We aren't exactly friends with China..they are an oppressive communist nation, we are the land of the free......slight difference in the way we see things.

 

We aren't good friends, we are just in bed together because it's profitable, there's a difference. We develop high tech goods, and they have slave/prison labor to build it for us. It works out well. They are also home to the fastest growing millionare and billionare clubs, and have more 30 year old billionares than any other place in the worlds.

There's also the idea that you keep your enemies close.

It's really not that far off topic BTW. China and India will do more to accelerate global warming than the rest of the world combined in the next 20 years, and there isn't a dang thing we can do about it.

Like I said, we can only prepare for it now.

 

the enemy of my enemy is my friend....

 

We owe china LOTS of money, that's why we pretend to like them.

That's why we're pressing to get them to quit basing their money of ours. So that we can pay them back, and it'll cost us less.

Right now, we owe them say a trillion in chinese money, we'll as soon as their economy tanks, and if their money wasn't directly tied to the value of our dollar, we'll be able to pay them back with less american dollars.

 

I do agree, we would still need plants for non-lighting needs, but we don't need to use coal is what I'm saying. All powerplants generate heat pollution, but coal generates massive amounts of supernasty stuff and jettisons it into the atmosphere. At least nuclear biproducts we can eventually try to send into the sun or something. We need to start focusing more on getting fusion working and relying less upon fossil fuels. Reducing the necessary amount of energy that power hungry appliances need to run would help a lot too. By switching to fluorescent bulbs (that use about 20% less juice than incandescents) you could retire 90 coal power plants if everyone in the US swapped bulbs. LEDs are at least twice as efficient fluorescent (not to mention they just increased this in a lab by at least 30% more while making the LED generate even brighter light. New ones should be mass produced and out in a year or two.) so imagine how much less power will be needed and how many more plants could be retired (at least 180 coal plants) by a simple bulb change from incandescent to LED.

 

Don't fluorescent bulbs contain a truck load of mercury?

 

Yup. Another reason I don't support fluorescents. The other reason is I work under them all flippin' day and they hurt my eyes something fierce. Not to mention the compact fluorescents take a few seconds to warm up. I almost fell down a flight of stairs cuz of those damned things.

 

Why? do your stairs move in the dark?

 

I don't know how to solve global warming, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with clubbing baby seals and eating veal.

 

I was at my mom's house and going into the basement and she had just changed to compact fluorescents and didn't tell me. I flicked the switch and started walking down the stairs before the light warmed up (since out of habit I knew the light should come right on) and stepped into darkness and almost missed a step. Slipped down like three of them and thankfully balanced myself on the wall. A second later the light flicks on and slowly brightens. (shakes fist)

 

led lighting is not cheap enough to replace incandescents nor flourescents...yet. Believe me, I've been keeping saltwater tanks for 7 years now, and the incredible amount of lighting i need can only be found in power compact lighting and metal halide systems.

In germany there are already many LED lighting systems, but they are one-offs and therefore very expensive. We're still looking at a couple years before LED's take off in the aquarium trade in the US, meaning even farther for regular use by everyday consumers.

 

Another reason we are good buddies with China is that they have bought up a **** ton of bonds from our government. If we were ever to go to war with China, they could release all of those and cripple our economy, without ever firing a single shot.

 

Yeah, I have to agree with you there. The mass manufacturing aspect is still pretty young. But I feel that within the next 4-5 years the tech will explode forward. They've already over doubled the output and halved the power requirements of the LEDs within the last couple years. Have you heard much about quantum dot lighting? It's still in the experimentation stage, but that seems like it would be an awesome replacement for streetlights and simple or aquatic lighting.

 

None of this LED lighting means a hill of beans to me unless somebody can list some names of some of the players in the industry, namely; who manufactures them? I want in.

 

once you see reef lighting at pet stores, wait about 2 years until you get some everyday fixtures at home depot.

when i say they're too expensive, I mean REALLY expensive. I spend about $150 on relatively simple power compact flo. lighting for a little 30" long tank, it'd be about equivlant to running 4 heavy duty flourescents or 3 incandescent bulbs. If I was doing super light intensive corals, i'd be about $300. and that's shopping around. LED lighting is MUCH more than this, and that's why it's not common yet.

 

There's no way to undo global warming. Because we... WE DIDN'T LISTEN!!! WE JUST DIDN'T LISTEN!

That aside, there are lots of things we can do. But it would have to start from the bottom up, where the US public buys into it. In a country where people drive V8 trucks to work by themselves and the "bigger=better" mentality thrives, it's really not going anywhere.

I take my bicycle or the bus to school, and is considered "uncool". Not that I am a hippie, but I don't mind burning a few calories while contribute a few less milligrams of CO2 into the air. I don't expect everybody to do the same, but if all americans start riding bikes and taking buses, the world would be a lot cleaner (and skinnier).

 

Question: So we know now that the world is warming, but how long has meteorology been recording temperature/weather? I would say what 100-200 years? Is it possible this is not too unnatural? And maybe our pollutants are only speeding up the warming cooling curves. Is it possible over time our own pollutants will break down returning to their original states (which i think, though this is def. not my major, is a characteristic atomic bonding)?

If we could reduce our pollutants, yes it would be for the best but nature has a funny way of balancing everything out. I'm still cheering on nature because I know we as humans won't ever do it. .

 

You said what I was trying to say, MURR... thank you!

 

Yes that is possible. A point I tend to argue for when watching Gore's dumb "movie." Correlation=/=causation.
I'd have to say no there. If atomic bonding just naturally fell apart and went back to normal, no complex forms would be in the universe. They don't just "fall apart." There has to be an acting force to break atomic bonds.
One can only hope that nature's way of balancing out isn't by killing off all humans on the planet with boiling temperatures, horrible storms, earthquakes, and diseases... although it seems to be heading this way. (or the media is just focusing on it more now and it merely seems like it's increasing...)

 

Hey, the dinosaurs p*ssed of mother nature and look what happened to them.