Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[Swampgator]

Interesting. So in the end, you believe a shift away from fossils and heavily into renewables on an economic and political basis has multiple positives. Would you agree with this?

Yes, as long as it's market driven.
Governments don't have money to spend on this. They take money from others. That money could/would have possibly been put to better uses. It's the broken window fallacy Bastiat described over 150 years ago.
I also think that the areas of the world suffering from severe poverty need the cheapest energy they can get.
Prosperity cleans up the environment. Anyone doubting this can go to India to see how clean poverty makes the environment.

 

[traxila]

Yeah. You're reading atmospheric temperatures which can fluctuate with cycles like La Nina and El nino. ~93% of the thermal energy added by AGW of going into the oceans. To get an accurate view of the real magnitude you have to measure the oceans. That 7% slice can exchange energy with the ocean. We could have global cooling (in the atmosphere) for a few years if there's an upwelling of deep cold water but the NET energy still rises.

Yes absolutely this is about the oceans. The answers are there.

 

[nwdiver]

Yes, as long as it's market driven.

Let's imagine physics is real. What should we do? Markets won't solve this. They didn't solve the SO2 problem. Why would they solve the CO2 problem?

 

[Swampgator]

Yeah. You're reading atmospheric temperatures which can fluctuate with cycles like La Nina and El nino. ~93% of the thermal energy added by AGW of going into the oceans. To get an accurate view of the real magnitude you have to measure the oceans. That 7% slice can exchange energy with the ocean. We could have global cooling (in the atmosphere) for a few years if there's an upwelling of deep cold water but the NET energy still rises.

OK I'll play on your terms, slippery as they are:

 

[traxila]

Yes, as long as it's market driven.
Governments don't have money to spend on this. They take money from others. That money could/would have possibly been put to better uses. It's the broken window fallacy Bastiat described over 150 years ago.
I also think that the areas of the world suffering from severe poverty need the cheapest energy they can get.
Prosperity cleans up the environment. Anyone doubting this can go to India to see how clean poverty makes the environment.

Methods applied aside, it appears our interests are aligned.

Insofar as government subsidies, do you believe it is possible for them not to exist? Is is possible to have our current form of government and not have a slant towards one side or the other, regardless of the issues? Do you feel that there are currently subsidies at play in the US energy policy overall? Do you feel that they have been in effect on a historical basis?

 

[JRP3]

I'm not a big fan of wind power because to the bird/bat kill rates.

I assume you are even less of a fan of buildings and windows, since they kill far more than wind power. You live underground, right?

 

[nwdiver]

OK I'll play on your terms, slippery as they are:
View attachment 429549
View attachment 429550

LOL; You think we should only focus on ~7% of the picture? LOL no wonder your view of how things work is so warped. There are no sources or locations for those charts.....

 

[Swampgator]

Thanks for bringing this to the fore. I have been nuts about this for years. A common response I get whenever I bring it up....is pure ignorance. People have no idea what I am talking about. Even people who are concerned about the overall climate issues.

This will impact everything around us before the temps have the chance to climb along to final highs along with the sea levels. I have not even seen good estimates as to the point of no return for the issues of ocean acidification. It is a real wild card that no one has a handle on. We might already be there and contrary to the conservative projections made on other global warming issues for the end of this century, I fear this is something that could play out very dramatically over the next decade or two.

Given that CO2 levels were several thousand ppm higher than today during the Cambrian explosion, I don't think the earths oceans will turn into pools of lifeless acid anytime soon.

 

[nwdiver]

Given that CO2 levels were several thousand ppm higher than today during the Cambrian explosion, I don't think the earths oceans will turn into pools of lifeless acid anytime soon.

Is that the threshold? Sea level rise of ~10' by 2100 is fine, climate shifts that cause mass migration, social instability caused by famine and as the Pentagon has called it a 'threat multiplier' but so long as there's some life left in the ocean there's no need for action? Why do you hate humans?

 

[Swampgator]

I assume you are even less of a fan of buildings and windows, since they kill far more than wind power. You live underground, right?

Building and windows are necessary. Windmills not so much.
Nice try though.
Also, I've been around a few years, and I don't ever remember a raptor killing himself on my windows. I have had 1-2 small birds do so though.
Wind turbines kill 150-350K birds each year, in North America alone.
Will Wind Turbines Ever Be Safe For Birds?

 

[nwdiver]

Building and windows are necessary. Windmills not so much.
Nice try though.
Also, I've been around a few years, and I don't ever remember a raptor killing himself on my windows. I have had 1-2 small birds do so though.
Wind turbines kill 150-350K birds each year, in North America alone.
Will Wind Turbines Ever Be Safe For Birds?

You really are terrible with math. If you replace coal with wind FEWER birds will die.

 

[Swampgator]

Is that the threshold? Sea level rise of ~10' by 2100 is fine, climate shifts that cause mass migration, social instability caused by famine and as the Pentagon has called it a 'threat multiplier' but so long as there's some life left in the ocean there's no need for action? Why do you hate humans?

None of those things you mention will/have happened.
Sea level will not rise that high. The current mass migrations are goverment driven attempts to destabilize all of the frist world countires. They have nothing to do with climate change.
Famines? From what? The earth is already greener and more productive today than it was 50 years ago. Famines are caused by a lack of market forces and authoritarian governments.
Where there is freedom and prosperity they do not occur. I love humans, so I don't want to subject them to third world conditions.

 

[nwdiver]

None of those things you mention will/have happened.
Sea level will not rise that high. The current mass migrations are goverment driven attempts to destabilize all of the frist world countires. They have nothing to do with climate change.
Famines? From what? The earth is already greener and more productive today than it was 50 years ago. Famines are caused by a lack of market forces and authoritarian governments.
Where there is freedom and prosperity they do not occur. I love humans, so I don't want to subject them to third world conditions.

Sea levels rose far more than 10' when CO2 rose from 180 => 280. People need food. Food needs water. Changing climate means changing weather patterns which means some areas able to grow sufficient food will no longer be able to do so. Greener overall does not mean greener everywhere. Farmland increasing 500% in Siberia doesn't help a farmer in Guatemala that's in the middle of the longest drought in recorded history.

I haven't burned a drop of fools fuel in >6 years. I have all the luxuries of the 1st world.

 

[Swampgator]

You really are terrible with math. If you replace coal with wind FEWER birds will die.

View attachment 429553

Sigh, another quickly done google search pointing to a garbage article.

Here is the part on coal" Coal: Huge numbers of birds, roughly 7.9 million, may be killed by coal, according to analysis by Benjamin K. Sovacool, director of the Danish Center for Energy Technologies. His estimate, however, included everything from mining to production and climate change, which together amounted to about five birds per gigawatt-hour of energy generated by coal."

So in other words, he thinks that since coal causes climate change, it will kill a few million birds. That sounds like a real scientist.

But I think we should be happy when coal and oil are wound down. I've already agreed to that, so why to you keep coming at me bro?

 

[nwdiver]

But I think we should be happy when coal and oil are wound down. I've already agreed to that, so why to you keep coming at me bro?

Right now wind is the second biggest reason that coal is going down. Most scientists accept physics which means they accept that CO2 causes AGW. They like answers and without the radiative forcing of CO2 there is no answer to explain the ice ages.

 

[Swampgator]

Sea levels rose far more than 10' when CO2 rose from 180 => 280. People need food. Food needs water. Changing climate means changing weather patterns which means some areas able to grow sufficient food will no longer be able to do so. Greener overall does not mean greener everywhere. Farmland increasing 500% in Siberia doesn't help a farmer in Guatemala that's in the middle of the longest drought in recorded history.

I haven't burned a drop of fools fuel in >6 years. I have all the luxuries of the 1st world.

You have not taken a plane trip in 6 years?
How about the electricity that runs the server that hosts our forum? Do you know the source of that electricity? Do the groceries you buy to eat come on electric trucks, or diesel semis?
Also, pretty nice for a Tesla owner to flaunt his 1rst world status when your means are so much higher than most of the people living in poverty. For them, cheap electricity and food are priority over everything.

 

[nwdiver]

You have not taken a plane trip in 6 years?
How about the electricity that runs the server that hosts our forum? Do you know the source of that electricity? Do the groceries you buy to eat come on electric trucks, or diesel semis?
Also, pretty nice for a Tesla owner to flaunt his 1rst world status when your means are so much higher than most of the people living in poverty. For them, cheap electricity and food are priority over everything.

No; And I produce FAR more electricity than I use. More than enough to offset ancillary use.

 

[ohmman]

Sigh, another quickly done google search pointing to a garbage article.

Here is the part on coal" Coal: Huge numbers of birds, roughly 7.9 million, may be killed by coal, according to analysis by Benjamin K. Sovacool, director of the Danish Center for Energy Technologies. His estimate, however, included everything from mining to production and climate change, which together amounted to about five birds per gigawatt-hour of energy generated by coal."

So in other words, he thinks that since coal causes climate change, it will kill a few million birds. That sounds like a real scientist.

But removing the climate change component entirely still shows comparable numbers of deaths per GWh of electricity between fossil fuels and wind, so why do you point out the bird argument to begin with?

 

[Swampgator]

Methods applied aside, it appears our interests are aligned.

Insofar as government subsidies, do you believe it is possible for them not to exist? Is is possible to have our current form of government and not have a slant towards one side or the other, regardless of the issues? Do you feel that there are currently subsidies at play in the US energy policy overall? Do you feel that they have been in effect on a historical basis?

Good questions. Governments have subsidized oil, gas, and coal historically. That is no more desirable than subsidizing wind or solar.
Even if they dropped all subsidies we would still use the military to subsidize the oil industry.
But I agree with Elon Musk here. Just get rid of them all. The market would then shift to solar very rapidly. Tesla have shown that EVs are cheaper than ICE already. You don't need to steal money from people to give handouts to farmers to grow corn for ethanol for example.

 

[traxila]

Given that CO2 levels were several thousand ppm higher than today during the Cambrian explosion, I don't think the earths oceans will turn into pools of lifeless acid anytime soon.

No the oceans will never be lifeless while we are around. But what will they be? And how will the transition affect the billions that currently depend on them?