technological fix for climate change?

interesting.

concern over the possibility of runaway greenhouse effect? the risk of a major methane release has been discussed a great deal in recent years, can science address this issue?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17400804

 

Desperation times and still people do not believe

 

I personally think the planet is just too big to cool this way.

We will probably have to learn to adapt or die.

Banana trees are now showing up in my county in Alabama.

We can grow a few palms too....crazy!

I am thinking about doing some research on olives...and Australian crawdads.

 

what the hell are crawdads?

if you don't get frosts, and have reasonably warm summers (not too damp in summer - they prefer a drier climate) olive trees should be OK.

they don't like soils that are too acidic, but they are pretty hardy.

 

As best they can tell, the melting of methane hydrates have played a role in at least two of the major extinction events.

Methane forms when sea life dies without exposure to oxygen, if the temperature and pressure are great enough, that methane is trapped in an ice matrix, which sinks to the bottom.

As the pressure increases with depth, the temperature required to melt increases.

The hydrates at risk are those just below the pressure / temperture cut off, meaning along the continential shelf (deep ocen hydrates are trapped until the ocean loses a lot of water). Everything above the pressure / temperature cut off melts, everything below remains frozen. The large, mostly flat areas of the continential shelf, hold huge amounts of methane.

As the methane melts, it increases the greenhouse effect, increasing ocean temperature, increasing the amount of hydrate that melts. This continues until the a good part of the continential shelf is exhausted. The it stops, as it takes too much incease in temp to melt deeper deposits.

They believe the die off 250M years ago saw a 5F rise due to this effect. The metane involved, about 2000 gigtons.

And, it doesn't matter if the temp rise is man made, or natural.

 

I think he means Red Claw or what we used to call Yabbies
http://www.crayfishworld.com/yabby5.htm

Lot of places starting to harvest them up here

 

You ain't seen nothing yet!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21649-how-large-is-warming-effect-of-north-sea-gas-leak.html

 

my son used to have marron.

from memory, eastern states yabbies were pretty invasive and impacted on local freshwater crustaceans.

if I was thinking about introducing them I'd be making sure I had secure tanks/ponds.

if he was talking about marron - same thing. where other species (both fish and crustaceans) have been introduced, they prey on the larvae, and the marron don't seem to survive.

because most of these species are used to a pretty dry climate they are capable of wandering relatively long distances in search of a preferred habitat.

 

no, it doesn't matter.

but if we are causing it, we need to know why (and we do - scientists have been discussing this for years) .... and we will also need to do something about it.

 

Red Claw is a native and if it will eat things like Carp I would cheer it on!!

BTW What is the sound of a Queenslander running over a Cane Toad?


Bump bump screech! bump bump Screech! Bump bump screech..........

 

Toads, carp....This is exactly the reason that minimising the impact of climate change is a far better strategy than trying to look for engineered fixes.

We don't do real good when we start mucking around with natural systems

 

I think you call them walk-abouts. They are fresh water crayfish that grow very quickly. They are reported to grow to a length of fourteen inches.

We call them crawdads or mudbugs. But the ones native to this area take about three years to grow.

They look like a money maker to me.

We still get frost in the winter but they are begining to sell citrus trees here.

Lemons, limes, satsumas, oranges, etc.

 

the whole issue of introduced species is a bugbear of mine ... some idiot released foxes into this country because they wanted to go on th ehunt, some idiot released redfin perch (which tasts like mud) into one south west river system and devastated native trout species - and marron ... some idiot released kookaburras (from the east) which eats chicks of our native species and affects local bird popluations ...

and of course the cane toad is spreading across the north. Some snakes have begun to show evolutionary adaptations as a result (interesting for science) to cope with it, but basically, they can not be contained.

Jut recently there was an article about some idiot in america who released a giant african rat in florida ... which has the potential to cause massive damage. .. lols ... that reminded me of H G Well's story - Food of the Gods ... mind you the rats are as big.

there is nothing wrong with having exotics, but they have to be very strictly contained, and introducing them as pest control (as in the case of bufo marinus)is ... just plain stupid..

 

Tell me!!

I keep meeting these people who are trying desperately to battle invasive species here - and not a few of them farmers - and they are losing the battle!

 

prevention is always better than cure ... but since we have gone as far as we have with carbon emissions, we have no choice but to look at technological fixes as well as trying to live more sustainably.

 

The rat you speak of is probably the Nutria. It was raised for fur and a hurricane hit the farm and they escaped.

But the australian crayfish will not survive in the wild here. The DNR has already done the homework on that one. The water is too cold.

 

walkabout in australian vernacular has a very different connotation.

based on what Bowerbird said, you are probably referring to yabbies. Marron are better, I think.



^marron



^yabbie

 

Did you know that crows have apparently learnt to turn over the toad to eat them?? The poison glands are on the back so the crows have learnt to flip over the road kill and eat the undersides first. Mind you I have not seen evidence of this first hand. However

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227025.700-have-cane-toads-met-their-match.html

Good for the old Meat ant - downside - more Meat Ants and those things BITE!!

Carp is a huge problem over here and is invading more and more of our waterways.

BTW going out to Camooweal for Easter I hope!



looking for some of those freshwater crabs out there

 

We also have african bees, pythons, wild pigs (my males are always cut), and my nemisis...the imported fire ant.

It is nearly impossible to grow any organic crop with those stinigng little beasts around.

I have seen films on some of the problems farmers in Oz have.

I do not envy them.

Sometimes we have to build fences to keep animals out as much as to keep them in...wild pigs come to mind.

 

.. for now ... I am not sure how they would go anyway, as they seem more likely to be victim of introduced species and if you have native freshwater crays of some sort they willbe subject to the same predators - and may ot even be able to compete regardless of water temps.

but I always say it is better to be safe than sorry.

I think you are right about the rat. it indicates that better guidelines should have been in place before the farming of an exotic species was allowed. There are huge repercussions with a rat that size being loose.

 

The blue one...I don't speak Australian...just research on the internet.

The reason (I was told) the are called walk-abouts is because they will escape if they are able to crawl out of a pool or pond. You have to have slick sides on your pond so they won't crawl out.

 

I heard methane has 30 times the green house effect as CO2, which is what is reverts to fairly quickly.

 

you mean yabbie then.

yep. they do wander. pests if you have marron, which are bigger but slower.

and nicer to eat.

 

lols

you mean like the rabbit proof fence?



or the dingo fence?



these fences also impacted on native species. Quite a few years ago I remember seeing footage of thousands of emus trapped at one of the fences during a drought.

 

Which is the more urgent, CO2 or methane? If methane, then work on methane. Because, if GW isn't MM, you still win. Otherwise you waste time and money on CO2 reduction, to no avail.

Why worry, we haven't done the wrong thing in the past. Think of all the Carbon we would have put into land fill had we not recycled paper.