One persons solution to climate change...

[liberal N proud]

Last edited Tue Jan 14, 2014, 08:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Turn off all the outdoor lighting


On the comments section of a New York Times article about rising sea levels:

MD Cooks
West of the Hudson 5 hours ago
I have several questions concerning global warming and how it is being studied and measured:
1. When temperatures are being recorded and documented, are they taken every hour ?
2. If the answer to the above question is yes, how long or how many years has this practiced been put into place?
3. If the answer to the first question is true, has there been a significant change in temperatures at night from the early 1900's?
4. If the answer to the above question is yes, than can it be assumed that one factor in the increase of night temperatures rising are due to the increase in the number of exterior lighting staying lit from dusk until dawn?

I ask these questions for practical reasons since if you fly across the US at night when it is not cloudy, the earth from that point of view almost looks like smokeless fires burning on the ground, so the heat being dissipated from all these lights must have some impact on ambient air temperatures.
5. If the above is then true, if by reducing how long and why a majority of the portion of these lights are on , shouldn't there be a decrease in ambient air temperatures.

Just a thought...

Article here, just click on the comments to see some of this lunacy

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/science/earth/grappling-with-sea-level-rise-sooner-not-later.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20140114&_r=0


It would help if I added the link, wouldn't it! Doh!

[LuvNewcastle]

1. I'd like to read more about it, but I need a link.

[liberal N proud]

3. Sorry about that

Brain farts cause one to leave out the details.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. No problem. Happens to all of us. I mean, besides myself, of course.

[kristopher]

2. Earth’s Rate Of Global Warming Is 400,000 Hiroshima Bombs A Day

Earth’s Rate Of Global Warming Is 400,000 Hiroshima Bombs A Day
BY JOE ROMM ON DECEMBER 22, 2013 AT 11:21 AM

Conveying abstract or hard-to-visualize ideas is always a challenge. That’s a core reason why the best communicators have always used metaphors.

As Aristotle wrote in his classic work Poetics, “the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.”

How can one convey the Earth’s staggering rate of heat build up from human-caused global warming — 250 trillion Watts (Joules per second)? The analogy to the energy released by the Hiroshima bomb has been used in recent years by a number of scientists, such as NOAA oceanographer John Lyman, and Mike Sandiford, Director of the Melbourne Energy Institute. In his TED talk Climatologist James Hansen explained the current rate of increase in global warming is:

“… equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day, 365 days per year. That’s how much extra energy Earth is gaining each day.”

That comes out to more than four Hiroshima bombs a second, which is a metric Skeptical Science has turned into a widget. I prefer the 400,000 Hiroshimas per day metric simply because the heat imbalance is occurring over a very large area, which four Hiroshimas don’t do justice to.

The deniers don’t like the metaphor because, they assert, it is inexact and sensationalistic. But the deniers don’t like the literal facts because they think those are inexact and sensationalistic, too, so we can safely ignore them....

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/12/22/3089711/global-warming-hiroshima-bombs/

Originally posted on DU at http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=edit&forum=1127&thread=60681

[Shankapotomus]

5. Switch all outside lights

to LEDS and they will probably dissipate a fraction of the heat being released now if any. Shut off all outdoor lights and there could be an increase in break ins and car on pedestrian accidents.

[seveneyes]

6. One square meter of the earth will receive about one kilowatt from the Sun

Depending on cloud cover, up to 174 quadrillion watts of energy is always hitting the Earth from the Sun.

About as much as whale piss warms the oceans.

[logosoco]

7. I am not really sure this would have much of an impact on global climate changes and

pollution, but I would love to see a "national" holiday where everyone does this so we can see the stars better.
Just once a year or so.