While i was writing this thread, i thought about where is FIRST going, and whats its gonna be like to be with FIRST after a decade or so.
While i was thinking about it, i came across this thread.
It doesn’t take longer than a sec to realize that FIRST and the future global warming is related. Last post on that thread was in 2004. A lot has changed between now and then.
Global Warming and its fate is approaching human kind faster than predicted. Theoretically it’s been proved that by 2050, world will be devastated by the consequences of Global Warming. There is a great chance by 2020 for the European Continent to go under Ice Age. Recently I’ve watched two documentaries, Inconvenient Truth and Future Storms. I was still not convinced so i actually went to the Smithsonian Research Library and Data Center and search for the research that have been done on the topic; my eyes really popped out on couple of stuff.
In 1996, when the debate over the Global Warming began, a lot of scientist actually predicted that hurricanes like Katrina can wipe out cities like New Orleans, New York, Boston, DC etc by the end on 21st century. It was simply shocking.
If we look at the CO2 levels in earth atmosphere right now, its easy to say that we have to face the consequences of Global Warming, but the only thing we can do about is to control how extreme they can be.
The point I’m trying to make over here is that by the time I’ll be 50-60, world will be devastated by this. Not only me, every one will be a victim. Katrina caused a lot of damage in Trade Market. Now think of tens or hundreds of Katrina’s. That will totally ruin the market. That means that there will be no funding or sponsoring for FIRST events or organization all together.
FIRST has been preparing us for this time. We are the one’s who have to think and figure out the solutions for this problem. Thats what i would like to hear from you. What do you think is a solid solution to prevent FIRST from the global warming and its consequences? Remember its a dependency issue, and FIRST rely on a lot of dependent resources to provide us the Hardest Fun.
The fact that the business/political community has not listened is devastating.
Here’s two points I’m making about global warming
We only assisted it. We don’t know that it would not happen if humans didn’t ever survive the Ice Age. Perhaps it could have happened. Perhaps it could have been more dramatic or more gradual. We don’t know.
These hurricanes are inevitable because of the policy delay. But FIRST can be use to not only experiment with solutions to slow down global warming, but also help cities survive such hurricanes. (The more prepared will prevail.)
Politics can only assist (or hurt) the solution. Engineering is a real solution.
We can both use natural and artificial means to slow it down
Here’s something about FIRST down the line
Ideally, it will be in almost every high school (and Dean Kamen will have to make a lot more money to support it) in the US and places around the world
Challenges will force teams to research and implement new technology
Challenges 5 or even 2 years ago will be implemented in reality
The Championship will be moved closer to Washington DC or New York City or another major big city to get political attention to the need for hands-on approaches in science and engineering
I usually try to stay out of the extremist deep-end of politics, so you probably won’t find me chaining myself to a tree to prevent a logging company from taking it down. The fact of life here is that people need [cheaper] goods, industry wants to make money, and the environment needs a lot of help. It’s quite hard to find the magic bullets to solve all three problems.
The only way to save the environment is when business can see the “what’s in it for me” argument; or in other words, how can I save money? Some companies have noticed that going green can actually save them money, through such measures as planting grass on their flat roofs. (The grass drastically cuts down their heating/air conditioning bills.)
So if there is a moral to this story, it is that we need FIRST to inspire more engineers. We need to find better ways of creating more efficient products, cleaner engines (or a totally new technology), maximizing the recyclable content in goods, creating cheap biodegradable plastics, among many other engineering tasks.
FIRST is not a global warming advocacy/lobbyist group; we are an organization that’s determined to inspire students. FIRST shouldn’t force the environment issue upon students as a “game challenge”. Rather, FIRST should continue to keep inspiring students into science and engineering, and the students themselves will find ways of bettering the world.
I think you’re confusing possible outcomes with probable outcomes. Worst-case scenarios make the news, but it’s important to assess just how likely these things are. To be clear, climatic events on this scale are extremely unlikely—one might even say ridiculously unlikely.
As a matter of fact, it’s commonly held that we’re currently nearing the end of an interglacial period of the Pleistocene ice age—periods of (typically) 10 to 20 thousand years where it’s warmer than the median temperature for that era. Let’s be clear that calling a small temperature variation in Europe an ice age makes no sense. Especially when the timeframe is so short.
Similarly, the fact that a scientist predicted devastating hurricanes in our future is not enough reason to expect devastating hurricanes. In science, we appeal to evidence, not to authority—and the evidence does not currently indicate any long-term trend with respect to the severity or location of hurricanes.
Fair enough; CO[sub]2[/sub] has real, measurable effects. And they do contribute greatly to global warming, possibly in a way that will stretch out this interglacial period. But you’re exaggerating—that’s the problem here.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but it seems that while you’re concerned that FIRST will die if the economy tanks (due to environmental disaster), you’re not overly concerned with the disasters themselves. In perspective, if we were to experience the worst-case scenario that you envision, society would rightfully have bigger things to deal with than a bunch of kids building toy robots.
Fortunately, there’s no reason to believe that we’re going to be dealing with disaster on the scale that you’ve envisioned. Global environmental effects are certainly to be expected, but don’t worry about anything on the scale of an ice age. Humanity hasn’t screwed up that badly.
If by exageration it means me, sitting accross a table full research papers, books, articles, studies, statistcs, etc from well known scientists, which clearly states that Its coming and coming faster than we thought; than i guess i’m really exagerating. Its not my ‘own’ opinion. I’m just concerned and trying to convey the message instead of an argueing.
Its a fact now that CO2 level has a relationship directly with the temperature (greenhouse gasses). CO2 levels are climbing 300 parts per million for the first time in the history of earth, is it still not alarming? A number that never went over 300 now stands on 375 (thats present). Even if you’re right, notice that after ever warm period, ice age approaches really fast. (http://www.seed.slb.com/en/scictr/watch/climate_change/images/carbon_dioxide.jpg)
Now as for Europe, notice this picture. Ice in Arctic and Greenland is melting with the speed of 1.2 million square km per decade (size of Ontario) and temperatures are rising 1.2 degrees every decade. If all that fresh water makes it way to the Atlantic ocean, it will shut that pump that warms Europe resulting in sudden ice age.
It’s indeed “extremist deep-end of politics (stated by:artdutra04).” The MAIN PURPOSE of starting this thread was not to start another argument on whether Global Warming exists or not.
I’m going to summarize the Purpose again ( i think i did a bad job in doing so in first post). Whether Global Warming Exists or not, Earth will play its game and Humans will have to face the consequences. If its not global warming, We all know for fact that earth will die one day (might be a blackhole, or our sun). Although in those kind of catastrophic events, no body would care about FIRST, but FIRST cares about that time right now. Thats why, we (FIRSTers) are being prepared right now to solve the problems, humans are going to face in future. When i look at first, i don’t see bunch of kids building robots. I see teams helping disable people with their mobility, i see teams with innovative ideas to solve current problems, i see teams holding hands together to help people/kids. And believe it or not, but we’re the ones on whose shoulders will come the responsibility of human survival (lets just stay out of the debate of if its gonna be 2050 or later).
Something i would like to point out is Bases outside Earth. NASA has already started to think about a moon base, while at the same time a lot of scientists are working to wards the goal of landing man on mars. This can be a baby step to wards the permanent Mars City (which i think is quite possible). Because i believe that if humans have to survive, they’ve to leave Earth eventually; so why not start preparing for that right now.
This is a good point to make. Even with people making Day After Tomorrow-esque predictions, there are many other issues at play in our world. The Earth can only support so much life. Humanity is already taxing the productivity of our planet, and at the present rate of growth, the problem will only exasperate itself. A permanent lunar or Mars city will greatly alleviate the strain of excess population.
Steps are already being taken to reduce pollution. Alternative fuel sources are being explored, and are being implemented. Those of us currently in FIRST may not need to adress this now-pressing issue. These other issues - over-population and rampant hunger, will be, in my mind, the great issues we face in the future. The northern hemisphere is not going to freeze tomorrow. There are more issues that we, as future scientists and engineers, will address than anyone could possibly imagine. So please, hold off with the doomsaying. We’re the ones who are going to fix these problems.
Concern is fine, but you have to be able to critically analyze what’s being said. Don’t just pick out the improbable doomsday scenarios. Avoid potentially sensational descriptors like “ice age”, unless you’re actually referring to one (which, in the conventional sense, you were not). It’s not really coming significantly faster than we thought, unless we had our fingers in our ears and were pretending not to hear about it for the last 20 years.
You realize that you’re not helping your position by pointing to the historic trends, right? Isn’t your entire thesis that we’re deviating from historical norms? That means that you don’t really know (based on history) whether a glacial period will come quickly after an interglacial period, because your climate models are based on the historic (>0.03% CO[sub]2[/sub]) atmosphere.
Prior to the word “resulting”, you were making a plausible statement. It isn’t an ice age. An ice age is a long, long time, like 30 to 300 million years. It isn’t a local thing, and it isn’t solely caused by mere ocean currents.
If that argument is going on, you’re the only participant. I have not been denying global warming; I’ve been taking issue with the exaggerations of the consequences.
hmmm…Tristan Lall, i think the following paragraph was enough to keep to the ‘discussion’ instead of an ‘argument’
I’m going to summarize the Purpose again ( i think i did a bad job in doing so in first post). Whether Global Warming Exists or not, Earth will play its game and Humans will have to face the consequences. If its not global warming, We all know for fact that earth will die one day (might be a blackhole, or our sun). Although in those kind of catastrophic events, no body would care about FIRST, but FIRST cares about that time right now. Thats why, we (FIRSTers) are being prepared right now to solve the problems, humans are going to face in future. When i look at first, i don’t see bunch of kids building robots. I see teams helping disable people with their mobility, i see teams with innovative ideas to solve current problems, i see teams holding hands together to help people/kids. And believe it or not, but we’re the ones on whose shoulders will come the responsibility of human survival (lets just stay out of the debate of if its gonna be 2050 or later).
But i would love to reply to you in person, instead of argueing with you in “CD Discussion Board.”
Wow, am I the only person who is confused to the subject? I expected to read a thread about how FIRST has grown, and how it will continue to grow in the future. I do not see how FIRST has anything to do with earth’s tempature, and global warming. Your thread title is misleading, and while I struggle to understand your points, I think this is just another thread created to stir up the coals before kick-off. Don’t you guys have anything better to do than sit here and post threads about topics that are irrelevant to FIRST?
It’s the HOLIDAY season, instead of bickering on this website, why don’t we just spend the next 28d 12h 35m celebrating the season, and then lets worry about robots.
I’m not disputing global warming, and I realize how the same argument might be used by someone who is. But what I’m saying is that it’s disingenuous of you—deliberately or accidentally—to refer to an ice age being the likely result of this climatic change.
An ice age is a very specific thing. It’s not a few years of cold weather. It’s not a few hundred, nor a few thousand years of cold weather. It’s not even a few million. It’s several million years of globally depressed temperatures, organized roughly into glacial and interglacial periods.
The best science to date indicates that we’re in an interglacial period now, during an ice age. In fact, all of recorded history—and indeed, possibly all of civilization itself—seems to have taken place during this period. It’s quite plausible that global warming might have an effect on bringing forward the commencement of the next glacial period. But that is not the beginning of a new ice age.
For the public, which doesn’t necessarily understand the distinction between an ice age and a glacial period, it is vitally important to make the distinction. While I can hypothesize that you probably mean either a glacial period, or a regional change in climate, a member of the public might equate your statements with the coming of 100 million years of near-zero (°C) temperatures in Europe (i.e. an ice age), and be totally mistaken.
Though I haven’t thoroughly examined it, I suspect that your data is just fine. I’m interested in making sure that other readers are getting the benefit of that data. Rather than being incredulous that global warming is real (because an ice age is such a drastic thing), or worse, panicking about their impending doom, the public needs to see it for what it is.
I understand why you are concerned about this, but keep the politics out of ChiefDelphi. There’s two sides to every story, and you have obviously only looked into one of them.
I think this should be moved from the general forum.
