Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion

[ggies07]

Love me some John Oliver.

 

[ggies07]

Wow, another impressive article by Bill McKibben. This time, he takes the view on this subject as war and that we need to come together as a nation like we did in WWII.

We Need to Literally Declare War on Climate Change

This part relates to SolarCity:

“Last year we installed 16 gigawatts of clean power,” Solomon says. “So at that pace, it would take 405 years. Which is kind of too long.”

So Solomon did the math to figure out how many factories it would take to produce 6,448 gigawatts of clean energy in the next 35 years. He started by looking at SolarCity, a clean-energy company that is currently building the nation’s biggest solar panel factory in Buffalo. “They’re calling it the giga-factory,” Solomon says, “because the panels it builds will produce one gigawatt worth of solar power every year.” Using the SolarCity plant as a rough yardstick, Solomon calculates that America needs 295 solar factories of a similar size to defeat climate change—roughly six per state—plus a similar effort for wind turbines.

 

[Skotty]

I've often suggested exactly this. If you can't answer some basic skill-testing questions about the election issues, you shouldn't be able to vote. How could you make an intelligent choice if you don't even have a basic idea of what's going on?

I agree - Brexit was the perfect example of people voting on a 'feeling'. Many didn't even know what the EU is, according to a spike in Google searches from the UN, *after* the vote... "what is the EU..." Terrifying, when you think about where that could take the planet...

Politicians live by the adage - "never underestimate the stupidity of the masses".

I'll admit that I myself did some searching on what the EU is around that time. However, I don't live over there, so my understanding of it was not surprisingly limited. I knew it was some kind of a European cooperative arrangement, and that it included a common currency. The whole Brexit thing spiked my curiosity to learn more of the specifics of what it means to be in the EU, rather than just having a vague idea. I'm sure others can say the same.

 

[Skotty]

Facts have a lot of supporting evidence, even though that doesn't necessarily make them true. It just makes them highly likely to be true. Beliefs can be held when knowledge of supporting evidence is limited, but it feels like it should be so. That doesn't mean that supporting evidence is limited (it may or may not be), just that one's knowledge of supporting evidence is. When assessing supporting evidence, one must consider both quality and quantity. Beliefs are also held when supporting evidence is plentiful, but that is redundant and not particularly interesting. But it should be kept in mind that if someone says they believe something, it doesn't necessarily mean they don't accept it as fact (if generally considered to be so) or are not aware of the supporting evidence.

With the quantity of evidence for anthropogenic climate change seemingly mounting, why do the "deniers" believe it not to be so?
1) They are unaware of the quantity of supporting evidence.
2) They have a low assessment of the supporting evidence quality.
3) They accept the solid foundation of anthropogenic climate change evidence but still believe otherwise. In this scenario, they disregard evidence in opposition and only consider evidence in support, while ignoring that the two positions are seemingly mutually exclusive.

Beliefs generally only change when the believer is presented with new evidence that lies in opposition to that belief. That doesn't mean new evidence will change the belief, just that, more than likely, nothing else will. Thus, it may be your only option, if you want to change a belief, to keep providing contradictory evidence in hopes that there is a threshold where the evidence will be sufficient to change the belief. For anthropogenic climate change, this should be possible for people who fall under scenarios 1 and 2. You may have to bury the belief in new evidence. Just keep shoveling. Just keep shoveling.

 

[S'toon]

The Koch bros want you to think fossil fuels are great for the whole family

 

[mspohr]

Latest from the Guardian:
Time to listen to the ice scientists about the Arctic death spiral

The arctic is melting and this should matter to everyone.

 

[nwdiver]

With the quantity of evidence for anthropogenic climate change seemingly mounting, why do the "deniers" believe it not to be so?
1) They are unaware of the quantity of supporting evidence.
2) They have a low assessment of the supporting evidence quality.
3) They accept the solid foundation of anthropogenic climate change evidence but still believe otherwise. In this scenario, they disregard evidence in opposition and only consider evidence in support, while ignoring that the two positions are seemingly mutually exclusive.

It's far more 'simple' than that...

And disconfirming evidence can paradoxically further solidify their ignorance.... this is why we need regulation.

 

[Ulmo]

http://www.fs.usda.gov/main/catreemortality/

In it they blame fire fighting & global warming, with chain-causes of beetles and drought contributors.

 

[beeeerock]

Environment minister defends Alberta's oil sands 'gas' cap, On the Road in Canada, HARDtalk - BBC World News

<sigh>

 

[mspohr]

Our favorite science guy, Bill Nye, weighs in on Louisiana floods... definitely caused by climate change.
Bill Nye explains that the devastating flooding in Louisiana is the result of climate change

 

[SageBrush]

Just keep shoveling. Just keep shoveling.

Six feet should be enough.

 

[S'toon]

Environment minister defends Alberta's oil sands 'gas' cap, On the Road in Canada, HARDtalk - BBC World News

<sigh>

This is why I've been criticizing the NDP the past year whenever they've been bragging about how "green" they are, pointing at Alberta's legislation. It's not true.

Something's gone seriously wrong when the NDP adopt the same policies as the Cons and pretend they're progressive.

 

[ggies07]

Our favorite science guy, Bill Nye, weighs in on Louisiana floods... definitely caused by climate change.
Bill Nye explains that the devastating flooding in Louisiana is the result of climate change

Thanks for sharing the video. The anchor replied at the end about climate cahnge "a bigger conversation for another day" Really!?! how many more days? another short clip on cable news on this subject that doesn't really deal with the matter. Current society at it's finest.

 

[tigerade]

Peter Hadfield's latest video (in a brilliant video series)

Good luck removing your jaw from the floor, after you witness the horrific and catastrophic ignorance displayed by our politicians on scientific issues.

 

[SageBrush]

Good luck removing your jaw from the floor, after you witness the horrific and catastrophic ignorance displayed by our politicians on scientific issues.

I am not troubled by the ignorance, I hate the presumption of these fools to have an opinion.

 

[ggies07]

Beautifully written article. He paints a great picture at the beginning of this on how amazing the world is, really brings you down to a level that we are all in this together.

Space, Climate Change, and the Real Meaning of Theory - The New Yorker

 

[ggies07]

There are ebbs and flows of important articles, so I have to post another one. Amory Lovins, the guy who wrote Reinventing Fire, which got me into this whole subject right around the time I found out about Tesla (2011), has written a review of his projections of the last 40 years.

Soft Energy Paths – Solutions Journal Summer 2016

It has a ton of great graphs to show what he proposed and what has actually happened. So many quotes, but I love this one:

Climate understanding isn’t new. The 1976 Foreign Affairs article says of the hard path:

“The commitment to a long-term coal economy many times the scale of today’s makes the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration early in the next century virtually unavoidable, with the prospect then or soon thereafter of substantial and perhaps irreversible changes in global climate. Only the exact date of such changes is in question.”

 

[3mp_kwh]

Amory Lovins and RMI are blowing snow over the Diablo replacement being a good thing for CO2. Balancing renewables, with natural gas isn't progress, and it isn't cheap. Since we're in the "Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion" I'm hopeful everyone will watch the numbers.

 

[mspohr]

Amory Lovins and RMI are blowing snow over the Diablo replacement being a good thing for CO2. Balancing renewables, with natural gas isn't progress, and it isn't cheap. Since we're in the "Climate Change / Global Warming Discussion" I'm hopeful everyone will watch the numbers.

Looks like they are planning on 100% carbon-free replacement:
PG&E to Replace Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant With 100% Carbon-Free Resources
"On Tuesday, utility Pacific Gas & Electric announced a plan to replace Diablo Canyon’s 2.3 gigawatts of generation capacity, about 8.6 percent of the state’s electricity production, with a host of zero-carbon emissions resources over the next nine years. That will include lots of new solar and wind power, as well as other greenhouse-gas-free energy resources. But it’s also going to take a lot more energy efficiency, as well as demand response, energy storage, and other reliable demand-side resources."

 

[Bangor Bob]

China is on track to install 22GW of solar this year. I think California can manage to hook up 2.3GW over the next nine.