Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

we have used CFL'S for at least 20 years - remember the expensive phillips "circlites" ?
as usual , we were ahed of the curve - we also paid for extra insulation for our house BEFORE the canadian government made grant money available for it - but it sure paid in reduced fuel consumption !
some of the original circlites are still operating after 15-20 years .
we've had now more than 3 or 4 CFL'S burn out over the years - we take them to a store and put them into the re-cycle box for CFL'S - VERY EASY TO DO - NO MUSS , NO FUSS !
hbg

It's like claiming that changing your motor oil at home is a major pollution problem - after all, you may not dispose of it correctly! Bull. Dispose of it correctly and there is no problem.

It's like claiming that changing your motor oil at home is a major pollution problem - after all, you may not dispose of it correctly! Bull. Dispose of it correctly and there is no problem.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report

159.
Chemist Dr. Franco Battaglia, a professor of Environmental Chemistry at the University of Modena in Italy and co-author of a book critical of the modern environmental movement tilted "Green Outside, Red Inside: Deception of Environmentalists." The book was co-authored with Dr. Renato Angelo Ricci, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Padua and honorary president of the Italian Society of Physics. Battaglia dismissed man-made global warming fears as "trivial." Battaglia mocked that notion that we live in "a world where the colorless, odorless, taste, harmless CO2, food plants and therefore our food was at the same rank of radioactive waste." "A world where a trivial global warming is currently less than what [Viking] Erik the Red faced when he colonized Greenland" during the Medieval Warm Period," Battaglia wrote on September 2, 2007 in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale. "Our energy needs put CO2 into the atmosphere (at least until we decide to produce at 100% over nuclear), he explained. Battaglia also referred to the Kyoto Protocol as "stupid." (translated)

I do support the use of CFL's, and as they don't burn out or break very often, I don't consider this issue to be a major pollution problem.

It's like claiming that changing your motor oil at home is a major pollution problem - after all, you may not dispose of it correctly! Bull. Dispose of it correctly and there is no problem.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I do support the use of CFL's, and as they don't burn out or break very often, I don't consider this issue to be a major pollution problem.

It's like claiming that changing your motor oil at home is a major pollution problem - after all, you may not dispose of it correctly! Bull. Dispose of it correctly and there is no problem.

Cycloptichorn

In the main I agree with your point here, Cyclo. However it is important to recognize that some of the chemical and elemental hazardous materials in discarded computers, electronic components, solar cells and other important contributors to modern life - have shelf lives as long as or longer than high level nuclear waste. Moreover there is a hell of a lot more of the stuff than nuclear waste. Some interesting comparisons could be made here. There is no free liunch.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A top U.S. Democratic senator said in a newspaper interview published Wednesday that he would consider supporting opening up new areas for offshore oil and gas drilling.

"I'm open to drilling and responsible production," Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin told The Wall Street Journal, adding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid could also support the move.

However, Durbin said his support for opening new areas to drilling was contingent on setting requirements that oil and gas companies begin production within a specified time frame on acreage they have leased from the government.

The spike in oil prices to record highs above $145 per barrel has prompted calls for the U.S. government to allow energy producers to explore for oil and gas off the East and West Coasts and in the eastern region of the Gulf of Mexico. Those areas are currently off limits to exploration.

Republicans say their efforts to open up new regions for exploration have been stymied by Democrats.

Democrats say energy companies are producing oil and gas from only about a quarter of the 91.5 million acres currently leased from the government.
LINK

As an aside on available petroleum supplies, I am seeing quite a bit of ocmment on the 91.5 million acres the oil companies have leased for oil exploration but aren't drilling on. Well, a whole big lot of that has been determined to have no oil to drill for

I agree. I would add that much of these materials are recoverable using the proper techniques and that many are quite valuable; there is money to be made in the computer and CFL recycling business.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I agree. I would add that much of these materials are recoverable using the proper techniques and that many are quite valuable; there is money to be made in the computer and CFL recycling business.

Cycloptichorn

There is money made in processing nuclear waste as well. Indeed the recovered radioactive cobalt and cesium are mainstays of medical and industrial diagnostic techniques. You have also indirectly noted the untapped potential for reprocessing nuclear waste to produce large quantities of useful nuclear fuels. The problem is that only few of these possibilities are actually realized - both for nuclear waste and discarded computers. The difference is no one pays any attention to the computers. There is indeed a fairly large amount of methyl mercury introduced into the environment by cuch sources - and it doesn't stay in the landfills.

I think the real point here is that common sense seems to take a holiday when nuclear waste is involved.

Currently, the group is engineering sorbent-containing disposal bags or recycle boxes to allow safe handling of the bulbs (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es8004392). Although biologically significant exposure to mercury is unlikely to occur from breakage of a single CFL.......

Oil companies prioritize drilling targets. They only have enough infrastructure and money to efficiently test their best targets, and the process progresses with time. There are portions of existing leases that either have no potential, according[......]
By the way, I would not advocate trading leases, as I see no reason to trade, that would not benefit us.

okie wrote:

Oil companies prioritize drilling targets. They only have enough infrastructure and money to efficiently test their best targets, and the process progresses with time. There are portions of existing leases that either have no potential, according[......]
By the way, I would not advocate trading leases, as I see no reason to trade, that would not benefit us.

Okie - I'm not clear why you're opposed to trading leases; especially since I'm sure you know that US companies have leases in many millions more acres in far-off places like Australia.

California Glaciers Keep Growing

LINK

...

"When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking," said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led a team studying Shasta's glaciers. "These glaciers seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean."

[...]

But for Shasta, about 270 miles north of San Francisco, scientists say a warming Pacific Ocean means more moist air.

On the mountain, precipitation falls as snow, adding to the glaciers enough to overcome a 1.8 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature in the last century, scientists say.

[...]

Until recently, the same phenomenon that is benefiting Shasta's glaciers was feeding glacier growth in southern Norway and Sweden, the New Zealand Alps and northern Pakistan, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In each area, scientists say, more snowfall temporarily offset warming temperatures in the 1990s and early 2000s. But rising temperatures since then have begun to shrink the ice.

Climate change is causing roughly 90 percent of the world's mountain glaciers to shrink, said Thompson, the Ohio State glacier expert.

...

The 'laws of supply and demand' have no place in them for pollution, Okie. Someone has to care about that, as it's obvious that the problem will not be solved by the companies who profit greatly off of the oil; and who have shown that they will rarely willingly self-limit their emissions and waste products.

Cycloptichorn