[Zipperfish]

hurley_108 hurley_108:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Hey, can you explain something to me. You're the second guy in a week I've heard spreading the meme the second law of thermodynamics demands catastrophic global warming.

I'm baffled by that. Doesn't the second law of thermodynamics demand entropy leading to equilibrium? Doesn't it say stuff like "Heat generally cannot spontaneously flow from a material at lower temperature to a material at higher temperature".

That would demand negative feedbacks wouldn't it - which are the predominant feedbacks in a real world system. Doesn't catastrophic global warming theory demand positive feedbacks? The warming we can expect to experience, even if we accept the idea the CO2 forcing we can notice in a lab will convert to similar warming in the real world, isn't that much. Catastrophic global warming demands positive feedbacks occur which will at least triple the warming. How does the second law of thermodynamics explain that?

2nd law of thermodynamics only states that the entropy of a closed system always increases. The only truly closed system is the universe, though.

Entropy can decrease in one place as long as it increases in another. That's what refrigerators do. They cool their interiors, but dump that heat out into your kitchen. The entopy of the inside of the fridge goes down (especially if you make ice cubes), but the entropy of your house goes up (and by a greater amount).

I would actually argue that the second law of thermodynamics, if it says anything about global temperature change, would say that eventually the temperature of the earth will reach about 2.7k (or whatever the cosmic background tmperature is in several tens of billions of years, after the sun has burned up all its fuel, collapsed into a white dwarf, and radiated all its residual heat away).

That's pretty cold, in case you missed that.

Sure we just have to tough it out through the global warming stage (not just due to forcing CO2, but also due to the sun eventually expanding to engulf the earth), then we're in for some lovely global cooling.

[N_Fiddledog]

OK, so we all seem to be agreed then. The second law of thermodynamics in no way demands a catastrophe of man-made global warming, or even suggests such a thing as "man-made" global warming even exists.

Warning though Zip. I've gotta ton of links on Venus and other planets. If you do want to go there, you might have to read them. I'm just sayin... (Google Venus, atmospheric pressure before you make your final decision)

But let's get back to Earth day. I found this thing that's just hilarious. It's the first Earth Day Issue of Newsweek - 1975.

Hang on, I have to cut it up, and post it as a photo... I'll be back.

[N_Fiddledog]

Here's what they were saying in the first Newsweek Earth Day special issue, in 1975. Basically...BEWARE!!! A catastrophe of Global Cooling is coming soon.

[N_Fiddledog]

As to how green and wonderful BC is, that may be true, but Earth day singling BC out for special attention as a green wunderkind is a crock within a bigger crock. It's a pat on the back from the greenies for having a carbon tax.

[Zipperfish]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

OK, so we all seem to be agreed then. The second law of thermodynamics in no way demands a catastrophe of man-made global warming, or even suggests such a thing as "man-made" global warming even exists.

I'd agree with that. The furthest I'd go is to say that the extraction of work from the environemnt, in any form, will degrade the environment.

$1:

Warning though Zip. I've gotta ton of links on Venus and other planets. If you do want to go there, you might have to read them. I'm just sayin... (Google Venus, atmospheric pressure before you make your final decision)

I'm not saying what happened to Venus will happen here; some people think this would be the ultimate end if we reachd the "tipping point." I personally hope that all we are learning about planetary climate will help us terraform Venus in the future.