The Human Footprint Is Not Small or Harmless

[numan]

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THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT IS NOT SMALL OR HARMLESS

Biomass

The total biomass of planet Earth (the total mass of all plants and animals and other organisms all over the world, on land and in the seas) is about 75 billion tonnes.

The total biomass of the human species is about 250 million tonnes, or about one part in 300 of the total biomass.

If the total biomass of 75 billion tonnes were to be spread evenly over the 500 million square kilometres of the surface of the Earth, it would form a film approximately one-tenth of a millimetre thick.

Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems

In any one year, humans utilize, alter or consume between one-tenth to one-twentieth of the total biomass of the Earth, depending on how you analyze the figures.
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[SSDD]

And yet, resources are more plentiful now than at any time in history.

 

[numan]

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Humans use a little over 5x10^20 [5 with twenty zeros after it] Joules of energy per year.

World Energy Resources and Consumption

This figure includes energy from: petroleum, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear and renewable sources. "Renewable" sources comprise: geothermal, wind, wood, waste and solar energy. Direct solar heating of buildings and the solar energy used in growing foodstuffs and animal feeds are not included in these figures.

The Earth intercepts about 2x10^17 Joules of energy per second from the sun. That is equivalent to 50 megatonnes of TNT exploding every second. So the yearly human energy budget is equivalent to 2000 seconds of sunlight [a little over thirty minutes] for the entire Earth, or a hundred thousand megatonnes of TNT [5 million Hiroshima-sized atom-bombs ---one atom-bomb going off every six seconds for a year].

A hundred-Watt light bulb consumes 100 Joules of energy every second. There are a little more than 6 billion humans on this planet. A year contains about 31.5 million seconds. Therefore our yearly energy consumption as a species represents every man, woman and child on this planet burning 21 hundred-Watt light bulbs continuously for a year.

Let us compare this with food energy. A food-Calorie is equivalent to 4,000 Joules. A daily intake of 2,000 Calories represents 8,000,000 Joules. This is the energy released in the explosion of 2 kilograms of TNT. Luckily, these 8 million Joules are released slowly over the 86,400 seconds of a 24-hour day, rather than in the fraction of a second of a TNT explosion. Each of us is the energy-equivalent of a 100-Watt light bulb burning continuously.

Just by living, the human race as a whole consumes 2x10^19 Joules of energy as food in a year; this is one-twentieth of the 5x10^20 Joules produced each year as power, but is not included within that figure. The metabolic energy of the human race as a whole is equivalent to a Hiroshima-bomb exploding every two minutes.
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[numan]

And yet, resources are more plentiful now than at any time in history.

Another one of your red herrings.
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[SSDD]

And yet, there is more energy available now than at any time in human history.

 

[SSDD]

You guys have been lamenting doom and gloom and the end of all things for centuries now and it just never happens for you. When will you ever wake up?

 

[numan]

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Some time ago I was asked how the global environmental crisis affected me, personally. This was my reply:

A Voice from the Black Hole of Calcutta

The main effect on me is that for nearly fifty years I have had to endure the proximity of insane, self-centered hominids who have refused to understand that they are living through the greatest crisis for life on this planet since the extinction of the dinosaurs.

All through this period of time, every major aspect of this crisis has been understood by the small minority of hominids capable of rational thought. For decades they have been explaining these matters, in great detail, to the feeble-minded apes who constitute the human species. Most so-called humans, especially those with wealth and power, have been quite determined to ignore the Cassandras in their midst, and have done everything in their power to make matters worse. All the while that they have been orchestrating their gay dance of death, human numbers have more than doubled.

All my life, I have felt like a high-caste brahmin crowded cheek-by-jowl with the lowest untouchables in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Mercifully, I shall soon either be precipitated into oblivion as my fellow anthropoids complete their complicated ritual of mass suicide, or, in the unlikely event that I survive their ecological madness, I shall live in a world which has been cleared of a large mass of very foolish people.

Either way, it will be like a fifty-year old toothache finally being cured.
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[hoosier88]

I suggest you read Dune - the early chapters about the Bene Gesserit's search for humans among the also-rans. V. reminiscent.

 

[SSDD]

'
Some time ago I was asked how the global environmental crisis affected me, personally. This was my reply:

A Voice from the Black Hole of Calcutta

The main effect on me is that for nearly fifty years I have had to endure the proximity of insane, self-centered hominids who have refused to understand that they are living through the greatest crisis for life on this planet since the extinction of the dinosaurs.

All through this period of time, every major aspect of this crisis has been understood by the small minority of hominids capable of rational thought. For decades they have been explaining these matters, in great detail, to the feeble-minded apes who constitute the human species. Most so-called humans, especially those with wealth and power, have been quite determined to ignore the Cassandras in their midst, and have done everything in their power to make matters worse. All the while that they have been orchestrating their gay dance of death, human numbers have more than doubled.

All my life, I have felt like a high-caste brahmin crowded cheek-by-jowl with the lowest untouchables in the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Mercifully, I shall soon either be precipitated into oblivion as my fellow anthropoids complete their complicated ritual of mass suicide, or, in the unlikely event that I survive their ecological madness, I shall live in a world which has been cleared of a large mass of very foolish people.

Either way, it will be like a fifty-year old toothache finally being cured.
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Spoken like a true locust eating, desert dwelling madman. Clearly he has some serious mental issues. That sort of thinking results when folks like that go off their meds. Obviously a man with deep feelings of inferiority and inadequacy who desperately wants to feel what it might be like to be superior.....or at least above average.

 

[Unkotare]

Was there supposed to be some point to this thread?

 

[numan]

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It will have a point, if it can be prevented from being ruined by the people who destroyed the AGW thread :

http://www.usmessageboard.com/environment/279415-agw-atmospheric-physics-46.html

I don't know. Sometimes I think such people have a kink in their minds. I suspect they know perfectly well that what they are writing is nonsense, but take a perverse delight in wasting people's time and seeing if they can fool people into accepting absurd nonsense.

I've wondered exactly the same thing. Maybe it's more about trolling than actually seriously defending a position that simply can not be defended.

They have quite deliberately denied patent facts -- or not even acknowledged them. They have just repeated foolishness over and over again.

Moreover, for the past few pages, they have deliberately posted many, many photos which have nothing to do with the topic of the thread. They have deliberately wasted the memory storage space of this site, clogged up the pages, slowed down the loading time -- all, apparently, in an effort to make the pages unreadable and prevent reasoned discussion.

All this definitely makes me think that they are not grown-ups. These are not the actions of serious adults. They seem to be the behavior of smart-alec high school students, trying to make trouble in childish acts of defiance. If this is the case, then they are spoiled brats who would have benefited greatly if they had been walloped a few times when they were younger.

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[Oddball]

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THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT IS NOT SMALL OR HARMLESS

Biomass

The total biomass of planet Earth (the total mass of all plants and animals and other organisms all over the world, on land and in the seas) is about 75 billion tonnes.

The total biomass of the human species is about 250 million tonnes, or about one part in 300 of the total biomass.

If the total biomass of 75 billion tonnes were to be spread evenly over the 500 million square kilometres of the surface of the Earth, it would form a film approximately one-tenth of a millimetre thick.

Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems

In any one year, humans utilize, alter or consume between one-tenth to one-twentieth of the total biomass of the Earth, depending on how you analyze the figures.
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Malthus was wrong more than two centuries ago and you're wrong today.

When are you dour doomsayers going to finally give it up?

 

[numan]

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The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

Beginning with work by Joseph Fourier in the 1820s, scientists had understood that gases in the atmosphere might trap the heat received from the Sun. As Fourier put it, energy in the form of visible light from the Sun easily penetrates the atmosphere to reach the surface and heat it up, but heat cannot so easily escape back into space. For the air absorbs invisible heat rays (infrared radiation) rising from the surface. The warmed air radiates some of the energy back down to the surface, helping it stay warm. This was the effect that would later be called, by an inaccurate analogy, the "greenhouse effect."

Simple Models of Climate Change
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[Oddball]

Correlation does not equal causation and computer models don't count for diddly-poo, Reverend Malthus.

 

[eots]

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THE HUMAN FOOTPRINT IS NOT SMALL OR HARMLESS

Biomass

The total biomass of planet Earth (the total mass of all plants and animals and other organisms all over the world, on land and in the seas) is about 75 billion tonnes.

The total biomass of the human species is about 250 million tonnes, or about one part in 300 of the total biomass.

If the total biomass of 75 billion tonnes were to be spread evenly over the 500 million square kilometres of the surface of the Earth, it would form a film approximately one-tenth of a millimetre thick.

Quantifying and mapping the human appropriation of net primary production in earth's terrestrial ecosystems

In any one year, humans utilize, alter or consume between one-tenth to one-twentieth of the total biomass of the Earth, depending on how you analyze the figures.
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What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god!

 

[Dugdale_Jukes]

And yet, resources are more plentiful now than at any time in history.

Natural resources are most usefully measured in relative terms, per human.

Per human, natural resources are at their lowest level in history and decreasing. Especially fresh water. What keeps ratios as high as they are is massive amounts of carbon turned into energy but the path to the grid consumes almost an equal amount of carbon.

Humanity is likely to experience some kind of global correction that could start tomorrow or in fifty years. When it is over the human footprint will be realigned in a number of ways.

 

[numan]

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SCORE FOR RED HERRINGS ON THIS THREAD, SO FAR :

SSDD : 4

Oddball : 2

I will give Unkotare the benfit of the doubt.
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[RetiredGySgt]

Ahh a Genius amongst pygmies ehh? So Genius, since you are so sure you are right...

Provide a redoable experiment that proves A) that CO2 CAUSES increased heat and not as the proven science shows it follows rising heat

B) Explain why for the last 10 years there has been no rise in World Wide temperatures.

C) Explain how a computer model that can not even recreate what we KNOW has happened in the past in regards weather, temperatures and weather patterns can now with out the proper inputs determine what WILL happen in the future.

When you have done all 3 of those things then provide the evidence man caused the short 15 year spike in Temperature that lead to this claim of doom and gloom.

 

[Oddball]

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SCORE FOR RED HERRINGS ON THIS PAGE, SO FAR :

SSDD : 4

Oddball : 1

I will give Unkotare the benfit of the doubt.
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Score for bullshit pseudo-science:

Noobman: ∞

 

[numan]

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Hominid Apes and Their Godzilla-like Path Through History

Natural carbon dioxide vents on the sea floor are showing scientists how carbon emissions will affect marine life. Dissolved CO2 makes water more acidic, and around the vents, researchers saw a fall in species numbers, and snails with their shells disintegrating. Writing in the journal Nature, the UK scientists suggest these impacts are likely to be seen across the world as CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere.

Some of the extra CO2 emitted enters the oceans, acidifying waters globally. Studies show that the seas have become more acidic since the industrial revolution.

Research leader Jason Hall-Spencer from the University of Plymouth said that atmospheric CO2 concentrations were now so high that even a sharp fall in emissions would not prevent some further acidification. "It's clear that marine food webs as we know them are going to alter, and biodiversity will decrease," he told BBC News."Those impacts are inevitable because acidification is inevitable - we've started it, and we can't stop it.".....

Corals construct their external skeletons by extracting dissolved calcium carbonate from seawater and using it to form two minerals, calcite and aragonite. Molluscs use the same process to make their shells. As water becomes more acidic, the concentration of calcium carbonate falls. Eventually there is so little that shells or skeletons cannot form......

"Add CO2 to seawater and you get carbonic acid; it's simple chemistry, and therefore certain.

"This means that the only way of reducing the future impact of ocean acidification is the urgent, substantial reduction in CO2 emissions."

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[emphasis added]