Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[mspohr]

Or you could drive an EV and add solar to your home so you can be energy independent and save a good bit of money to boot.
https://www.amazon.com/Driving-Net-Stories-Carbon-Future/dp/0692143831

Deniers always whine that we will have to go back to the stone age. It's just hyperbole. We will soon be in an age of abundant cheap, clean energy so no one has to give up energy use and the third world will be able to electrify and improve their standard of living with clean renewables.

 

[mspohr]

Murdoch family member grows a conscience

Kathryn Murdoch Steps Out of Family’s Shadow on Climate Change Kathryn Murdoch Steps Out of the Family Shadow to Fight Climate Change

“I’m not saying I have all the answers — I don’t,” said Kathryn Murdoch. “But what I know and what I feel very strongly is that sitting around not doing anything is the wrong answer.”

 

[ggies07]

Murdoch family member grows a conscience

Kathryn Murdoch Steps Out of Family’s Shadow on Climate Change Kathryn Murdoch Steps Out of the Family Shadow to Fight Climate Change

“I’m not saying I have all the answers — I don’t,” said Kathryn Murdoch. “But what I know and what I feel very strongly is that sitting around not doing anything is the wrong answer.”

I was just about to read this....almost seems likes it's a trick of some sort......

 

[ladysbff]

Caltech Gets a Windfall for Climate Research: $750 Million

The Wonderful Company also grows and sells pistachios and almonds, which are especially water-hungry crops. A Mother Jones investigation in 2016 found that the Resnicks’ businesses were California’s largest consumers of water during a time of drought.

Mr. Resnick responded to those critiques by saying large-scale farming was more efficient and less wasteful. “You can’t grow healthy food without water,” he said. “We use that water to create crops that create food and jobs for people.”

...

“If we had an alternative to plastic we would use it,” Mr. Resnick said of his bottled water business — a problem Caltech researchers may try to solve. He said Fiji Water had committed to using 100 percent recycled plastic by 2025.

 

[SageBrush]

“If we had an alternative to plastic we would use it,” Mr. Resnick said of his bottled water business — a problem Caltech researchers may try to solve. He said Fiji Water had committed to using 100 percent recycled plastic by 2025.

I look forward to a solution that can solve the world's plastic nightmare. As for bottled water -- I am quite happy with a metal thermos.

 

[cpa]

Caltech Gets a Windfall for Climate Research: $750 Million

The Wonderful Company also grows and sells pistachios and almonds, which are especially water-hungry crops. A Mother Jones investigation in 2016 found that the Resnicks’ businesses were California’s largest consumers of water during a time of drought.

Mr. Resnick responded to those critiques by saying large-scale farming was more efficient and less wasteful. “You can’t grow healthy food without water,” he said. “We use that water to create crops that create food and jobs for people.”

...

“If we had an alternative to plastic we would use it,” Mr. Resnick said of his bottled water business — a problem Caltech researchers may try to solve. He said Fiji Water had committed to using 100 percent recycled plastic by 2025.

Don't forget their pomegranates. The Resnicks also own POM - Wonderful and got into trouble a couple decades back by extolling dubious claims about pomegranate juice and "healthy heart" benefits. Pomegranates do not need the same quantities of water that almonds and pistachios do, however.

They also own Halo(R) mandarins, those diminutive seedless mandarins that appear around the holidays. Citrus takes a lot of water too.

I'd have to research and ask around, but I think they might be the largest private landowner in California after Tejon.

So, yeah, Stewart and Lynda use a lot of water from diverse sources to irrigate their vast swaths of real estate throughout the Central Valley and to process their crops at their packing houses.

 

[JRP3]

“If we had an alternative to plastic we would use it,” Mr. Resnick said of his bottled water business

When I was a kid we had these things we called a "glass" and you could fill it with water and drink out of it repeatedly. Amazing technology.

 

[ladysbff]

I look forward to a solution that can solve the world's plastic nightmare. As for bottled water -- I am quite happy with a metal thermos.

When I was a kid we had these things we called a "glass" and you could fill it with water and drink out of it repeatedly. Amazing technology.

History will not look back on our championing of single-use plastic kindly.

'Throwaway Living': When Tossing Out Everything Was All the Rage

LIFE magazine, 1955

 

[JRP3]

This needs to be here

 

[mspohr]

This needs to be here

Opinion | How the Climate Kids Are Short-Circuiting Right-Wing Media

The kids aren’t just all right — they’re scrambling the brains of their political enemies.

Last Friday, millions of people, many of them children and teenagers, took to the streets during the Global Climate Strike, a protest inspired by Fridays for Future, the international youth effort started by the 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. The protesters’ call for broad action to combat global warming was powerful, as was the message sent by their numbers: Dynamic, frustrated young people are instilling in the climate movement a new urgency.

Online, the climate kids’ impact can be measured in a different way — by how they’re short-circuiting the right-wing media ecosystem that’s partly responsible for the spread of climate skepticism. Since Friday’s strike, pro-Trump media and conservative cable news pundits have devoted significant resources to turning the children of the climate movement into Public Enemy No. 1.

Perhaps most important is their instinctive understanding of attention and how to wield it as both a weapon and a tool. They understand how to attract attention: Their protests feature meme-able signs to capture interest across social media. Their events — from global strikes to sit-ins in the House speaker’s hallway — are tailored to garner media coverage. They also know how to spot enemies looking to divert attention and to ignore or dismiss them.

Simply put, they don’t seem to care what adults, skeptics, deniers and crusty politicians think of them. And they waste very little of their time, energy and focus work-shopping their message or bulletproofing it against criticism. They simply pay their enemies no attention. They’re participating in the culture wars while also managing to float above the fray.

Faced with a political enemy that pays it no attention, the right is palpably frustrated. They argue that children have become, as a headline on an essay by Commentary’s Noah Rothman put it, “Child Soldiers in the Culture wars,” are insulated against criticism because of their age and innocence. “How do you respond to statements like that?” the Fox News host Tucker Carlson said recently of Ms. Thunberg’s forthright speeches. “The truth is you can’t respond. And of course, that’s the point.”

 

[mspohr]

Before 1965, low CO2 levels were steady for 2.5 million years

 

[SmartElectric]

Kathryn Murdoch. “But what I know and what I feel very strongly is that sitting around not doing anything is the wrong answer.”

Sigh. Ok. Gave you a thumbs up, but this statement gives me no satisfaction.

Science doesn't operate on "strong feelings", it's based on solid theory and what can be proved via experiment.
I don't have strong feelings about climate change, I have read enough evidence to know it's a thing.

 

[nwdiver]

Sigh. Ok. Gave you a thumbs up, but this statement gives me no satisfaction.

Science doesn't operate on "strong feelings", it's based on solid theory and what can be proved via experiment.
I don't have strong feelings about climate change, I have read enough evidence to know it's a thing.

Well... to be fair... the 'strong feelings' are in regards to action not the science. The science tells us that inaction will lead to catastrophe. Ethics tells us that allowing that would be pathetically immoral and we should 'feel strongly' about preventing it.

 

[mspohr]

Jonathan Safran Foer: why we must cut out meat and dairy before dinner to save the planet

Jonathan Safran Foer: why we must cut out meat and dairy before dinner to save the planet

What I am thinking of is the fact that we cannot save the planet unless we significantly reduce our consumption of animal products. This is not my opinion, or anyone’s opinion. It is the inconvenient science. Animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector (all planes, cars and trains), and is the primary source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions (which are 86 and 310 times more powerful than CO2, respectively). Our meat habit is the leading cause of deforestation, which releases carbon when trees are burned (forests contain more carbon than do all exploitable fossil-fuel reserves), and also diminishes the planet’s ability to absorb carbon. According to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, even if we were to do everything else that is necessary to save the planet, it will be impossible to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accord if we do not dramatically reduce our consumption of animal products.

Why is this subject avoided? Conversations about meat, dairy and eggs make people defensive. They make people annoyed. It’s far easier to vilify the fossil fuel industry and its lobbyists – which are without a doubt deserving of our vilification – than to examine our own eating habits. No one who isn’t a vegan is eager to go there, and the eagerness of vegans can be a further turnoff. But we have no hope of tackling climate change if we can’t speak honestly about what is causing it, as well as our potential to change in response.

 

[rays427]

Or you could drive an EV and add solar to your home so you can be energy independent and save a good bit of money to boot.
https://www.amazon.com/Driving-Net-Stories-Carbon-Future/dp/0692143831

I have solar and drive and an EV and it in no way comes close to making me energy independent. I live in Northern California and during the winter my solar makes very little power. So for me to be energy independent I would need 8 times the solar panels I now have. My solar will provide a payout but only because of generous subsidies including PG&E currently paying me almost 50 cents per Kwh for my generation and then letting me buy it back to charge my car at 13 cents. However, PG&E is changing their EV schedule which will make it much less economic. As more solar comes on line eventually the cost of power will be higher at night than during the daylight.

 

[David_Cary]

I have solar and drive and an EV and it in no way comes close to making me energy independent. I live in Northern California and during the winter my solar makes very little power. So for me to be energy independent I would need 8 times the solar panels I now have. My solar will provide a payout but only because of generous subsidies including PG&E currently paying me almost 50 cents per Kwh for my generation and then letting me buy it back to charge my car at 13 cents. However, PG&E is changing their EV schedule which will make it much less economic. As more solar comes on line eventually the cost of power will be higher at night than during the daylight.

That depends on the wind profile and transmission lines. If Texas has free electricity at night, it might make sense to ship that to CA. If we only had solar, then absolutely it will get more expensive at night and car charging would only happen during the day. But the wind blows just fine at night. I don't really know why CA has so little wind power but I am sure that will change.

I am surprised you would need 8 time the panels but I am sure that it all depends. My house has a negative HERS rating with 48 panels. But then there are the cars. The key is to not drive in December and no Christmas lights for sure.

Northern CA isn't exactly Maine or Michigan so complaining about low solar generation in the winter falls of deaf ears. Heck Germany has a ton of solar - that would be north of Seattle.

 

[SageBrush]

That depends on the wind profile and transmission lines. If Texas has free electricity at night, it might make sense to ship that to CA.

Ship it to NM !

Unfortunately it is not that simple -- for NM or CA. Texas has its own grid phase, different than its neighbors. I've been told that a AC->DC->AC conversion is required, and NM does not have available transmission capacity to bring the energy to population centers.

I still wonder if it makes sense money wise but at this point a lack of political will stops Texas exports cold.

 

[iPlug]

There has been a proposal to do this AC->DC->AC conversion from Texas to the South, but as far as I know this proposal set out years ago has not taken off:

Education

 

[mspohr]

Capitalism failure

It’s time to rein in the fossil fuel giants before their greed chokes the planet | Richard Heede

Overall, companies are the beneficiaries of what climate economist Nicholas Stern has called the “greatest market failure the world has seen”. We need to eliminate subsidies and regulatory preferences, and to price carbon so as to “internalise” the vast costs of climate damages now mostly paid by people who did not cause the problem, such as today’s farmers and tomorrow’s children.

In my view, fossil fuel firms were morally and legally obliged to warn that continued use of carbon fuels threatens our health and welfare, and to accelerate the conversation on how to reduce the threat. Instead the industry has for decades invested millions in climate denial and obfuscation in order to delay legislative action and avoid losing market share.

 

[SageBrush]

We need to eliminate subsidies and regulatory preferences, and to price carbon so as to “internalise” the vast costs of climate damages now mostly paid by people who did not cause the problem, such as today’s farmers and tomorrow’s children.

EXACTLY