[Newsbot]

Title: B.C. is greenest province in Canada according to Earth Day report card
Category: Environmental
Posted By: Hyack
Date: 2009-04-21 20:51:52
Canadian

[mtbr]

PEI is the filthiest!

damn we only got a C-

better soak some more ducks in black gold


Quebec got the big F

[mtbr]

It's Earth Day! I drove my daughter to school instead of walking.

[N_Fiddledog]

Funny thing about all these green jobs they mention in the article though...

$1:

Unemployment in B.C. has risen to its highest level in almost two years, according to Statistics Canada figures released Friday.

The numbers show 8,300 jobs disappeared in B.C. last month, pushing the jobless rate up half a percentage point to 5.1 per cent, an increase from 4.6 per cent in September.

Source

[Zipperfish]

BC was the greenest. It's always the greenest on April 20.

Good for you for ignoring Earth Day. For an encore you can tell a class of kindergearten kids that Santa ain't real.

[N_Fiddledog]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

BC was the greenest. It's always the greenest on April 20.

Good for you for ignoring Earth Day. For an encore you can tell a class of kindergearten kids that Santa ain't real.

Actually, I had to edit that. It was Earth hour I ignored.

Basically though, nah, I'd never tell kindergarten kids Santa isn't real. I would tell them the Boogeyman isn't real though. I'd also tell them not to worry. The world isn't going to flood over if they leave the lights on.

When they got a little older I'd show them the Earth day episode of South Park. They'd then know all they need to know about Earth day.

[Zipperfish]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Basically though, nah, I'd never tell kindergarten kids Santa isn't real. I would tell them the Boogeyman isn't real though. I'd also tell them not to worry. The world isn't going to flood over if they leave the lights on.

The earth will flood over whether they leave their lights on or not. It does that every few thousand years regardless. But that's another thing I wouldn't tell a bunch of five year olds.

I prefer to think of Earth Day as Awareness of the Second Law of Thermodynamics Day.

[mtbr]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

BC was the greenest. It's always the greenest on April 20.

Good for you for ignoring Earth Day. For an encore you can tell a class of kindergearten kids that Santa ain't real.

Actually, I had to edit that. It was Earth hour I ignored.

Basically though, nah, I'd never tell kindergarten kids Santa isn't real. I would tell them the Boogeyman isn't real though. I'd also tell them not to worry. The world isn't going to flood over if they leave the lights on.

When they got a little older I'd show them the Earth day episode of South Park. They'd then know all they need to know about Earth day.

let em watch this boogeyman movie

[N_Fiddledog]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

I prefer to think of Earth Day as Awareness of the Second Law of Thermodynamics Day.

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?

Great video btw Mtbr.

[hurley_108]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Basically though, nah, I'd never tell kindergarten kids Santa isn't real. I would tell them the Boogeyman isn't real though.

Al Gore isn't real?!?!

[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.

[N_Fiddledog]

Thanks Hurley. Now tell me how that melts the Antarctic.

[hurley_108]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Thanks Hurley. Now tell me how that melts the Antarctic.

I really can't, as I don't know how the second law could have that great an influence over the fluctuations in our climate, in either direction.

[N_Fiddledog]

Yeah, me neither. Isn't it cute the way Warmists do that though? They'll say stuff like, "Oh, the second law of thermodynamics supports only our argument". Do they honestly believe we won't look it up?

[Zipperfish]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

I prefer to think of Earth Day as Awareness of the Second Law of Thermodynamics Day.

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?

Great video btw Mtbr.

First , to be clear, neither myself nor the second law of thermodynamics says that catastrophic global warming is imminent.

The Second Law states that entropy increases. Whenever we extract useful energy (work) from the environment, we necessarily degrade it (which increases entropy). That's the lesson in my opinion. Anyone who talks about a win/win for humans and the environment is blowing smoke up your ass. We thrive at the expense of our environment, necessarily.

I don't think the Second law relates directly to ecosystem feedback, positive or negative. The mathematics realting to feedbacks is different although (like the Second Law) it is related to the concept of equilibrium. Those that subscribe to the theory of catastrophic warming believe that the claimte will reach a tipping point, after which irreversible events will happen. An analogy is that CO2 forcing is like pushing a ball to the top of a hill (the tipping point) and if the ball rolls down the other side it will settle on a new equilibrium that may be far from its present equilibrium (like what we think happened on Venus, for example). Positive feedback helps push the ball up the hill; negative feedback acts against the forcing.

Either way, equilibrium is maintained, but a new equilibrium might not be as amenable to humans as the present one.

I'm with you; I think that negative feedbacks tend to be overlooked in climate change. Systems tend to try to veer themselves back to equilibrium (negative feedback). The more systems stray from equilbrium, the more sudden the negative feedback tends to be (tornadoes, for example, are an example of a forceful negative feedback effect). Some of these negative feedback mechanisms are likely not predicted by GCMs, in my opinion.