Climate change

[Ray]

Sorry Mr. Toban. I know this is not on topic but I feel it is important that as many people see it as possible.

http://www.upworthy.com/the-most-hon...i-swear?c=ufb2

[cameeindos]

it can't be all bad...Toronto would get warmer

and Baffin island may get warm enough for a TS escort to go there full time...always wanted to see arctic wolves and polar bears in the wild...

[Rockheart]

Climate change

To me climate change means rain every day all summer.


Even though these companies should not pollute, deep down i know that climate change would probably still happen.
The world melts and freezes in cycles. We like to think we are so powerful that we can affect this, I have my doubts.

Most of southern California is supposed to be a desert, but they pump in water from elsewhere.
The fact that California is drying up due to water shortages is no surprise, it is reverting to it's natural state.

Las Vegas is using up loads of valuable water to once again hydrate the desert.
They are running out too, but still it is not really climate change causing their issues.

In fact there is more water in circulation that ever.
Why we need to live in places that are not conducive to life it beyond me.

[cameeindos]

Never understood that myself.....US has enough land as it is.

[GTanker]

Science is the pure pursuit of truth. Faith is not require nor desired.

At the root of climate change is perhaps one key fact...the unsustainable and increasing release of carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon is a unique molecule in that it easily bonds to other molecules to form complexed compounds. An example is us, humans, we are "carbon based life forms" for that exact reason.

So although rain may increase to some areas, the chemical composition of that precipitation, along with the oceans, is and will continue to change because of the earth's inability to balance that sudden chemical release. It is essentially that simple.

Why is it so bad now, because the change/carbon release is so rapid. The last time this happened on Earth was about 252 million years ago, Permian?Triassic extinction event, also known as "the great dying". Earth almost turned into a Venus. Earth has been down this path before.

why is it so hard for humans to get their heads around this issue, because humans live in an illusion that nothing changes. Our life expectancy is so insanely short next to the evolutionary life cycle of Earth and the universe. In our ridiculously short lifespans the earth never really changes so we have falsely come to believe it has and will always be like this. If we said the universe was one year old, human civilization would have first appeared in the last four seconds...industrialized humans, the last half of one second.

Think that is as far as I want to go down this rabbit hole, it can become a very deep discussion very quickly, there are so many variables at play.

Best source of info on this topic hands down is NOAA. Here is a link to their Environmental Visualization Laboratory http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/Default.php, which has some very cool models. Navigate from there the NOAA climate sub-sites.

[Ray]

Hmmm. Me thinks this guy GTanker knows of what he speaks.

[aguyoutthere1]

Great post Ray. With the recent "Canada approves Enbridge pipeline to West Coast" it is evident that this will never change.
At least not in our lifetime. What about our kids or our grandchildren or their grandchildren.
I also tend to think that the "changes" we are seeing/experiencing may also be something that has always happened, it has just not been well monitored long enough to show a pattern. First it was global warming, now it's called climate change.

The problem is, WHAT IF WE'RE WRONG? We won't get another try.

In the pursuit of money, and what we call capitalism, companies and government have adapted this FUCK YOU attitude. Nobody would get elected demanding companies change. Real change has to start at the Government level. Most of our utilities are controlled by the government, they need their money for the amount of overstaffed, overpaid unnecessary departments they've created. Toronto has an "Integrity Commisioner". That must be a great job with no accountability. Canada has an Ethics Commisioner. Well, don't get me started.

We all want to, and some try to do their part, but it just won't be enough. The truly rich absolutely disgust me. How much is enough? Is it ever too much? How many cars do you need, houses? Vacations?

Alternative energy is out there, regardless of cost it should be forced. Just in case we're wrong. But every man for himself seems to be the general rule of society, so let's all stick with that, and hope we are right.


KC

[GTanker]

Yup shout out to Ray...I just loved that vid. Been sharing it around work, everyone loves it.

To everyone reading, I can absolutely guarantee you, climate change is real and completely based on scientific facts.

KC we can actually track climate (not weather, those are the records you refer to) going back to the birth of the planet with a great deal of accuracy...no shit, honest. If you stuck 100 scientists in a room 97 of them would agree that humans are creating climate change...the other 3 are bought and paid for. That is the depth of evidence.

As for Northern Gateway...so you really kicked the wasp nest with that one.

I am born and raise West Coast, 7 generations, it is my heritage. I know almost ever stretch of the coast from Victoria to Prince Rupert. I will fight Northern Gateway with "blood and treasure". It's not easy, but you just have to go up the coast to see for yourself how special it is...beyond words. I have a place on the west side of the island for that reason...my paradise.

As one of the tribal chiefs said the other day, the Harper government has intentionally pitted the economy against the environment, natural resource development against clean air and water. They have bribed us with jobs, which they then outsource to the cheapest bidder. Harper and this extremist Tea Party right wing government and their corporate masters are the problem.

Needless to say, I will be spending a great deal of time and effort in the coming federal election...for a whole bunch of reasons. The Cons must go!

[GTanker]

Climate change, current CO2 impact to the ocean chemistry compared to previous extinction event.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0602170341.htm

[Locomotion]

Hoax

Then there are us who believe that all this climate change hype is just another giant hoax (like the moon landing ), the earth naturally goes through hot and cold cycles on its own without our help:

http://blog.heartland.org/2014/03/re...e-their-scams/

In Canada the propaganda is all about getting Ontario votes by hurting Alberta. One thing is sure, our economy will be in the tank if Justin's Fiberals or the NDP ever get power.

[toban]

I am totally with you on this Gtanker!

Admittedly, there have been several cycles of change on this planet before but this cycle we are now in is largely MAN made. Many centuries ago, I don’t suppose our human existence did a lot of harm to this old planet when the only additional carbon dioxide we were responsible for producing other than from our breathing, was from the few fires we lit to cook and keep us warm but since the Industrial Revolution and particularly during the latter part of the 20th century, human abuse of our planet has increased rapidly and very markedly, particularly in recent years.

This increased consumption of carbon with it's resulting CO? is responsible in the main for the issues you refer to here today, global warming, Gateway and most importantly Harpers devious attempts to abet transport of bitumen through the mountain ranges and coastal straits of our beauteous West coast. The route chosen to get this bitumen through these straits with their underwater chasms and fiords is known as the Hecate Strait. There, disaster looms!

Just months ago the passenger filled BC ferry Queen of The North sunk to the bottom after hitting the rocks while navigating this very same passage. While there was pilot error involved in this passenger ferry crash it highlights the possibility that pilot error may similarly occur at any time with a tanker full of bitumen resulting in horrendous, devastating effects upon the entire coastal area. The cumulative effects of such a bitumen spill are expected to be far, far, more devastating than those of the Valdez disaster were and still are.

Both the route proposed for Gateway [Hecate Strait] and it’s alternate southern route through the Fraser Canyon to a lesser extent, have the potential to severely damage our West Coast or even quite likely to destroy parts of it forever!

Geez, if that scenario is not bad enough, there are others promoting the idiotic idea of transporting this stuff through the Arctic where effective clean-up of any spill would be even less likely than it would be if it were to occur in the West Coast Passages!

Good Lord! It is all for money and greed!

[GTanker]

Then there are us who believe that all this climate change hype is just another giant hoax (like the moon landing ), the earth naturally goes through hot and cold cycles on its own without our help:

http://blog.heartland.org/2014/03/re...e-their-scams/

In Canada the propaganda is all about getting Ontario votes by hurting Alberta. One thing is sure, our economy will be in the tank if Justin's Fiberals or the NDP ever get power.

The scientific community is not permitted to consider those statements as fact. You linked to a blog, I linked to a report from one of the leading climate science institutes, in one of the most prominent scientific journals in the world. You don't get published there without a lot of facts to back you.

Irrespective, I completely respect your scepticism and cynicism, real science invites that into the discussion. We do not blindly "believe". Through this process we learn.

I strongly encourage you to engage, participate, and challenge everything...remembering that science, real experimental science, is the only way to prove or disprove a hypothesis. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis. If a statement of fact is not supported by reviewed experimental science it must be considered with extreme caution.

[GTanker]

Admittedly, there have been several cycles of change on this planet before but this cycle we are now in is largely MAN made. Many centuries ago, I don?t suppose our human existence did a lot of harm to this old planet when the only additional carbon dioxide we were responsible for producing other than from our breathing, was from the few fires we lit to cook and keep us warm but since the Industrial Revolution and particularly during the latter part of the 20th century, human abuse of our planet has increased rapidly and very markedly, particularly in recent years.

This increased consumption of carbon with it's resulting CO? is responsible in the main for the issues you refer to here today, global warming, Gateway and most importantly Harpers devious attempts to abet transport of bitumen through the mountain ranges and coastal straits of our beauteous West coast. The route chosen to get this bitumen through these straits with their underwater chasms and fiords is known as the Hecate Strait. There, disaster looms!

Just months ago the passenger filled BC ferry Queen of The North sunk to the bottom after hitting the rocks while navigating this very same passage. While there was pilot error involved in this passenger ferry crash it highlights the possibility that pilot error may similarly occur at any time with a tanker full of bitumen resulting in horrendous, devastating effects upon the entire coastal area. The cumulative effects of such a bitumen spill are expected to be far, far, more devastating than those of the Valdez disaster were and still are.

Both the route proposed for Gateway [Hecate Strait] and it?s alternate southern route through the Fraser Canyon to a lesser extent, have the potential to severely damage our West Coast or even quite likely to destroy parts of it forever!

Geez, if that scenario is not bad enough, there are others promoting the idiotic idea of transporting this stuff through the Arctic where effective clean-up of any spill would be even less likely than it would be if it were to occur in the West Coast Passages!

Good Lord! It is all for money and greed!

Funny as I read your post I was remembering going to those places the first time...starting from Bella Coola my buddy and I in a 14 ft Boston Whaler and ending up fishing 50 kilometres offshore from Hecate Strait. Yup, crazy shit.

I am taking a bit more of a middle ground position. I would support a pipeline to Vancouver. Vancouver has a long history of a proven piloted shipping route with substantial recovery and rescue process and resources already in place. Perhaps most important, if Vancouver was the terminus for oil on the west coast it would be in plain sight, so no corporate shenanigans or cover ups. As well, the risk already exists there. Increasing oil transport through Vancouver does really not increase the risks that much more, but significantly reduces the impacts.

I don't think we can take a position that does not consider the economy at all. If we damage the economy we will all feel a great deal of pain. We need to build a greener economy while we move away from carbon emitting sources...a balance as we transition.

In terms of the climate change impacts of using this tar sands resource. There needs to be a Cap and Trade type mechanism...something that quantifies carbon and de-incentifies it's use. The short human time period of cheap carbon fuel is coming to an end. It was a good run of a couple of centuries, but that status quo is completely unsustainable. It always has been.

Let's deal with it.