[Graeme]

'The Great Warming' Hits the Big Screen in U.S.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') new documentary film, The Great Warming, examining world-wide issues of climate change and offering many real-world solutions, will be released nationwide through the Regal Cinema chain on Nov. 3, with an initial showing in the top 50 (ADI) markets in the country, it was announced today by producer Karen Coshof of Stonehaven Productions.

In the months leading up to its national release, The Great Warming (85 minutes) has attracted an unprecedented coalition of leaders in science, religion, business, environmental activism and education. These various groups have bridged historic gaps to join in support of the film, because "they believe in an individual and collective moral responsibility to reverse the growing threats to the environment and human health and well-being," Coshof said. To that end, a full-page ad will appear in a Washington D.C. newspaper in October, announcing a call to action signed by leaders from every sector.

[miraculix]

even IF their is hope for a consensus and call to action to reduce "greenhouse" gases starting in the very near future - is there any hope of forstalling or reversing global warming?

Would it not be more prudent to accept global warming as a irreversible fact and to bring the collective attention to the mitigation of its effects?

Whatever anthropogenic factors there may or may not be as the driving force of global warming, I do not see anything we can really undertake that can stop it.

[Graeme]

The answer to your first qusetion is YES but we have to act quickly. There are a number of things we can do, such as:

Rapidly scale down the use of fossil fuels for transport and power.
Ramp up the development of renewable fuels and power, and alternative transport.
Use energy more efficiently (e.g. with more efficient appliances).
Plant forests.
Bury CO2.
Make fuels out of CO2 .

I'm sure there are others. Anyone got any suggestions?

[kjmclark]

"Would it not be more prudent to accept global warming as a irreversible fact and to bring the collective attention to the mitigation of its effects?"

It would be prudent to both reduce/eliminate the GHG emissions *and* mitigate its effects. No other course is moral or ethical. Ignoring the emissions hurts our children and future generations and is clearly unethical. Ignoring the effects will hurt the poor and is also clearly unethical.

I completely agree with Graeme's list. I would add:

- Work for zero population growth and and population decline through lower birth rates and attrition.
- Implement a carbon tax to encourage change and pay for transition.
- I hate to say it, but we could use a good global recession, and in particular, a really hard recession in the US. It would be much easier to consign all those gas guzzlers to the dustbin of history if people simply couldn't afford them anymore.
- Eventually, we could grow algae over large parts of the ocean surface and let fall to the depths. I really don't trust people to do this until we've reduced emissions. (Which means we will try anyway!)

Honestly, I expect this will all happen through a slow collapse process. We'll be better off if it starts sooner rather than later.

[kjmclark]

You know, another thought occurred to me. We could also come up with a GMO phytoplankton that uses sunlight, CO2 and nutrients and deposits waste carbon onto the end of nanotubes. Then we simultaneously get a source of cheap nanotubes of whatever length we desire and take CO2 directly out of the air or water.

Imagine mile-long vats of phytoplankton creating mile-long nanotubes.

The problem, as usual, is how to keep them from destroying the world when they inevitably escape into nature. I suppose we could just make them particularly tasty to zooplankton and krill. Given the amount of energy they would waste making nanotubes, they probably wouldn't compete very well in the wild anyway.

[RonMN]

It seem more reasonable to put thousands of mylar reflectors in a high earth orbit to reflect part of the sunlight back into space. Co2 sequestration, etc.

With the thawing of the permafrost & methane "burps" I believe the feedback loops are unstopable by simply "cutting back on pollution".

[NEOPO]

correct but let us not be as short sighted this time as we have been in the past.

We must do both!

[miraculix]

The way I understand global warming, I disagree that any of the actions that are aforementioned will do one iota of a difference.

As the GW theory goes, there is decadal time lag between the release of CO2 and its affect on the climate system as a whole.

So we are dealing with levels caused by a world some 10-15 years ago.

Ever since then CO2 additions due to anthropogenic actvities have risen year after year.

Looking at certain bioindicators and empirical meteorology, it appears as if we have surpassed certain tipping points and the ball is rolling popelled by its own inertia now.

I believe that all those actions you have mentioned will only have a minute effect on the course of global warming and much will fail due to scalability problems.

However, what has been mentioned in this thread reflects the same kind of actions required to cope with PO.

I guess that is our only shot.

Power down

but who will actually take the first momentous leap forward?

I guess we as a global community will hit the brick wall at full speed

[EnergyUnlimited]

Taking more ralistic viev than powerdown (vote loser concept), growing algi in oceans (they are already growing there and it is unrealistic to expect, that we can accelerate this growth to meaningful extent and such an adventure, even *if* successful would do more harm than good - further coral reef destruction etc), converting hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 into nanotubes (that's simply joke) or considering other pie on the sky schemes, I would rather suggest to do NOTHING to address GW at the moment, and this is for following reasons:

1. Conservation is futile - read about Jevons paradox.
2. "Planetary engineering" is best way to fuck up environment far more, than GW alone could achieve. GW will NOT be dealt with in that fashion (albeit it could be slowed down for a while only to accelerate later) and further problems are bound to come.
3. Voluntary powerdown is Utopia.
4. Fossil fuels are limited resources only, and once they are no longer available in meaningful quantities, no more CO2 will be pumped to atmosphere and global warming will die out by natural course of events.

Do-gooders are often making more mess than good.

[TreebeardsUncle]

Hi.
A lot of technological solutions have been proposed when psychological/phylosophical socio-economic solutions of reduced consumption would be more effective. Reaggregating functions of working, housing, shopping, worship, and recreation would reduce needless consumption activities in transportation. Also building connected residences as opposed to single detached houses would save heating and cooling costs. I only spend about $8 to $10 a month for electricity living in an apartment in Orangevale, Ca.
Washers and driers in particular are not needed and can be replaced with scrubbers, rollers, and clotheslines. Anyway through a combination of short-sided solipsistic greed and desires for comfort and convenience people will ironically, in their attempt to achieve easier living, on a greater scale render a greater proportion of the earth's surface uninhibatible or at least inhospitable.

Geoff

[Fergus]

Only POers are gunna pay to see this. Thats preaching to the choir.

If they want to get their message out to the mainstream, let the pple see it for free. Put it on TV and run weekly. Pass out free theater passes in the malls and autodealerships and airports and anywhere else pple go to spend lots of money But no one that has his head in the sand is gunna fork over 7 bucks to be told their way of life is about to radically change for the worse.

Man, even the doomers that are trying to spread the word are trying to make a buck of it. If its that important to you, give it to the pple, Pple like free things, even things they dont need or want, if its free, they will watch it, eat it or use it. But no one pays to be told how stupid they have been .

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'T')aking more ralistic viev than powerdown (vote loser concept), growing algi in oceans (they are already growing there and it is unrealistic to expect, that we can accelerate this growth to meaningful extent and such an adventure, even *if* successful would do more harm than good - further coral reef destruction etc), converting hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 into nanotubes (that's simply joke) or considering other pie on the sky schemes, I would rather suggest to do NOTHING to address GW at the moment, and this is for following reasons:

1. Conservation is futile - read about Jevons paradox.
2. "Planetary engineering" is best way to fuck up environment far more, than GW alone could achieve. GW will NOT be dealt with in that fashion (albeit it could be slowed down for a while only to accelerate later) and further problems are bound to come.
3. Voluntary powerdown is Utopia.
4. Fossil fuels are limited resources only, and once they are no longer available in meaningful quantities, no more CO2 will be pumped to atmosphere and global warming will die out by natural course of events.

Do-gooders are often making more mess than good.

[Windmills]

As someone with a degree in nuclear engineering, I'd certainly be happy to see the majority our of combustion power plants replaced. Nuclear power is incredibly more environmentally friendly than coal. It would have benefits not only for greenhouse gas emissions, but also for lower radiation, mercury contamination, soot, and a host of other pollutants that coal plants emit constantly. It would also make other uses of electricity more clean, instead of just shifting the source of pollution as electric cars would now do, for example.
Despite the numerous benefits, I don't see it happening soon enough. It's quite possible that people aren't going to act seriously against peak oil until prices are very painful, and it isn't likely that we're going to act against global warming in a significant way until some rich person's beach house slips under the ocean, or we have several years of drought, crop failures, and/or record hurricane seasons back to back with highly damaging storm landfalls. In both cases, it'll be too late. Capitalism and the "free" market are not going to send the necessary signals until the game is up.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '
')The only mitigation to climate change that can accomplish anything is the one most opposed by many Greens, and thats using nuclear power to replace all coal infrastructure.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'T')here is a breed of Greens, who wish civilization to collapse.
They are realizing, that only nuclear power could possibly avert this collapse

[gg3]

EnergyUnlimited is promoting defeatism (don't do anything), and TreebeardsUncle knows little or nothing about technology (down with washing machines).

Sigh. This is where it gets really depressing. People who should know better, don't.

Meanwhile, this is a topic about a film, disgressing into another thrash about lifestyle.

People will pay to see doomerish movies, they already do it all the time.