Are you ready for some football global warming?
By on Jul 25th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Are you ready for some football global warming?
Peter King, one of the nation’s top football journalists, writes in Sports Illustrated: “This is not exactly the venue to warn the world about global warming, but all you football junkies readying for your fantasy drafts should do one real-world thing in the next couple of weeks: take two hours to see [An Inconvenient Truth]. I’m not saying you’ll be glad you did, because it’s going to slap you around mentally a bit. But it’s something you need to see. You don’t want to wake up in 15 years with the Earth permanently damaged and huge portions of the Earth’s surface under water, forever.”
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And *gasp* the weed of the stadiums will be brown FOREVER!! /Sarcasm off
Well, let’s see if the 30 percenters believe more a football pundit than 900+ world class scientifics…
July 25th, 2006 at 1:21 pmYou don’t want to wake up in 15 years with the Earth permanently damaged and huge portions of the Earth’s surface under water, forever.
Yes, since many of today’s teams play exclusively in indoor arenas, and don’t even know how to play on a wet field anymore!
July 25th, 2006 at 1:21 pmGood for him, he’ll get some karma points for that one.
July 25th, 2006 at 1:23 pmThank you, Mr. King. Anyone who can motivate Americans to seek out information is OK by me. Now, if we could get a big name NASCAR driver to do likewise…
July 25th, 2006 at 1:23 pmMaybe in fifteen years they can have a Superbowl in an open stadium in the north….yippee!
July 25th, 2006 at 1:25 pm#4 Some chewing tobacco brand called “Global Warming is Bad” in big white, red and blue font would help to get the message to the adequate target…
July 25th, 2006 at 1:27 pmThe effects of Global Warming were in evidence this weekend in the sports world. The British Open golf tournament was played on dry, brown fairways, devestated from a drought in England. Not a direct effect, but pretty surprising to see the once verdant greens of Jolly Old look as brown as a Texas backyard without a sprinkler system.
Bravo for Mr. King.
July 25th, 2006 at 1:28 pmBush, beware of the soccer moms!
July 25th, 2006 at 1:30 pmYou guys should watch the Discovery Channel special on global warming.
I was so depressed, I had to stop watching, and tape the rest of it.
It was interesting and credible, since it wasn’t a “liberal media outlet”
July 25th, 2006 at 1:32 pmIt’s the beauty and tragedy of Democracy. Is great for social issues, but when the mayority of the people is scientifically illiterate, here comes the disaster. When ID and evolution and a looney tunes concept of universe fights with the Einsteinian model in their minds as if they had the same standing… we will fry in the pan any moment in a not so distant future.
July 25th, 2006 at 1:36 pmGood for King. The more ways the message gets out to the folks not reading blogs the better. SI has a pretty big distribution, maybe a few more folks out there might see the movie and start thinking seriously about the problem.
July 25th, 2006 at 1:38 pmKudos to Mr. King.
Andrew Sullivan liked the film too, but actually had the gall to suggest 1) Gore did not do enough about the issue as VP and 2) he should have used the opportunity to propose a gas tax.
Imagine the outcry had Gore proposed a gas tax at the end of the movie. People would have written the film off outright as simply a mechanism for Gore to do more “taxing and spending”.
July 25th, 2006 at 1:41 pmNext………………….NASCAR…. tougher sell…maybe impossible
July 25th, 2006 at 1:53 pmNice plug for Al Gore > bravo!
July 25th, 2006 at 1:57 pm115 Fahrenheit in Stockton CA yesterday, a 40 year record. 113 in Sacramento CA, and all-time record.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:19 pmIt’s hot.
Rolling blackouts are back, just like the Enron days.
I’d recommend the book as well as the movie. The book allows you to pause and comprehend exactly what Mr. Gore is saying. I think I’d recommend the book over the movie, because you can’t pause the movie (until it’s released to DVD) to seriously contemplate what is being said.
Get the book!
July 25th, 2006 at 2:28 pmThank you, Mr. King. It’s going to take a full effort, not just the work of professional pundits, to overcome the laziness and corruption of the Bush administration’s environmental policies. All hands on deck!
July 25th, 2006 at 2:30 pmJebus,
I saw the Discovery special too which was much less apocolyptic than Inconvenient Truth, but no less convincing. Today I caught “The Color of Oil”, also on Discovery (thanks TiVo), which went on to expose BP as misrepresenting itself as a green oil company. However, the CEO has pledged to stay out of governmental policies regarding energy, or in other words, THEY DON’T MAKE ANY POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS. I guess BP actually believes in true, free-market economies, rather than the corporate welfare ExxonMobil seems to covet. Compared with the execs from Exxon they also interview, this guy Brown (CEO of BP) is a freakin’ SAINT. Sure, they spend 20 times more on developing and bringing online MORE refineries than they spend on their highly touted “renewables”, but at least they seem to have a moral conscious, or, he’s just smart enough to realize that his industry is a monopoly which needs no governmental charity to survive.
They also noted that the US government spends 10 times more on resources which protect oil interests, than the actual oil product is worth.
What else would you expect?
July 25th, 2006 at 2:31 pmI thought the Discovery Channel special narrated by Tom Brokaw was as good as Inconvenient Truth. A lot of the same information, but presented in an even more vivid way. Bravo to Tom Brokaw!!
I hope that people are catching on to this problem in large enough numbers that we reach a critical mass, so that doing something about it will become a mainstream political “crusade” rather than just a “crazy idea promoted by the wacko left”. When mainstream media outlets in unrelated subjects start making statements like this, it’s a good sign.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:37 pmKing also wrote something quite strong and moving about the state of New Orleans, so long after the hurricane and how outrageous it was.
All in all he’s a good egg.
July 25th, 2006 at 2:52 pmTime for Inhofe to chime in with another attack.
July 25th, 2006 at 3:29 pmA few days ago it rained in Jo’burg. Doesn’t sound like much does it? Right up until you realise that Jo’burg is a summer rainfall area and it is now winter.
I think maybe the weather worldwide is just a wee bit screwy nowadays.
July 25th, 2006 at 4:03 pmThis is the single most important reason why we need Democrats running the House this November. God knows the Rethugs would never think about offending their corporate puppetmasters.
July 25th, 2006 at 4:04 pmking wrote about the on-going disgrace of new orleans a few weeks ago.
but see, unlike news reporters, sports reporters are allowed to mention morality.
July 25th, 2006 at 4:24 pmVery good.
July 25th, 2006 at 5:27 pmSo, did anyone else notice China is experiencing it’s 7th typhoon of the season?
July 25th, 2006 at 5:45 pmDepending on the news source 200 to 700 thousand people have been told to evacuate. Extreme Weather everywhere.
An article I wrote about the energy we are talking about to raise the temperature of the atmosphere i degrees celcius;
BTW anti-global warming fooles what do you think the measure of a temperature actually means,
yes I know how hot something is, I do not mean the casual meaning…but what a physical scientist would say…
Temperature is the physical property of a system that underlies the common notions of “hot” and “cold”; something that is hotter has the greater temperature. Temperature arises from the random microscopic motions of the atomic and subatomic constituents of matter. The temperature is related to the average energy of these microscopic motions. It is a fundamental parameter in thermodynamics.
from wiki, with me so far people?
Well since we are talking about Global warming
Models referenced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predict that global temperatures may increase by between 1.4 and 5.8 °C (2.5 to 10.5 °F) between 1990 and 2100.
which is a function of the earths atmosphere, lets discuss temperature in gases since even you would admit the atmosphere is made up of gases, and not solids or liquids;
For a monatomic ideal gas the temperature is related to the translational motion or average speed of the atoms. The kinetic theory of gases uses statistical mechanics to relate this motion to the average kinetic energy of atoms and molecules in the system. This average energy is independent of particle mass, which seems counter intuitive to many people. Although the temperature is related to the average kinetic energy of the particles in a gas, each particle has its own energy which may or may not correspond to the average. However, after an examination of some basic physics equations it makes perfect sense. The second law of thermodynamics states that any two given systems when interacting with each other will later reach the same average energy. Temperature is a measure related to the average kinetic energy of a system.
wiki again, see I’m trying to keep it simple for you people…since you all don’t seem to do science real well with all the high quality of home schooling you got
now we know that temperature is a measurement of energy, and that the measurement of temperature in gasses is the average of the kinetic energy held in those gases…
now how about a good question..how much “gasses” does the atmosphere contain, ever wonder how big the atmosphere really is?
well;
The total mean mass of the atmosphere is 5.1480 x 10to the 18th power kg with an annual range due to water vapor of 1.2 or 1.5 x 10 to the 15th power kg depending on whether surface pressure or water vapor data are used; somewhat smaller than the previous estimate. The mean mass of water vapor is estimated as 1.27 x 10 to the 16th power kg and the dry air mass as 5.1352 ±0.0003 x 10to the 18th power kg.”
(obviously this website does not do scientific notation, so to put it in a way you will recognize)
I know I know it looks real complicated but hang in there people, I’ll work it out for you…
5.1480 x 10to the 18th power kg
looks like this for most people
the figure we really need is..
5,148,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms
which is about;
5,674,700,000,000,000 tons,
actually all the air is quite heavy good thing it is spread out eh?
but for purposes here we need the more complicated number
5.1480 x 10to the 18th power kg
now it is going to get a bit complicated because I have to introduce some more scientific units like the joule,
The joule (symbol: J) is the SI unit of energy, or work with base units of kg·m²/s² (N·m). The base unit conversion can be remembered using the equation E=mc², where E is in joules, m is in kilograms, and c is the speed of light.
and
1 joule is approximately equal to:
0.238845896628 cal (calorie) (small calories)
and
The small calorie or gram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 g of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.185 J.
but for our purposes here it is used to measure energy both
kinetic energy : energy associated with motion
and
potential energy : the energy that a piece of matter has because of its position or nature or because of the arrangement of parts
see measuring wind is measuring the kinetic energy..but measuring temperature is measuring the potential energy.
still with me? Hang in there we are just getting to the good parts…
thus given the mass of the atmosphere which is
5.1480 x 10 to the 18th power kg
remember 4.185 J. is needed to increase the temperature of 1 g of water by 1 °C.
now it is simple math
5.1480 x 10 to the 18th power kg
times 4.185 J. times 1000(to convert grams(in the joule) to kilograms (what we are using to measure the mass of the atmosphere)
and we get;
2.154438 x 10 to the 22nd power
or 21,544,380,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy ADDED to the atmosphere by raising it ..just one degree..C
See people it is not the measurement of temperature that is the only factor which we need to take into account, but the total mass that the temperature being measured
and I only referenced 1 degree C not 1.4 even though it is the smaller rise let alone over five times the amount I referenced which 5.8 degrees C which is the upper limit or rise
BTW just for comparison;
The first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 exploded with the energy of about 20 kilotons of TNT (~8.4×10to the 13th power joules).
other wise we release energy equivalent to 2.5 x 10 to the 8th power Hiroshima bombs into the atmosphere to raise it one degree, that is
250,000,000 Hiroshima bombs worth of energy into the earths atmosphere, not nuclear radiation, but the actual energy release the bomb does which causes the wide spread destruction
Think that might be a lot of energy, which by the laws of thermodynamics has to go some where…like into the weather we experience..except is has A hell of a lot more potential energy for creating winds and things like hurricanes…. which are simply heat exchange systems to move the heat to cooler areas of the planet, and much more powerful cold fronts which is another form of heat exchange system on our planet….they have tornados and straight line winds which seem to be getting worse…..
see it is not that hard to understand is it ….people?
July 25th, 2006 at 7:54 pmI am hopeful that some who read only sports pages in the papers will see this and – even if they don’t see the movie – will register something subliminally about global warming, and will begin to pay attention.
July 25th, 2006 at 9:08 pmI agree, Marie. Peter King did a good thing by saying this. Whatever it takes to get the message out.
I saw the Discovery Channel program narrated by Tom Brokaw, and it broke my heart. An Inconvenient Truth was in my town for exactly one week, and I missed it because I had to go out of town. That broke my heart, too. :(
July 25th, 2006 at 9:35 pmDon’t know who this Clif moron was who just vomited up a whole bunch of psuedo-scientific techno-babble just above, but he clearly has no idea what he’s talking about.
None of his numbers, calculations or statements make any sense whatsoever.
For the record, no competent scientist anywhere left on earth questions the fact the temperature is going up — and we’re the principal cause.
July 25th, 2006 at 10:22 pmJust for the record that was my point, the temrerature is going up, and the amount of energy that one degrees of rise in the entire earths atmosphere is quite a lot of energy, which we are putting into the atmosphere, the atomic bomb analogy was just a comparison so it could be grasped HOW much energy…the math is accurate, as is the mass of the atmosphere and the amount of energy to raise the one gram amount and the entire atmosphere….if you can not follow a simple physics equastion well I can not help you’
but it is quite simple..
take the mass of the atmosphere, measured in kilograms: multiply by the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one gram and multiply that by 1000 to convert the gram to kilogram and you get the amount of energy required to raise the earths temperature 1 degree C
July 25th, 2006 at 11:37 pmNASCAR showing concern over global warming? HAHAHAHAHA
That’s like tobacco companies trying to alert the public to lung cancer!
July 26th, 2006 at 2:28 am