[lug] Anyone else hate to get rid of old equipment?

[dio2002 at indra.com]

> On 5/25/2010 3:56 PM, Davide Del Vento wrote:
>>> can't understand how anyone in Boulder, with all of the research labs,
>>> could
>>> have any doubt about the reality of global climate change.  Maybe the
>>> cause
>>> is still open for debate, but not the existence of sustained and
>>> measurable
>>> change
>>>
>> I am a physicist and I work at NCAR so I must answer. The reality of
>> global warming and its cause is indeed certain. Pumping into the
>> atmosphere stuff that was in the ground increases the greenhouse
>> effect and thus Earth *average* temperature, period.
>>
>
> Okay, let's say I agree on that point... which might or might not change
> my personal behavior... we've already pointed out that human behavior is
> badly understood... right?
>
> - Melt more of the icecaps, resulting in more water in the oceans.
> - Which results in more surface area of water worldwide.
> + higher temperatures, means more evaporation.
> - Meaning more clouds, and more rainfall where it never fell before.
> - Meaning more plants, which need CO to survive.
> - Meaning more CO scrubbed from the air, and put into the ground in
> those areas covered in plant life.

for a guy that made a lot of sense (to me anyway), you threw it all away
with this post (you seem like kind of guy that will take this in jest) ;)

nate, i think you're simplifying things considerably here (which btw i
like to do too to help make valid points).  there's a lot of impact that
is occurring in between your vanilla bulletpoints above that you don't
account for.  it's not just a shift of water from one form to another.
soil erosion for one and acidifying water sources regardless of their form
or location come immediately to mind.  most people don't know about that
stuff.  when you lose soil it just doesn't pop up somewhere else in a
desert because it starts raining there now.  and you may not give a jack
about polar bears but what about every other species that gets impacted
which then effects the entire chain.  we're relatively isolated from the
fact that billions of people live in watersheds and ecosystems that are
already stressed. (actually our own watersheds are stressed but that's
another story).  check out india. check out the mekong river system.   if
patterns shift what are all those people going to do?  move to alaska
where the new fertile land and showers are?  blah blah blah.  it don't
work that way.

i'm no expert in the matter but even if you don't want to listen to my
point that you're leaving out a lot of variables in your simplified water
equation, i think one of the biggest things you are not accounting for is
the RATE of the temperature change.  natural causes can and do cause
warming.   for your scenario described above to work, a lot has to be self
regulated within the cycles of the known earth system in a short amount of
time.  i guess i don't have faith in those abilities on an acclerated
schedule while supporting life as we know it.  over time, i agree it
eventually will take care of itself.  it sort of has to by nature.  but if
you want to be here while it's happening, i'm thinking no.

i will agree though that there is a lot of unknown as to what the actual
consequences will be.  imho to think that it's going to be anything but
pain is naive.

> * Is the melting of the icecaps a "disaster"? (Emotional answer, not a
> scientific one from most folks... "Oh no, the polar bears may go
> extinct!")
> * Will higher water levels make some beachfront property uninhabitable?
> (Again, emotional response... "Oh no, my house fell into the ocean!")
> * Will higher temperatures mean people migrate further north on our
> continent, and Australia becomes a very uncomfortable place to live in
> the South?
> * Will more clouds and more weather activity mean wilder severe weather
> in some areas?
> * Will more CO for plants mean more infiltrations of "weeds"/"noxious"
> plants like Kudzu in the South, introduced by accident by humans, but
> probably enjoying its new climate and chomping away on CO in the process?
>
> Is it a circle?
>
> If we say there's no doubt at all about Global Warming, and I think
> there still is for some people... y'all have a marketing/sales problem
> there I'm not going to attempt to fix... that's fine... but the answers
> to "How does this affect me?" and "How does this affect my
> children/grandchildren?" are tantamount in getting people to change any
> behavior causing any of it.
>
> I'll respect your statement as someone who spends more time studying the
> topic than I do -- and even maybe even believe it -- but it doesn't get
> to the heart of people until someone can scientifically state "this is
> what will happen".  Since we can't even predict the weather with any
> great accuracy beyond 3 days (we get close, but try flying a light
> aircraft off of a 5 day old weather forecast, and see how long you
> survive!)... there's still an awful lot of work in the scientific
> community to be done to answer those questions.
>
> Going back to the original topic: If I throw my Sun Ultra 2 in the dump,
> what happens?  THAT can probably be scientifically measured.
>
> - How many Ultra 2's made worldwide?
> - How many in Denver/Boulder Metro?
> - How many landfills and will they be spread between them relatively
> equally?
> - What's in the Ultra 2's that's toxic to things we all care about?
> - How much of it will leech out and go somewhere we don't want it to,
> what's the expected kill rate for the things we care about?
>
> THOSE are the questions in the back of EVERYONE's minds when we throw
> out computer/electronic gear we're no longer happy with and don't repair
> it.  (By the way, forced recycling at a high enough price-point would
> probably bring back businesses that repair computers in droves, and
> maybe even stifle CPU speed increases, as people might demand coders pay
> attention to efficiency again someday in their code, so it will run on
> their old slow computers!  Economics all interrelates.)
>
> I'm "totally cool" with saying that Global Warming exists, if someone
> wants me to.  I just think it still doesn't answer the question: "Why do
> I care?"
>
> I think a lot of people are in that boat... if their kids aren't
> browbeating them with stories from the Priests placed in their school
> textbooks, that is.  Indoctrination is powerful stuff! It's often easier
> to change societal behavior by indoctrinating the kids, than to convince
> the much more level-headed parents. ;-)
>
> Nate
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