pingle
Member
Hmm. Science never proves anything? Wow...and all along I was thinking that a proof was actually a proof, and a hypothesis was a hypothesis.
A lot of people misunderstand how science works. That's why crackpots can say things like "no study has ever proven with 100% certainty that CO2 emissions contribute to global warming", and
some portion of society will run off declaring that it's a hoax. A hoax presumably organized by the same devious people who faked the moon landing, and tricked people into believing that they'd split the atom... them scientists is wily. I found another great book on Amazon that reveals their depravity:
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Roswel...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208916342&sr=1-1
If global warming isn't happening = nothing to worry about.
If global warming is happening (whether completely natural, partly man-made, or completely man-made) = its going to happen regardless of whether you trade-in your SUV for a Prius, or change your light bulbs to low energy types. Doing so may make you feel better, but it only takes a couple more coal-fired power stations in China to wipe out any savings made by reducing consumption. And who are we to say the Chinese aren't allowed to have lifestyles just like us.
"Enjoy it and don't fret" is the exact conclusion I've come to after fretting about such things as global warming, resource depletion, peecoil etc. etc. etc. for a while. Funnily enough its also the conclusion (for different reasons) that hard core climate change scientist James Lovelock has come to as well, as he says in the article linked below.
'Enjoy life while you can'
To answer the original question, I shoot film and digital, but mainly film. I prefer film because I like the tactile feel of it and the wonderful metal body Nikon rangefinders and lenses that use it. I also prefer the "look" of film over digital. I don't even think about whether or not film is "greener"
If global warming is happening (whether completely natural, partly man-made, or completely man-made) = its going to happen regardless of whether you trade-in your SUV for a Prius, or change your light bulbs to low energy types. Doing so may make you feel better, but it only takes a couple more coal-fired power stations in China to wipe out any savings made by reducing consumption. And who are we to say the Chinese aren't allowed to have lifestyles just like us.
We are here to use Earth's natural resources. The Earth has been here far longer than we have, and through much more than we could ever inflict on it. I don't buy into all this stuff, because if one takes it far enough, it means we have to leave the planet to save it. Every person creates waste and CO2. It's called life. Enjoy it and don't fret.
"Enjoy it and don't fret" is the exact conclusion I've come to after fretting about such things as global warming, resource depletion, peecoil etc. etc. etc. for a while. Funnily enough its also the conclusion (for different reasons) that hard core climate change scientist James Lovelock has come to as well, as he says in the article linked below.
'Enjoy life while you can'
To answer the original question, I shoot film and digital, but mainly film. I prefer film because I like the tactile feel of it and the wonderful metal body Nikon rangefinders and lenses that use it. I also prefer the "look" of film over digital. I don't even think about whether or not film is "greener"
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sjw617
Panoramist
To answer the original question, I shoot film and digital, but mainly film. I prefer film because I like the tactile feel of it and the wonderful metal body Nikon rangefinders and lenses that use it. I also prefer the "look" of film over digital. I don't even think about whether or not film is "greener"
BUT that does not answer the question.
Hehe, touche. Ok, my answer is "c. what the hell does "greener" mean anyway???
Dfin
Well-known
Getting back to the original question, they are both as bad/good as one another over their life cycle. As for global warming and mankinds roll in it, I`m very skeptical, consider the geologically recent volcanic eruptions of Mnt. St. Helens & Mnt. Pinatubo? Either side of the Pacific ocean each ejecting enough particulate matter & green house gases to negate anything mankind has done in the last 250 years. Mount Etna still erupting, Mount Vesuvio, dormont ? Volcanoligists say its over due to erupt, where do 8 million Neopolitans go? Reduce your carbon foot print , use bio-fuels!! Notice the price of cereal crops? Wheat UP 62% RICE (3rd world staple) UP 73%, food riots in Africa & India, spare me the Green Crocodile Tears. Al gore is a politician he is only in it for the money, he used to be the next president of the U.S.A. in other words a Has Been. Now he has this global warming gig. Having said all that, the Earth don`t need US, WE need the Earth!! Is that an Asteriod I see approaching???
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
Science never "proved" the existence of gravity. There are only theories...
I still am pretty sure there IS something like a gravity, though, no matter if we call it the attraction between masses, the curvature of the spacetime, or the upward acceleration of a flat earth.
I still am pretty sure there IS something like a gravity, though, no matter if we call it the attraction between masses, the curvature of the spacetime, or the upward acceleration of a flat earth.
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
I'm 100% with you on nuclear, but I also believe there is plenty of oil, and that there is no energy crisis. That's like saying we have an atom shortage.
now that, my friend, is a theory and is an absolutely wrong theory.
Oil is in small puddles underground, formed at some well defined period of our mother Earth.
"Atoms" i.e. nucleii are all around in the universe.
In terms of oil, we talk tens of years of resources - maybe hundred, if we are most optimistic about the "not yet found" puddles.
In terms of nuclear power, we talk about...dunno...thousands of years? Millions? The Universe is rather large, unless you are a FlatEarth believer.
BillP
Rangefinder General
*fingers in ears*
"la la la, not listening"
So. Somebody has bored holes in the bottom of our boat. Water is coming in. But it's not our fault because water would come in anyway? In the meantime, everyone should move to the first class cabins?
Hmmm...
Regards,
Bill
"la la la, not listening"
So. Somebody has bored holes in the bottom of our boat. Water is coming in. But it's not our fault because water would come in anyway? In the meantime, everyone should move to the first class cabins?
Hmmm...
Regards,
Bill
Although there is plenty of oil, I didn't say there was unlimited oil, I said there is unlimited energy; i.e., no crisis. There is only a crisis of politics and power.
OK, taking that line of thought, consider the humorous possibilities if the scenario was 'man-made global gravity change' instead of 'man-made global climate change.'
(Ignore for the moment that the problem was originally defined to be 'warming' and was recently revised to be just plain 'change' -- either 'warming or cooling' -- that's just an inconvenient truth.)
OK, everyone knows that a chrome 85/2 Nikkor is a heavy lens, right? You walk out your door in Bangkok, and it weighs 525 grams. Then you fly to the North Pole and incredibly, it weighs 600 grams!
Then you go to Calcutta and low and behold, said heavy lens is now only 400 grams! Heck, for that matter, Calcutta looks pretty damn good to me; other than the smog, I have a lot more energy when I'm there, and when I got off the plane it was like getting instant results from the Atkins Diet! (Not only that but I can play basketball a lot better there, I can actually dunk.)
Of course, at the same time I'm enjoying the effects of reduced gravity in Calcutta with my formerly heavy Nikkor, Kobe Bryant is having all sorts of difficulties in Los Angeles. He just can't jump as high anymore, the ball feels heavy, his shots all seem to be short and hitting the front of the rim. Everything feels normal in Chicago, but when he's playing in Boston, in contrast, all his shots hit the back of the rim, although rebounding and dunking seem to be a lot easier, he's just got way more energy on the east coast.
What we have here are people actually personally experiencing 'global gravity change.'
The acceleration due to gravity is defined as 32 feet per second per second. Everywhere on Earth.
On the other hand, what is the temperature of the earth? Well, unfortunately there is no global temperature constant. All we have are 'models.' (We do have temperatures in individual locations, which have always changed -- every day, in fact.)
Soon, all across the world, individual TV stations start adding Gravity Forecasts in addition to news, weather, and sports. Like this one from Houston: "Tomorrow looks like thundershowers combined with a 20% chance of increased gravity, but by the weekend, things should be great for being outdoors; sunny with temperatures in the 80s, combined with a 5% gravity reduction, that will mean more chances for home runs at Minute Maid Park this weekend, so head on out to the ball park!"
Al Gore sees his opening. The Earth is in the Balance. We've got a serious problem here, what can it be?
So it's decided that we'll get the United Nations to put together a group of bureaucrats, and let's find out exactly what is causing this problem! Let's call our group the Intergovernmental Panel on Gravity Change. (Since we put 'intergovernmental' in the title, everyone will obviously realize this is entirely science and has nothing to do with government.) And since we put 'Gravity Change' in the title, everyone will know that gravity change is, in fact, a fact, not just a theory.
We know it's a fact, because we can simply use a scale and see it for ourselves! Try that with 'global climate change.' (No, you can't use anecdotal evidence of more snow in the Midwest US this winter than at any time in history! That doesn't count. Ignore that, only look at the polar ice caps and the poor polar bears!)
All the bureaucrats get together, looks at some computer models that scientists have created, and decides that the only thing that can explain all of this, is the industrial revolution has caused increase emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and it's wreaking havoc on gravity!
We have meetings where 'hockey stick' graphs are shown, indicating that gravity has changed from the past few hundred years. We compare it to the graphs showing atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide. We tell everyone that gravity has never been stronger than in the past 8 years (or weaker.)
We must do something, or else!
So, what do we do? Well, we raise taxes! What else are governments good at? That way we can slow down the economies of the offending big nations! Yeah, that will definitely work to reduce emissions. (Yes, while different bureaucrats in the US were sending out $300 to a few tax payers that made under a certain amount of income last year, in order to stimulate the economy to avoid recession.) Logically, the real way to get back to our 32 feet per second per second, is we have to not only slow down the economies, we have to freeze them, or actually reduce them, so we are creating the same amount of CO2 as we did a few years ago when there was no gravity change problem. Right?
We become executive producers of Hollywood movies, and we start companies that sell pieces of paper that purport to reduce our so-called 'carbon footprint' so we can stop this gravity change problem.
OK, since the US is the largest emitter of CO2 (well not anymore, but we don't want to mess with China, do we?) let's punish them the most. Can we get every country on board regarding this gravity problem? Hey, we are the United Nations! If it's bad for the US, it's good for us!
Well, actually no, this might be difficult, you see we have some fast growing nations...
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Pherdinand
the snow must go on
Yeah, nice theory but you should go to Hollywood with the idea.
The difference between your theory about gravity and the theory anout climate change / global warming is this:
Nobody ever noticed a change of gravity.
Many people noticed a change in the climate (yes, in general, warming!) in the last 10-30 years.
What the exact reasons are for global warming, well, that is yet to be determined - i agree, it's not that easy to say that we burn more fuel so it is getting warmer. But that's why some (many) people are payed - to study this and come up with a conclusiion.
If you don't trust them, it is within your rights. However, if nobody should trust them, then why bother studying it???
but you should go to Hollywood with the idea.The difference between your theory about gravity and the theory anout climate change / global warming is this:
Nobody ever noticed a change of gravity.
Many people noticed a change in the climate (yes, in general, warming!) in the last 10-30 years.
What the exact reasons are for global warming, well, that is yet to be determined - i agree, it's not that easy to say that we burn more fuel so it is getting warmer. But that's why some (many) people are payed - to study this and come up with a conclusiion.
If you don't trust them, it is within your rights. However, if nobody should trust them, then why bother studying it???
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
Number One:
No reasonable person thinks, that the going down of the US economy would be better for the rest of the world. It would be very very bad.
Number Two:
It's not about punishments. We are not in the kindergarden (although many politicians do behave like). It's about reasoning pro or contra an idea that popped up in clever peoples' minds.
Number Three:
Meteorology is a difficult thing. It is not a matter of is the frog climbing up on the stick or not. It is not the matter of is my grandmothers' joint feeling bad today, then we have a rain tomorrow. Especially on global level it is extremely difficult to make a proper working model. It's not like football where everybody seems to be a genius (watching it i mean).
Number four:
No we cannot do anything to *stop* the natural evolution of the climate, due to e.g. volcanic activity. The question is how important is the human contribution: can we speed it up or it does not matter at all. As long as there is no evidence that our contribution is ignorably small, we have to consider it and think about what we do.
And finally: It's not only about global warming when we talk about which photographic process is greener or is it better to drive a SUV versus a hybrid car. It's about how much we mess up the neighborhood. Air pollution and excess garbage production is a real issue. I can understand if u don't care about climate change much, or don't believe in it, but how can you not care or not believe in a stinky sao paulo (you can see the damn smog even on satellite images!!) or how can you like driving your SUV through garbage heaps that are flooding the cities everywhere in the world.
We produce too much waste, in solid, liquid and gaseous form. That's a fact, and it's much worse fact than the global warming, at least on the short timescale.
No reasonable person thinks, that the going down of the US economy would be better for the rest of the world. It would be very very bad.
Number Two:
It's not about punishments. We are not in the kindergarden (although many politicians do behave like). It's about reasoning pro or contra an idea that popped up in clever peoples' minds.
Number Three:
Meteorology is a difficult thing. It is not a matter of is the frog climbing up on the stick or not. It is not the matter of is my grandmothers' joint feeling bad today, then we have a rain tomorrow. Especially on global level it is extremely difficult to make a proper working model. It's not like football where everybody seems to be a genius (watching it i mean).
Number four:
No we cannot do anything to *stop* the natural evolution of the climate, due to e.g. volcanic activity. The question is how important is the human contribution: can we speed it up or it does not matter at all. As long as there is no evidence that our contribution is ignorably small, we have to consider it and think about what we do.
And finally: It's not only about global warming when we talk about which photographic process is greener or is it better to drive a SUV versus a hybrid car. It's about how much we mess up the neighborhood. Air pollution and excess garbage production is a real issue. I can understand if u don't care about climate change much, or don't believe in it, but how can you not care or not believe in a stinky sao paulo (you can see the damn smog even on satellite images!!) or how can you like driving your SUV through garbage heaps that are flooding the cities everywhere in the world.
We produce too much waste, in solid, liquid and gaseous form. That's a fact, and it's much worse fact than the global warming, at least on the short timescale.
Bolivian President Evo Morales has told a UN forum that capitalism should be scrapped if the planet is to be saved from the effects of climate change.
“If we want to save our planet earth, we have a duty to put an end to the capitalist system,” he said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7359880.stm
Interesting quotes on biofuels in there.
Fix one problem while creating another...governments are quite good at that. How many examples can be listed? Let's start with DDT...
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tritiated
Well-known
"Atom shortage"
"Atom shortage"
Nuclear power does not instantly solve an energy security crisis, it just means that you have to get your fuel from somewhere else, from someone else. Then you have to figure out how to dispose of the waste economically and safely, for the next few hundred centuries. No country has so far managed to dispose of its current waste inventory in the long term.
I'm not against nuclear power, I just want to point out that its not as simple a solution as you make out. The only source of "unlimited energy" is from renewable technologies. "Atom shortage"?!? This is a GCSE misconception!
Its true, the climate has changed and is in flux, and is regulated by complicated dynamic equilibria - but never before has it been effected and changed as a result of anthropogenic sources.
We don't have to destroy all our worldly posessions and disappear off the face of the earth to make the desired change, the idea is to mediate our impacts by controlling outputs. Research, and develop technologies and strategies to help us out in this respect.
Meanwhile get on living life with a more sensible ecological footprint (ie. consume less, perhaps use the old camera that works fine (and has done for years) and run film through it - being responsible with the waste materials). Probably the most simple, significant change as ordinary people is to use air travel very sparcely.
No need to go back in time, just time to think ahead. Its not all doom and it doesn't automatically mean we have to all live in tents.
The previous argument is bizarre, gravitational field strength varies across the planet and is in no way affected by carbon dioxide emissions. We know carbon dioxide absorbs and radiates infrared radiation.
Also - how is the IPCC only problematic for the US>? How about the other high income countries!?
"Atom shortage"
Nuclear power does not instantly solve an energy security crisis, it just means that you have to get your fuel from somewhere else, from someone else. Then you have to figure out how to dispose of the waste economically and safely, for the next few hundred centuries. No country has so far managed to dispose of its current waste inventory in the long term.
I'm not against nuclear power, I just want to point out that its not as simple a solution as you make out. The only source of "unlimited energy" is from renewable technologies. "Atom shortage"?!? This is a GCSE misconception!
Its true, the climate has changed and is in flux, and is regulated by complicated dynamic equilibria - but never before has it been effected and changed as a result of anthropogenic sources.
We don't have to destroy all our worldly posessions and disappear off the face of the earth to make the desired change, the idea is to mediate our impacts by controlling outputs. Research, and develop technologies and strategies to help us out in this respect.
Meanwhile get on living life with a more sensible ecological footprint (ie. consume less, perhaps use the old camera that works fine (and has done for years) and run film through it - being responsible with the waste materials). Probably the most simple, significant change as ordinary people is to use air travel very sparcely.
No need to go back in time, just time to think ahead. Its not all doom and it doesn't automatically mean we have to all live in tents.
The previous argument is bizarre, gravitational field strength varies across the planet and is in no way affected by carbon dioxide emissions. We know carbon dioxide absorbs and radiates infrared radiation.
Also - how is the IPCC only problematic for the US>? How about the other high income countries!?
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
Evo Morales, LOL
apologizing to any bolivian members here, i don't think the bolivian president is the one to decide this. He's just too ...umm, .. uneducated for this.
As are all the other presidents (and president-wannabes like Al Gore).
They are voted to be president in order to represent a group of people and try everything within their legal right to make that group the happiest on the Globe.
They are also supposed to listen to specialists when bringing a certain decision. Specialists, that KNOW IT BETTER.
Alas, this does not happen often enough.
There's always a problem of "side effects", by the way. Even with the nuclear fuel you supported above, things can go wrong, and life can be affected in the wrong way.
Sometimes because of lack of full knowledge of the science behind. SOmetimes because of ignorance. Sometime sbecause of bad will.
But we are humans. Some build bombs, some like to drive SUV's to their mailbox at the end of the front porch, some get rich by being a communist... welcome to the human race.
apologizing to any bolivian members here, i don't think the bolivian president is the one to decide this. He's just too ...umm, .. uneducated for this.
As are all the other presidents (and president-wannabes like Al Gore).
They are voted to be president in order to represent a group of people and try everything within their legal right to make that group the happiest on the Globe.
They are also supposed to listen to specialists when bringing a certain decision. Specialists, that KNOW IT BETTER.
Alas, this does not happen often enough.
There's always a problem of "side effects", by the way. Even with the nuclear fuel you supported above, things can go wrong, and life can be affected in the wrong way.
Sometimes because of lack of full knowledge of the science behind. SOmetimes because of ignorance. Sometime sbecause of bad will.
But we are humans. Some build bombs, some like to drive SUV's to their mailbox at the end of the front porch, some get rich by being a communist... welcome to the human race.
And the UN is filled with plenty of Evo Morales's.
JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
Faulted Premise
Faulted Premise
The problem with the original scenario posed by the OP is that, in order to definitively arrive at an answer between the two options given, one has to assume that there is an intrinsic environmental impact difference between the two options. This is, as has been pointed out repeatedly, not the case; rather, the individual choices one makes can sway the distinctions between the choices offered so as to make arriving at a definitive answer impossible. Semiconductor (i.e. chip making) factories can be made environmentally sound, or can pollute badly. Chemical factories (for analog products) can be made environmentally sound, or can pollute badly. The devil is in the details. There are little intrinsic differences.
For example, one reply indicated that with digital printing one only has to print the images that one really wants to print. The same is true with darkroom printing. Why the hell would I be 'forced' to print ALL the shots on a roll of film while in the darkroom; is the enlarger holding me hostage?
With the development of rollfilm, one also has the choice of a homebrew developer using instant coffee crystals and sodium carbonate, and stop bath with white vinegar, then dry the film in the darkroom and print under red lights so we don't need fixer; this is more environmentally sound than factory-manufactured chemicals; also we need to consider the energy content in shipping materials from a great distance.
One could also argue that powder-based developers are more environmentally sound, since the energy required to ship a powder package is much less than shipping heavy, water-based liquid developers. In fact, any locally-mixed solution is more sound than shipping in from a great distance. In this point one could reasonably say that alternative process printing is more sound, since the emulsions are mixed and coated in-situ, rather than being factory manufactured and shipped in from afar.
Of course, I can manufacture scenarios that make digital imaging appear more environmentally sound, too; it's like the old adage that statistics don't lie; statiticians lie.
Regarding greenhouse gas-based global warming: whatever warming is happening right now is the result of emissions made years ago; the affects of these we can't change now, since we can't change the past. Therefore all this discussion about our individual choices has nothing to do with our climate today; rather, it's about the climate that our children and grandchildren inheret.
There's no doubt that human activity is a prime factor in greenhouse-gas based global warming. If we take the secular view that man is but another organism inhabiting this planet, having evolved from primordial ooze just like all the other animate life forms and therefore not possessing any special fiat to inhabit the planet at the expense of the other life forms, then the most environmentally sound policy we can make for the good of the planet, to return the planet's climate as rapidly as possible to pre-industrial revolution levels, is global slaughter, mass warfare, pandemic and starvation. Ultimately this is the 'logical' conclusion one must reach if we make the assumption that man is but an evolved animal.
I have the sneaking suspicion, however, that many of our more noble environmentalists aren't really concerned about the planet's climate as much as they are about continuing western culture's standard of living.
~Joe
Faulted Premise
The problem with the original scenario posed by the OP is that, in order to definitively arrive at an answer between the two options given, one has to assume that there is an intrinsic environmental impact difference between the two options. This is, as has been pointed out repeatedly, not the case; rather, the individual choices one makes can sway the distinctions between the choices offered so as to make arriving at a definitive answer impossible. Semiconductor (i.e. chip making) factories can be made environmentally sound, or can pollute badly. Chemical factories (for analog products) can be made environmentally sound, or can pollute badly. The devil is in the details. There are little intrinsic differences.
For example, one reply indicated that with digital printing one only has to print the images that one really wants to print. The same is true with darkroom printing. Why the hell would I be 'forced' to print ALL the shots on a roll of film while in the darkroom; is the enlarger holding me hostage?
With the development of rollfilm, one also has the choice of a homebrew developer using instant coffee crystals and sodium carbonate, and stop bath with white vinegar, then dry the film in the darkroom and print under red lights so we don't need fixer; this is more environmentally sound than factory-manufactured chemicals; also we need to consider the energy content in shipping materials from a great distance.
One could also argue that powder-based developers are more environmentally sound, since the energy required to ship a powder package is much less than shipping heavy, water-based liquid developers. In fact, any locally-mixed solution is more sound than shipping in from a great distance. In this point one could reasonably say that alternative process printing is more sound, since the emulsions are mixed and coated in-situ, rather than being factory manufactured and shipped in from afar.
Of course, I can manufacture scenarios that make digital imaging appear more environmentally sound, too; it's like the old adage that statistics don't lie; statiticians lie.
Regarding greenhouse gas-based global warming: whatever warming is happening right now is the result of emissions made years ago; the affects of these we can't change now, since we can't change the past. Therefore all this discussion about our individual choices has nothing to do with our climate today; rather, it's about the climate that our children and grandchildren inheret.
There's no doubt that human activity is a prime factor in greenhouse-gas based global warming. If we take the secular view that man is but another organism inhabiting this planet, having evolved from primordial ooze just like all the other animate life forms and therefore not possessing any special fiat to inhabit the planet at the expense of the other life forms, then the most environmentally sound policy we can make for the good of the planet, to return the planet's climate as rapidly as possible to pre-industrial revolution levels, is global slaughter, mass warfare, pandemic and starvation. Ultimately this is the 'logical' conclusion one must reach if we make the assumption that man is but an evolved animal.
I have the sneaking suspicion, however, that many of our more noble environmentalists aren't really concerned about the planet's climate as much as they are about continuing western culture's standard of living.
~Joe
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I guess I'm not ready to be a comedy writer.;
The only thing more bizarre is what is proceeding with this constant doomsday talk, and Gore saying things like the 'Earth has a fever' when there is no such thing as a standard Earth temperature.
sjw617
Panoramist
I see no issue with the OP. Take 36 pictures and end up with prints. There is no need to go into how things are manufactured.. What is the impact of the 36? Simple question that people are trying to make harder.
Steve
Alex Kinnan
Member
Regarding the OP, I think that there are, or will be so few people souping film in home or community darkrooms that the environmental impact of even the sloppiest handling will be minimal. Add in "greener" photo products, plus a growing awareness of the sort that leads to questions like the OP being asked in the first place, and I think things will be fine. If a wet darkroom keeps you from running your computer for long hours editing photos, or constantly charging your camera batteries, then there might even be a net "green" gain.
Regarding the other bit here about global warming, my current view on it is that, whether-or-not it is a natural cycle, a human-made event, or a human-accelerated natural phenomenon, it might well be a good idea to endeavour to have cleaner fuels, more economical vehicles, healthier factories, etc...
For me, the concerns currently caught up under terms like "global warming" or "climate change" are valid and varied, covering basic, time-honoured themes like clean air and water, sustainable growth, having waterways not filled with garbage, animal-waste from factory farms, dioxin, and so forth. In a way, it's a pity there is so much focus on the phrase Global Warming, because it seems to take attention away from some of those more immediate environmental concerns; and if human-involved Warming did ever turn out to be bunk, the co-opting of other Green concerns by the proponents of Global Warming might even undermine progress in those other, more pressing fronts.
Regardless of how little or how much oil there is left, I think we would do well to reduce our consumption of it, especially because of the power that consumption gives some parts of the world over other parts of it. Just because some can afford to own and keep fueled high-end, high-powered sports cars with premium gas does not take away from the fact that a much larger number of people are hurting trying to keep their compact sedans fueled with Regular for their work commute. The oil companies and producers can get away with high prices right now because of the high demand. At any rate, I doubt that, say, having a 40 MPG CAFE standard would seriously hurt or slow economic growth.
And anyway, who says markets have to keep expanding, or that they even can? The trashy quality of allot of consumer goods, especially electronics in recent years seems to suggest that there is only so far down you can go to chase profit and market share, at least with current technology.
To be honest, as far as oil goes, and that's relevant here, as many of our plastic cameras require oil for their creation and delivery to market, we would benefit in so many ways from reducing demand; so many ways politically, even. It's one of the reasons why I have reluctantly come back to supporting technologically advanced, vigorously regulated, intelligently implemented nuclear power.
In all things there are risk, but today's best reactor designs are relatively clean and produce minimal waste. Advanced fission designs, coupled with expanded renewable energy sources, could eventually provide cheap power to longer range electric commuter and even cross-country trains; to cargo ships at port, relieving them of the need to use their "bunker fuel" onboard generators; expanded electric bus and trolley systems to alleviate congestion in crowded urban centres; and so on...
While atomic waste will still be made, I don't share the pessimistic view of many on the matter. Perhaps I am a Pollyanna, but I have often thought that spent nuclear materials are so bound up in the public consciousness with fearful and apocalyptic visions of what could be, that there will always be a high priority on finding solutions to the problems of management.
Yes, right now we can only bury the stuff in mountains, or convert some of it into morally void tools like depleted uranium rounds for attack aircraft and tanks to poison the desert with; but science (usually! hopefully!) marches on. The fear of bad things happening during the long storage time of atomic waste may well spur the development of yet unimagined new and beneficial uses for the stuff using technologies and processes still undeveloped.
Heck, if we were to finally perfect a completely fail-safe space-delivery system, then we could simply use rockets to truck the stuff (as well as centuries of garbage) into the sun. As long as society keeps at least trying to improve, or as long as there are a few people in each generation who keep trying to improve it while the bulk of the others watch TV, then there WILL be solutions to many of the problems of today.
However, as we don't know when these solutions will come to pass, we should probably try to not create too much of a backlog of work for the new means and methods science may give us; human-controlled climate in the year 2300 doesn't mean we should poop where we eat in 2008.
And finally (sorry for the length and rambling nature of this), I think it is important to tackle issues of responsible resource management for no other reason than the idea that one day, if all goes well, we will probably start colonising other worlds and we are in all likelihood going to have to be exceedingly tight-fisted and hyper-efficient with life sustaining and life promoting resources, especially if we're talking about gaining a purchase on dead worlds like the Moon or Mars.
That last bit won't likely happen in most of our lifetimes, but it WILL probably happen, and it would be a nice gift to those folk of tomorrow to start laying the foundations for conservation and efficiency that will give them a leg up in the centuries to come.
Oh, and to further attempt to keep this on topic, I wonder what sorts of cameras those colonists will take with them...
Regarding the other bit here about global warming, my current view on it is that, whether-or-not it is a natural cycle, a human-made event, or a human-accelerated natural phenomenon, it might well be a good idea to endeavour to have cleaner fuels, more economical vehicles, healthier factories, etc...
For me, the concerns currently caught up under terms like "global warming" or "climate change" are valid and varied, covering basic, time-honoured themes like clean air and water, sustainable growth, having waterways not filled with garbage, animal-waste from factory farms, dioxin, and so forth. In a way, it's a pity there is so much focus on the phrase Global Warming, because it seems to take attention away from some of those more immediate environmental concerns; and if human-involved Warming did ever turn out to be bunk, the co-opting of other Green concerns by the proponents of Global Warming might even undermine progress in those other, more pressing fronts.
Regardless of how little or how much oil there is left, I think we would do well to reduce our consumption of it, especially because of the power that consumption gives some parts of the world over other parts of it. Just because some can afford to own and keep fueled high-end, high-powered sports cars with premium gas does not take away from the fact that a much larger number of people are hurting trying to keep their compact sedans fueled with Regular for their work commute. The oil companies and producers can get away with high prices right now because of the high demand. At any rate, I doubt that, say, having a 40 MPG CAFE standard would seriously hurt or slow economic growth.
And anyway, who says markets have to keep expanding, or that they even can? The trashy quality of allot of consumer goods, especially electronics in recent years seems to suggest that there is only so far down you can go to chase profit and market share, at least with current technology.
To be honest, as far as oil goes, and that's relevant here, as many of our plastic cameras require oil for their creation and delivery to market, we would benefit in so many ways from reducing demand; so many ways politically, even. It's one of the reasons why I have reluctantly come back to supporting technologically advanced, vigorously regulated, intelligently implemented nuclear power.
In all things there are risk, but today's best reactor designs are relatively clean and produce minimal waste. Advanced fission designs, coupled with expanded renewable energy sources, could eventually provide cheap power to longer range electric commuter and even cross-country trains; to cargo ships at port, relieving them of the need to use their "bunker fuel" onboard generators; expanded electric bus and trolley systems to alleviate congestion in crowded urban centres; and so on...
While atomic waste will still be made, I don't share the pessimistic view of many on the matter. Perhaps I am a Pollyanna, but I have often thought that spent nuclear materials are so bound up in the public consciousness with fearful and apocalyptic visions of what could be, that there will always be a high priority on finding solutions to the problems of management.
Yes, right now we can only bury the stuff in mountains, or convert some of it into morally void tools like depleted uranium rounds for attack aircraft and tanks to poison the desert with; but science (usually! hopefully!) marches on. The fear of bad things happening during the long storage time of atomic waste may well spur the development of yet unimagined new and beneficial uses for the stuff using technologies and processes still undeveloped.
Heck, if we were to finally perfect a completely fail-safe space-delivery system, then we could simply use rockets to truck the stuff (as well as centuries of garbage) into the sun. As long as society keeps at least trying to improve, or as long as there are a few people in each generation who keep trying to improve it while the bulk of the others watch TV, then there WILL be solutions to many of the problems of today.
However, as we don't know when these solutions will come to pass, we should probably try to not create too much of a backlog of work for the new means and methods science may give us; human-controlled climate in the year 2300 doesn't mean we should poop where we eat in 2008.
And finally (sorry for the length and rambling nature of this), I think it is important to tackle issues of responsible resource management for no other reason than the idea that one day, if all goes well, we will probably start colonising other worlds and we are in all likelihood going to have to be exceedingly tight-fisted and hyper-efficient with life sustaining and life promoting resources, especially if we're talking about gaining a purchase on dead worlds like the Moon or Mars.
That last bit won't likely happen in most of our lifetimes, but it WILL probably happen, and it would be a nice gift to those folk of tomorrow to start laying the foundations for conservation and efficiency that will give them a leg up in the centuries to come.
Oh, and to further attempt to keep this on topic, I wonder what sorts of cameras those colonists will take with them...