Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[a_unique_person]

No. Soil and water can be easily manipulated by the grower.

Water is easily manipulated? Where in the world do you live, there are plenty of places where water shortage is a chronic problem, and irrigation politics is moving from argumentive to nasty, because there is not enough to go around. You also have the situation of the horn of Africa, where chronic drought is only getting worse and mass starvation has returned again.

 

[Furcifer]

Water is easily manipulated? Where in the world do you live, there are plenty of places where water shortage is a chronic problem, and irrigation politics is moving from argumentive to nasty, because there is not enough to go around. You also have the situation of the horn of Africa, where chronic drought is only getting worse and mass starvation has returned again.

That's irrelevant. We're talking about hardiness zones or regions. These are defined by the minimum temperature in the zone.
"Based on the average annual minimum temperature for a given location, the USDA map provides an easy guideline for categorizing locations suitable for winter survival of a rated plant in an "average" winter"

It has nothing to do with water, which can easily modified using irrigation techniques or soil, which can be enriched and transported.

 

[Furcifer]

The volumes pumped are hugely different.

I don't know what you mean by this. They pump as much as is required. If they're different they're different, if they're the same they're the same.

In addition, water is much more massive than gas, slightly more so than oil.

And in addition they pump water at a fraction of the pressure of gas. I don't see your point.

Also, it has a fraction of the financial return to the companies that sell it. Yes, the cost to the nation of building the infrastructure is relatively insignificant, the continued running costs are prohibitive but likely to be necessary, otherwise they are not going to cope.

Yes, it's preferable it fall from the sky. But if it doesn't, or it doesn't in the quantities required they will desalinate ocean water and pump it in.

 

[lomiller]

No. Soil and water can be easily manipulated by the grower. Frost free days are the limiting factor.

If soil were so “easily manipulated” there’d be no problems with growing things in the Canadian Shield. Are you back to claiming farming in this region will become viable?

The only crop I've personally ever seen manage frost is grapes, but that's to manipulate sugars and not really part of the cultivation process.

Winter wheat is planted in the fall before everything freezes soli and most grains can be harvested in spring in early snow prevents it in the fall.

 

[Trakar]

"They" are the people represented by the UN.

Unless you support this statement, as requested, I must assume that this is your way of saying "I believe this, but do not know it to be true, and cannot support my assertions."

Sounds good. I don't think it's possible, but if it can be done it should be done.

done improperly, and without consideration for scaling and integration, people are simply wasting money, effort and time. Done properly, we wouldn't be seeing the rates of emissions continuing to accelerate.

 

[lomiller]

Good luck with that.The number of homes that cook with natural gas and the offset during HVAC heating days make it inconsequential.

Heating homes, businesses and institutions with natural gas is a whole other matter. I'm just speculating, but given the recent progress made towards high efficiency natural gas heating we're 25 years away from even beginning to look elsewhere for an alternative.

You're welcome to try though. I'd pay money to see someone explain to the average home owner in Canada how their natural gas furnace is ruining the planet.

Unless your electricity is produced by Nuclear or renewables, using natural gas directly in cooking actually has the lowest CO2 footprint and is the preferred solution.


Heating in cold climates is no more a problem then cooling in warm ones. Even if you use natural Gas (as opposed to a geothermal heat pump) a natural gas furnace is far more efficient then most of the generating plants used to produce electricity for air conditioners, furthermore natural gas produces a lot less CO2 for the same energy produced then the coal that produces most electricity for the warmer climates in the US.
Beyond that you can also move the geothermal heat pumps for heating and given that Canada produces most of its electricity via Hydroelectric or Nuclear and very little from coal geothermal has a much lower CO2 footprint still.

Canada’s high CO2 per capita is primarily a result of oil/gas production and commuter culture where people drive long distances to work each day as the only person in their large vehicle.

 

[Furcifer]

Canada’s high CO2 per capita is primarily a result of oil/gas production and commuter culture where people drive long distances to work each day as the only person in their large vehicle.

I'm afraid this is incorrect. The mining industry creates about 2 times the GHG's the petroleum industry creates.

 

[Furcifer]

Unless you support this statement, as requested, I must assume that this is your way of saying "I believe this, but do not know it to be true, and cannot support my assertions."



done improperly, and without consideration for scaling and integration, people are simply wasting money, effort and time. Done properly, we wouldn't be seeing the rates of emissions continuing to accelerate.

It's actually the FAO that speaks on behalf of the UN for these people.

 

[Furcifer]

If soil were so “easily manipulated” there’d be no problems with growing things in the Canadian Shield. Are you back to claiming farming in this region will become viable?

lol, try manipulating frost free days if you think it's so easy.

I assumed you knew what growing regions were when you brought them up earlier. You claimed you were familiar with farming so I assumed you knew what the "regions" were. They are defined by the number of frost free days each year and are supposed to move northward as climate change progresses.

 

[Mikemcc]

I don't know what you mean by this. They pump as much as is required. If they're different they're different, if they're the same they're the same.

It's not difficult - look up the figures - a city the size of Mexico City uses a lot more water per day than petrol (in the order of 4 or 5 times)

And in addition they pump water at a fraction of the pressure of gas. I don't see your point.

Even at 100bar a cubic meter of methane will only weight about 130kg against 1000 for water. This is really basic physics.

Yes, it's preferable it fall from the sky. But if it doesn't, or it doesn't in the quantities required they will desalinate ocean water and pump it in.

While Mexico has a relatively strong economy they still have >$210 dollars of external debt. What on earth makes you think that they are likely to build such a silly system. The UK looked at a pipeline system to distribute water from north to south and quicked discarded the idea as way too expensive. A more likely solution is rationing and letting the population vote with their feet.

 

[lomiller]

lol, try manipulating frost free days if you think it's so easy.

I assumed you knew what growing regions were when you brought them up earlier. You claimed you were familiar with farming so I assumed you knew what the "regions" were. They are defined by the number of frost free days each year and are supposed to move northward as climate change progresses.

As it happen not only did I grow up on a farm I did so in Northern Canada. While frost was occasionally an issue the 100 or so frost free days we got was sufficient. Go head off in any direction however and despite similar frost free days you couldn’t grow anything because of soil and or drainage issues.


It was mostly soil; you can’t chop down boreal forest and hope to grow much of anything no matter how many frost free days you have. Drainage is important as well because other than a few major river channels/valleys lower areas were swamp/bog higher areas were risk because drainage were pretty much scraped systems during the last glaciations.


These issues are not entirely unrelated to frost free days, as shorter growing seasons and lower temperature tend to result in taiga which has soil that isn’t at all suited for agriculture. Give taiga a few thousand years of warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons and the soil will improve. When the climate is changing over a period of a century and it takes 10X that long for soils to catch up we are pretty much skewed for the time in between.

 

[lomiller]

The mining industry creates about 2 times the GHG's the petroleum industry creates.

Source?

 

[Furcifer]

It's not difficult - look up the figures - a city the size of Mexico City uses a lot more water per day than petrol (in the order of 4 or 5 times)

So you use a bigger pipe and use a bigger pump.

Even at 100bar a cubic meter of methane will only weight about 130kg against 1000 for water. This is really basic physics.

So you use a bigger pipe. This is basic logic.

While Mexico has a relatively strong economy they still have >$210 dollars of external debt. What on earth makes you think that they are likely to build such a silly system.

You made me think they were running out of water, remember that was your premise?

The UK looked at a pipeline system to distribute water from north to south and quicked discarded the idea as way too expensive. A more likely solution is rationing and letting the population vote with their feet.

Nonsense. You lay a pipe (a big one) and desalinate the water. Mexico City isn't going anywhere because of global warming.

 

[Furcifer]

Go head off in any direction however and despite similar frost free days you couldn’t grow anything because of soil and or drainage issues.

Nonsense. They chose not too because it wasn't feasible. If they didn't have the frost free days then they "couldn't" grow. That's why it's considered a limiting factor.

These issues are not entirely unrelated to frost free days, as shorter growing seasons and lower temperature tend to result in taiga which has soil that isn’t at all suited for agriculture. Give taiga a few thousand years of warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons and the soil will improve. When the climate is changing over a period of a century and it takes 10X that long for soils to catch up we are pretty much skewed for the time in between.

Irrelevant. You're confusing "convenience" with limiting factor. Having nice soil and good drainage is a convenience, frost is a deal breaker.

 

[CapelDodger]

These issues are not entirely unrelated to frost free days, as shorter growing seasons and lower temperature tend to result in taiga which has soil that isn’t at all suited for agriculture. Give taiga a few thousand years of warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons and the soil will improve. When the climate is changing over a period of a century and it takes 10X that long for soils to catch up we are pretty much skewed for the time in between.

Indeed. It's the gross disparity in timescales that so many people miss. Loss of water can destroy farmland far faster than warming can create it.

In the Furcifer view, farming is just outdoor hydroponics. Soil is the matrix, water and nutrients are supplied, weeds, parasites and diseases are eliminated, and the crop grows just the way it was designed to.

 

[Dancing David]

If soil were so “easily manipulated” there’d be no problems with growing things in the Canadian Shield. Are you back to claiming farming in this region will become viable?



Winter wheat is planted in the fall before everything freezes soli and most grains can be harvested in spring in early snow prevents it in the fall.

Um, this is a debate had in the past of this individual, they have some strange ideas of what global warming means. They are sort of familiar with farming, but have no real conception of farming. I know farmers, I know people who work in agriculture, I don’t think that Furcifer even knows about they way people get upset during heat spells while the corm is pollinating. Like right now, lows in the 70s are not ideal when you have high heat during the day, and a lack of rain could just reduce yields by 30%.

Even winter wheat would not have that much more of a growing area over where it is now and depending on rainfall the maize crops in Iowa could be devastated, that is a huge amount of grain right there.

Furcifer has no real conception of what is really involved in modern agriculture, his ideas of water transport alone are going to be more than any carbon cost reduction programs, by a huge factor.

North america is water rich, there are many places none the less in the US grain belt that could not provide enough irrigation to crop anything other than millet and sorghum if teh rain fall patterns stay the same as they are now and with a five degree rise in summer highs.

I suppose he wasn't aware of the drought of '88 <snip>, his notions of agriculture are so ludicrous that they are beyond the pale, that year the water shortage was very apparent, there was suddenly a huge amount of crop land under severe stress, and no conceivable way to irrigate it, even with twenty years warning, the water table in not that rich.

I live in a water rich state and irrigation is just not feasible on a large scale, even if you tried to water the state with water from Lake Michigan, the costs of the infrastructure would be absurd.

Considering the state of drought that much of the country is under at one time or another, the lack of more water is a huge issue.

Much less Furcifer’s total misunderstanding of growing season, yes soy beans might be cropped a little farther north than they are now, but basically the only growing season that will be extended farther north is the winter wheat crop. And the cost of green houses would be ridiculous.

And that is dependant upon an early enough and consistent snow cover to survive. A three week increase in growing season in the northern parts of Canada, does not mean a huge new area for crops.

 

[a_unique_person]

It's not funny, it's just too cold. Cold is ultimately the limiting factor on where things can or can't live on this planet.

That and heat.

 

[a_unique_person]

That's irrelevant. We're talking about hardiness zones or regions. These are defined by the minimum temperature in the zone.
"Based on the average annual minimum temperature for a given location, the USDA map provides an easy guideline for categorizing locations suitable for winter survival of a rated plant in an "average" winter"

It has nothing to do with water, which can easily modified using irrigation techniques or soil, which can be enriched and transported.

Irrigation is not easy, you have to get the water first, and someone might want that same water. There are plenty of examples of 'irrigation' water being wanted by different states, cities and industries out there already. It's not an unlimited resource that can be had for free.

 

[CapelDodger]

The World's population is distributed towards the equator for a reason.

It isn't distributed towards the equator, even though there's so much room there. Very few people live near the equator.

The majority of people live in great river valleys because that's where the water and alluvial soils are. China, India, SE Asia. The valleys of the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irrawady, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. Biilions upon billions of people.

It's actually less energy intensive to operate in a warmer climate.

Ask any tick or mosquito, they'll say the same.

When the energy used in farming is still largely human labour (as it is where most people live) it can easily get too hot.

The net benefit of Global Warming is more warmer arable land.

More and warmer? How does that work?

You can spin that any way you want I suppose, but it's an advantage as long as it's taken for the opportunity it is.

Meaning that those who suffer are those who failed to grasp the opportunity. Losers. The already poor.

And there's very little doubt that it will.

Opportunities are there aplenty, and they will be grasped. Not the ones you vaguely envisage, and not necessarily grasped by the sort of people you vaguely expect to.

 

[CapelDodger]

Whoopie-do. Mexico city lies in a valley that ranges from a minimum of 2200m up to 5000m. Even assuming the minimum figure that's still 9.81 x 2200 = 21.6kJ per litre of water just to lift it at 100% efficiency. Then there is the minor detail of shifting it 300+ km from the coast, I haven't found a source for this cost yet, but don't assume it to be small. Then the desalination costs. Even if I assume 50% sourced (3 litres per day per person) from run-off from the hills, that's still 0.5 x 15e6 x 3 x 21.6e3 = 470GJ per day, just to lift the water for the population for just one day. Totally ignoring translation and desalination costs. Pretty damned poor.

The unsung benefit of precipitation as a water-source is that it comes in from the top. We're so used to it that most people don't register the fact.

De-salinated water comes pretty much from sea-level, there's no getting away from that, and sea-level rise is not going to help much in the medium-term.

What's the solution? Accepting that the US, and Canada primarily, and the Southern American countries are likely to gain probably 20-50 million extra refugeesin the next 50 years.

Potential refugees.

Those refugees are going to have to be fed, watered, supported, medically treated, educated, and employed.

Or, alternatively, kept out.

Good luck, given the US is more than a trillion dollars in debt already.

The second option is the cheaper ...

So , given that populations are bound to rise, what's the impications, the bordering states already have similar problemsLake Mead is dropping precipitously. Texas is in yet another serious, unprecedented, drought, the Oghala and High Plains aquifiers are already in crisis.

This is where it gets interesting - the potential for internal migration in the US from South to North. There's a whole can of worms liable to get spilled there.