Global Warming

[Sturmvogel]

With all the fuss about global warming recently:Amsterdam climate conference, floods, fuel protests, etc. isn't it about time the aviation community started taking the effect of aircraft pollutant emissions very seriously? Don't get me wrong, I am not a fanatic 'green', in fact am a dedicated 'petrolhead' and keen on aeroplanes, cars, motorbikes, etc.But I can't help noticing the bland assumption of aviation planners that air travel will double/ quadruple, and so on, over the next twenty years. If that is the case, with one 747 emitting as much greenhouse gases as 10000 motorcars, apparently, then the ice caps stand no chance at all.
So I think we should seriously start addressing this debate, as it could surely have a drastic effect on future employment levels in commercial aviation, before the anti-progress fanatics start clamouring for restrictions on aviation activity to be forced on the industry(eg heavy taxes on Avtur)After all, there is a limit to how fuel efficient, and environmentally friendly, a large turbine engine can be made, so aircraft can never be made pollution free.
Any comments?

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[Capt yeahright!]

Sturmvogel I hear where you are coming from, its a very valid point you are making. I think when you compare what the aviation industry has done in engine developement when compared to the old combustion engine (automotive) industry it aint doing so badly.

This is not to say that more cannot be done. As much as we all hate the noise taxes etc placed on our industry it certainly does motivate big industry to build better engines to sell to airlines so as they can try and stay one step ahead of the regulators.

It is a bit of a vicious circle but it is certainly helping the industry make large improvements in engine and aircraft design and the upside for drivers is that it is the only way accountants can be enticed into buying new airplanes for us to fly . That is they can see a 'buck ' in the efficiencies the new types give.

[swashplate]

Are we sure there actually IS a Greenhouse effect? Not every scientist agrees - though they never get any coverage!

Remember, Planet Earth went through massive Climate Changes long before we evolved. The Polar Ice caps are 'only' 30 million years old(!) - before then, they never existed throughtout the 4.5 billion years of Earth's existence.

Maybe Earth is just getting back to it's normal 'warmer and wetter' self?

See you all at the Bash!!

[Slasher]

Oh yeh thats right. Global warming is now the fashionable trendey thing to be seen concerned about. In the 70s everybody was right into the "in" scene about global cooling. Thats because back then as now, the unwashed masses still need a righteous cause to keep themselves occupied. Politicians only know that too well. Theyve played the warming issue much much better this decade than the cooling fad ever saw.

[Icarus Wings]

Eventually all the worlds oil will be used up by someone therefore producing the same amount of pollution.

[Tricky Woo]

Can't someone move this thread to JetBlast where it can receive the sort of attention it truly deserves?

[pigboat]

Bang on, Slasher. Over here if you go outside, it's -30 and yer up to yer a** in snow, thats' global warming. If it's p*****g down rain for a week, guess what?
(That oughta do it) :)

[Slasher]

Yeh Pigboat. Ive seen the figures on global warming and IMHO they dont add up. What the "experts" convenientley forget is:
* Its in the nature of weather to change over time. The dynamics of the system are extremeley complex and "Chaos" figures rather big on the "if" list. In October one year your in a draught. In October in 5 years time your flooded out of your home. Thats a normal weather pattern. If it were exactley the same and predictable each year over a 150 year period THEN there may be cause for further investigation. For a comparison try looking at life through a mayfly who lives for only one day. As far as hes concerned the weather is definitely warming!
* The time period that change is measured in. If you were to measure present day to 1805, the world is on a cooling trend.
* The oceans act as a huge carbonated seltzer that efectively absorbs CO2. CO2 release from limestone (if any) will be absorbed by the oceans. CO2 is heavy and will not progress to higher altitudes. That shuts up the "We are turning into Venus!" rabble.
* The ITZ is where the planet regulates its temperature and blows off excess heat through release of energy in the form of thunderstorms.

If you realy want to know what regulates our weather, try the moon. Without it the planet would wobble by up to 13 degrees from present axis every 20 years. Then youd have a real global environmental disaster!

[askcv]

Distantly related to the subject is the use of unleaded fuel (they are trying to make it the standard for lighties as well as cars). When they took out the lead and mandated catalytic converters they supposedly cleaned up the emmissions, but if they were right, the tailpipes of all those cars (and light airplanes if they have their way) will produce, instead of NOX, NO, CO and HCO (with a little bit of lead oxide), mainly CO2 and Water Vapour. Those two items are supposedly what is causing global warming. Maybe the problem of smog is being shoved over and not solved at all.
It takes about 10% more crude to produce a gallon of gasoline, and the new gas, without the lead, does not produce the same energy so that cars go about 10% less miles on the same volume of gas. And the Cat wastes another 10%, which adds up to a loss of around 30% in crude for the same miles driven.
Much more sensible to use the old fuel and to make the motors smaller or more fuel efficient, thus reducing the emissions. The less fuel burnt, the less cr@p in the air.
Instead of lead, which was never as serious a problem as the "experts" tried to make it out to be, we now have Benzene, which is a real poison. After fuelling the old Cessna 172 and checking the oil, it is safe to wash your hands with the fuel from the strainer, but if they take out lead and put in benzene, watch out! And if you value your kidneys, don't breath the vapours when you are filling your car. Savage stuff.
Imagine how we would have loved to have all the goodies that are now standard, such as fuel injection, computer controlled ignition and mixture control, lean burning combustion chambers etc, in the days when we were modifying our own cars. A modern engine, using the old fuel, would have great mileage, and with it, reduced emissions. And not so much CO2/H2O, thus not as much global warming at the same time!

[pigboat]

It seems that both scientists and politicians agree that something is happening, but surprise! disagree what to do about it. This quote is part of an editorial from Tuesdays' Montreal Gazette. The conference they refer to is the recent failed one in The Hague.
"The failure to agree on what to do about climate change is a blow to many who still believe in that optimistic ideal we call Progress. The conference sends two messages: yes, a consensus exists among almost all governments that industrial gases are helping to worsen global warming and resulting effects ranging from drought to storms; but no, these governments will do nothing about it for fear that cutting emissions might cause an economic downturn.
In other words, the politicians prefer to focus on the short-term contentment of voters rather than the long term interests of their descendants."
First we were told that car exhaust was the culprit, then methane gas from cow f***s and from under the tundra and now "industrial gases" are causing global warming. Personally, my house is eighty feet above sea level, and when I have to trade the Dodge for an Evinrude, I'll say we have a problem.
Slasher, your theory about axis wobble may be a whole lot closer to the truth than you think. Some years ago, a chopper pilot found a petrified forest on an Arctic island. Not sure which, Axel Hieberg or Ellsmere, but well north of 60. Not just a few trees, but acres of them. They were a type of redwood that is normally found in Oregon or California. The most plausable explanation for that type of find that far north was axis wobble. Now, THATS global warming on a grand scale.

[fifthcolumns]

I never really believed in global warming,
partly because I never believe in 'popular'
scientific theories. Partly because I always
doubt what I'm told by government and
organisations with an axe to grind.
When 'everybody knows it's true'
then alarm bells ring.
This kind of attitude would have got
me shot by nazis, communists, greens,
and the religious. (It may yet)
But the clincher came quite a few years ago
now when this nonsense was first mooted.
The BBC, Horizon team debunked the theory
brilliantly.
You see, it is actually our fault lads and lasses.
Yes us pilots and airline workers and airports.
Yes airports in particular.
You see, where are all the Met stations these
days? That's right airports. What are airports?
Nothing but giant expanses of concrete and steel.
Do they get hot in the sun? damm right they do.

The original basis for global warming was the
sum total of world temperatures based on
a specified period using the data from all
the Met stations available. Now correct me
if I'm wrong there weren't many Met stations
around a hundred years ago or airports.
The net conclusion of the programme was
that if you removed all the data from airports
we were actually suffering from global cooling!

But the whole global warming thing has
grown legs and the human capacity
to make patterns and to see things we
want to see, remember doing stuff like
that in the human factors exam, means
that it must be true, because everybody
believes it must be true.
This recent rain in the British Isles,
heavy as it was, global warming?
A few years ago it didn't rain much,
there was drought in England, global
warming? That's how it was described
both times.
When global warming comes the polar
ice cap melts and the flood of water
diverts the gulf stream south causing
the British Isles to take on the
weather of Canada, lots of snow.
Except that with global warming,
Canada will be as balmy as California.
This is the sort of contradictory stuff thats
bandied about.
Ten years ago we were told that we
wouldn't see any effects for 50 years.
Boy, were they wrong.
The truth is nobody really knows but
people are making careers of it.
It has also been embraced by the fanatics
amongst us. That incident where the woman
threw a cream pie at a delegate during the
conference is typical of the moronic mentality
that it encourages.
Even the famous El Nino phenomen
'was made worse' by global warming.
If I was El Nino, I'd be insulted, El Nino
needs no help.
Less than a thousand years ago it was
warm enough in Iceland for Viking settlers
to live in a temperate climate. They got
frozen out since. Global cooling?
What we have now is a snapshot of
our climate, in ten years it might go cold.
How would that be explained?
What we are doing now is like a visitor
who spends a hot summers day in Canada
and writes home that it's a tropical
paradise. None of us will be around to find
out the truth about global warming.
Meanwhile a lot of people will have made
a tidy living from all the hype.

What annoys me the most is the appalling
arrogance of it all. In the past if it
rained or didn't rain or the wind blew your
house down it was the Gods or just God.
Nowdays it's our fault, we control the
weather. We have become God.
That's the real problem.

The counter to all this nonsense is to
THINK for yourself at all times. Question
all the accepted norms believe nothing
you read in the papers, doubt every 'expert'
you me. Accept nothing with a smell of dogma,
remember the truth is always the first
casualty.
I may be wrong about this but I doubt it. We will
all laugh about the great global warming scare in
a few years time as we sit huddled around our
fires during the new ice age, which is coming soon.
I know it.

[This message has been edited by fifthcolumns (edited 03 December 2000).]

[Slasher]

Well said Fifth C and totaly correct. History has proven time and time again that people are easiley led by incited beliefs from those with a vested interest and propagated by the same: Incitement to nail up a relativeley inocent 33 yo carpenter, burning witches, murdering Jews, or "holy" crusades against evil pagan muslims. This global warming crap is just another one but with a lot less bloodshed. Unfortunateley we have to share the world with easiley-led "sheep" too.

[LAZYB]

Slasher et al,

http://www.animation-central.com/toon/homer1.gif


<A HREF="http://www.junkscience.com/" TARGET="_blank">http://www.junkscience.com/</A>

[fifthcolumns]

Thanks Slasher, but wow, didn't I rant a bit.?
What was I on this morning?
It could do with some editing and
for the pedants out there, some
grammatical first aid.
I didn't realise how strongly I felt about
the subject. But I really hate uncritical acceptance
of gigantic ideas without any real evidence.
Remember even the most ardent global
warming scientist will readily admit that they
don't really know what will happen. Yet
governments are formulating policy
effecting whole continents on the basis
of an idea, more like an ideology.
What does that sound like to you?
To me it sounds like a religion or some
'ism'. In these situations I'm always reminded
of the 'Emperors new clothes' fairytale.
You remember how it goes. Everyone was told
he was wearing beautiful clothes, which could
only be seen by intelligent people. So when
he strutted his stuff naked, everyone kept
their mouth shut thinking they were the only
ones, some actually saw something there.
Nowdays everyone sees global warming in
action right now every time it rains or doesn't
rain or the sun shines.

It's very relevant to this forum for the reasons
I described. Airports are huge radiators and
most Met stations these days are at airports.
Most others are in cities, another hot spot.

Remember in the late 19th century, the Thames
in London froze over. Imagine what they would
make of that these days.

[a_random]

Very skeptical about global warming, and as an Earth Sciences graduate this short-term view (less than about a million years) becomes a bit irrelevant to the world. Nature will recover, evolve to take advantage of the new environment when I am long gone. So minimize our impact (Americans - get real! Each yank preoduces three times the carbon dioxide of each European) but don't panic. We are in an ice age, won't harm the planet to come out of it. May harm some people - environmentalism is not necessarily altruistic.

Anyway, many of the forcast effects of global warming are uncertain - less ice due to melting, or more evaporation, so more snow, so more ice. Maybe that would trigger a new glacial period (high albedo on ice reflects sunlight, cooling the planet).