Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[nwdiver]

@DrComputer

There is an organization.... NASA, that actually tracks solar energy very accurately with satellites that aren't effected by changes in temperature or clouds...

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/

There are A LOT of factors that effect the output of a solar array... I seem to recall something about California being in a very severe drought so you guys probably aren't getting a lot of clouds... that might have something to do with it :wink:

If this isn't proof that global warming isn't happening I'm not sure what is. I've had my solar system installed for 4 years now. You can see that my production has gone UP every year since I've installed it. One would expect a slight decrease every year due to the panels aging, not an increase (2010 doesn't count as the system was only installed for 1/2 the year).

.....wait..... this is satire isn't it.... AWE; you got me :biggrin:

 

[Raffy.Roma]

@nwdiver

Yes it's true that there are many factors affecting the output of a solar system (also clouds and weather). Strange thing is that in the case of DrComputer all these factors adds positively each year increasing this way the production of electricity each year. If these factors were random and independent each other I would have expected some years the production of electricity going up and some years such a production going down. Instead in the case of DrComputer the production of electricity always goes up and also with the same slope. To me it looks like in the production of electricity of DrComputer there is a factor playing a major role with respect to the others. That's why I thought to the infrared rays (if of course the solar system of DrComputer is sensible to infrared rays).

 

[Raffy.Roma]

I'm behind on my reading and just got around to reading this excellent article about the Azolla fern:
Nitrogen-fixing ferns: Aquatic alfalfa | The Economist

Now if we can just grow oceans-ful of Azolla we can reverse global warming. Or we can extract all the fossil Azolla ​and accelerate global warming. Decisions, decisions....

Robert did you know that there is The Azolla Foundation? Actually the azolla can be used for CO2 sequestration.

The Foundation :: The Azolla FoundationThe Azolla Foundation | Helping to reduce man-made climate change and provide biofertilizer, livestock feed, food and renewable energy anywhere in the world

As you said: Decisions, decisions....

 

[nwdiver]

It's 3 years of increase... the odds of that happening by random chance are 1 in 6... a well established scientific theory vs 1/6 odds... my moneys on random chance...

 

[dhrivnak]

It's 3 years of increase... the odds of that happening by random chance are 1 in 6... a well established scientific theory vs 1/6 odds... my moneys on random chance...

Well put. While I think Global Warming is likely to be a large problem in the not too distant future; I think many Global Warming Alarmists do more harm than good trying to link everything to warming or only telling the high end of the probability tail of impending doom.

 

[nwdiver]

I think many Global Warming Alarmists do more harm than good trying to link everything to warming or only telling the high end of the probability tail of impending doom.

Well... that's a mixed bag... there are potential consequences that are VERY dire but the probability is low. By far the largest issue inhibiting action is the politicization of science. People are allowing their ideology to taint their view of reality.

Low Probability + Very High Consequence = a good reason to act...

 

[RichardC]

While on the subject of apocalyptic climate change, a must read book from Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway ‘The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From The Future’ looking back from the year 2393.

See: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/16/3460540/collapse-of-western-civilization-oreskes-conway/ and http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Western-Civilization-View-Future/dp/023116954X/

The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and -- finally -- the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment -- the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies -- failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization.

In this haunting, provocative work of science-based fiction, Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway imagine a world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder. Based on sound scholarship and yet unafraid to speak boldly, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature.

 

[RichardC]

An International Climate Change Hero - Andrew Zong in China

This is an incredible, and inspiring, story from CleanTechnica: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/07/15...GN&utm_term=0_b9b83ee7eb-c8c79c1cfc-331989925

One of the first Tesla Model S owners in China, Andrew Zong, had a moment of perhaps unwelcome clarity shortly after picking up his vehicle in Beijing… when he realized that it was more or less impossible to drive it back to Guangzhou, owing to the country’s lack of charging infrastructure.

Rather than simply accepting the situation, and having his Model S shipped or towed back to Guangzhou, Zong decided he would address the situation and “simply” create the first charging facility network for this route himself. Well, not just by himself, but with the help of others found through social media as well. ...

Confronted with the situation, Zong “got a crazy plan that by utilizing the power of the Internet and folk strength, he could make the first charging facility network in China to solve the electric vehicles’ charging problems.”
With the plan in mind he purchased a batch of original chargers for Tesla with the aim of donating all of the chargers to EV car owners spread throughout the country. ...

During the next three days, there were thousands of volunteers applying to install charging piles at their places. Taken everything into consideration, 20 of the volunteers were selected.

During the following twenty days, Andrew Zong and his companions have self-driven his Tesla for 5,750 kilometers via sixteen cities, in which they have donated twenty charging piles. To their astonishment, they finally succeeded in pioneering the first route of electric car charging network from north to south China.

Continuing in this spirit, Zong — the founder of one of the world’s biggest heat pump manufacturers — has ordered twenty of Tesla’s acclaimed EVs for his employees, and also built sixty charging parking lots adjacent to his company’s factories.

Commenting on the subject to reporters, Andrew Zong stated: “The true value of this action is to tell everyone: as long as more and more people are involved, a network of charging piles across China will soon be set up and this could form a more eco-friendly lifestyle for China.”

This guy is more than doing his part to build the foundation for the post carbon economy (two of the three of: heat pumps, electric transportation and solar)!

 

[ecarfan]

"A batch of original chargers" and "charging piles". What hardware is this guy using? My guess is Tesla HPWCs. Anyone know for sure?

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

"A batch of original chargers" and "charging piles". What hardware is this guy using? My guess is Tesla HPWCs. Anyone know for sure?

HPWCs. They are not superchargers as per this article:

Impatient Chinese Tesla owner decides to build his own charging stations - CNET

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

On another note, a sad day for Australia, a country and people that I admire for many other reasons:

BBC News - Australia votes to repeal carbon tax

 

[Robert.Boston]

Moderator's Note: I moved five posts from this thread to Greenpeace campaign targeting LEGO and Shell

 

[ggies07]

On another note, a sad day for Australia, a country and people that I admire for many other reasons:

BBC News - Australia votes to repeal carbon tax

My wife just sent me this article. Sad is right. War does not threaten our human species, greed does. Greed that over time will destroy our way of living on this earth.

 

[Raffy.Roma]

My wife just sent me this article. Sad is right. War does not threaten our human species, greed does. Greed that over time will destroy our way of living on this earth.

+ 1

 

[tigerade]

A good NYT article on the repeal of Australia's carbon tax. Some of America's congressman are celebrating. Sickening.

The Australian vote resonated in the United States, where environmental advocates have tried and failed for years to enact legislation that would put a price tag on carbon pollution. Opponents of carbon pricing, led by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, have sought to make the issue politically toxic, and groups financed by the brothers’ company, Koch Industries, have run aggressive campaigns against lawmakers who support climate change policy.
“We are drinking Foster’s and putting shrimp on the barbie,” said a celebratory Thomas J. Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, an advocacy group that receives financing from Koch Industries. It is running television ads ahead of the November midterm elections to try to unseat lawmakers who have supported carbon pricing.
Mr. Pyle predicted that other nations with carbon-pricing policies would follow Australia. “Europe is going to be the next one to do wholesale reversals of these policies,” he said. “It’s like salmon heading upstream.”
Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who is an opponent of President Obama’s climate change policies, said in a statement: “What Prime Minister Abbott has done is show true leadership.” he addedd, “Australia’s carbon tax was certain to provide all pain and no gain for Australia’s economy.”
In the absence of political support to enact a carbon-pricing law, President Obama has instead proposed a federal regulation that would force states to cut carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants. Mr. Vitter said Australia’s vote would give strength to Republicans’ efforts to repeal those regulations.

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[Raffy.Roma]

An example of the reason why Earth Observation can be useful to fight Climate Change/Global Warming.

NASA using a satellite to track atmospheric CO2 to sources.

Climate Change: News - OCO-2 data to lead scientists forward into the past

 

[wcalvin]

Looking Back on Climate Inaction

May I suggest a "fictional" effort by two history of science types, entitled
The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future - Kindle edition by Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway. Professional Technical Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

 

[RichardC]

NEW DARK AGES

May I suggest a "fictional" effort by two history of science types, entitled
The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future - Kindle edition by Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway. Professional Technical Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

This a great book! I have been a fan of the authors for some time. Naomi, in particular, has give some wonderful speeches and other presentations on the history of climate change, and the "Merchants of Doubt" outed a number of the prominent deniers.

See: http://www.amazon.ca/Merchants-Of-Doubt-Naomi-Oreskes/dp/1596916109
See video of author speaking about the book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXyTpY0NCp0

See also Naomi's speech on the history of climate change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio

Naomi was interviewed about her book on the "Inquiring Minds" show / podcast this week and her remarks on the "New Dark Ages" resonated strongly with themes that I have been pondering in light of, among other things, the Republican Party's most recent presidential primaries, the Neanderthal "Rolling Coal" campaign and some of the exchanges here, which were quite appropriately banished to "Snippiness", for example, at: http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/7777-snippiness/page90

Again, I applaud Musk as mentioned above. Those following blindly tyrannical communists who are using the EPA as one method to capture our property, wealth, liberty, and our very souls (to be under the thumb of their abusive power, no individual liberty) need to wake up.

And a one in here that has any power over others as a .gov employee, office holder, or crony fascist business working with .gov tyrants are the enemy of all life, liberty, property, and sacred honor.

There would appear to be a number of forces working toward the reversal of the Enlightenment. Symptomatic in the popular media are the degradation of knowledge and intellect, and the rise of emotion and intuition as an equally credible (or even preferable) sources of authority. Factors opposing the Enlightenment could potentially include, in no particular order or priority:

1. Hot Media. The replacement of "cool" media, such as the printed word (which tends to be processed through the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex, which are associated with executive functions such as self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought) with "hot" media such as television and video which have the ability to bypass the rational parts of the brain and to operate directly on the emotions. Marshall McLuhan pioneered and popularized work in this area.
2. Hidden Persuaders. In part driven by the rise of television and other "hot" media, the increasing effectiveness with which the views and preferences of the public can be manipulated and shaped to order through sophisticated and costly advertising, polling and public relations campaigns which appeal to and operate at an emotional level. (Public confusion on the subject of climate change is but one example of the effectiveness of these strategies.)
3. Rise of Magical Thinking. A growing public disconnect with principles of causation and the scientific method. We are, as a species, by virtue of technology, temporarily disconnected from the evolutionary constraints under which our species developed, and by virtue of mass production are increasingly disconnected from the mechanics of most of the systems (i.e., those which provide the food, shelter, transportation, communications, etc. upon which our survival depends). Fifty years ago the scientific method, in its applied form, had greater general application as kids learned to tear down and rebuild small gas motors, build transistor radios, fix radios and televisions by replacing tubes, and fix any number of problems with cars, motorcycles and other equipment, Current devices are so far beyond lay understanding to be effectively magical and so inexpensive as to be unfixable in most cases, with the result that the public has fewer opportunities to develop and apply the scientific method to solving practical problems.
4. Rise of Religion. On many fronts, from Islam to Hobby Lobby, the Enlightenment project and the principles underlying the separation of church and state are under fire. The persistent belief in creationism by a substantial (around 40% in most surveys) portion of the North American populace despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is one measure of the extent to which religious dogma prevails over the scientific evidence.
5. Capitalist Hegemony. The so-called fall of communism removed the implicit pressure on the capitalist systems of the west to demonstrate their moral as well their economic superiority to the communist alternatives, and launched a period of free-market fundamentalism in the West, which has put the West on a track to ruin through its undervaluation of public goods (such as environmental amenities such as a safe and sustainable environment or the infrastructure such as high speed electric rail network) required for the timely transition to a sustainable low carbon economy.
6. Government by the Money. As described in some detail by authors such as Lessig and Kaiser, lobbyists, PR firms, and the special interests they represent have risen to dominate the U.S. political system. See: http://republic.lessig.org/ and http://www.randomhouse.com/book/89368/so-damn-much-money-by-robert-g-kaiser#blurb_tabs
7. Economic Inequality. Free-market fundamentalism, and the lobbyists, PR agencies, advertisers and politicians acting in the interests of special interests have effectively rigged the rules of the economic game (through reductions in taxes, reductions in capital investments in public infrastructure, and innumerable special revenue measures) to increasingly concentrate wealth and income in the hands of a minute fraction of the public, and use emotional appeals to freedom and liberty and the American frontier spirit to block public interest initiatives, such as those which would put a price on carbon, in the short term interests of those who benefit from the costless dumping of their pollution into the atmosphere.

The foregoing reflects a very rough and preliminary attempt to crystallize some thoughts concerning the factors which are blocking rational social discourse around critical public policy issues, in particular climate change and the development of effective public policy responses to it, ultimately with a view to turning back the ominous trends which seem disturbingly likely to result in the Collapse of Western Civilization as described in that book.

Thoughts, comments, agree, disagree?

 

[jerry33]

That's about it. The last dark age was from about 800 to 1700, nine hundred years--it was also caused by religious fanatics tearing down science. We climbed out of it because there were easily obtained resources, and everyone could see how it benefited them. The coming one (unless Elon can almost single-handedly prevent it) will last indefinitely because there are no longer any easily obtained resources and the ecosystem will have crashed.

My only disagreement is on the "Current devices are so far beyond lay understanding" part. They are still produced on basic principles that anyone can learn. Of course, there has to be the will to teach the kids about those basic principles, rather than having sports as the primary function of schools.

#4, 5, and 6 are the really scary ones. Especially #4.

 

[CalDreamin]

@RichardC, I agree. One does not need to be very old to have observed these alarming trends.

It's shocking to witness the extent to which facts, reason, and the scientific method have been discarded over the past few decades. What was not that long ago viewed as fringe fundamentalism is now a requirement for political success in major segments of elected leadership. Consensus understandings of the scientific community were once widely respected and deferred to, but are now ignored or dismissed as "just an opinion" or "just a theory". Mainstream scientists are often vilified as opportunistic liars who seek to maintain a stream of incoming research funding and/or impose oppressive government.