The Truth Behind Global Warming
The ‘Warming’ Angle
Records show that over time planet earth has been warming up. Of course, these records are a little selective as they point towards recent warming activity. Gaia has been warm before, much warmer when the dinosaurs were running (or walking according to more recent research) about.
However, since the last great ice-age old Gaia has been warming up.
“So what’s the problem?” I hear you ask….
The problem is the rate at which it is warming up. Like all things geological, changes take time. They take a long time and because of this, a balance can always be struck. The equilibrium can be maintained.
Think about how here in Great Western Land the temperature his been rising steadily and so has the summer rainfall. This is Gaia trying to cool herself down which she can’t do because the temperature change is too quick.
The Greenhouse Angle
In Utopia, people live in harmony with their surroundings. They use natural things such as trees to make fire, houses, furniture. They do not use fossil fuels.
Globally the human race does not now do this thanks to the industrial revolution. Fossil fuels release carbon from ancient sources. Carbon that had been taken out of circulation and buried for millions of years. Carbon which burnt with modern oxygen produces carbon dioxide the dreaded greenhouse gas.
Carbon Dioxide lives in the atmosphere and forms a layer which heat cannot escape through. As heat is generated it is kept in the air thus warming Gaia.
This is all very well but where is the heat coming from?
The Heating Angle
There are a few sources of heat:-
Living creatures give off heat, there are a lot of them
The Sun warms Gaia, there’s a lot of it
“Human activity” the burning of anything produces heat and this includes both fossil (Coal, Oil, Gas) and current (wood) fuels. There’s a lot of that.
Yet if we reduce the amount of fossil fuel burning would this lead to a reduction in global temperature back to pre-industrial levels?
No one has yet offered a response to this question however this blog does have a suggestion.
The Future…
It is one thing to retain heat, it is another to generate even more of it.
Global models are concerned with small changes in temperature,1 – 2 degrees centigrade.
There is a lot of air around 5the world and it will take a lot of heating even by 1 degree.
Yet there are billions of vehicles driving around in the developed world. They run at 90 degrees C or so and a 100 Horse Power engine produces 73.5 KW. In 2010 there were 1.2 Billion vehicles in the world.
That’s 88,200,000,000,000 Watts of energy production and yes that is the amount of energy that will be dissipated as heat. Remember, this is just vehicles and doesn’t include electricity generation, heating systems for buildings and equally cooling systems.
“Yes”, I hear you say, “we’re dumping fossil fuel for eco-friendly electric motors.”
That may be the case however electric vehicles will still need to produce a similar amount of energy and so the heat will continue to be generated.
In summary, the future looks bleak since reducing dependency on fossil fuels and CO2 production only affects the Earth’s (Gaia’s) capacity to retain heat. We don’t know if a reduction in CO2 levels will lead to a similar reduction in global temperature especially if our capacity to generate heat will only increase.
With that amount of energy, how much of the atmosphere can be warmed up by 1 degree?
