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The Shale Boom Won't Stop Climate Change; It Could Make It Worse
Lasrick writes Energy expert H-Holger Rogner walks through the realities of the shale-gas boom, the 'game-changer' that has brought about a drop in energy prices and greatly reduced carbon emissions. But despite the positive impact on carbon emissions, Rogner points out that the cheap gas brought about by fracking shale may already be affecting investments into renewable energy, nuclear energy, and energy efficiency by offering more attractive investment opportunities: 'At today's prices of $4 to $5 per million British thermal units, gas-fired electricity holds a definite competitive advantage over new nuclear construction and unsubsidized renewables.' But natural gas is still a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide. 'A much higher share of natural gas in the energy mix would eventually raise emissions again, especially if gas not only displaces coal but also non-fossil energy sources. Moreover, methane, the chief component of natural gas, is itself a heat-trapping greenhouse gas with 25 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide. If total methane leakage—from drilling through end use—is greater than about 4 percent, that could negate any climate benefits of switching from coal and oil to gas.'
On the basis of a could, we are supposed to drop everything and choose the most expensive options. No, thanks.
Unless one's goal is to diminish the Western society, only a fool would fall for the "global warming" rhetoric these many years after none of the dire predictions materialized.
Troll my behind — respond giving examples to the contrary: a link to a dire prediction made 10-15-20 years ago, and a link showing it materializing within 10% of the predicted "bad"...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... to the abyss. I emit personal methane in the general direction of anybody that didn't recognize this many moons ago. The solution to climate change isn't finding ever-more-exotic carbon to extact and burn - it's to stop burning carbon as soon as possible.
Huh, you don't say.
Bwak bwak
The sky is falling.
Bwak bwak
The ground is burning.
Bwak bwak
The North Pole is melting.
Bwak bwak
Al Gore is coming.
Bwak bwak
( OK the last one is really scary. )
"Breaking news: An oil glut won't make fossil fuel consumption go down - it might even increase."
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
No matter what they do, they won't do anything that will save us anyhow. Our generation will be Ok, but the upcoming generations will have a challenge. Coastal areas as they are now will be uninhabitable, and a lot of people will suffer from a wide variety of things like droughts and inundations and cold or hot. A lot of people will suffer, because we won't do anything to change the situation, but they will get over it eventually. One door closes and another door opens. Places that are considered too cold today will have a moderate climate tomorrow. However, the world's standard of living may drop in the process. This in itself will reduce carbon emissions.
Meanwhile, San Francisco will get the Big One one day not too long from now, and Mount Pinatubo will become a super volcano and cover a third of the USA with magma. Nothing much we can do about that, but USA was headed down hill anyhow.
...not just problem avoidance" — David Deutsch
Switching from oil and coal to natural gas is a positive step in reducing both carbon emissions and other pollutants. We should celebrate progress rather than grumbling that it doesn't solve humanity's problems forever and ever, because nothing ever will. If carbon tax is implemented, natural gas will be more economical than oil and eventually other technologies will be more economical than natural gas.
Oxymoron?
Heretic! Only solar-electric is good. Only solar-electric can be praised. To get hot water, we must build huge solar-electric panels and use them to charge big banks of batteries made from toxic chemicals, then electrically heat the water! Simply the water through a black pipe outdoors and allowing the sun to heat it naturally will not do.
Nuclear may be a thousand times safer than any currently available alternative, but it's not solar-electric, so we'll just have to stick with coal until we can figure out which combination of noxious chemicals will make a magic battery for solar-electric. We've only been seriously investing in solar-electric for 60 years - any day now that magic battery will appear, and with it magic components like 100% efficient inverters. Until then, we must burn coal.
What really killed nuclear power wasn't "The China Syndrome" or Greenpeace - it was that the price of fossil fuels didn't continue to increase as expected. That's unfortunate, as while I like inexpensive energy I also believe that we should make ALL of our electricity with nukes (or hydro) and save fossil fuels for applications where nothing else will do (e.g. aircraft). And here's a litmus test: if you're serious about global warming, you've pretty much got to be pro-nuke. No other technology - not solar, not wind, not whatever green scheme you dream up - can produce electricity on a large scale. Wanna save the planet? Push for nukes and plug-in electric cars.
... some idiot try to grab water like he's picking up a ball or something. Every time they squeeze, it just shoots through their fingers and they get nothing.
Capitalist economies are dynamic. They respond. Squeeze in one place and you create pressure that causes the system to adapt to restore equilibrium.
Listen to Bruce Lee... Understand what it is to be water. To flow.
The issue with trying to control fossil fuel consumption is that it fills a need. That need exists. It is a sucking vacuum that will draw solutions to it and will do so in the most cost efficient manner it can find.
For example... that might mean off shoring all production to Asia if you make it too expensive to make things in the West. Very simple to do that. Totally bypasses all the environmental laws instantly. Anything that makes production in the US more expensive then somewhere else will just result in off shoring.
That principle carries over to everything else. A major mistake environmental activists keep making is fucking with prices and expecting the system to not change the way it does things to reduce costs. They think the system will just choose the path they decide rather then keep looking.
Listen to Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Life will find a way. It will not be contained.
Your solutions must be cost neutral or very nearly cost neutral or must be cheaper then existing models.
Or you will have set yourself up as an obstacle. And life will find a way.
You might not like that anymore then the people liked getting eaten by dinosaurs in that movie. But the dinosaurs don't care what you want. They want what they want and you can't really stop them without destroying everything.
If you want to keep the system active and you really have no choice here... then you're going to have to play the game. Learn the rules or lose.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The far right runs around screaming that there is no climate change, while ignoring the science (real bad).
The far left runs around screaming that climate change is an issue due to science (good), but then ignores all of the solutions (just as bad).
So, how can the far left take advantage of the shale boom? Well, right now, the far right wants keystone pipeline.
If keystone goes in, will it lower or increase emission from tar sands? The answer is NO.
If keystone is blocked, will it lower or increase emissions from tar sands? Again the answer is NO.
Basically, keystone pipeline does not help nor hurt emissions.
So, what CAN happen is that the far left can use it to trade to lower REAL emissions. Transportation accounts for a large chunk of the global emissions, esp. in North America. That is very true for commercial vehicles such as semi-trucks, that burn diesel fuel.
BUT, by trading keystone for subsidies for commercial vehicles and large passenger vehicles (suburbans come to mind), that use nat gas at first, and then within 3 years, make it ONLY for Serial Hybrids that use Nat gas. With this trade, it will move large vehicles off diesel and over to nat gas. BUT, within 3 years, the move to serial hybrids allows makers to be using real electric vehicles and being able to switch to say hydrogen fuel cells, or perhaps wireless charging to run these vehicles. With this approach, then the far right gets their keystone, while the far left gets actual emission DOWNWARDS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If a drill site was leaking that much methane, wouldn't it sort of maybe blow up?
Who thought it would?
Come on guys, if you thought it would stop carbon dioxide emissions your life up until now has failed to give you a bullshit detector good enough to avoid getting scammed by the next used car salesman or similar you meet.
The US nuclear lobby ate it's own children. Pushing to scrap the Clinton era thorium project because success would conflict with existing investment in Uranium is one of many examples. Lobbying to halt research into waste management because that reflected poorly on the fantasy that it's "clean" is another. Putting trust fund children and horse judges into management positions and just using nuclear energy as a vector to milk the taxpayer and electricity consumers, without having to deal with any competition, is another reason why you can't have your shiny and wonderful nuke that does what is promised.
Give it a few years and you may be able to buy one from overseas, but the US nuclear industry is a couple of decades into the long coast down with no chance of revival, only a chance of replacement with completely new players.
Burning methane has about half the CO2 emissions per unit energy as coal, basically all carbon. Add in the effect of 2% losses from drill to furnace, and you have the same greenhouse effect as using coal for the same job.
For residential use, there's no question that many handling processes, storages, and miles of ever-smaller pipes has losses well above that.
Even for heavy industrial consumers connected straight to major supply pipelines, it's surely over 2% loss; from leaks around the wellhead to every stage of the plant processing to pipeline joints, leaks happen.
Gas is a cleaner-greener fuel in that all the other bad stuff in coal emissions are not there; coal kills perhaps 24,000 Americans per year - but the greenhouse impact of gas is certainly worse than coal, or oil.
Except when it benefits Big Oil, then that fascism (actually, dirigism, which is close enough) comes from the right. Unless you can name one right wing politician who opposes minimum parking requirements?
I use this example because such requirements take away our freedom and property rights while benefiting Big Oil by inducing people to drive everywhere.
It's interesting how the left errs on the side of the poor while the right errs on the side of the wealthy.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
There is no real left or right paradigm; it is an illusion, like in the book Flat Land or the film The Matrix. It's at least 2 dimensional: up/down and left/right. The "far left" today doesn't even get press coverage - the Democratic party doesn't represent them; just tries to sucker them for votes. see http://politicalcompass.org/
Characterizing the correct answer as left/right is ignoring the whole problem and debating empty propaganda.
Keystone helps sell shale oil cheaper. You just buy into the defeatist propaganda of the corporations to stand to gain (along with your so called "right" who were purchased and some "left" also who were purchased. The real reason lawyers make good politicians is they argue whatever position their boss wants like they believe it themselves.)
Higher costs for shale will delay it; hopefully, long enough to address demand with cheaper alternatives or enough sanity to ban it... Asbestos is cheap and we stopped using that! Assuming that oil is going to burn is as foolish as keeping the asbestos mines open in the middle of that debate (which was settled in science years before politics caught up; thank the vested interest lobby...) The cynical and wise strategic move is to STALL it out as long as possible so they don't invest in more expensive alternative routes - making it even less cost effective when keystone is stopped. That strategy does the most to stop them. (note: I'm not saying Obama's clever. It is a really clever plan and he just happens to be doing the same thing, so far.)
Extremists are never happy; don't know why you think giving each something they want is going to change anything!
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The "right" will fight all alternative power like they have ALWAYS DONE no matter what deals you give them today. Extremists don't give up.
With a growing industry with more lobbyists the alternatives sway the "right" (and "left") a little bit. The entrenched powers DO NOT want there enemies empowered; the unequal footing they have must be maintained. The "right" in this case is not actually extreme they are just the most corrupt on this issue. I guarantee they will shift when the $ moves in the other direction.
What needs to be done for progress is to drag the opposition kicking and screaming forward so over time they'll adapt and shift to new kinds of fear mongering after all their nay saying proves false. It has been done before (slavery, civil rights, introducing min wage, banning child labor, weekends off, etc.) Now with civil gay marriage all the straight civil marriages are not ending plus we are not surrounded in bestiality and pedophiles either. After the fear proves empty (and some more old people die) then we'll have gay Republicans will be demanding we ban Atheists from adopting children. It'll happen. History rhymes.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The difference being that the carbon in the methane that cows emit comes from CO2 the grass that the cows ate absorbed from the atmosphere in the first place so there is no net increase in carbon in the carbon cycle. Fossil fuel derived methane on the other hand does increase the total carbon in the carbon cycle.
OPEC will keep oil prices low, until there is no fracking industry left. Looking at the financials of many of the companies involved, it doesn't look like it will take very long.
The NAZI party was the NATIONAL Socialist GERMAN Workers PARTY. So per your argument, that's as right wing as it gets. All the NATIONAL parties of the history have been right wing. Left wing parties are typically INTERNATIONAL (their war-song is even called the "Internationale"), as their ideology is about class, not about nation.
So the name of the Nazis both appeal to extreme left wing, as well as extreme right wing. This is not a coincidence.
The rest of the AC's argument is as stupid and ill-informed.
Your argument doesn't hold water. You state roughly that the Nazis are leftist because all totalitarians are leftist. And as Nazis are totalitarians they must be leftist.
You mix terms: you draw an opposite between 'totalitarian' and 'liberal', and you equate them to 'left' and 'right'. That doesn't work: the traditional 'left' versus 'right' divide is about those who believe in 'class equality' and those that believe in 'private property'. Both have totalitarian as well as liberal factions. Where the left have communists that are as totalitarian as it gets, the right have fascists and authoritarian factions that drive towards a totalitarian state. The US "democrat and republican party" being one example of such an authoritarian right wing faction.
Unless you can name one right wing politician who opposes minimum parking requirements?
Pretty much any libertarian leaning Republican. Not that I particularly support him, but I imagine Sen. Paul would express opposition to minimum parking requirements if asked, and his father certainly would and would have voted against any such legislation.
It's interesting how the left errs on the side of the poor while the right errs on the side of the wealthy.
Actually both sides err on the side of the wealthy, the left only pretends or is fooled into thinking the things it does 'for the poor' actually benefit the poor. For example almost all of the programs that are supposedly to benefit the less well off in fact transfer more from the poorer to the better off than vice versa.
Your argument doesn't hold water. You state roughly that the Nazis are leftist because all totalitarians are leftist. And as Nazis are totalitarians they must be leftist.
Actually if you read his post you'll see that he placed the Nazi's on the left not by simply equating totalitarianism with leftism, but by listing four Nazi policies: universal health care, minimum wage, social security, and a 102% tax on certain corporations. His argument is more like "These policies are leftist and therefore mark the party implementing them as being on the left."
Note that I'm not taking any position is this argument; I can certainly see problems with his argument. This is simply a 'meta' comment on your discussion to point out that your characterization of his argument is incorrect.
That is total nonsense! The Nazis were not leftests at all. They were right wing extreemists. Germany had a deep fear of the left in the form of communism and that was the reason behind the formation of a rabid dog type of right wind nation. Bothe the communists and the Nazis threw individual human rights under the bus. American liberals operate in the exact opposite way with a very high emphasis on justice and human rights. If you knew a bit about what happens in South America you would get a clue as to the nature of the problem. Many ministers, priests and nuns have been tortured and murdered simply because the teaching of Christianity insists upon basic human rights and condems greed. The wealthy have for many decades hired killers to eliminate anyone who suggests fairness and decency for anyone other than the rich. These aristocrats are highly associated with Nazi beliefs and practices.
You can paint a sign on an elephant and call it a Petunia for all I care. Hitler has more in common with our Republican/Conservative Party in the USA than almost anything you could mention right now.
Both sides are allowing the wealthiest to buy the rules -- so in a few more years, it won't really matter who runs the stage show. I want a living wage, and I don't want to panic about health care and retirement. Even risk-taking super trapeze artists can use a safety net. Hitler was Progressive only in the sense that he made progress. He was socially regressive however. Remember, they persecuted people.
Whomever is not for war, not for companies over people, doesn't manipulate currencies, and above all else, values human life the most -- well, that's the person who is not like Hitler. Which group is suggesting we send a bunch of latin American refugees back across the border when the drug cartels are slaughtering school buses full of people? A lack of compassion and blind obedience to ideals is the direction of fascist pricks -- call it anything you want.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
What people seem to ignore here is that classical liberalism and fascism are significantly dissimilar; conservatism in the US is more along the classical liberal vein while fascism is more along the monarchist/statist vein.
The Nazis were also strongly opposed to abortion* and homosexuality, and frequently spoke of the richness of German Christian heritage and declared themselves a Christian party. Sound a lot like the American right-wing?
Or - and here is a notion that many may find strange - could it be that the left-vs-right divide is rather artificial, and not all political parties can be neatly fitted into one of two buckets?
*Though they did make exceptions for their eugenics programs, abortion was otherwise strictly prohibited.
The left is about central control
So, you're implying that large corporations, like Oracle, IBM, Microsoft (or Redhat for that matter), are basically a bunch of commies? And the different churches, they are of course too? I think, maybe you have a different way of navigating through space from the rest of us.
Out here, in the real world, words like '(political) left', 'communism' and 'socialism', are about the idea that we might all be better off if we shared more of the burdens of life; that in order to protect essential freedoms, such as freedom of speech and self-determination, we need to agree on the rules, and because there are selfish bullies in the world, we also need to be able to enforce the rules. And the words '(political) right', 'capitalism' and 'free market' are about the idea that it is best to allow the individual to seek their own fortune in the way they believe is right.
We have had ample demonstration over the last century or so, that taken to the extreme, both of these ideas produce monsters, which ironically end up looking very alike, as fascism. An insightful person will realize that society, in order to be stable and functional, needs both of those ingredients to some extent.It is also not hard to see that the balance is not right in the US at the moment, which is why you are becoming more and more unstable.
The problem is not carbon, nor climate, nor coal, nor natural gas, nor fracking
The problem is human
I have read the (almost the) same discussions since the late 1980's, first on fidonet, then The Well, then AOL, then the newsgroups, then net forums all over --- same old arguments repeated ad nauseum, while everybody and their old grandma keep depending on fossil fuel to survive
From driving cars (even if you do not have a car, you still take buses/trains, don't you?) to electricity to cooking to heating up the house during winter, we are burning fossil fuel
Heck, even the act of posting this message on /. fossil fuels have been burned to generate electricity to power my computer and all the servers that keep the Net alive
On one side there are people who pooh pooh the idea that the world is going down the drain because of our unsatiated appetite for more fossil fuel
On the other side people running scared like headless chicken bawking, but still, these people oppose Nuclear. Germany is a case in point
The country of Germany gobbled up so much electricity and yet they have closed down all their nuclear power plant. They do so because of political correctness doctrine that nuclear is bad, but by closing down their nuke plants, they burn fossil fuel, more of it
I do not see any light at the end of the tunnel, I simply don't
We humans are turning this planet into a hellhole, and the only thing we can do is talk, and then, talk some more
It says "Oxo" on buses, but they don't go there.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Perhaps this is why the two-axis system was invented.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Not perfect, but a better approximation.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Want to know Slashdot's dirty little secret?
It's always been an intellectual vacuum for anything other than IT - and even in that case it's always been poisoned by ideological zealotry.
Not that the rest of the internet is much better; the only thing that changes from site to site is the focus of interest...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
Since the fossil carbon has been sequestered, the sun has gotten quite a bit brighter. Releasing all that CO2 now would dramatically increase temperatures.
Burn it all as quickly as possible.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Shale gas isn't being exploited because it is cleaner than oil (though it is). It is being exploited because we are trying to get oil, and all the easy-to-get oil is about gone. Oil and gas often co-exist in the same formations, so if you are digging hard for oil you tend to get a lot of gas.
We've had some technology breakthroughs that let us extract this gas and oil from shales which will keep things going for a while. Enjoy it while it lasts, because after it is gone, it's gone.
The tragic thing is that the temporarily low oil and gas prices do make it difficult to transition to renewable technologies as it removes the cost impetus. The problem is that many renewable infrastructures will require decades to construct, while oil and gas prices will fluctuate wildly in the space of months or a year. When it runs out, fuel prices will go through the roof, and we'll be sitting a decade or more away from a replacement energy system.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Good post, mod up.
This would get modded flamebait. Warmer periods in earth's history have been more life prolific. I have yet to see studies seriously listing benefits of a warmer climate and actually comparing that to any negatives. It's all catastrophe and death. Because if heaven forbid we might benefit from it, there's no reason to tax or subsidize things, which appears to be the end goal of climate research, to engage social change.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The Nazi Party was organized crime masquerading as a cult, not a political party in the modern sense, and it was neither (consistently) left-wing or right-wing in its politics. Much like the Communist Party.
I mean, seriously, you are still blowing CO2 previously bound in the earth into the atmosphere. Just because you take your carbon from a short-chained molecule instead of a long-chained one does not fundamentally alter whats happening.
Actually, no. Nazi party was _named_ "National Socialist", while its policies were pretty consistent with far-right wing. Basically, its name was only used for PR to drum up support.
You've mentally defined both "Nazis" and "right wing" as "people I don't like", so of course they're the same to you, history be damned.
American liberals operate in the exact opposite way with a very high emphasis on justice and human rights
Exactly - the "American right" is currently the home of the classic liberal, if you haven't been paying attention. Often derided as "libertarian" and "wanting Somalia", the liberal wants government out of his daily life, values the right of people to make their own decisions very highly, with a focus on personal responsibility. The only place where the "American left" has any lingering remnants of liberalism is sex, and even that is fading as the anti-sex prudes have mostly moved to the left now (and the anti-sex right is quite elderly now, and dying off).
Many ministers, priests and nuns have been tortured and murdered simply because the teaching of Christianity insists upon basic human rights and condems greed. The wealthy have for many decades hired killers to eliminate anyone who suggests fairness and decency for anyone other than the rich.
The overlap between "Christian values" and "the American right" is nearly 100% - it's only the sex part where there's dissonance.
These aristocrats are highly associated with Nazi beliefs and practices.
Socialism, Communism, Fascism, they all loudly proclaim the evils of corporations and the rich, and then the rulers make themselves and their friends massively, massively rich (and quietly vanish anyone who insists on pointing that out).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I expect there are plenty of places you don't go that maybe you should.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Your argument doesn't hold water. You state roughly that the Nazis are leftist because all totalitarians are leftist. And as Nazis are totalitarians they must be leftist.
No, that ithe AC stated. The AC stated that the National Socialists (Nazis) were leftists because they are socialists.
Quoting the AC:
Of course the Nazis were leftists. There were a progressive socialist party, that actually implemented a bunch of progressive ideals, often the first in Europe to do so: universal health care, minimum wage, social security ...
The Left has more than one branch of socialism having both the communists (international socialists) that exterminate classes and the Nationional Socialists that exterminate races. Marx and Engles called for both.
The US "democrat and republican party" being one example of such an authoritarian right wing faction.
That is just silly. The Democrats aren't right wing, and the Republicans aren't authoritarian.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Or - and here is a notion that many may find strange - could it be that the left-vs-right divide is rather artificial, and not all political parties can be neatly fitted into one of two buckets?
YES
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
HE didn't miss it. Didn't you know that when you are hiding from reality, things like Nationalist and International can make almost otherwise identical organizations politically opposite as in left verses right. So by focusing on the geographical structure of national verses international, the person can completely ignore the political ideology of nationalism and socialism and conflate the similarities of other words in order to provoke any misunderstand that fits their desired worldview that they can imagine.
And yes, Nazi Germany was very progressive. They had free university education, instituted minimum wages and lead the science front. In fact they advance Eugenics to the point of the Aryan race being the true race and made a foundation for the final solution to the inferior races. But we won't let facts bother some people. They are happy with their misaligned worldviews and history will repeat itself. It's like the constant calls for more funding for failed institution. If only more money was thrown that way and they could try the same things again, it might work this time. Get used to it.
It is being stalled and will continue to be for a little while longer. No, it's not completely stalled but it could be moving much faster than it is. I have a hard time believing Tar sands is economical at $40 / bl. I've never heard that low an estimate before. I remember when fracking was getting wonderful estimates and they ended up losing $ when higher more realistic numbers came out. (fracking is still cheap... although they leak so much doing it cheaply it does more harm than coal does. responsible fracking is much more costly; deciding on a compromise and transition scheme is tricky and the ideal compromise can't be done because of politics and selfish voters.)
I didn't discuss natural gas or H2.
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Really? Then why did over a dozen national science academies say with one voice that "the need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable"?
Even if CO2 causes us real problems, it would probably benefit us more than hurt us? Really? In 2014, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society (U.K.) wrote a joint publication (PDF).
Here's another 2014 publication by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the journal Science.
Those scientific reports don't agree with Jane, nor do statements made by all these large scientific societies.
Seriously?
If we are being 'serious', nobody has claimed there is such a thing, however the climate our civilization has experienced in the last 10k yrs has been in a very stable "dynamic equilibrium". That is set to change because humans are kicking the crap out of the climate system, it will fuck up our agriculture, flood our coastal cities, and cause mass migration. How much worse it gets is depends on how we behave, if continue on our current course then the laws of physics say the ocean will become acidic in the 2100's - the last time such an event happened naturally, it coincided with the worst ever extinction event known to man.
We have already got a taste of how climatic changes can cause social disruption in Syria. The "arab spring" was preceded by the worst drought in the 10ky history of the fertile crescent (the birthplace of agriculture). The 'unprecedented' drought caused people to abandon their farms and set off food riots in major cities such as Cairo and Aleppo. In Syria agriculture totally collapsed, a full 10% of the population (2M people) simply walked off their "dust bowl" farms just prior to the civil war, coincidence?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You probably believe that renewables can never compete with carbon energy on price alone -- unsubsidized. The simple truth is that after subsidies are removed, only gas can compete with renewables. Gas wins handily, for now. The main obstacle for renewables in that the USA needs more high voltage capacity -- blocked by the nimby crowd -- to move electricty across the country. With more high voltage power lines, it would quickly start to cost more to mine and ship coal to existing coal power plants than build wind power. Solar is close behind, and the prices are coming down fast.
Now it is not true that the above pricing estimates are purely subsidy free. Coal, oil and natural gas are still given huge subsidies in the calculations: private profits, socialized losses. You see, coal/oil/gas does not pay for the significant health burdens, or the trillions in wars. And that is leaving aside using the atmosphere as a free waste tip.
If your main concern about climate change action is "ruining the economy", then pull your head out of partisan news sources, and go look at the actual figures that businesses and governments use to make decisions. Most economists believe that climate action costs are negligible, but that not doing anything will cost a lot -- starting with all the beachfront property on the East coast, which will have moved in land within 100 years.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
kind of a silly question given that it doesn't exist.
Hitler thought he was a socialist. His contemporaries thought he was a socialist. The National Socialist Workers Party saw themselves as socialist. He started in power with a straight-up socialist agenda (including the eugenics, lest we forget where he got that from). Denying history won't change it, it just means you can't learn from it. What else do you think Orwell was writing about, passionate socialist that he was? He had seen first hand where socialism can lead if the people aren't careful with it.
I want a living wage, and I don't want to panic about health care and retirement. Even risk-taking super trapeze artists can use a safety net.
You want more government power to give you a living wage. You want more government power to give you health care. You want more government power to give you a safe retirement. You want more government power to protect you from this that and the other thing. Do you ever stop to think what the government will do with all that power once it has it? We only have to look back 75 years to learn the answer - the government is your friend while it accumulates power, but eventually it accumulates enough power that it no longer needs to be your friend.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I have yet to see studies seriously listing benefits of a warmer climate and actually comparing that to any negatives.
http://web.stanford.edu/~moore...
I found that in 30 seconds. Why couldn't you?
I have little doubt that if I spent more time, I could find many more.
The actual fact is that for all of history, more deaths attributable to climate have been due to cold rather than warm. This is a statistic that is also just about as easy to find.
Really? Then why did over a dozen national science academies say with one voice that "the need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable [nationalacademies.org]"?
I wrote "evidence", doofus. You do know what "evidence" means, yes? A public statement by an organization is not evidence. It's an opinion.
I am well aware that organizations have been making such public statements. But that isn't evidence. If you have actual, direct evidence, why did you not link to THAT, rather than somebody else's claim? But then I know why you didn't: you have shown yourself to be the Prince of straw-man arguments.
I am not in a position to answer "why" they might have done so. But the fact that they did is not itself evidence of anything. Consensus is not science.
I linked to reviews of actual, direct evidence by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society (U.K.) in their joint publication (PDF), and another review of evidence by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the journal Science.
While Jane is reading those reviews, he should also consider addressing this issue with his basic thermodynamics:
I'm not the only one insisting that power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing. Once again, that's a fundamental principle called "conservation of energy". Here are some introductions: example (backup), example (backup), example (backup).
As you can tell, conservation of energy is a fundamental physics principle. Assumptions of "perfect conversion and no entropic losses" aren't applicable, and anyone who mistakenly thinks they are should read through those examples to learn about conservation of energy.
Jane seems to be saying that at steady-state:
net electrical power consumed = net radiative power out
But net radiative power out of a boundary around the source = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in", so the equation Jane just described also says:
net electrical power consumed = "radiative power out" minus "radiative power in"
However, this new equation doesn't match Jane's earlier equation:
Notice that Jane's earlier equation doesn't describe net radiative power out, which is why it violates conservation of energy. Is Jane retracting his earlier incorrect equation, or does Jane dispute the definition of the word "net"?
Up to the mid-30s, the National Socialist party had a good many Socialists, but they were purged then, and the National Socialist party remained Socialist in name only, pandering to large corporations. Any belief to the contrary relies on what they said, not what they did, and they lied a lot.
I'm not going to dig through your claims, except to point out that Social Security was devised by Otto von Bismarck for the German Empire, not the Nazis, and everybody who bothers to dig through such things is well aware of that.
Your political rants are equally wrong. Are you going to try to tell us that the TSA was created by leftists?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
One problem is that he's wrong, just going with the "big lie" technique. His reasoning is either circular or relies on falsehoods.
Wikipedia lists the Soviets as the first to try to provide universal health care, and doesn't mention Nazi Germany. The Brits had a minimum wage law in 1604, and the Nazis practiced slave labor. Social Security was introduced by the definitely-not-left-wing Bismarck in the German Empire. The 102% tax is definitely something I'm unaware of, despite reading about the period, and I'm confident that if it existed it was in the context of moving companies from the control of people the Nazis didn't like to Nazi cronies. I'll be happy to look into an substantiation of that.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I await your documentation that Marx and Engels called for racial extermination. It would also be interesting to see any coherent argument, based on facts, that the National Socialist party was, after the mid-30s, Socialist or leftist (as I am well aware of right-wingers through history that didn't like democracy).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Socialism is always about lying a lot. It's a hook to gain centralized power that people just keep biting at.
Are you going to try to tell us that the TSA was created by leftists?
It's a sign of the cross-over in American politics of the control freaks from the right to the left. (Did you know John Kerry wrote much of the Patriot Act?) When I was young, the moral busybodies and authoritarians were indeed on the right, balanced by the desire on the right for a poorly-funded government that would limit the effect of that. But that seems to have been a brief anomaly, and the moral busybodies and preachy humorless prudes are firmly on the left these days, save for a few elderly Bible-bashers who haven't died off yet.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
How about we learn a bit of history before saying stupid things about it? Hitler was not a socialist. His contemporaries did not consider him a socialist. The NSDAP purged its socialists in the mid-30s. Hitler stayed in power largely by being buddy-buddy with big industrialists, unlike any Marxist I'm aware of. As far as Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm are pretty obviously based on the Soviet Union (with clear allusions to Trotsky vs. the old guard) - you know, an actual left-wing Socialist-wannabe totalitarian state?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"Although the extent of the US experience is unlikely to be replicated elsewhere, and US estimates of economically recoverable quantities remain a matter of debate, shale gas has the potential to become a widely accessible global fuel."
Only the last part of that sentence is true. US estimates of economically recoverable quantities are conservative if anything. In reality, with the proper gas and oil prices, the US has far more than official estimates from EIA, IEA, or USGS, all of whom are dependent on access to data, most of which is proprietary that they will never see. Economics changes reserves estimates each quarter, so whenever someone says economically recoverable, they are confusing the issue and not really telling you a number that is related to total resource. Over time most resource that is uneconomic is likely to become economic, so those number are always "debatable" by definition. He is being disingenuous with this statement.
US shale gas can be replicated elsewhere and will be. Russia currently has little openly expressed interest in shale gas, but probably has more reserves than North America. Saudi Arabia is pursuing shale gas. Argentina's shale gas and oil has been very successful, but the government has made outside investors nervous and slowed the process. China has the resource, but because of lack of infrastructure, will be slow to move forward. India likewise has shale gas but currently has a regulatory regime that makes it uneconomic. Regulations and politics are the primary obstacle of shale gas in many countries. Those may be hard to change but do not represent impossible obstacles. Shale gas will become a worldwide phenomenon, it is just a matter of time, probably decades. Shale gas has the potential to free much of the developing world from dependence on imported oil and gas and allow them to develop industrial bases of their own. All that is needed is the political will to allow it to happen.
"Some of the other categories of unconventional gas—tight gas, coal bed methane, aquifer gas, and gas hydrates—dwarf shale gas in magnitude." Not true except for gas hydrates, which so far have not proven to be recoverable in commercial quantities. The difficulty is their lack of concentration, as well as their location primarily below permafrost and the continental shelf. He forgets to mention, while pointing out the methane emissions of the oil and gas industry, that coal mines are actually some of the largest emitters of methane. The recently published methane hot spot map of the US showed the largest methane emissions in the US are from the largest strip mine in North America, in the Four Corners Region. Coal emits methane as soon as it is uncovered, and continues to emit methane during transport in open rail cars, and in the large storage piles where it is kept near power plants.
"Moreover, methane, the chief component of natural gas, is itself a heat-trapping greenhouse gas with 25 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide. If total methane leakage—from drilling through end use—is greater than about 4 percent, that could negate any climate benefits of switching from coal and oil to gas." This is a very misleading statement. Methane has a half life of less than 12 years, and only has the multiple he refers to if considered over a 100 year period. Basically this is statistical manipulation. In any case, coal emits more methane than natural gas drilling (yet he mentions the "huge" potential of coal bed methane) so switching from coal to natural gas will always result in a climate change benefit.
"Accounting for the climate impacts of methane leakages eliminated all climate mitigation benefits." The only studies that have concluded this have all been discredited by later studies, often based simply on the methodology of obtaining the methane leakage numbers. One study actually included emis
I have bad news for you. ALL carbon is part of the carbon cycle. Even the carbon in limestone, which accounts for 99.9% of the carbon on the planet, is part of the carbon cycle, and it almost all got there through biogenic pathways. Even the carbon in "fossil fuel" came from living organisms. You really don't have a clear understanding of the carbon cycle.
Yes, but there is an active carbon cycle which is the carbon that cycles through the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere on relatively short time scales and carbon stores that are not actively in the cycle and has been fundamentally sequestered from the active cycle for millions of years. The Earth's biological systems are well adjusted to the current level of carbon in the active cycle and will be disrupted by changes in it.
I see now why "1 + 1 = 2" was a protest sign under Communism - you can't tell a left anything that conflicts with his community-based-reality.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
No, that ithe AC stated. The AC stated that the National Socialists (Nazis) were leftists because they are socialists.
Quoting the AC:
They were, but that part of the NAZI party died with Rohm on the Night of Long Knives in 1934. His faction was the one that put Socialist and Worker in the name of the party and sought nationalization of industry with greater worker control and wealth redistribution. After that night when Hitler and his faction took firm absolute of the NAZI party, Socialist was just an awkward term that everybody ignored.
The Baath party in Iraq and Syria had the same trouble since were/are the last vestiges of the NAZI political machine, being heavily influenced if not started by actual NAZIs sent to the Middle East to spread their political viewpoints in WW2.
Actually, no. Nazi party was _named_ "National Socialist", while its policies were pretty consistent with far-right wing. Basically, its name was only used for PR to drum up support.
Rohm was actually part of the faction that wanted the socialist in there and was for wealth redistribution from the aristocracy to the workers as well as nationalization of industry. Because of his help founding the party and friendship with Hitler, he was able to champion the cause and even maintain that he was Hitler's equal. That part of the Nazi party died in 1934 on the Night of Long Knives.
Really, who gives a fuck anymore about global warming or climate change other than control gaia freaks. We argue incessantly about this subject and get nowhere. The reality is, is that the world will not give up on petrofuels anytime soon and we have a cleaner environment than ever before. At least in the US and some EU countries. So what is the incentive other than leftist redistributive taxation schemes that the world can deal with? Frankly none. As long as those countries who through their own ingenuity have to succumb to having their citizens foot the bill for the less well off countries to try and come into some sort of compliance, then nothing will happen. And really the dirty little secret is, is that no one really gives a shit about countries like India or China's climate or environment. They created it themselves and asking others to pitch in their money to help them is a non-starter.
If total methane leakage—from drilling through end use—is greater than about 4 percent
IF?? It's a lot more than 4% now. Companies are not properly regulated, and do not properly report when they blast a few thousand cubic meters of unprocessed gas straight into the atmosphere. All of your speculation and statistics is for naught. Get away from us. We only want news, not spin doctors. I thought this site was about InfoTech not people stupid enough to chain themselves to a tree and believe its going to stop big business. We all know what dollars can do to an industry because we all see what Microsoft and now Apple are doing to ours. Go back to your tree.
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
To be precise, once you start out either lying or repeating other people's lies, you're not going to be able to tell me anything that conflicts with the numerous history books I've read. Which is doubtless the reason for the insult as refutation.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Nazis were also into lies. It seems to go with totalitarianism of any political stripe.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I await your documentation that Marx and Engels called for racial extermination.
As requested. I suggest watching the whole thing, it is very informative.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell