Is there anything I should be doing about this on the level of general election voting other than a straight democratic ticket?
I'm not really sure as far as the U.S. is concerned.
In Canada, you can do things like show-up at Q&A sessions and bring the topic up / ask the candidate what they intend to do about it. If you don't like the answer, you can e-mail or write to the party and tell them that you won't contribute a dime to their party until they change their stance.
I'm not sure how actually effective either thing is.
Solar based is good, because eventually the tech will be there, but I just don't think it's an end all.
End-all, no, it's an offset technology that has tremendous (and untapped) potential.
As an example, I live in Georgia. Median temperature from June-September falls on a scale somewhere between "Satan's jockstrap" and "ARGH FUCK I BURNT MY FEET WALKING BAREFOOT TO MY CAR TO GRAB SOMETHING". As a result, everyone has an air conditioner running pretty much 24/7 during those months. AC units are massive power hogs; it's pretty common for blackouts to occur in my area during summer because the grid can't handle the demand placed on it. Power bills spike dramatically during those months.
Solar could help to prevent the blackouts and reduce power bills. I looked into it and found that a typical household with solar panels installed would end up garnering a power bill of about $100/month in the summer. For the rest of the year, said household would likely end up paying a pittance to the power company, if not going neutral or making a tiny profit.
The problem there is that to do that, you would have to pay about $25,000 for all of the necessary equipment. That's a fuckton of money, no matter how you slice it. The day that a company makes a full blown kit that costs half that but has the same output, I'd be seriously considering it. If it were 1/4 the price, I'd probably hurt myself in the mad rush to find my checkbook.
Just gotta wait, though, and hope that others with the means keep supporting further development of the technology. Once it's cheap enough to be a ubiquitous feature in a new home, I think it will take off in a huge way.
On the nuclear front, I heard Sandia National Laboratories did some work recently looking into the feasibility of nuclear-powered drones. They didn't really specify the reactor types they investigated, but Thorium reactor research done a few decades ago did have nuclear-powered strategic bombers as one of the possible applications.
What really gets me is the time line. I remember being in my teenage years, when people first really started talking about climate issues and CO2 stuff, and them saying "not in your life time". Now the tag line is "maybe in a few decades?"
That's decidedly in my life time. I'm genuinely excited and concerned that all this disaster stuff will become a reality by the time I'm in my 40's to 50's.
Global warming is not likely to turn civilization upside-down in your lifetime. Around 2050~ we'll know more or less exactly how much trouble we're in and start seeing some of the more dramatic effects (for example, we can expect that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer, alongside a lot of permafrost thawing). Around 2100~, things will have come to head.
I'll be 65 in 2050, and I'll probably be dead by 2100. So I'll be dealing with the initial effects of this shit as a senior citizen, which I find a little frightening.
It's the next 2 generations that will really end-up living through the shit storm.
I can't figure out: Why is this even a political issue? I can see that people hate Gore (because of whatever) but the end goal of all this seems to be having better air, and water, and quality of life. I don't get why anyone would fight against better quality of life. I'd certainly like to breathe easier now instead of letting my grandkids worry about it.
The rich are building their equivalent of Galt's Gulch and they're waiting for the ice-caps to exterminate the untermenschen for them.
I can't figure out: Why is this even a political issue? I can see that people hate Gore (because of whatever) but the end goal of all this seems to be having better air, and water, and quality of life. I don't get why anyone would fight against better quality of life. I'd certainly like to breathe easier now instead of letting my grandkids worry about it.
regardless of if its sarcasm or not, it's funny (funny in a laugh/cry/punch things way) because that seems to be a very common reply to any discussion about climate change.
And it is the fucking definition of irrelevant. Its as if you are on a mountain, see an avalanche starting above you, and go 'well, I didn't start it, so...fuck it, I'll keep on walking this way'. Who the fuck cares at this point if its human-caused or not (but, it probably is). If mitigation isn't done, it ain't gonna end well either way.
Global Cooling never was the consensus. The fact that you think it was means you are listening to people who are acting in bad faith in this discussion, because the Global Cooling Myth doesn't hold up to any amount of scrutiny. It just didn't happen apart from a few media source looking for sensationalism.
What really gets me is the time line. I remember being in my teenage years, when people first really started talking about climate issues and CO2 stuff, and them saying "not in your life time". Now the tag line is "maybe in a few decades?"
That's decidedly in my life time. I'm genuinely excited and concerned that all this disaster stuff will become a reality by the time I'm in my 40's to 50's.
Global warming is not likely to turn civilization upside-down in your lifetime. Around 2050~ we'll know more or less exactly how much trouble we're in and start seeing some of the more dramatic effects (for example, we can expect that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer, alongside a lot of permafrost thawing). Around 2100~, things will have come to head.
I'll be 65 in 2050, and I'll probably be dead by 2100. So I'll be dealing with the initial effects of this shit as a senior citizen, which I find a little frightening.
It's the next 2 generations that will really end-up living through the shit storm.
Under the current models, anyway. However we keep beating the "worst case scenario" models..
Global Cooling never was the consensus. The fact that you think it was means you are listening to people who are acting in bad faith in this discussion, because the Global Cooling Myth doesn't hold up to any amount of scrutiny. It just didn't happen apart from a few media source looking for sensationalism.
What really gets me is the time line. I remember being in my teenage years, when people first really started talking about climate issues and CO2 stuff, and them saying "not in your life time". Now the tag line is "maybe in a few decades?"
That's decidedly in my life time. I'm genuinely excited and concerned that all this disaster stuff will become a reality by the time I'm in my 40's to 50's.
Global warming is not likely to turn civilization upside-down in your lifetime. Around 2050~ we'll know more or less exactly how much trouble we're in and start seeing some of the more dramatic effects (for example, we can expect that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer, alongside a lot of permafrost thawing). Around 2100~, things will have come to head.
I'll be 65 in 2050, and I'll probably be dead by 2100. So I'll be dealing with the initial effects of this shit as a senior citizen, which I find a little frightening.
It's the next 2 generations that will really end-up living through the shit storm.
Under the current models, anyway. However we keep beating the "worst case scenario" models..
Not really, we've seen a lot of instability but we're not beating the 'thermal doom' projections. You can't really say anything about anything on a year by year basis, you need to look for a decade or so.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
I've seen some numbers on what simple weatherproofing of existing housing stock would save in terms of fuel and power. The numbers are staggering.
it's insane. I'm a verifier for the NAHB Green program and can tell you that without proper insulation the amount of energy lost on simple heating/cooling is ridiculous.
Yeah even just fixing heating and cooling and cleaning ducts would help.
When I moved to my new apartment in the central air could barely keep it 5 degrees colder inside than out. I opened the vents and reached in and it was full of yarn and shit. Now it keeps it like 15-20 degrees colder but still, I have to try and convince my landlord to clean that shit, I barely get cold air at all upstairs, it's cooler to pop a box fan in the window and exhaust it outside.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
regardless of if its sarcasm or not, it's funny (funny in a laugh/cry/punch things way) because that seems to be a very common reply to any discussion about climate change.
And it is the fucking definition of irrelevant. Its as if you are on a mountain, see an avalanche starting above you, and go 'well, I didn't start it, so...fuck it, I'll keep on walking this way'. Who the fuck cares at this point if its human-caused or not (but, it probably is). If mitigation isn't done, it ain't gonna end well either way.
Actually, not it wouldn't be irrelevant if is man-made or not. Because if it wasn't man-made, it would beg the question(s) - could we even do something about/against it and by how much is our current behaviour accelerating the issue.
But since it is man-made, well that question probably never has to be asked.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Hell, it's not even like the emails are saying 'global warming isn't real!'. The worst one says, 'We should really gather more data if we want to make such a big claim' and the people making the statements are FAR from the big names in the field. If I recall correctly its a few people at the university of sussex in the UK kicking up a fuss. That's like stopping your program because an adjunct professor at the University of Hawaii school of surfing has some doubts.
And, there is no real downside to anything the environment wants! Cut back on catching predatory fish and move to sustainable sources. Good stuff, it means we have fish for the long term. Drive hugely more energy efficient cars or take public transit. Good stuff, it means more money in your pocket and a better balance of trade. Plant more trees and restore hillsides and habitats. Good stuff, more rain, less floods and mudslides. Have more energy efficient industry. Good stuff, means higher profit margins in the long term. Get your home insulated and seal up cracks. Good stuff, less drafts and lower bills.
We are destroying the planet with WASTED energy and passive destruction. We're not even getting anything out of the destruction.
Well this is what happens when your population doesn't have expendable income. Their concerns are shelter, food, and comfort. They don't exactly have the power to dump $10,000 to fix windows and another $20,000 to fix insulation, and another $10000 to upgrade appliances.
There are subsidies to help, but you still need to foot the cost before hand. If we moved green homes to a more WIC/foodstamps style system instead of a "get it and we'll reimburse you" you'd probably see more people take advantage of it.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
The big problem with nuclear power as I understand it is that the only reactors really worth building just so happen to produce fissile material as a biproduct and so are off the table due to basically every last non-proliferation treaty on the planet.
The big problem with nuclear power as I understand it is that the only reactors really worth building just so happen to produce fissile material as a biproduct and so are off the table due to basically every last non-proliferation treaty on the planet.
Actually the treaties don't forbid them, you just have to manage the waste properly.
And there's nothing wrong with the conventional ones, they are just a little bit like saying 'OK, we've just got a gallon of gas, lets burn 10% of it and then we'll store the rest in a jar until it turns back into normal carbon'
The big problem with nuclear power as I understand it is that the only reactors really worth building just so happen to produce fissile material as a biproduct and so are off the table due to basically every last non-proliferation treaty on the planet.
Yeah, more or less. All nuclear plants produce fissile materials. Fast breeder reactors can either be used to produce it more efficiently than light water reactors, but the also have the ability to burn nuclear fuel much more completely, those extra fissile materials are pretty much just left in the reactor where they are consumed as fuel, which make the plants more efficient at producing energy, causes them to produce less waste, and allows them to burn the waste of our current reactors.
Reprocessing is also banned, because that's how you collect the highly fissile material necessary to make weapons. Of course, the fact that not too many folks are concerned with making weapon, and many would really like to do something with that waste other than let it sit in tanks next to nuclear plants(and maybe eventually stick it in the ground) like actually get rid of some of it by using it as fuel. That would require reprocessing.
There is a silver lining though, I'm pretty sure we can blame the boomers for this too.
Honestly, I don't see the solution for global warming in the medium term to be CO2 reduction. It's going to have to be one of the various geo-engineering schemes(I know ocean acidification is still an issue).
I still think this is one of the best images to illustrate the scale of the problem. It's a bit dated, but the ratio's probably haven't swung that much, as the green energy push is relatively new, and the plants just aren't that big.
Say someone invented a perfect electric car tomorrow. 100% efficient(my bets on hydrogen for car replacement, but let's go with electricity, It's easy numbers wise).
The US would then need to generate 5.3 Quadrillion BTUs worth of electrical power(useful). At current generating/transmitting efficiencies that would mean roughly 16 Quads in generation. Which works out to roughly, twice our current nuclear output.
Get rid of coal power plants, another 20 Quads.
So to clean our energy profile to NG or cleaner, and stop our transport use, we'd need to increase our Nuclear/Green/NG generation by a factor of 3, without accounting for growth in population/energy use. And I don't know how big of an improvement NG->electricitty->car is over petrol cars.
The other thing that needs to be considered when discussing non-biomass green energy sources is capacitance factor.
How many 5 MW windmills does it take to equal replace 500mw of coal baseload generation? about 500. A plant will be online and generating its base load 90+% of the time(that load is generally less than 100% capacity), an array of geographically separated wind farms average about 20% of their theoretical output.
US Wide, 235,707 MW of coal for the utilities, and another 81,093 in CH&P plants. 316,800MW of just coal power....that's a lot of fucking windmills If you build/install 100 wind mills a day, that's 8.67 years of 24/7/365 windmill construction. At 1 windmill per MW.
At best renewables, will help keep the growth of CO2 emissions down. We only need to do about 15,000MW a year to keep up with growth in power gen. Assuming no dramatic shift to electric cars. Of course we only have 53,811 MW of renewable total, so we'd need to double it in the next 3.5 years, and hold that pace, just to keep things from getting worse at a faster rate than they are now.
So lets start shooting the sulfur dioxied or w/e into the ionosphere because, the CO2 isn't going away. Just keeping the growth in terms of tons/year down is going to be a monstrous task for the US, let alone in developing countries.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
Nah, it really, really wouldn't. For one thing, being told you contribute to something makes a lot of people put up a wall just because "responsibility makes me feel bad," and two, you're talking about a country where there are people still thinking the president isn't an American citizen.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
regardless of if its sarcasm or not, it's funny (funny in a laugh/cry/punch things way) because that seems to be a very common reply to any discussion about climate change.
And it is the fucking definition of irrelevant. Its as if you are on a mountain, see an avalanche starting above you, and go 'well, I didn't start it, so...fuck it, I'll keep on walking this way'. Who the fuck cares at this point if its human-caused or not (but, it probably is). If mitigation isn't done, it ain't gonna end well either way.
Actually, not it wouldn't be irrelevant if is man-made or not. Because if it wasn't man-made, it would beg the question(s) - could we even do something about/against it and by how much is our current behaviour accelerating the issue.
But since it is man-made, well that question probably never has to be asked.
Actually, I would very much like to ask that question because my brother-in-law and his family are "sure, climate change is probably happening, but there's no proof it's man-made" people. And before his dad opens his stupid mouth about this again, I'd very much like to hear some useable verbal (i.e. charts and links won't be helpful) debate strategies.
0
Options
Giggles_FunsworthBlight on DiscourseBay Area SprawlRegistered Userregular
edited April 2012
All this talk about solar and electric is great and all, but my understanding of both of those technologies is that they rely largely on components that, short term, are scarcer than petroleum. It is really fucking stupid that this is our long term plan for the future, and I don't understand why more people aren't freaking out about this: http://www.greenlivingonline.com/article/rare-earth-elements-endangered-list
Which is why I'm in favor of biodiesel, and really excited with the recent advances in harvesting it from algae, coupled with Navy$ to help it along:
My brother and his family are firmly entrenched in the "global warming is a myth" camp, but then again he also believes firmly that his boss will have more money to pay him if income tax is lowered on the top bracket too.
Honestly, I don't see the solution for global warming in the medium term to be CO2 reduction. It's going to have to be one of the various geo-engineering schemes(I know ocean acidification is still an issue).
I still think this is one of the best images to illustrate the scale of the problem. It's a bit dated, but the ratio's probably haven't swung that much, as the green energy push is relatively new, and the plants just aren't that big.
Say someone invented a perfect electric car tomorrow. 100% efficient(my bets on hydrogen for car replacement, but let's go with electricity, It's easy numbers wise).
The US would then need to generate 5.3 Quadrillion BTUs worth of electrical power(useful). At current generating/transmitting efficiencies that would mean roughly 16 Quads in generation. Which works out to roughly, twice our current nuclear output.
Get rid of coal power plants, another 20 Quads.
So to clean our energy profile to NG or cleaner, and stop our transport use, we'd need to increase our Nuclear/Green/NG generation by a factor of 3, without accounting for growth in population/energy use. And I don't know how big of an improvement NG->electricitty->car is over petrol cars.
The other thing that needs to be considered when discussing non-biomass green energy sources is capacitance factor.
How many 5 MW windmills does it take to equal replace 500mw of coal baseload generation? about 500. A plant will be online and generating its base load 90+% of the time(that load is generally less than 100% capacity), an array of geographically separated wind farms average about 20% of their theoretical output.
US Wide, 235,707 MW of coal for the utilities, and another 81,093 in CH&P plants. 316,800MW of just coal power....that's a lot of fucking windmills If you build/install 100 wind mills a day, that's 8.67 years of 24/7/365 windmill construction. At 1 windmill per MW.
At best renewables, will help keep the growth of CO2 emissions down. We only need to do about 15,000MW a year to keep up with growth in power gen. Assuming no dramatic shift to electric cars. Of course we only have 53,811 MW of renewable total, so we'd need to double it in the next 3.5 years, and hold that pace, just to keep things from getting worse at a faster rate than they are now.
So lets start shooting the sulfur dioxied or w/e into the ionosphere because, the CO2 isn't going away. Just keeping the growth in terms of tons/year down is going to be a monstrous task for the US, let alone in developing countries.
Building those extra power plants is perfectly possible and we could start digging the foundations today. Nuclear of course would aim to replace coal first, so we'd need to increase our fleet capacity by about 5 times. Considering that modern plants are bigger and more efficient we could likely do this with about 400% more power stations.
Um, hyper-focus on a strategy that reeks of fruitless failure being the enemy of other possible, more aggressive, more plausible solutions, yes. What I find most telling is the resistance that people put up to any proposed solution that doesn't focus primarily on blame and sacrifice.
So, you're taking it on faith that we will definitely develop technology that allows us to continue our current levels of consumption with no downsides? And you're also willing to bet the future of the planet that it will arrive in the next 20-30 years, before carbon levels reach the point of being catastrophic?
Mmm... perhaps I'm optimistic about it, and either way I reasonably believe it to be a more likely achievable solution. I don't know if describing it as "faith in a definite development" of some sort is accurate, or honest.
Exactly, which is why you have to try to grab the narrative bull by the horns. The climate change denial lobby has controlled the narrative because the average voter doesn't get that global warming causes things other than hot weather so when we have winter the herpderp comes out.
No, I disagree. That's part of it. But the main reason deniers have the upper hand is because the message so far has been "look what your sinful lifestyle has done to mother earth!!! Repent!!! Repent!!!" and that's a message they've heard many times and get enough from church already. "The End is Nigh," the mayan calendar, you go to hell if you don't believe in Jesus, and driving your big car will burn the planet. We hear these messages from a lot of sources, and they are usually fear-mongering crap. At most, people are willing to pick only one of the above, and don't have enough soul left to hear any others. And the idea of science isn't completely lost on society, but what society wants from science is expressly technological solutions to problems, not recommendations on politics/society/lifestyle changes.
If the message had always focused on the problem and how to engineer a solution, and less on the environmentalist/spiritual slant of blaming mankind's faults and demanding penance and sacrifice, there would have been far less denial.
The global warming vs. climate change phrasing is just a symptom of this.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
And will the IPCC report provide hard evidence that climate change is anthropogenic or not? Bearing in mind the IPCC have had some 'questionable' moments I'm reluctant to cite them. The Ender said "yes we really do know that climate change is man made" when my understanding is that it is still a hotly debated question on whether it's anthropogenic or natural variance. I want stuff like this;
but even that seems uncertain when they say things like "Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed" and "Most of the observed warming — at least 74 % — is almost certainly due to human activity".
0
Options
AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
And will the IPCC report provide hard evidence that climate change is anthropogenic or not? Bearing in mind the IPCC have had some 'questionable' moments I'm reluctant to cite them. The Ender said "yes we really do know that climate change is man made" when my understanding is that it is still a hotly debated question on whether it's anthropogenic or natural variance. I want stuff like this;
but even that seems uncertain when they say things like "Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed" and "Most of the observed warming — at least 74 % — is almost certainly due to human activity".
Seriously? The world has hotted up dramatically since the advent of industrialization and you're not convinced that climate change is anthropogenic?
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
And will the IPCC report provide hard evidence that climate change is anthropogenic or not? Bearing in mind the IPCC have had some 'questionable' moments I'm reluctant to cite them. The Ender said "yes we really do know that climate change is man made" when my understanding is that it is still a hotly debated question on whether it's anthropogenic or natural variance. I want stuff like this;
but even that seems uncertain when they say things like "Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed" and "Most of the observed warming — at least 74 % — is almost certainly due to human activity".
If a scientists tells you in a peer reviewed article that something is a CERTAINTY, then that scientist doesn't understand statistics or what uncertainty means. And if you demand it, then you don't either.
That phrase means something like "Natural climate change has a less than 5% chance of having contributed at any level. We are 99.9999% certain that 74% of the temperature rise is caused by us"
It's us. We're doing it. We're to blame. We need to stop, and we need to do it fast.
Oh, and for those demanding a technical solution. Science produced it in the 50s. The public was too afraid of it, so now we have to do more than just tech our way out.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
And will the IPCC report provide hard evidence that climate change is anthropogenic or not? Bearing in mind the IPCC have had some 'questionable' moments I'm reluctant to cite them. The Ender said "yes we really do know that climate change is man made" when my understanding is that it is still a hotly debated question on whether it's anthropogenic or natural variance. I want stuff like this;
but even that seems uncertain when they say things like "Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed" and "Most of the observed warming — at least 74 % — is almost certainly due to human activity".
I guess your going to need to define 'hard evidence', because it seems to be a term you are just pulling out your ass. It's a global climate phenomena, not a baby, you won't get a paternity test on Moray. Which of course could totally be faked by all the DNA testing labs world wide because Joe payed them off to frame Tony, with the money from the secret global cabal Joe runs aimed at getting Tony.
Also something being hotly debated doesn't mean shit. In half the US its hotly debated if the Earth is more than 6,000 years old, that man evolved from another animal, that the president is a US citizen. That there's a lot of screaming from some group on a issue doesn't mean a thing.
e: Hell even paternity testing only gives you a 99.9% certainty or some shit like that.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
And will the IPCC report provide hard evidence that climate change is anthropogenic or not? Bearing in mind the IPCC have had some 'questionable' moments I'm reluctant to cite them. The Ender said "yes we really do know that climate change is man made" when my understanding is that it is still a hotly debated question on whether it's anthropogenic or natural variance. I want stuff like this;
but even that seems uncertain when they say things like "Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed" and "Most of the observed warming — at least 74 % — is almost certainly due to human activity".
I guess your going to need to define 'hard evidence', because it seems to be a term you are just pulling out your ass. It's a global climate phenomena, not a baby, you won't get a paternity test on Moray. Which of course could totally be faked by the lab because Joe payed them off to frame Tony, with the money from the secret global cabal Joe runs.
Also something being hotly debated doesn't mean shit. In half the US its hotly debated if the Earth is more than 6,000 years old, that man evolved from another animal, that the president is a US citizen. That there's a lot of screaming from some group on a issue doesn't mean a thing.
If you are siding with Glenn Beck on anything you should immediately seek proof positive your position is correct, because that alone significantly detracts from its likelihood
If we vigorously attempt to solve climate change: We mitigate the economic effects of peak oil, we make things easier on the poor in the long term (but tragically worse in the short term) by bringing down energy costs in an environment of ever tighter supply and demand, we eliminate America's dependence on countries that hate us, we reduce non c02 pollutants which kill thousands every year with respiratory problems, in the long run we drive down the price of driving from A to B, etc
Basically the climate change denier position is untennable even if we pretend climate change is a fairy tale. Oil will keep getting more expensive and more scarce. Natural gas will get more expensive as it tries to fill duties once occupied by oil. Coal will follow. Fossil fuels are the way of the 20th century, they cannot get us through the 21st unless there is a catastrophic dieoff scenario reducing demand. Denying this is not just bad science, it's inability to do math or read a chart.
Fortunately we have a rare opportunity to reinvigorate the areas of manufacturing, education, construction, and our infrastructure at the same time as we shoot resource depletion and climate change in the face! Arguing against this is positively madness as far as I'm concerned. We cannot fix things by clinging to the past. If every conservative wet dream drilling project were to magically go online and skip ahead ten years to optimum extraction, we would produce only 500,000 barrels a day of oil more than we do now. 500,000 when the market of just two countries has increased in demand by more than ten times that in eight years.
I make this argument because climate change is big and hard to understand, every idiot knows oil is not infinite.
I think we have should all just take a breath and maybe take a few steps back here.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
And will the IPCC report provide hard evidence that climate change is anthropogenic or not? Bearing in mind the IPCC have had some 'questionable' moments I'm reluctant to cite them. The Ender said "yes we really do know that climate change is man made" when my understanding is that it is still a hotly debated question on whether it's anthropogenic or natural variance. I want stuff like this;
but even that seems uncertain when they say things like "Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed" and "Most of the observed warming — at least 74 % — is almost certainly due to human activity".
There is a very, very, very small minority of scientists who are debating.
No, I disagree. That's part of it. But the main reason deniers have the upper hand is because the message so far has been "look what your sinful lifestyle has done to mother earth!!! Repent!!! Repent!!!" and that's a message they've heard many times and get enough from church already.
Where the hell do most people hear this stuff? I read up on global climate change stuff all the damn time and I virtually never see this message. Most of it is "Hey, we should be careful with this CO2 shit, maybe you should switch to stuff that saves you money anyway."
Posts
I'm not really sure as far as the U.S. is concerned.
In Canada, you can do things like show-up at Q&A sessions and bring the topic up / ask the candidate what they intend to do about it. If you don't like the answer, you can e-mail or write to the party and tell them that you won't contribute a dime to their party until they change their stance.
I'm not sure how actually effective either thing is.
End-all, no, it's an offset technology that has tremendous (and untapped) potential.
As an example, I live in Georgia. Median temperature from June-September falls on a scale somewhere between "Satan's jockstrap" and "ARGH FUCK I BURNT MY FEET WALKING BAREFOOT TO MY CAR TO GRAB SOMETHING". As a result, everyone has an air conditioner running pretty much 24/7 during those months. AC units are massive power hogs; it's pretty common for blackouts to occur in my area during summer because the grid can't handle the demand placed on it. Power bills spike dramatically during those months.
Solar could help to prevent the blackouts and reduce power bills. I looked into it and found that a typical household with solar panels installed would end up garnering a power bill of about $100/month in the summer. For the rest of the year, said household would likely end up paying a pittance to the power company, if not going neutral or making a tiny profit.
The problem there is that to do that, you would have to pay about $25,000 for all of the necessary equipment. That's a fuckton of money, no matter how you slice it. The day that a company makes a full blown kit that costs half that but has the same output, I'd be seriously considering it. If it were 1/4 the price, I'd probably hurt myself in the mad rush to find my checkbook.
Just gotta wait, though, and hope that others with the means keep supporting further development of the technology. Once it's cheap enough to be a ubiquitous feature in a new home, I think it will take off in a huge way.
http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy.html
As well as these
http://web.mit.edu/press/2012/three-dimensional-solar-energy.html
A new manufacturing technique to produce ultra-thin silicon wafers for solar cells with almost no waste, cutting prices by half: $0.40 per Watt
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/122231-solar-panels-made-with-ion-cannon-are-cheap-enough-to-challenge-fossil-fuels
On the nuclear front, I heard Sandia National Laboratories did some work recently looking into the feasibility of nuclear-powered drones. They didn't really specify the reactor types they investigated, but Thorium reactor research done a few decades ago did have nuclear-powered strategic bombers as one of the possible applications.
Global warming is not likely to turn civilization upside-down in your lifetime. Around 2050~ we'll know more or less exactly how much trouble we're in and start seeing some of the more dramatic effects (for example, we can expect that the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer, alongside a lot of permafrost thawing). Around 2100~, things will have come to head.
I'll be 65 in 2050, and I'll probably be dead by 2100. So I'll be dealing with the initial effects of this shit as a senior citizen, which I find a little frightening.
It's the next 2 generations that will really end-up living through the shit storm.
The rich are building their equivalent of Galt's Gulch and they're waiting for the ice-caps to exterminate the untermenschen for them.
I am only half joking.
This is why it is a political issue.
Do we even KNOW if any of these supposed climate changes are actually man-made?
Especially after that whole business with the e-mail scandal.
We're basically back to Square One.
I think my sarcasm meter is broken because it's not registering with this post.
And it is the fucking definition of irrelevant. Its as if you are on a mountain, see an avalanche starting above you, and go 'well, I didn't start it, so...fuck it, I'll keep on walking this way'. Who the fuck cares at this point if its human-caused or not (but, it probably is). If mitigation isn't done, it ain't gonna end well either way.
Under the current models, anyway. However we keep beating the "worst case scenario" models..
Not really, we've seen a lot of instability but we're not beating the 'thermal doom' projections. You can't really say anything about anything on a year by year basis, you need to look for a decade or so.
Yes, we really do know that the 'supposed' climate change is man-made, in that it is being caused by high concentrations of CO2, which we are producing.
The e-mail scandal was not really a scandal. Some of the e-mails are rather impolite; that's the way things go with human communication.
Yeah even just fixing heating and cooling and cleaning ducts would help.
When I moved to my new apartment in the central air could barely keep it 5 degrees colder inside than out. I opened the vents and reached in and it was full of yarn and shit. Now it keeps it like 15-20 degrees colder but still, I have to try and convince my landlord to clean that shit, I barely get cold air at all upstairs, it's cooler to pop a box fan in the window and exhaust it outside.
Actually, not it wouldn't be irrelevant if is man-made or not. Because if it wasn't man-made, it would beg the question(s) - could we even do something about/against it and by how much is our current behaviour accelerating the issue.
But since it is man-made, well that question probably never has to be asked.
Hell, it's not even like the emails are saying 'global warming isn't real!'. The worst one says, 'We should really gather more data if we want to make such a big claim' and the people making the statements are FAR from the big names in the field. If I recall correctly its a few people at the university of sussex in the UK kicking up a fuss. That's like stopping your program because an adjunct professor at the University of Hawaii school of surfing has some doubts.
And, there is no real downside to anything the environment wants! Cut back on catching predatory fish and move to sustainable sources. Good stuff, it means we have fish for the long term. Drive hugely more energy efficient cars or take public transit. Good stuff, it means more money in your pocket and a better balance of trade. Plant more trees and restore hillsides and habitats. Good stuff, more rain, less floods and mudslides. Have more energy efficient industry. Good stuff, means higher profit margins in the long term. Get your home insulated and seal up cracks. Good stuff, less drafts and lower bills.
We are destroying the planet with WASTED energy and passive destruction. We're not even getting anything out of the destruction.
There are subsidies to help, but you still need to foot the cost before hand. If we moved green homes to a more WIC/foodstamps style system instead of a "get it and we'll reimburse you" you'd probably see more people take advantage of it.
Actually the treaties don't forbid them, you just have to manage the waste properly.
And there's nothing wrong with the conventional ones, they are just a little bit like saying 'OK, we've just got a gallon of gas, lets burn 10% of it and then we'll store the rest in a jar until it turns back into normal carbon'
Stupid, but it still works.
Yeah, more or less. All nuclear plants produce fissile materials. Fast breeder reactors can either be used to produce it more efficiently than light water reactors, but the also have the ability to burn nuclear fuel much more completely, those extra fissile materials are pretty much just left in the reactor where they are consumed as fuel, which make the plants more efficient at producing energy, causes them to produce less waste, and allows them to burn the waste of our current reactors.
Reprocessing is also banned, because that's how you collect the highly fissile material necessary to make weapons. Of course, the fact that not too many folks are concerned with making weapon, and many would really like to do something with that waste other than let it sit in tanks next to nuclear plants(and maybe eventually stick it in the ground) like actually get rid of some of it by using it as fuel. That would require reprocessing.
There is a silver lining though, I'm pretty sure we can blame the boomers for this too.
I still think this is one of the best images to illustrate the scale of the problem. It's a bit dated, but the ratio's probably haven't swung that much, as the green energy push is relatively new, and the plants just aren't that big.
Say someone invented a perfect electric car tomorrow. 100% efficient(my bets on hydrogen for car replacement, but let's go with electricity, It's easy numbers wise).
The US would then need to generate 5.3 Quadrillion BTUs worth of electrical power(useful). At current generating/transmitting efficiencies that would mean roughly 16 Quads in generation. Which works out to roughly, twice our current nuclear output.
Get rid of coal power plants, another 20 Quads.
So to clean our energy profile to NG or cleaner, and stop our transport use, we'd need to increase our Nuclear/Green/NG generation by a factor of 3, without accounting for growth in population/energy use. And I don't know how big of an improvement NG->electricitty->car is over petrol cars.
The other thing that needs to be considered when discussing non-biomass green energy sources is capacitance factor.
How many 5 MW windmills does it take to equal replace 500mw of coal baseload generation? about 500. A plant will be online and generating its base load 90+% of the time(that load is generally less than 100% capacity), an array of geographically separated wind farms average about 20% of their theoretical output.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/
US Wide, 235,707 MW of coal for the utilities, and another 81,093 in CH&P plants. 316,800MW of just coal power....that's a lot of fucking windmills If you build/install 100 wind mills a day, that's 8.67 years of 24/7/365 windmill construction. At 1 windmill per MW.
At best renewables, will help keep the growth of CO2 emissions down. We only need to do about 15,000MW a year to keep up with growth in power gen. Assuming no dramatic shift to electric cars. Of course we only have 53,811 MW of renewable total, so we'd need to double it in the next 3.5 years, and hold that pace, just to keep things from getting worse at a faster rate than they are now.
So lets start shooting the sulfur dioxied or w/e into the ionosphere because, the CO2 isn't going away. Just keeping the growth in terms of tons/year down is going to be a monstrous task for the US, let alone in developing countries.
Please provide evidence for this claim. If you have found a visible human signal that pinpoints climate change as being man-made then I would like to see it, it would certainly shut up the deniers.
Nah, it really, really wouldn't. For one thing, being told you contribute to something makes a lot of people put up a wall just because "responsibility makes me feel bad," and two, you're talking about a country where there are people still thinking the president isn't an American citizen.
Knock yourself out:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Wherein the media proved itself utterly fucking useless yet again.
Actually, I would very much like to ask that question because my brother-in-law and his family are "sure, climate change is probably happening, but there's no proof it's man-made" people. And before his dad opens his stupid mouth about this again, I'd very much like to hear some useable verbal (i.e. charts and links won't be helpful) debate strategies.
Which is why I'm in favor of biodiesel, and really excited with the recent advances in harvesting it from algae, coupled with Navy$ to help it along:
http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/us-navy-expands-algae-biofuel-testing-at-sea-and-in-the-air.php
Building those extra power plants is perfectly possible and we could start digging the foundations today. Nuclear of course would aim to replace coal first, so we'd need to increase our fleet capacity by about 5 times. Considering that modern plants are bigger and more efficient we could likely do this with about 400% more power stations.
Um, hyper-focus on a strategy that reeks of fruitless failure being the enemy of other possible, more aggressive, more plausible solutions, yes. What I find most telling is the resistance that people put up to any proposed solution that doesn't focus primarily on blame and sacrifice.
Mmm... perhaps I'm optimistic about it, and either way I reasonably believe it to be a more likely achievable solution. I don't know if describing it as "faith in a definite development" of some sort is accurate, or honest.
Exactly.
No, I disagree. That's part of it. But the main reason deniers have the upper hand is because the message so far has been "look what your sinful lifestyle has done to mother earth!!! Repent!!! Repent!!!" and that's a message they've heard many times and get enough from church already. "The End is Nigh," the mayan calendar, you go to hell if you don't believe in Jesus, and driving your big car will burn the planet. We hear these messages from a lot of sources, and they are usually fear-mongering crap. At most, people are willing to pick only one of the above, and don't have enough soul left to hear any others. And the idea of science isn't completely lost on society, but what society wants from science is expressly technological solutions to problems, not recommendations on politics/society/lifestyle changes.
If the message had always focused on the problem and how to engineer a solution, and less on the environmentalist/spiritual slant of blaming mankind's faults and demanding penance and sacrifice, there would have been far less denial.
The global warming vs. climate change phrasing is just a symptom of this.
And will the IPCC report provide hard evidence that climate change is anthropogenic or not? Bearing in mind the IPCC have had some 'questionable' moments I'm reluctant to cite them. The Ender said "yes we really do know that climate change is man made" when my understanding is that it is still a hotly debated question on whether it's anthropogenic or natural variance. I want stuff like this;
http://www.nature.com/news/at-least-three-quarters-of-climate-change-is-man-made-1.9538
but even that seems uncertain when they say things like "Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed" and "Most of the observed warming — at least 74 % — is almost certainly due to human activity".
Seriously? The world has hotted up dramatically since the advent of industrialization and you're not convinced that climate change is anthropogenic?
If a scientists tells you in a peer reviewed article that something is a CERTAINTY, then that scientist doesn't understand statistics or what uncertainty means. And if you demand it, then you don't either.
That phrase means something like "Natural climate change has a less than 5% chance of having contributed at any level. We are 99.9999% certain that 74% of the temperature rise is caused by us"
It's us. We're doing it. We're to blame. We need to stop, and we need to do it fast.
Oh, and for those demanding a technical solution. Science produced it in the 50s. The public was too afraid of it, so now we have to do more than just tech our way out.
I guess your going to need to define 'hard evidence', because it seems to be a term you are just pulling out your ass. It's a global climate phenomena, not a baby, you won't get a paternity test on Moray. Which of course could totally be faked by all the DNA testing labs world wide because Joe payed them off to frame Tony, with the money from the secret global cabal Joe runs aimed at getting Tony.
Also something being hotly debated doesn't mean shit. In half the US its hotly debated if the Earth is more than 6,000 years old, that man evolved from another animal, that the president is a US citizen. That there's a lot of screaming from some group on a issue doesn't mean a thing.
e: Hell even paternity testing only gives you a 99.9% certainty or some shit like that.
If you are siding with Glenn Beck on anything you should immediately seek proof positive your position is correct, because that alone significantly detracts from its likelihood
If we vigorously attempt to solve climate change: We mitigate the economic effects of peak oil, we make things easier on the poor in the long term (but tragically worse in the short term) by bringing down energy costs in an environment of ever tighter supply and demand, we eliminate America's dependence on countries that hate us, we reduce non c02 pollutants which kill thousands every year with respiratory problems, in the long run we drive down the price of driving from A to B, etc
Basically the climate change denier position is untennable even if we pretend climate change is a fairy tale. Oil will keep getting more expensive and more scarce. Natural gas will get more expensive as it tries to fill duties once occupied by oil. Coal will follow. Fossil fuels are the way of the 20th century, they cannot get us through the 21st unless there is a catastrophic dieoff scenario reducing demand. Denying this is not just bad science, it's inability to do math or read a chart.
Fortunately we have a rare opportunity to reinvigorate the areas of manufacturing, education, construction, and our infrastructure at the same time as we shoot resource depletion and climate change in the face! Arguing against this is positively madness as far as I'm concerned. We cannot fix things by clinging to the past. If every conservative wet dream drilling project were to magically go online and skip ahead ten years to optimum extraction, we would produce only 500,000 barrels a day of oil more than we do now. 500,000 when the market of just two countries has increased in demand by more than ten times that in eight years.
I make this argument because climate change is big and hard to understand, every idiot knows oil is not infinite.