I guess, that means the ice will melt, the sea level will rise, and some of the area will be flooded...

On the other hand, some of the water will freeze where the poles will finally stabilize at!

Humanity might have to learn collecting some of the excess water and moving it to the Moon... (?)

I think it might be cheaper to divert a comet to the moon for water but still WAY expensive... but way more fun. Fire up those atomic rockets!!

... comet aside, but I was actually referring to the Noth pole shifting S/E -- resulting in mass melting and subsequent flooding!!!

Actually it is the magnetic pole that moves, not the actual pole. Not only does the magnetic pole move, it actually switches with the south pole on a somewhat regular basis. The cause is unknown.

The actual pole is the axis of spin of the Earth in it's orbit.
The magnetic pole is caused by the solid iron core of the Earth spinning at a different speed from the the molten iron core that surrounds it. Internal radiation keeps it hot. The spinning creates a "dynamo" effect producing the magnetic field we see which defines the magnetic poles. It is always moving a little.

The actual pole of the Earth wobbles in a twenty six thousand year cycle called precession. The pole doesn't change in relation to the Earth but the whole Earth wobbles in relation to it's orbit. One twelfth of a wobble is know as an "age", such as the age of Aquarius. The change in "tilt" of the Earth's orbit in relation to the Sun would affect the climate (seasons) but not the amount of energy received by the Sun.

The History Channel did a nice piece on why the zodiac is what it is and is explained in the last third of this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AskaziHAseA

What's happened at Copenhagen, Joe?
I read the article by Joseph E. Stiglitz -- a professor at Columbia University and the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics -- who claims the Copenhagen convention turned out to be a failure!!!


Though the agreement of limiting global warming to 2 degrees 'C' is significant, but the real failure, he claims, was that
there was no agreement about
-.
-,
-
-

I guess, doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to the banks (in 2008-2009 bail-outs) is more important than saving the planet!!!

* If you can recall a while back, Handlewithcaution suggested that developed countries should help/assist the developing economies in terms of adaptation and compensate the countries responsible for maintaining forests, which provide a global public good through carbon sequestration... etc. etc. etc.

However, until frequent earthquakes won't start rocking the Wall Street, they won't wake up!!! (though, by then it might be too late)

You asked me a few months ago to predict what I thought was going to come out of the conference. I predicted "nothing" because it is not in China's perceived (by them) best interest to slow their industrialization mainly powered by dirty coal.


That is what happened ... China undermined the entire process by refusing to agree to basically anything while building coal power plants at an incredible rate; two per week. Here is what the Chinese foreign minister had to say ....

Talk about spin.

"The Chinese government expressed quiet satisfaction at the outcome of the Copenhagen talks despite European accusations that it had systematically wrecked the negotiating process.

China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, described the outcome as "significant and positive".

Among the achievements, he said, was the setting of binding emissions cuts for rich nations and voluntary mitigation actions by developing nations, such as China.

"It is not a destination, but a new beginning," he said in a statement that asserted China's right to continue its economic growth without the limits of legally binding emissions cuts.

Xinhua, the state-controlled news agency, also emphasised what was maintained rather than what was achieved.

"The Copenhagen accord protected the principal of 'common but differentiated responsibility' under the climate convention and the Kyoto protocol."

This is a very complex issue but one element is that China, shielded as it is from prevailing wind by the Himalayan mountains, is less affected by global warming than most (perhaps all) other countries. Since their government has total control over all aspects of the country, they can shift agriculture and population at will, making adjustments as they please.

The bottom line is that China is adding more pollution faster than anyone else is removing it so it is doubtful that there will be any net improvement yet China, as a "developing" nation wants payments from the rest of the world to halt global warming.

Obama promised to pay the developing nations a few billion a year rapidly rising to 100 billion a year to not cut down rainforests and other related issues. However, the actual problem is overpopulation and money is not being used to treat that problem.

Congress has to approve whatever money is spent and Obama may not be sufficiently supported in these promises, especially since the biggest problem is China and anyone who thinks China is going to cut their emissions by twenty to forty percent while building two coal powered power plants a week and shifting from a bicycle economy to an American style automobile economy is crazy.

The conference was almost a complete failure while America and China, the two biggest polluters, claim success. It is also interesting to note that China is claiming to be building "Clean Coal" power plants which is not true. The new plants are cleaner than old plants but very far away from being clean.

The only real success of the conference was the fact that we had one.

The other big player, India, was frustrated by China's intransigence but promisied a 20% reduction anyway.

China and India

they classify themselves as "developing countries" and demand that the "developed countries" pay them to reduce their emissions

they were just trying to manipulate the proceedings into a money grab and business as usual

until they join the "developed countries" group it'll remain in a deadlock

I think everything will advance fine on its own without international treaties

China is well its way to becoming the largest producer of wind energy

and India is far along at developing biofuel

within five years or so the US will get 20% of its electricity from wind. Our biggest problem has been a lack of distribution lines to carry the wind generated power to the grid. New Mexico is building a "smart power station" in Clovis which will tie in the northern grid with the western grid and the southern grid. as soon as that happens wind power is going to explode from Texas to Kansas to Nebraska

India wasn't anywhere near as bad as China in the conference. India agreed to binding standards if China would agree also but China would not agree to any binding standards, period. They just wanted the money.

Wind power is a good alternate. I buy all my power from Green Mountain Energy who has the big wind farm in south Texas.

Ironically, one of the conclusions of the conference was to inject SO2 into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space. We are now paying a lot of money to get the SO2 out of emissions.

Go figger!

Personally, I think the money would be much better spent by developing alternate energy sources such as wind, solar, tidal, and nuclear as opposed to this global redistribution of wealth plan. However, they do need to stop chopping down the rainforests and various other large scale planet affecting activities.

Joe, thank you for quite a feed back regarding the Copenghagen conference. Fascinating! Never thought the culprit could be China and India...
(though I'm not clear about the SO2, what's that? - "inject SO2 into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space"...
(although I've seen the TV report about it} * * *

However, there's an opportunity for Big business for american auto-makers:
-- since both, China and India, are getting off the bycicles and onto cars, that's a huge stimulus for implementing the plans of Electric cars -- unless the Arabian Sheikhs (producing oil) wouldn't object!

And then there's another way around the problem, i.e. helping the nature take it's course:
the Haiti earthquake *Relieved* the world off of mere 50,000 people! But I suspect that's only the beginning -- in the comming years, more and more of the rural areas of the world (at least South America) would have to suffer great devastations from various "Natural" phenomena! Too bad China and India are too far away for the regular devastations! (nevertheless, not far enough for the "underwater torpedoes" doing the job quite nicely! -- in case they don't fulfill their obligations...) After all, underwater earthquakes are quite frequent!!!
* Humanity is fast approaching the point of self-destruction, and harsh measures aught to be taken for the sake of everybody else!!!

P.S.
* * * Absolutely! 150% agree with you!!! Cash will only trickle down into somebody's Bank Accounts!!!

Thanks for all the interesting information MetalWing
And to everyone in here: Great Discussion
Me? I don't have a clue. Love hearing what you have to say though.
And it's a good thing, any attempt to keep these UN debates going.
Thanks Mr. Obama...I hope your clean energy programs go far...and wide.

Actually, MGB, sometimes I wonder whether its worth being aware of all the world problems, and carrying the burden of such knowledge knowing you are powerless doing anything about any of those problems!

After all, Ignorant people are so much more happier!!!
________________________________ ___________________________

It would take a long time to fully explain the following so I will just give the short version.

China is bragging about producing clean coal power plants and is building one per month. Actually, China is building two plants per week and the monthly "clean" plant is not really clean, it is just a high temperature steam version powered by gasified coal that is somewhat cleaner than the older models but still very dirty.

Coal produces large amounts of carbon dioxide and sometimes (depending upon the type of coal) large amounts of sulfur dioxide which are two of the primary greenhouse gases. Sulfur reacts with water in the clouds to produce sulfuric acid which kills most plants and eats the paint off of your car. There were some big problems with acid rain in the US, mostly around the East Coast and Pennsylvania. Sulfur dioxide (SO2) blocks out the sun.

After many years of struggle, industry has pretty much learned how to remove sulfur from the smoke stacks by installing scrubbers. SO2 is also a listed gas for the Copenhagen Climate Conference to "target" and to propose credits and exchanges as a method to deal with the problem.

One of the official recommendations to come out the conference to to inject large amounts of SO2 into the atmosphere to block the sun's rays and thereby cool the Earth.

Talk about irony.

The official goal for China was to reduce it's production of carbon dioxide by 20 percent. China's current prediction is to cut their "rate of increase" by 20 percent. However, since their future increase is in the future, the cut they claim is anybody's guess.

China's current pollution is some of the worst in the world and is blowing across the ocean and is now polluting West Coast US cities which have spent many millions of dollars to maintain and correct air quality.

Well hopefully some people who didn't try to stop the poisoning of the planet will start now. Every little bit helps.

Considering we die without the planet and all.

The planet is fast approaching the point of no-return, and some drastic measures would have to be taken in order o1f slowing down (nevermind stopping) the situation -- as I mentioned in my previous post:

The "take" is, of course, different from most countries depending upon your goals and attitudes. China's "take" is that the conference went well since China was able to block world agreement on pretty much everything. Here is the take from Botswana, which is probably similar to many of the small countries who were shut out as the last minute and barred from participating in the "agreement" as it were. Botswana went into the conference with their hand out thinking the US was about to pass out billions. It still may. The line for money starts January 31, of this year.

Begin Quote:

Developing countries given raw deal at Copenhagen climate change conference
by Godfrey Ganetsang
14.01.2010 9:22:38 A

Ahead of the Copenhagen summit world leaders were in agreement that a lot remains to be done if the perils posed by global warming are to be reversed. They were also in agreement that there is a need for the international community to take concrete and cohesive action to combat climate change.

Hailed as the largest UN gathering, the conference, held from December 7th to 18th last year, and attended by 119 heads of state, was touted as the ideal platform through which all of these concerns would be addressed to take the world forward after the lapse of the Tokyo protocol in 2012. Developing counties had gone to Copenhagen hoping for firm and binding commitments on the side of the developed countries, especially towards funding and technological exchange. They had hoped that the conference would, among others, set clear targets on emission reductions from developed countries, and most importantly, extract firm and binding commitments from developed countries towards providing financing and technology transfer for mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.

But, alas, it was not to be. Instead of guaranteeing funding, the accord garnered a non-binding collective agreement from developing countries to provide initial funding of up to US $ 30 billion, and further mobilize US $ 100 billion a year by 2020 to tackle global warming. The developing countries were in for a rude awakening, a legally binding agreement was not on the cards.

What was hyped up as a landmark conference eventually fizzled down and ended with a whimper, amidst cries of unfair play from the third world and, on the other hand, wide smiles and pats on the back from industrialized countries.

“The failure of the political process in Copenhagen to achieve a fair, adequate and binding deal on climate change is profoundly distressing. A higher purpose was at stake, but our political leaders have proven themselves unable to rise to the challenge,” said Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

When addressing the media at his ministry headquarters on Monday, Environment Wildlife and Tourism Minister Kitso Mokaila said, “the Copenhagen conference was a dismal failure. We had hoped for firm commitments from the developed countries. The fact is that Botswana and the rest of the underdeveloped countries are paying for the gains that were made by those who feathered their nests.”

End Quote:

You can read more at http://sundaystandard.info/news/news_item.php?NewsID=6673&GroupID=4

Very interesting... Thank you very much!
_____________THOUGH I DON'T UNDERSTAND:

HOW LONG WILL THE WORLD ALLOW THE CULPRITS UNDERMINING THE COMMON WELFARE? ? ?

* * * Besides, it would be much cheeper obliterating Africa completely and rebuilding anew, then letting them misappropriate the resources dedicated for relieving the problem at hand ***
***

That's the attitude of most of the poor countries around the world... Whatever money America is going to invest, 50+% of the amount will for sure be misappropriated...

But, I guess, the world is not in such a bad shape, yet. Let's play DEMOCRACY (and, hopefully, the rest of the countries we're helping to will catch up eventually -- IFF WE WON'T SUFFOCATE BEFORE THAT!!!

There is now talk of cutting the UN out of the process altogether. In some respects doing so would make a lot of sense since the UN is incapable of doing much in an organized efficient manner anyway and is overwhelmed with corruption. The new idea is to group the major industrial countries together, decide what to do, cough up a lot of money, bribe the poor countries to stop killing the planet, and agree amongst themselves as to what reduction measures to take. This process is pretty much what ended up happening anyway at the Copenhagen conference. The big advantage to this plan is that is actually has a better chance of working compared to what happened in Copenhagen.

Another big issue is the fact that the Earth actually needs a plan. A bunch of bureaucrats cannot solve this type of problem because they really don't understand the science behind it. The number one cause of man made global warming is man. The solution to a small country owning a disproportionate share of the world's rain forest and cutting it down so it's people can graze beef begins with population control.

Right now political correctness is a killing blow to progress.

since you were talking about the rotation of the earth and the pole (which is really just the center of rotation)

because of precession (definition here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession), and a wobble in the rotation,

every 26,000 years the green belt of Africa creeps northward and the Sahara Desert becomes a tropical jungle. as a result of that periodic rainfall there is, under the Sahara a aquifer containing as much freahwater as the Ogallala aquifer

dunno if its on topic but it was kinda interesting

Yep. The precession defines how the Earth's wobble lines up with the sun. I found a good good graphic some time back about the actual "wobble within the wobble" which shows, in addition to the rotation of the 23.5 degree angle, the angle actually changes which would have an even greater effect on long term climate. But we are talking very long term.




We think of the Earth being stable and the tilted precession being a constant but it really isn't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQnRUMq91zs


Mankind has used the precession to judge time for many thousands of years. It is interesting to compare our current written history to what amount of time would be required to study the skies to gain this amount of knowledge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsD2Nku6Zqo&NR=1

However, our efforts might be in vain, due to the forces beyond of our control:

................. here's an exerpt from Science Daily:
"Recent scientific breakthroughs have shown that most of the matter in the universe -- about four-fifths -- is NOT made up of atoms, but of something else, called 'dark matter,'" said Howard Baer, FSU's J.D. Kimel Professor of Physics. "The evidence for dark matter is now overwhelming, and the required amount of dark matter is becoming precisely known."

Baer explained that dark matter is believed to exist in the form of tiny particles that do not interact with light. Because they don't emit or reflect electromagnetic radiation the way atomic, or baryonic, matter does, these dark matter particles haven't been directly observed. However, scientists have long theorized their existence based on their gravitational effects on visible matter throughout the universe.

"For example, the gravitational effect of dark matter makes galaxies spin faster than one would otherwise expect," Baer said. "Also, dark matter's gravitational field distorts the light of objects behind it -- creating the so-called 'lensing effect.' By measuring these sorts of phenomena, we can tell that the universe is full of some sort of 'stuff' that we just can't see."

* * * Despite this progress, the exact identity of dark matter remains a mystery. * * * * * * *