Re: [asa] Creation Care

Merv wrote:

> Of course, at our jobs, keeping up on ASA posts should be an
> ethical step above solitaire!
>
> I'm sure this has been bantered about too, but the thought struck
> me today: What if one of our scientific energy revolution dreams
> were to be suddenly realized? Tomorrow somebody makes cold fusion
> work -- it really works this time and eventually energy becomes so
> plentiful that all our current uses barely scratch its potential.
> What would THAT do to our global warming situation? Being a
> "greenhouse gas-free" source would, I suppose make it an
> environmental life-saver, but would our wanton use of plentiful
> energy warm our planet just through its direct addition of heat?
> I'm curious, is almost all the anthropogenic effect due to
> greenhouse additions? Or is a significant (or any) bit of it due
> to direct warming effects from added heat itself?

My guess is, and this is only a guess, that direct heat generation by
energy use is not significant enough to impact climate. However, an
indirect source of heat production IS significant. That is, the heat
islands created by our large urban areas do have at least local, if
not regional, effects. Large areas of heat absorbing surfaces such
as roads, parking lots, buildings, etc create local islands of heat.
The result is human generated low pressure systems over urban areas.
These low pressure areas can influence local weather. There has been
some recent discussion of the impact of such urban low pressures on
rainfall.

Other human modifications of the land surface also impact the
relative amount of heat absorption or reflection by the surface.
This is a significant variable in modeling of climate.

Keith

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Received on Tue Jan 23 11:23:46 2007