www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/smoke_dispose.html

Disposing of Smoke Detectors

Both photoelectric and ionization smoke alarms contain plastic and electronic circuit boards and in some cases batteries (alkaline or lithium). Ionization technology also includes a chamber containing radioactive material incorporated into a gold matrix. Because of the long half-life of americium-241 the amount of radioactive material in the smoke alarm at the end of its certified useful life will be about the same as when you bought it.

EPA's household waste program encourages waste reduction and minimization. State and local practices for safe disposal of smoke alarms vary, but most communities seek to limit the amount of material that requires disposal in a municipal solid waste landfills and incinerators. Waste minimization reduces costs and protects the environment.

Some State Radiation Control Programs conduct an annual round-up of ionization smoke alarms similar to the roundup of batteries or hazardous household chemicals. Other state or local governments recommend that you return the used smoke alarm to the supplier. The address of the supplier is usually listed in the product warranty or user's manual. If the smoke detector has a alkaline or lithium battery, check with your local community recycling program for disposal instructions.

Americium-241 is an unstable (radioactive) isotope with a half-life of 432.7 years. As it decays, it releases alpha and gamma radiation and changes into neptunium-237, which is also radioactive. The americium-241 decay chain ends with bismuth-209, a stable (non-radioactive) element.

Roughly 430 years

Doesn't the earth's temperature drive the weather?  Doesn't the weather drive the earth's temperature?  While they are not the only consideration they are by far the largest.

I think what he meant was that climate and weather are two different things. Weather is whatever the atmosphere happens to be doing in your local area at that very moment. Climate is the averaging of weather over a long term over some larger area, like the United States, Africa, or the whole world.

So what scientists mean about global warming is that the climate is slowly warming, not the weather. Even with a global increase in temperature, you'll still have snowstorms and blizzards.

That still doesn't seperate the weather from climate or vice versa.  They are the same.  The difference is, from what I've seen, is some arbitrary value of time.

This is silly.

I drive my car to the movies and my car drives me to the movies, but I and my car are not the same.

Weather and temperature are indeed not separated in that they are interrelated; the note was that they are not the same. That means you can't take any one example of weather and conclude anything about temperature, except at the moment, from it. You probably can't take hundreds of examples, all together, and make correct conclusions. This is especially true as we should not be focusing on the weather in one particular area, but rather worldwide.

I agree, there are also hundreds of factors to consider.

The earth has and will continue to go through dramatic cycles regardless of human intervention. For example the Sarah desert will more likely than not revert back to a vast swampy grass lands in another 14.000 years when the earth orbit around the sun and wobble changes enough to support that kind of environment in Africa.

There have been several mini ice ages all with in the span of mans existence on this planet. 

We also have the long drawn out process of magnetic pole shifting taking hundreds of years which occasionally weakens the earths magnetic field allowing more exposure to cosmic and solar rays  that can cause an increase in  surface temperatures and life form mutations.

Pick your science, there are a lot of options that science  and extremists are trying to twist around their own axles.

It is what it is, hopefully one day we will understand it all.

Um, no. Either pick science, or don't.

There aren't different sciences. Unless you include superstition, astrology, numerology, hearsay, and propaganda as science. They are not.

The science of climate is very well understood now. At least by climate scientists. Too bad we are not listenting to what they are saying. But I'm not surprised since most of us don't understand the difference between climate and weather and have a hard time understand why a warming planet can mean more snow.

This is true. At 1 billion years old the earth was covered in an ice sheet two miles thick at the equator.

There used to be swamps in the higher latitudes.

And now, the earth is going through another dramatic change, caused by humans releasing hundreds of millions of years worth of carbon previously sequestered by plants in only a few hundred years.

So yeah, the earth has gone through dramatic changes before, and will continue to. We're just getting started.

I said pick your science, maybe I should have said discipline?  Because Geologists, Archaeologists, Climatologists, Geneticist's, astrophysicists and so forth often are at odds with each other over the what, when, where, and why. They generally seem to have trouble from time to time communicating with each other over data that conflicts with someone else's research.

I have no doubt that man has had a hand in climate alterations, but that by no means is the whole story.

Climate scientists only dispute is how much of an impact will be realized by human caused CO2. 97% agree that humans are driving climate change now, moreso than any other factor. So there is no dispute on the what or the why.

You seem to be implying that there is some great debate going on in the climate science discipline. There is not.

Ya, ya....PC vs MAC, Ford vs Chevy, Human vs Monkey

Your right, they are not separated, the point made was that a local Weather snow storm isn't proof that climate change isn't occuring. Local weather IS part of what makes up climate, but when looking at the global climate, a local weather storm in Chicago is like looking at ONE pixel on your TV that happens to be green and making the conclusion that the entire screen is green. 

Debate, debate, debate  www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php

This is a quote from a science journal below----
"For too many years, global warming “alarmists” and global warming “skeptics” have fired salvos at each other like artillery fire across no-man’s-land. As animosity has risen, the goal has too often been to defeat the other side rather than to discover and report scientific truths. Scientific advancement has suffered as a result."

I keep listening and always learning. My favorite expert has been quiet recently, so learning is on hold. He also invented the internet, so for all I know he may be up to something really awesome now!!