Perpetual Innovation

Category: global warming

  • Another massive meltoff of Antarctic glacier. Really ugly likely outcomes.

    The melting of Antarctica was already really bad. It just got worse. http://wapo.st/19rU1xp
    Wow. Another area, like the west of antartcica, could result in massive ice melt from the ocean side up!
    Each shelf/sheet could add about 10 feet to ocean rise, maybe 25% more for the northern hemisphere.
    Ouch!

  • Why science is so hard to believe… It’s in the Kool-Aid – The Washington Post

    Why science is so hard to believe – The Washington Post:


    Joel Achenbach hit the nail on the head with this article.

    Ever wonder why you can talk with otherwise intelligent people and you suddenly drop into the twilight zone.  They suddenly are totally convinced that the earth is flat, and there’s no arguing with them.Or they are totally convinced the fluoride in water is a horrible government conspiracy to … 

    It is in the water. Or the Kool-Aid. Each group, tribe if you will, is drinking a different flavor. And you drink enough of it, the facts get a little wacky.!!!

    This is a wonderful opinion letter. 


    Here also is a great article as well on the distrust of science by Americans. It includes Pew Research on the topic. 

    Hmmm….


    Achenback argues against the idea of scientist taking a more proactive stance. He argues that when scientist step off of the ivory tower to wrestle in the mud of politics and public policy they get dirty-ugly like the rest of us. (Well, something kind of like that argument anyway.)


    So, it appears, that many people only want to hear what they want to hear. If it doesn’t match with their world view, then they switch to a channel that matches…

    And so we have the world’s most information rich environment, with exponentially more information available each decade, yet ignorance runs rampant. It is almost impossible to believe that such is possible. But it is.

    For several years now I keep returning to the wise axioms of Rotary International. In the 4-way test, of all we say and do… “First, is it the truth?” 


    Ignoring the truth (ignoring the facts) has a nasty way of coming back around and biting you in the butt if/when you get it wrong.


    We like to focus on sustainability. Things that are sustainable rather easy to view mathematically. Eating 4,000 calories per day, and burn only 2000, you are apt to gain weight. Burn 9m barrels of oil per day (42 gals each) pumping the hydro & carbons into the atmosphere and you are changing all kinds of things in the atmosphere (and environment). [These carbons have been sequestered in the earth for some 5 to 50 million years.] The resulting imbalances  will have effects and side-effects. Guaranteed. Predicting them accurately may not be easy. Assuming that doing non-sustainable things won’t cause a problem because they never caused a problem before, has some very serious logic flaws. 


    So, let’s all move away from the flavored waters and start seeking out the crystal clear true of the facts and the issues. We’ll all have a healthier outlook, and healthier teeth as well.


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  • NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record | NASA

    NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record | NASA

    This is a good recap of the tie in to record warming with human activity.

    It also give links the the raw data and the detailed methodology.

    Anybody want to play with the raw, unadulterated data, you will find a LOT of it; and no matter which way you look at it trend line appears. And the trend line is very depressing.

    BUT…

    This blog is devoted to easy, affordable solutions that can be implemented right now, in a business friendly way. In fact, the first things that can be done, energy efficiency and telecommuting, offer huge savings to everyone concerned (and a nice boost in the direction of sustainability).

    Why not start by picking the low-lying fruit now, and then address the heavy lifting as the next step.

    Orrrr, we all can wait and wait until governments to get into the mix to help us all with the problems.:-(

    We like the business now solution.

  • It’s Official: 2014 Was the Hottest Year on Record (watch the data unfold)

    It’s Official: 2014 Was the Hottest Year on Record:

    This is a very cool — oops, hot, I mean — visual of the earth temperatures over recent decades.

    As you will see, the monthly averages and the annual averages spike up year after year. Only a few monthly numbers are higher now then in 1995 and almost no monthly numbers are higher than the 20th century average.

    2014 was unusual as a hot year because is was not an el nino year. This was a “normal” year in which 5 of the hottest months on record occurred. 2014 outpaced the prior hottest months of 2010 and 2005.

    You have to go back a decade to find a coldest record month. That’s some ugly statistics, no matter how you look at it.

    Here’s a different graphic of combined land and surface temperatures in this US Today article. Notice that you could start over with a trend line at about 1995 and produce a new trend line that is simply higher than the historical average of a century.

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  • Study: sea levels rising quicker than previously estimated – Blue and Green Tomorrow

    Study: sea levels rising quicker than previously estimated – Blue and Green Tomorrow:

    This is a bit of good news which really is really bad news related to sea level rise.

    The good news, if you can call it that is sea levels appear to have been rising far slower during the first century of the industrial revolution than previously measured (estimated). Apparently the tidal measures that have been around for centuries didn’t represent some areas well, the poles and Florida, for example. A new study publishing in Nature analyzes and adjusts for the big gaps in prior ocean level measures. This is from a study in the journal Nature. Here.

    The bad news, is that the last few decades have been more than twice what was measured/estimated.

    At the new rate of 3mm per year, sea levels should rise only about one foot over the next 100 years. But this doesn’t count thermal expansion of the oceans warming (thermal expansion) over time such that a couple degrees centigrade should produce yards of increased sea levels once the temperature works its way through some 2 miles of ocean (on average).

    If this doesn’t make you nervous, you have been munching out a little too much on Colorado brownies, and not living very close to the sea shore.

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