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Playing With Fire
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Originally Posted by ASU2003
Last time I checked, plants and trees took in C02 and used the carbon and H20 to make cellulose and the solid parts of the tree/plant. They put out the extra 02 they didn't use. In the fall, the process might stop, but the tree/plant shouldn't put off more C02 (unless you burn it). The solid carbon in plant biomass would fall to the ground and eventually compost into the soil. I'm not sure what gasses are released during that phase.
But the reason it probably spikes in the fall would be the fact that trees/plants don't grow as much and dont need as much C02 during that part of the year. If that is correct, you should see C02 levels continue to increase through the winter (factoring in how much C02 is produced during each time period).
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There tends to be a strong seasonal signal to this process because a lot of respiration happens during the fall when leaves fall off trees and decay, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. But again, all that CO2 is taken back up by forests when the leaves re-grow in the spring, again leaving no net change in the atmosphere. http://climate.weather.com/science/u...nds/index.html
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Originally Posted by ASU2003
I worry about what might happen if water levels go up 5 meters (1 meter is livable, though wouldn't be ideal). Once snow and ice start melting, it generally happens pretty fast. At least in Michigan and Ohio in the spring time, I'm not sure what happens in northern Canada, Greenland, the north pole(wouldn't necessary cause height increase, but would warm water everywhere else) and Antarctica.
But, I would not be affected by the raising sea at all. If anything, my home price would go up because of the millions of people who need to move.
I hope they don't try to save coastal cities Netherlands style and charge taxpayers the cost of it. It would be a mess and throw the economy for a loop for all of the people to lose their homes and businesses, but might cause my home price to go up.
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Wow, you think that millions of people being displaced by rising sea levels will increase you're homes value??? 
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Originally Posted by ASU2003
The people in developing countries could move inland much easier than a Tampa, Honolulu, Sydney, Santa Monica, San Diego, Cancun or any other number of developed cities right at sea level currently.
Developing countries basically use our cheapest and easiest ways of doing things anyway. With computers they might be able to use recent technology (5 years old), but they aren't using solar panels or an other expensive and advanced ways of producing power. The could use more water turbines, wind turbines and ocean turbines to generate power without emissions.
And I don't care all that much about what is causing global warming. Or even if it is happening at all. But we need a energy policy that benefits renewable energy efficient technologies and makes the air cleaner.
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Third world countries don't have the luxury of being as wasteful as Americans....
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In Cairo and much of the developing world, recycling is a necessity _ not a new fad
By ANNA JOHNSON Associated Press Writer
Thursday, November 8, 2007
In Cairo and much of the developing world, recycling is a necessity _ not a new fad
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) In advanced countries, someone whose cell phone breaks down or becomes outdated usually tosses it and gets a new, fancier model. Ditto for the DVD player, Sony PlayStation, and even radios and watches.
Not so in the developing world. Here in Cairo, whole side streets and alleys are packed with electronics repairmen laboriously fixing circuits, keypads and compact disc lenses charging around $5 for a standard repair.
As recycling has become the craze across the West, Egyptians have continued to reuse almost everything, recycling not as a fad but as a necessity.
Tiny repair shops are not unique to Cairo they are a way of life for cities in Africa, Asia and elsewhere where people cannot afford to buy a new electronics device every time something breaks down.
But even Egypt is slowly transforming into a disposable goods society as cheap electronics arrive from China, causing some Cairo repairmen to fear their generations-old shops and the informal recycling industry they support won't be around forever.
"The next generation won't take over because China is flooding the market with cheap stuff," said repairman Osama Farouk. "They will buy new instead of getting it repaired, even if it is poor quality."
El-Attar Street in downtown Cairo, where Farouk works, is probably the most famous repair area in this sprawling city of nearly 20 million people. The two-block street is crammed with workers fixing almost everything from blenders to boom boxes, cell phones, video game players, and even antique phones and radios.
Stereos blast Arabic pop music, and scooters swerve past the repairmen whose shops consist of a chair, tools, spare parts and sometimes a small wooden or glass stand set along the street.
Farouk works in front of a wall full of used circuit boards at the north entrance of El-Attar. The 35-year-old, second-generation repairman prefers Japanese brands and charges about $9 for the typical DVD lens repair. The quality of his work keeps customers coming back, he says.
On Fridays he heads to the nearby Souk el-Gomaa, a haven for small electronic parts and stolen goods. Often, the repairmen buy not just parts but the entire product only to disassemble it for its components.
"We buy everything old. So if you have a cassette player you don't want, you can bring it here and we'll buy it," Farouk said.
Farther down El-Attar Street, Hassan el-Turki sits in front of shelves packed with various telephones, from current office sets to old rotary phones even a 1920s Ericsson black model.
"I love the old phones. The new ones are not as well made and won't be working 80 years from now," the second-generation repairman said.
But when asked if they feel they are helping Egypt's environment by reusing electronic parts, Farouk and the other repairmen seem confused by the question. For them, their business is all about money not cutting back on landfill waste.
Salah el Haggar, a mechanical engineer at the American University in Cairo, said poverty drives the developing world's repair industry. In Egypt, for example, more than 20 percent of the country's 76.5 million people live under the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
"Egypt is one of the best recyclers in the world because of the need," el Haggar said.
But he complained the repair work is uneven because it's not regulated by any government body.
Still, El-Attar Street's reputation is such that Tarek Galal, on vacation in Egypt from Toronto, immediately headed here when his cell phone stopped ringing.
"Everybody in Egypt knows about this street," Galal said. "The labor is too expensive in Canada, but here it is cheaper."
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http://climate.weather.com/articles/cairo110807.html
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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...
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