The smoke of factories, cars, planes and ships are destroying the earth

[Lothor]

I've been thinking about the points Rosling made and also reading a bit about him. Such a shame he didn't achieve his aim of reaching the top of the population pyramid so that he could 'study more statistics'! He really does make a strong argument that the best thing to do about world population is to eradicate extreme poverty (provide the support to the dollar a day people so that they become ten dollar a day people) and the rest will look after itself. And good on him for castigating the British for their ignorance of how the world has changed in the last few decades! However, as well as correctly pointing out that the world is doing better than most people think, I think he needed to stress just how much of a threat environmental degradation and global heating will be to the very people whose lives he wants to see improved. It's those people on a dollar a day who are living on the most marginal land that will be affected the most by reduced crop yields caused by the increased droughts, floods and temperatures of the future.

Mansoor - sorry for taking over your thread and changing the subject a bit. I do strongly recommend those videos that nice gaijin posted.

 

[Mansoor]

The 50 years old plant in the big bottle was an amazing phenomenon and a scientific evidence

Thank you

What is your recommendation to force industries to observe the standards of a clean environment?

How we can enlighten people not to leave their plastic things in the environment or throw them in the lakes, rivers, or shores?

How we can convince politicians to make a comprehensive, effective and applicable decision to limit industry and vehicle pollution?

How we can accelerate using clean energies instead of fissile fuels?

How we can clean the waters effectively that have been decorated with tons of junk plastics!

How we can save fishes of the sea from being infected with the various chemical waste substances or oil or heavy metals like Pub or Mercury to have them as delicious food on our table (sadly it is for about five months or more that I have not eaten fish. I am desirous to have a fried fish as soon as possible. I first put the fish in some flour, turmeric, salt, and red pepper and then fry that. Thus it becomes very delicious)?

A lot of Co2 is produced by the factories that make wine and beer. the amount of Co2 is emitted into the atmosphere immediately. Are you agree the factories are shut down until the time that the atmosphere condition gets better?

Some parts of ice are separated from polar because of global warming and move on the seas as some strayed bergs. Is it possible those bergs are transferred by some ships to the shore of the dry lands such as Africa and Australia so that people use them as drinking water and similar uses?

Of course, there are some other questions but I ignore them for brevity.

 

[Mansoor]

Mansoor - sorry for taking over your thread and changing the subject a bit. I do strongly recommend those videos that nice gaijin posted.

No. please feel free and write whatever you wish. I sometimes myself go out of the subject LOL

 

[nice gaijin]

The 50 years old plant in the big bottle was an amazing phenomenon and a scientific evidence

Thank you

What is your recommendation to force industries to observe the standards of a clean environment?

How we can enlighten people not to leave their plastic things in the environment or throw them in the lakes, rivers, or shores?

How we can convince politicians to make a comprehensive, effective and applicable decision to limit industry and vehicle pollution?

How we can accelerate using clean energies instead of fissile fuels?

How we can clean the waters effectively that have been decorated with tons of junk plastics!

How we can save fishes of the sea from being infected with the various chemical waste substances or oil or heavy metals like Pub or Mercury to have them as delicious food on our table (sadly it is for about five months or more that I have not eaten fish. I am desirous to have a fried fish as soon as possible. I first put the fish in some flour, turmeric, salt, and red pepper and then fry that. Thus it becomes very delicious)?

A lot of Co2 is produced by the factories that make wine and beer. the amount of Co2 is emitted into the atmosphere immediately. Are you agree the factories are shut down until the time that the atmosphere condition gets better?

Some parts of ice are separated from polar because of global warming and move on the seas as some strayed bergs. Is it possible those bergs are transferred by some ships to the shore of the dry lands such as Africa and Australia so that people use them as drinking water and similar uses?

Of course, there are some other questions but I ignore them for brevity.

Hmm, Those are good and big questions! I can't say that I have all the answers, but I'm trying to listen in so I can at least be an educated layman.

I suspect that major drivers of climate change are rooted in our incentive and economic systems: wherever there is limitless wealth to be obtained, there will be those who pursue maximum profit, and they will tear the planet apart for the last drop of it. If there's anything close to a villain in this story, it's greed. The challenge lies with education and coordinating collective action to change course. Science gives us some foresight to be able to identify problems and predict our outcomes, so we can avoid the worst of them. But most people are unable or unwilling to see problems until it directly causes problems for them personally; usually by then it's too late, the train has already left the station and there aren't enough brakes.

As you can guess from my previous replies, my main focus would be on commercial activity through stricter regulation, enforcement, taxation, accountability, and other means to incentivize a balanced approach to their business. Regulations are often written in blood, to prevent more bloodshed; industry behaves like a psychopath, so we need to protect ourselves and our environment from commercial interests. Campaign finance reform, and limiting lobbying activities so politicians are not unduly influenced is another important upstream change. If economics is the only language they understand, make it unprofitable to misbehave. If companies are granted personhood, they must also accept the death penalty when they threaten our very lives. We'll lock people away for their entire lives for all kinds of offenses, but companies get away with literal murder, and the cost is just a portion of their proceeds at most.

There are people who don't factor these things into their purchase decisions, and just want to live a life of convenience. Single use plastics are convenient, big agriculture and processed food makes it cheap to eat high fat, high calorie food all the time. Slave labor and outsourced industry has put a phone in everyone's hand; most of the goods in our possession traveled many thousands of miles to sit in their home. Often they do not pay the full price of their choice, but the cost is spread out to everyone else.

I make a big point of focusing on activity that is beyond my control, but that doesn't absolve me of my own responsibility to make what little impact I can. Usually this means just being aware of my choices, and trying to affect the least harm: eating lower on the food chain; drive less when I have the choice and take alternate transportation; waste less water; don't cultivate lawns or monocultures, but surround yourself with plants and animals and try to take care of them. Sometimes this means cleaning up areas I visit and packing out what garbage I can, sometimes it means calling out others when forget their responsibility. Shaming people can be powerful but it can backfire, so I try to stay cheerful, it makes people want to help you more. Even when people are most motivated to help themselves, we can at least try to be good examples.

I don't always succeed at all these things, but at least we're trying and the value of our efforts begins with our motivation and intention.

 

[Mansoor]

Sadly finding an alternative to stop pollution in the world doesn't go out from word fence, and there is not an effective action to refine the polluted environment practically. Of course from decades ago some standards have been specified by lawmakers to prevent the industries' pollution but I don't think they had been enough or implicated comprehensively in all industries. Also, a considerable number of people themselves don't observe this rule to use things wisely and economically or think about the live environment! We think nature will decompose plastic things itself and there is no need we are concerned herein!

Just now, people are using salt along with plastic particles that are broken up in the salty lakes and small seas. They drink a bottle of water and then throw it out in the river and watch how it is traveling floating on the river to an unknown far place! They don't know the plastic bottle will go back to them within salt later!

An old Iranian poet (750 years ago) said in a poem:

This world is like a mountain and our actions are like the sounds
these sounds will come back to us ( echoing sounds in the mounts)

Some cars' engines need to be adjusted and balanced every few months, especially their fuel systems, and especially the smoky trucks that use diesel fuel but I don't think serious supervision is done in this aspect in most of the countries.

Where will go the wastewater of factories? What percent of the wastewaters are refined and what percent is discharged to the environment that people deal with?

Millions of worn car tires are left in the wild, the tons of Carbon, rubber, and chemical components are spread out in the environment by wind and surface waters!

A great amount of various leftover chemical fertilizers and are transferred from farms and gardens to the rivers, and groundwater by rains.

And the wastewater of houses contained a long list of harmful natural substances and different detergents. Well, a small part of this wastewater is refined but what about the great part that finds its way to the wild?

I offer people of the world to turn off their phones for about 10 minutes as a protest against the pollution of the world by industries. This can shake the governments to pay attention to the demand of people more. This alternative can be used for other similar popular purposes, as well!

 

[Mansoor]

The sun is a good source of energy but how we can use this low energy on the earth as an effective and powerful energy to run factories and respond to the needs of a population in a city or town? Collecting the energy of the sun by a set of mirrors is a method and using a set of silicon chips that invert the light of the sun into electricity directly is another method but how much these little obtained energies can compete to the oil that everything is depended on it, in the nowadays world?

Is there any vivid future for the little obtained energies of the sun and wind to be replaced with petroleum extensively?

 

[Mansoor]

I heard a hard storm named Aida passed from some cities of the north area of America, destroyed many houses and had some casualties. It is told. it was similar to the powerful Caterina hurricane that occurred in America a few years ago. It was sad news. BBC agency news showed some video of the storm. A hard wind was blowing and the street of the cities was covered with a meter of water. In some places, an intense flow of water was taking floating cars along and in some places, the storm destroyed some wooden houses wholly.

Is America in the direction of such storms naturally, or did these happen in recent decades and is relevant to the changes in climate that we discussed?

 

[nice gaijin]

The sun is a good source of energy but how we can use this low energy on the earth as an effective and powerful energy to run factories and respond to the needs of a population in a city or town? Collecting the energy of the sun by a set of mirrors is a method and using a set of silicon chips that invert the light of the sun into electricity directly is another method but how much these little obtained energies can compete to the oil that everything is depended on it, in the nowadays world?

Is there any vivid future for the little obtained energies of the sun and wind to be replaced with petroleum extensively?

"A total of 173,000 terawatts (trillions of watts) of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That's more than 10,000 times the world's total energy use."

Of course, we can't use all of that (nor should we try), but it's just to show that solar isn't "low" energy. The limiting factors are our ability to collect and store that energy; most renewables generate energy only when the the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, but we have to store that energy somehow for later usage. The Youtuber Will Prowse has a floating (off-grid) solar power system that he uses to charge two electric cars, with a relatively small solar array. Most batteries now use lithium ion, which is efficient but expensive and uses rare elements. There are some promising technologies, but we are far from replacing oil (which has an unmatched energy density) completely. Heck, we JUST finally exhausted the last reserves of leaded fuel in Algeria, decades after it was banned in the US. Renewables will always be less profitable than consumables, because you don't need to keep buying them to fill up your "tank." Innovation is crucial, but things may move too slowly to save us from ourselves.

And in that vein:

I heard a hard storm named Aida passed from some cities of the north area of America, destroyed many houses and had some casualties. It is told. it was similar to the powerful Caterina hurricane that occurred in America a few years ago. It was a sad news. BBC agency news showed some video of the storm. A hard wind was blowing and the street of the cities was covered with a meter of water. In some places an intense flow of water was taking floating cars along and in some places the storm destroyed some wooden houses wholly.

Is America in the direction of such the storms naturally, or these happen in recent decades and is relevant to the changes of climate that we discussed about?

Yes, Ida was pretty bad, and even the tail-end of it flooded New York horribly. In some ways, it's worse than Katrina: https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/30/us/hurricane-ida-katrina-new-orleans/index.html

The term "100-year storm" is misleading, because we're having them much more often now. Meanwhile, we're in a severe drought on my side of the US, and many of my favorite places have been burned by record-setting forest fires. It's dark times, and they're only going to get worse.

 

[Lothor]

Yes, that part of America has always been in the path of such storms - I clearly remember studying this in geography at school as a teenager, where we looked at natural disasters. The problem is that the breakdown of the climate is increasing the frequency and severity of storms.

Related to nice gaijin's post, a few years ago the Japan Meteorological Agency issued a new level of disaster warning for weather with rain/flooding conditions predicted to be so bad that they would only be expected once every few decades. They now seem to be issued at least once a year.

This is a worldwide trend, and we're likely to be in for a rough ride because extreme weather is increasingly likely to hit a number of parts of the world in the same year, which will have knock-on effects on food production and conflicts, as discussed in this article.

How easily the climate crisis can become global chaos

After months of one extreme weather event after another, it’s hard to imagine how climate impacts could get any worse.

thehill.com

 

[Mansoor]

Yes, this is a global problem in most lands; drought, flood, and earthquake. I think climate, especially drought and hard storms can affect the grounds everywhere partially. A tornado reduces the pressure of the atmosphere on an area considerably. It affects the actual complex pressure balance between the various part of the grounds with different materials. I think the severe and continuous rains and droughts can have the same effects because these change the natural moisture of the soil that works like glue between two materials.

If water underground increases extremely , it would act as a slider oil, and the particles of the soil float in it. A vast imperceptible landslide causes an imbalanced pressure between the different parts of the grounds. It may lead to an earthquake at the same time or later.

In my opinion, severe winds reduce the natural pressure of the atmosphere as well. Reduction of the atmospheric pressure affects the natural pressure balance between the grounds.

Of course, what I opined is other than the usual earthquakes happen in the specified areas that are on the natural earthquake-prone paths.

However, I confirm your word that America is in the path of such annual hurricanes. People should reinforce their houses with a weak structure. I heard from BBC news that most of the passed-away people in the Aida storm were in their cars. It was a necessary decision they would leave the cars and went to a safe place: although in such emergency situations finding the nearest shelter is not easy for all.

Have you met the storm closely?

 

[mdchachi]

However, I confirm your word that America is in the path of such annual hurricanes. People should reinforce their houses with a weak structure. I heard from BBC news that most of the passed-away people in the Aida storm were in their cars. It was a necessary decision they would leave the cars and went to a safe place: although in such emergency situations finding the nearest shelter is not easy for all.

That would be ideal but most people can't afford to fortify their homes like this guy did.

Here's How That One Mexico Beach House Survived Hurricane Michael | The Weather Channel

There's a very good reason why this particular home wasn't destroyed by Hurricane Michael. - Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com

weather.com

And people are allowed and even encouraged to rebuild in these disaster-prone areas via government (taxpayer) money.

Yes it's true every time there are many warnings about driving in areas where there is flowing water and every time people try anyway and some die.
In NYC the rains were unprecedented. Manhattan received 8 cm of rain in one hour.

 

[Mansoor]

I couldn't visit the link. Most likely it is a filtered website here.

Anyhow, rain is a gift, but when it turns into torrential rain, it will become grief. We had a few destroyer floods in recent decades, but the floods don't happen regularly and repeatedly in an area every year. They take place accidentally and occasionally.

Four years ago a short term and sudden rain flood happened in the north of my city, Shiraz, while I hadn't seen a flood here all my lifetime! In the unexpected flood, eighteen people of the families who were traveling to other cities with their cars lost their souls. That made the people who were not familiar with such disaster astonished and sad.
Of course, I had seen some small floods in the seasonal river that passes from the middle of the city. It usually has a little narrow and shallow water but in the winter season, its water increases. The water of the river flooded few times, and the water level reached the height of the bridges but didn't exceed the stone walls and didn't flow in the city. One time I went beside the river and watched the harmless flood, though it was passing roaring.

But I have never seen a tornado or hurricane yet except in the pictures or documentary movies. The vast storm that covers half of an ocean like a great funnel and is revolving with the speed of 300 Km/h can be very horrible for the people who meet that. I read somewhere; a powerful tornado can pick up a truck from the ground and carry that to a far distance! Is it right?

 

[mdchachi]

I couldn't visit the link. Most likely it is a filtered website here.

The relevant photo is this one:

I read somewhere; a powerful tornado can pick up a truck from the ground and carry that to a far distance! Is it right?

Yes that's true. Also very dangerous is the flying debris which turns ordinary objects into deadly shrapnel.

So that's why when there's a tornado warning we're taught to go into a basement or interior room, or even inside the bathtub or under a mattress. Especially need to get away from windows and potential flying glass.

 

[nice gaijin]

weather.com is blocked for you? That's surprising...

For those who have never experienced these kinds of disasters, it's hard to imagine the kind of damage they cause. Strong winds and floods are just air and water--it's the stuff they carry that do most of the damage.

The guy in that article said he designed his windows to withstand a 4lb projectile at 140mph (1.8kg @ 225kph), and the hurricane put those windows to the test: 3 of them had their outer layers shattered, but they absorbed enough force that the inner layer held, meaning no wind got into the house. Although it looks seriously over-engineered, it's the only building left standing, so I'd say that's where the standard should be in areas that see storms of this strength. It's far cheaper to spend 20% more up front than to clean up all that debris and have to rebuild, only for the next storm to knock it down again.

 

[Mansoor]

@mdchachi, the house, made me amazed. Whether or not I'm a designer and think of every structure to find out its character and function. I'm thinking about the house, how it could withstand the storm so steady while it hasn't strength foundation and materials. Most likely, the resistance of the house is relative to a particular geometric plan instead of using resistant materials. I think this type of structure breaks the violent storm and allows a considerable part of the energy to pass through and over the building. I am amazed which no object hit the building (no scratch or damage seen on the walls, roof, or windows). The house seems new and intact wholly, and it sounds like it is constructed after the storm!

Are you sure it is not a photoshopic picture?!

@nice gaijin , the website may have been filtered because of an issue, though its title doesn't show a problem

Yes, you are right. Exactly a powerful hurricane or tornado is so terrifying. I have never experienced such a natural disaster, but my mind imagines the atmosphere, partially.