an acceptable level of pollution, and let the major polluters buy the right to pollute from others.
“New generation of leadreship for the 21st century” : the same words and the same arrogance used by our new men and women of the current govern here in Italy . Must be something in the air when they were born
.the rate of rise at Miami Beach is 2.39 mm/year.Considering that 25.4 mm = 1 inch, this means it is taking 10.6 years per inch of sea level rise or 127.5 years per foot..(just to establish a time frame).Any current problems are caused by other factors such as storm surge.
That’s RIGHT! It’s typical American ignorance and arrogance that people who don’t know the first thing about climatology — in fact, don’t even know the difference between climate and weather — who say idiotic things like “I’d like to hear BOTH sides of the issue and make up my own mind.” What mind would that be?
I remember when GW Bush repudiated the Kyoto agreement, saying that “We need further research on this.” You see, this has to have 100% scientific agreement, including the researchers funded by Exxon before we can take any political action. Such a contrast with a petty issue like going to war in Iraq, creating a million refugees, and killing 100,000 people. That didn’t require agreement by anything like 100% of the experts; indeed it was done despite objections by very knowledgeable people. Well, as Cheney said at the time, “We make our own reality.”
Right, you can only trust the scientists funded by the energy industry. (Sigh! We’ve got tens of millions of people who think they know better than people who have studied the subject and understand the science involved. What can we do?)
Florida sinks under the ocean every 2 million years or so. Question: If we were to convert to total nuclear energy powering everything, thus having no co2 emmissions, would we be better off?Answer: No – all energy humans use ends up as heat. Nuclear is as efficient as a steam engine, which is less efficient that diesels as steam engines use steam from combustion to produce steam. We would be putting a lot more heat in the ecosystem. It’s the heat, stupid.Question: What is the size of the human fire? How much closer to the sun would we have to be to match the size of the human fire?
I miss my Dad who spent the last 3 decades of his career using his PhD in Physical Oceanography as a senior technical editor with the American Meteorological Society. If there is a Heaven or any other after life (unfortunately I doubt it, Easter or not) he’s explaining “catastrophic climatic adjustment,”
Umm, the chemical formula for methane is CH4; I’m not absolutely positive, but I think that probably something like 100% of the scientists who discount climate change as currently being driven by human activities also know that “C” stands for “carbon” in the periodic table. Your post seems to imply otherwise . . .
The percentage of man made emissions that has cause this change can be debated. The problem is that as the earth gets warmer, more tundra melts and brings CO2 to the surface, huge bubbles can rise through the ocean where it has been trapped for millennia if the oceans warm. The cycle has started, but mother nature has hap volcanic eruptions that have added more CO2 to the atmosphere than man has in the last 100 years.
In the same sense as the “I don’t have to outrun the bear; I just have to run faster than you” joke, they don’t have to outsmart climatologists. They only have to be clever enough to rope in people with votes and money.
I was going to say something about this — Exxon Mobil knowing since the 70s that climate change was real, and taking steps to avoid its consequences (changing physical layout of their facilities and such) — but since you already have, I’ll just amplify the signal by agreeing with you.
My uninformed guess is that carbon tax is designed to get corporations, who hate paying tax, to reduce the amount of GHG that they emit. And, with the exception of oil companies, and energy companies, many have admitted the reality of global warming and are taking steps to reduce their emissions, saving themselves money to boot. And the highly-respected American military does also, for security reasons.
and it doesn’t help that our global population has increased from about 1 billion at the start of industrial age, to 7 billion, rapidly headed towards 8 billion today. 2 countries, India and China already have populations of over 1 billion each, IMVPO, within 100 years, we will either be extinct, having killed the oceans and destroyed all the fish- but those countries that depend on either annual rainy seasons to provide potable water for drinking and to use for growing crops or glaciers that are rapidly melting along with a world population that will continue to grow about 1 billion per decade we will see massive wars for both potable water and food, with refugees approaching 400 million per year.I think that we will, for the most part, kill ourselves off starting within the next 50 years thru war, starvation and lack of potable water.. Thankfully, I will be long dead before that happens.
As you can see by my comments, I do not debate the causes of climate change and global warming because I really don’t know enough.I try to do my best by limiting my carbon footprint by walking and taking mass transportation. Living in a large city, I can perform most of my errands by walking. It’s ironic that large cities are actually good for environment.
Miami’s only real hope is to send some city planners to Venice, Italy to see how they have managed to keep most of their buildings from collapsing over the last 600 years.
LWP: I just came home from a college trip with my daughter and husband. It was a great little town called Savannah. They have made it really easy for the students to get around using public transit, which is a relief.
“Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, nitro, or NOS is achemical compound with the formula N 2O.”.My buddy, Wiki, does indeed say that, but it makes no sense since S is sulfur and nitrous oxide contains no sulfur, NOx makes sense because it means the x could be one of several numbers..“Considered over a 100-year period, it is calculated to have between 265 and 310 times more impact per unit mass (global-warming potential) than carbon dioxide.”.“per unit mass” is key here.If there is a ton of carbon dioxide per gram of NOx, then the effect of NOx is neglibibleH20……………………..0.04 (maximum, 00 minimum)*Carbon Dioxide….0.0360%*Methane……………..0.00017%*Nitrous Oxide……..0.00003%*Ozone…………………0.000004%.There looks to be over 1200 as much CO2 as N20.Greenhouse gases are those which permit the passage of visible light but retard passage of infra red.Water would be or may be a big player but also transports heat up and out of the system by rising and radiating energy out into space ere falling back to earth.
“Should we be looking to the dikes building Dutch for help ?That’d be one helluva long wall !”.Nope.The geology under Florida is so porous and permeable that the dike would not only have to be up but probably over a thousand feet down to avoid water simply coming in by naturally existing passages..What used to be Monsanto had a waste disposal well pumping waste into deep underground strata.to get rid of it.as an experiment, the folks working there added dye to see if it reached the surface anywhere.The water changed color some 5 or six miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Rather than get bogged down in back and forth arguments isn’t “cleanliness next to Godliness” ? ".Only for the obsessive/compulsive.In fact, Pharisees griped at Jesus because his disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate. (They were next to him at the time.),Not that I dislike cleanliness, just saying they aren’t really comparable..Ultimately everything we consider “waste” is a resource which can be reused.It just isn’t economical for much of it.. You have to separate it out, reprocess it. The separation and reprocessing are negative benefits if they are greater than cost of extracting fresh.With better chemical engineering processes, the cost goes down, value of reprocessing goes up.
Some people are really cranky in their comments. My comment about Savannah was in reply to another commenter. Replying specifically to another commenter is completely acceptable, whether some people know it or not. Why else would it be allowed to REPLY? One does not reply to everyone necessarily. Also, Gocomics is not my lifeline… LOL
In the real world, sea levels in south Florida aren’t any higher than they were 15 years ago, or 45 years ago.In the real world, even if climate change and sea levels were rising, and every American and American leader took emergency action to stop warming gas emissions, 100% of what Bill McKibben demands, it wouldn’t save south Florida.— Buy hey, this is an opinionated comic strip!
Even better methane reduction would be to 1. stop feeding the cows corn and antibiotics, that’s what f’s with their plumbing;2. compost our vegie trash, or better yet, make less of it to start (landfills emit far more methane than cows);3. trap the methane we can and turn IT into energy.
Did anyone here know that Rubio chairs the Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard?
(I am concerned that he doesn’t seem to want to apply himself to this job; but, perhaps that’s a deliberate choice, and some part of why he’s been missing so much of his duty time in the Senate.)
CO2 in water (‘carbonated’ or fizzy water, AKA ‘2-cents-plain’) makes carBONic Acid, but it may be one of the most aggressive solvents of the calcium in corals and shellfish. And yes, on warming, the clathrates holding much of that CO2 on ocean bottoms and in water tables under Arctic tundra start giving it back, adding even more to the atmosphere’s load. Do be careful depending solely on Wikipedia for politically sensitive topics; there are platoons and batallions of active agents hired by ‘think tanks’ with PAC funding, who do nothing but edit wikis. It’s sad, we used to wish we could depend on the Wikimedia to be up-to-date, and more sadly, RIGHT about things.
BE THIS GUY over 8 years ago
…and you are no longer a leader for the 21st century..Happy Easter
Darsan54 Premium Member over 8 years ago
The marco robot strikes again.
rpmurray over 8 years ago
Trading carbon credits is the answer to global warming.
King_Shark over 8 years ago
At least Trudeau said “15”, not 16, years ago. I remember all the idiots who celebrated “the start of the millennium” in 2000..
Ravenswing over 8 years ago
Because a giant faction of our country has been led to believe that governing is best done by those who have no idea how to do it.
AKHenderson Premium Member over 8 years ago
We’re not eating the cattle fast enough.
Maybe Trump could try selling steaks – oh, wait…
David Huie Green LoveJoyAndPeace over 8 years ago
Go nuclear.Eliminate all carbon dioxide emissions for power generation.What could go wrong?
David Huie Green LoveJoyAndPeace over 8 years ago
“absorbed by the oceans turning them acidic with carbolic acid.”.Carbonic acid, H2CO3
mgrossberg over 8 years ago
“Carbon Credits” do not lower carbon levels. They simply assume an acceptable level of pollution, and let the major polluters buy the right to pollute from others.
Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus Premium Member over 8 years ago
“New generation of leadreship for the 21st century” : the same words and the same arrogance used by our new men and women of the current govern here in Italy . Must be something in the air when they were born
David Huie Green LoveJoyAndPeace over 8 years ago
Per NOAA
http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/sltrends.html
.the rate of rise at Miami Beach is 2.39 mm/year.Considering that 25.4 mm = 1 inch, this means it is taking 10.6 years per inch of sea level rise or 127.5 years per foot..(just to establish a time frame).Any current problems are caused by other factors such as storm surge.
David Huie Green LoveJoyAndPeace over 8 years ago
let’s see, 2030 is 14 years from now?Everything will flood if the water rises 33.46 mm?1.32 inches"?
rlcooke over 8 years ago
That’s RIGHT! It’s typical American ignorance and arrogance that people who don’t know the first thing about climatology — in fact, don’t even know the difference between climate and weather — who say idiotic things like “I’d like to hear BOTH sides of the issue and make up my own mind.” What mind would that be?
rlcooke over 8 years ago
I remember when GW Bush repudiated the Kyoto agreement, saying that “We need further research on this.” You see, this has to have 100% scientific agreement, including the researchers funded by Exxon before we can take any political action. Such a contrast with a petty issue like going to war in Iraq, creating a million refugees, and killing 100,000 people. That didn’t require agreement by anything like 100% of the experts; indeed it was done despite objections by very knowledgeable people. Well, as Cheney said at the time, “We make our own reality.”
rlcooke over 8 years ago
Right, you can only trust the scientists funded by the energy industry. (Sigh! We’ve got tens of millions of people who think they know better than people who have studied the subject and understand the science involved. What can we do?)
Eclectic-1 over 8 years ago
Florida sinks under the ocean every 2 million years or so. Question: If we were to convert to total nuclear energy powering everything, thus having no co2 emmissions, would we be better off?Answer: No – all energy humans use ends up as heat. Nuclear is as efficient as a steam engine, which is less efficient that diesels as steam engines use steam from combustion to produce steam. We would be putting a lot more heat in the ecosystem. It’s the heat, stupid.Question: What is the size of the human fire? How much closer to the sun would we have to be to match the size of the human fire?
NeedaChuckle Premium Member over 8 years ago
Isn’t it illegal to say Global Warming or Climate Change in Florida?
JeNagVaz over 8 years ago
I miss my Dad who spent the last 3 decades of his career using his PhD in Physical Oceanography as a senior technical editor with the American Meteorological Society. If there is a Heaven or any other after life (unfortunately I doubt it, Easter or not) he’s explaining “catastrophic climatic adjustment,”
WaitingMan over 8 years ago
He may not be a mathematician but he still has more delegates than Kasich.
Ivan Araque over 8 years ago
Bye, Marquito, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. :D
Ivan Araque over 8 years ago
Oh, and thanks a bunch, @Night-Gaunt49, for a great explanation on emissions. :)
Raider Red Premium Member over 8 years ago
Umm, the chemical formula for methane is CH4; I’m not absolutely positive, but I think that probably something like 100% of the scientists who discount climate change as currently being driven by human activities also know that “C” stands for “carbon” in the periodic table. Your post seems to imply otherwise . . .
route66paul over 8 years ago
The percentage of man made emissions that has cause this change can be debated. The problem is that as the earth gets warmer, more tundra melts and brings CO2 to the surface, huge bubbles can rise through the ocean where it has been trapped for millennia if the oceans warm. The cycle has started, but mother nature has hap volcanic eruptions that have added more CO2 to the atmosphere than man has in the last 100 years.
Kip W over 8 years ago
In the same sense as the “I don’t have to outrun the bear; I just have to run faster than you” joke, they don’t have to outsmart climatologists. They only have to be clever enough to rope in people with votes and money.
Kip W over 8 years ago
I was going to say something about this — Exxon Mobil knowing since the 70s that climate change was real, and taking steps to avoid its consequences (changing physical layout of their facilities and such) — but since you already have, I’ll just amplify the signal by agreeing with you.
whiteaj over 8 years ago
So why did Al Gore pay millions for Florida ocean-front property a couple of years back?
dre7861 over 8 years ago
Ah, just when I was beginning to forget about our Littlest Cuban Terror, this strip comes along to remind me that Rubio is such a tool.
kaffekup over 8 years ago
My uninformed guess is that carbon tax is designed to get corporations, who hate paying tax, to reduce the amount of GHG that they emit. And, with the exception of oil companies, and energy companies, many have admitted the reality of global warming and are taking steps to reduce their emissions, saving themselves money to boot. And the highly-respected American military does also, for security reasons.
BeniHanna6 Premium Member over 8 years ago
Also I am no longer a candidate.
timbob2313 Premium Member over 8 years ago
and it doesn’t help that our global population has increased from about 1 billion at the start of industrial age, to 7 billion, rapidly headed towards 8 billion today. 2 countries, India and China already have populations of over 1 billion each, IMVPO, within 100 years, we will either be extinct, having killed the oceans and destroyed all the fish- but those countries that depend on either annual rainy seasons to provide potable water for drinking and to use for growing crops or glaciers that are rapidly melting along with a world population that will continue to grow about 1 billion per decade we will see massive wars for both potable water and food, with refugees approaching 400 million per year.I think that we will, for the most part, kill ourselves off starting within the next 50 years thru war, starvation and lack of potable water.. Thankfully, I will be long dead before that happens.
Fibbermcgee Premium Member over 8 years ago
I always come to the comics for my science information.
Bob Blumenfeld over 8 years ago
“I am not a scientist. I’m better: I’m a fundamentalist Christian, and the Bible says nothing about global warming, so there can’t be such a thing.”
BE THIS GUY over 8 years ago
As you can see by my comments, I do not debate the causes of climate change and global warming because I really don’t know enough.I try to do my best by limiting my carbon footprint by walking and taking mass transportation. Living in a large city, I can perform most of my errands by walking. It’s ironic that large cities are actually good for environment.
Tarredandfeathered over 8 years ago
Miami’s only real hope is to send some city planners to Venice, Italy to see how they have managed to keep most of their buildings from collapsing over the last 600 years.
montessoriteacher over 8 years ago
LWP: I just came home from a college trip with my daughter and husband. It was a great little town called Savannah. They have made it really easy for the students to get around using public transit, which is a relief.
montessoriteacher over 8 years ago
Interesting that GT would write this about Marco Rubio. I guess it shows how much time it takes to produce the strip, since he is now a has been.
David Huie Green LoveJoyAndPeace over 8 years ago
“Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, nitro, or NOS is achemical compound with the formula N 2O.”.My buddy, Wiki, does indeed say that, but it makes no sense since S is sulfur and nitrous oxide contains no sulfur, NOx makes sense because it means the x could be one of several numbers..“Considered over a 100-year period, it is calculated to have between 265 and 310 times more impact per unit mass (global-warming potential) than carbon dioxide.”.“per unit mass” is key here.If there is a ton of carbon dioxide per gram of NOx, then the effect of NOx is neglibibleH20……………………..0.04 (maximum, 00 minimum)*Carbon Dioxide….0.0360%*Methane……………..0.00017%*Nitrous Oxide……..0.00003%*Ozone…………………0.000004%.There looks to be over 1200 as much CO2 as N20.Greenhouse gases are those which permit the passage of visible light but retard passage of infra red.Water would be or may be a big player but also transports heat up and out of the system by rising and radiating energy out into space ere falling back to earth.
David Huie Green LoveJoyAndPeace over 8 years ago
“Should we be looking to the dikes building Dutch for help ?That’d be one helluva long wall !”.Nope.The geology under Florida is so porous and permeable that the dike would not only have to be up but probably over a thousand feet down to avoid water simply coming in by naturally existing passages..What used to be Monsanto had a waste disposal well pumping waste into deep underground strata.to get rid of it.as an experiment, the folks working there added dye to see if it reached the surface anywhere.The water changed color some 5 or six miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.
David Huie Green LoveJoyAndPeace over 8 years ago
“Rather than get bogged down in back and forth arguments isn’t “cleanliness next to Godliness” ? ".Only for the obsessive/compulsive.In fact, Pharisees griped at Jesus because his disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate. (They were next to him at the time.),Not that I dislike cleanliness, just saying they aren’t really comparable..Ultimately everything we consider “waste” is a resource which can be reused.It just isn’t economical for much of it.. You have to separate it out, reprocess it. The separation and reprocessing are negative benefits if they are greater than cost of extracting fresh.With better chemical engineering processes, the cost goes down, value of reprocessing goes up.
montessoriteacher over 8 years ago
Some people are really cranky in their comments. My comment about Savannah was in reply to another commenter. Replying specifically to another commenter is completely acceptable, whether some people know it or not. Why else would it be allowed to REPLY? One does not reply to everyone necessarily. Also, Gocomics is not my lifeline… LOL
b2plusa2 over 8 years ago
water_moon over 8 years ago
Even better methane reduction would be to 1. stop feeding the cows corn and antibiotics, that’s what f’s with their plumbing;2. compost our vegie trash, or better yet, make less of it to start (landfills emit far more methane than cows);3. trap the methane we can and turn IT into energy.
cbryja over 8 years ago
Did anyone here know that Rubio chairs the Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard?
(I am concerned that he doesn’t seem to want to apply himself to this job; but, perhaps that’s a deliberate choice, and some part of why he’s been missing so much of his duty time in the Senate.)
pbarnrob over 8 years ago
CO2 in water (‘carbonated’ or fizzy water, AKA ‘2-cents-plain’) makes carBONic Acid, but it may be one of the most aggressive solvents of the calcium in corals and shellfish. And yes, on warming, the clathrates holding much of that CO2 on ocean bottoms and in water tables under Arctic tundra start giving it back, adding even more to the atmosphere’s load. Do be careful depending solely on Wikipedia for politically sensitive topics; there are platoons and batallions of active agents hired by ‘think tanks’ with PAC funding, who do nothing but edit wikis. It’s sad, we used to wish we could depend on the Wikimedia to be up-to-date, and more sadly, RIGHT about things.