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We Stopped At Two Nuclear Bombs; We Can Stop At Two Degrees.
Lasrick writes Dawn Stover writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that climate change is irreversible but not unstoppable. She describes the changes that are happening already and also those likely to happen, and compares what is coming to the climate of the Pliocene: 'Even if countries reduce emissions enough to keep temperatures from rising much above the internationally agreed-upon "danger" threshold of 2 degrees Celsius (which seems increasingly unlikely), we can still look forward to conditions similar to those of the mid-Pliocene epoch of 3 million years ago. At that time, the continents were in much the same positions that they are today, carbon dioxide levels ranged between 350 and 400 ppm, the global average temperature was 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than it is today (but up to 20 degrees higher than today at the northernmost latitudes), the global sea level was about 25 meters higher, and most of today's North American forests were grasslands and savanna.' Stover agrees with two scientists published in Nature Geoscience that 'Future warming is therefore driven by socio-economic inertia," and points the way toward changing a Pliocene future.
It's clear there too much political indifference to reduce emissions, so instead of trying to force skeptics/deniers/unbelievers into towing the line, why not a contract with them. You're choose to be on the bus and help reduce the problem, or stick to your guns and face consequences if it turns out the science was right. I imagine you'd start by laying down a set of climate benchmarks, agree on what is an acceptable variation under normal conditions, then should the averages begin to venture beyond those on the regular basis, and cause significant economic damage, the public (govt) confiscates all the assets of the entity, the directors, the board, and any previous board members/directors and anyone they gifted or passe don wealth to, from now on. Seems like a fair way to deal with the problem, since if you firmly believe things won't change you have nothing to lose. Sure we end up in the shit, but it's clear we end up in the shit anyway, at least this way we eventually there's some risk to be taken on-board and we save all the pointless arguments. Right now the carbon industry has nothing to lose by blocking their ears, and this is this problem
... I call BS on your report.
Increased CO2 emissions are actually greening the planet.
Only question is the speed.
If you change something over 10000years, ok people will move and adapt.
If you change the same thing over 100 or 200 years, you may have a period of an increased numer of wars.
There is only one party which is completely ignoring all of Earth's history, and selectively cherry-picking convenient data. There is only one party inferring that climate change is man-made and not the obvious natural phenomenon that *scientists* know it is. There is only one party ignoring the fact that this is the least warm of the warm periods in the last 10,000 years. There is only one party who has consistently misrepresented data, and been caught outright not only misrepresenting data but discussing the intended further misrepresentation of data.
That party is indeed composed of faux-scientists. And that party is the one crying "global warming"... I mean... "climate change"
You are the one who should pay more attention to science.
And neither side has any idea what to DO if they're right.
No, we know what needs to be done, we don't know how to force people to do it. And it very much takes force. The people whining about it seem to forget that this is how the world works. People with different ideas eventually come to blows because in the real world you can't do both things.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No. The reason we have not blown up the rest of the world has nothing to do with luck. There has been a very concerted effort to keep them on a leash. If you think that its all luck, remove all the controls we have added over the years against proliferation and watch how quickly a very large western city becomes an irradiated wasteland due to some extremist with too much money and too little sense.
If World War III is going to happen, it is not because someone got unlucky, but because someone created a plan to use those weapons for some purpose. That won't be luck, that will be pure stupidity.
Read E. C. Pielou, specifically After the Ice Age. It's a nice description of what happened last time we had climate change.
As of 1990, we were still not as warm as we were 10,000 years ago. The Milankovitch cycle still continues, and the next ice age approaches.
Literally every nuclear plant in construction throughout the entire world is way overbudget, even the ones in China.
You're right... but China aims to change that. China is cool with the delays in AP1000 construction... why? Because Westinghouse is refining the pump design.
China is much more than a happy customer experiencing some delays in delivery and construction. They have a plan in place to build the CAP1400, their own proprietary version of the Westinghouse AP1000.
If you're a flag-waving American who believes that we're still in the race to help develop and industrialize the world, this August 2014 slide show from China's SNPTC (State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation) is worth a look. "China has basically established the 3rd generation nuclear power industrial system, built up the complete equipment supplied chain, completed the standard design of localized AP1000, and prepared for mass construction of the localized AP1000."
And that is merely to ensure its entry into the market as a supplier of AP1000-compatible reactors in the short term. Their CAP1400 project promises to build on the AP1000 concept while scaling up the output by half (to 1530MWe). They are also suggesting an actual four-year construction cycle.
So if Westinghouse (majority owner: Toshiba) wishes to delay construction today in order to improve the design of coolant pumps --- I'm sure China is amenable. They will note the improvements and incorporate them.
While the United States feeds Africa for a day and attempts to impose unworkable energy solutions, Japan and China will build its coal plants today and become its infrastructure partners. Then with the same steadfast determination with which the USA built out railroads, the Chinese will lay high speed rail, energize itself and New Africa with grids and mature PWR nuclear energy tomorrow. And on the third day, Thorium reactors using liquid fuel. Ultimately a quadrillion dollars of infrastructure... financed and built without the US dollar, perhaps.
So if China supplies nuclear reactors to the world --- and ultimately also the United States for a hefty price, when natural gas declines and we shake ourselves awake from this renewables nightmare, what a pity. We could have done it first and we could have done it better.
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"Oh dear! We're late!" Down the nuclear rabbit hole we go.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>