Slashdot Mirror
Hoping That Sucking CO2 From the Air Will Fix the Climate? Good Luck (easac.eu)
From a study published on Thursday by scientists on the European Academies Science Advisory Council: Senior scientists from across Europe have evaluated the potential contribution of negative emission technologies (NETs) to allow humanity to meet the Paris Agreement's targets of avoiding dangerous climate change. They find that NETs have "limited realistic potential" to halt increases in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at the scale envisioned in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios. This new report finds that none of the NETs has the potential to deliver carbon removals at the gigaton (Gt) scale and at the rate of deployment envisaged by the IPCC, including reforestation, afforestation, carbon-friendly agriculture, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCs), enhanced weathering, ocean fertilisation, or direct air capture and carbon storage (DACCs).
Use salt-waterable plants to turn the Sahara desert green and you'll reach gigaton absorption. For perspective, the Sahara is about the size of the United States.
...by the Scientific calisthenics required derive a working AGW theory, that hasn't been show to be true by any empirical evidence.
Anytime some authority insist that you give up freedom or money and the best they can do to justify it is to say, "It's complicated and you wouldn't understand, Trust Us", you know that something isn't right.
If one wants to help directly with helping reducing CO2 production then donating to solar and wind charities is the best bet. For solar, the best two seem to be Everybody Solar https://www.everybodysolar.org/ (which gets solar panels for non-profits like museums and homeless shelters), and the Solar Electric Light Fund https://self.org/ which gets solar panels for people in developing countries. Right now, I haven't seen a specific wind charity that seems to be absolutely ideal, but of those in the US, the best one seems to be the New England Wind Fund https://www.massenergy.org/the-wind-fund.
Most Americans care about and are concerned about climate change https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-americans-want-climate-change-policies/, but right now, the federal government isn't doing much. In the long-run, actually solving this is, as with the ozone hole problem and as with acid rain going to take a combination of government, market forces, charity, and new research. Until the current US administration is removed, the best most of us can do is focus on the charity aspect.
Just because these technologies and actions might not work well enough does not mean they will not help, and that they should not be pursued, unless there are viable options into which we should put our available resources.
Reforestation / afforestation is the best option, from what I understand. That and cutting down trees at a furious rate so we can bury them in abandoned mines and plant more.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
They forgot to mention using a giant vacuum with a charcoal filter attached.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It won't fix things, it will help mitigate how bad things get.
...that sucking the CO2 from the air won't fix the climate. What is says is that none of the things presented would be able to do it. Lame.
Either way, I'm not going to sit here feeling responsible (I don't have kids, that makes me *much* greener than 90% of the planet, even if they drive a Prius). I'm not a denier. I believe man-made climate change is real. When things suck bad enough, folks just can't be bothered to care. Many of us have more germane issues in our own lives to worry about. If you are making time for the left-wing guilt trip about Gaia/Mother-Earth you probably have too good a life in the first place. I'd like to see you spouting about that shit when you are in my shoes. Get some *real* problems.
This new report finds that none of the NETs has the potential to deliver carbon removals at the gigaton (Gt) scale and at the rate of deployment envisaged by the IPCC, including reforestation, afforestation, carbon-friendly agriculture, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCs), enhanced weathering, ocean fertilisation, or direct air capture and carbon storage (DACCs).
So individually no one solution will work, or even combined they fall short? Trying to comb through TFA would take way too much time.
Fact: there is no global warming. The world is getting cooler, and as sunspot activity ceases, we enter another Maunder Minimum.
First I thought that you are clueless denialist, but seeing that you stated that there is no global warming in bold totally convinced me.
Care to share you opinions about vaccines, HAARP, 9/11 or landing on Moon?
...but humans are lazy. To which end, note the following:
I read somewhere recently, that - since the big campaigns for CO2 reduction started - humanity has increased CO2 output at an average rate of 1.6%. Before all this attention was focused on climate change, CO2 output was increased at an averate rate of... 1.6%. Even granting that reducing CO2 output is a good thing to do, it is quite apparent that we are not going to do so. None of the sequestration technologies make much sense, none of them (other than possibly reforestation) scale, and frankly some of them are hugely dangerous in their own right.
tl;dr: There's no point in fighting the inevitable. CO2 is going to continue to increase. Fortunately, this also means that there is no longer any reason to continue making exaggerated end-of-the world claims. The planet is warming, some anthropogenic, some natural. it will probably warm by a degree or even two in the next 80 years. Figure out what impact that's going to have, and deal with it.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
They are called TREES! and PLANTS!!!
If you'd STOP CHOPPING THEM DOWN to make space for HOUSES, SHOPPING MALLS AND INDUSTRIAL PARKS maybe that'd help 'eh??
CO2 emissions from rotting plant matter are minimal. Most of the carbon is gobbled up by the bacteria, mold and bugs that are eating the dead plants. A tree will take in far more CO2 during it's lifespan than it will emit after dying.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
...by the Scientific calisthenics required derive a working AGW theory, that hasn't been show to be true by any empirical evidence.
The basic global circulation model incorporating the effect of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (what you call "AGW theory") has been around for fifty years now (the peer-reviewed publication was in two papers by Manabe and Wetherald, in 1967). That's long enough for the predictions to be compared with measurements.
Guess what? Over fifty years, the theory is pretty well matching measurements.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/03/15/the-first-climate-model-turns-50-and-predicted-global-warming-almost-perfectly/
https://climategraphs.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/evaluating-the-prediction-of-manabe-and-wetherald-1967/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/mar/19/global-warming-accurate-prediction-1972
Anytime some authority insist that you give up freedom or money and the best they can do to justify it is to say, "It's complicated and you wouldn't understand, Trust Us", you know that something isn't right.
As it turns out, climate scientists have published extensive explanations of what they do, how they do it, how the models work, and all of the source code for their models. They don't say "trust us", they say "here's all the work we did, take a look at it."
As a starting point, look here: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1 and then for the actual details, start reading some of the thousand references cited.
I'm pretty sure that blurb is not from the report. The conclusions of the report are
There's a lot of text around those bullets, but it doesn't read as doom and gloom to me.
From the introduction
Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about how carbon capture would work should understand that that's a pretty self evident statement.
There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...
Yes, recent history has several examples of failed attempts at fixing the environment, only resulting in unintended disasters as a result. Panic is not solving this issue for anyone. Any proposed solution needs to have as much careful study on the environmental and economic impact as it is for any large undertaking for this reason.
Simply flailing about with confiscatory tax schemes, or large building projects is very likely to make the situation worse and turn the public away from supporting any future endeavors.
Both of your arguments are equally fact less. I guess when presented with two opposite arguments lacking facts any rational person would either side with the argument that presents the least negative impact on them or simply not pick a side. Nice ad hominem though.
So here we have an approach that actually removes CO2 from the air. Even if it can't solve the problem completely, at least it's actually doing something to remove CO2 from the air. It's a net win.
Yet despite this approach actually removing CO2, we have leftist types telling us that it's useless.
What do leftist types suggest we use instead? Carbon taxes!
It should be obvious that carbon taxes themselves can't actually remove any CO2 from the air. Carbon taxes aren't physical in nature.
Realistically, carbon taxes won't even discourage the production of more CO2. As we've seen time and time again, when taxes or other economic distortions are imposed on an industry, the cost is just passed down to the end users, who just suck it up and pay more for the product/service in question.
It's like those on the left go out of their way to deny and belittle any approach to this problem that will make a real, measurable, physical impact.
They say "NO!" to actually removing CO2 from the air.
They say "NO!" to extraordinarily clean, relative to the amount of power obtained, energy sources like nuclear power.
But they say "YES!" to things like carbon taxes, which don't actually do anything to help solve the CO2 problem!
I think it's becoming clearer and clearer that those on the left don't really care about the environment, or dealing with the CO2 problem. All they want to do is impose yet more pointless taxes so they can take their cut.
Anyone who suggests carbon taxes as a "solution" for the CO2 problem doesn't, as far as I'm concerned, give a damn about the environment or sustainability.
Then why bother trying?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is two fundemental fallacies in your argument.
1) because climate changed without humans, then humans can't cause climate change.
So, if lung cancer occurred before cigarettes, then cigarettes don't cause lung cancer.
2) changing human behavior is not the same as tinkering with nature. The tinkering/manipulation comes from emitting CO2, not from stopping CO2 emissions. So, limiting CO2 emissions is more analogous to NOT interfering with fires.
Can we go ahead and build Atlantropa while we're at it?
Then we can give both the Palestinians and Jews their own brand new homelands that they can both respectively fuck off to.
FACT because you said so? How about when the National Academies of Sciences form 17 countries tell you about "Global Warming?" Or are they all part of the "CONSPIRACY?"
Maybe you shouldn't be pointing fingers at the "luddites."
"Troll"
And here we see that the moderator is a faggot shill for big business! Our problem isn't CO2. It's assholes like YOU that deny the real issues for personal gain!
Now Slashdot has become a mouthpiece for Leftist Luddites. It is now the handmaiden to a New World Order of oligarchs and bureucrats enriching themselves thourgh manipulatioin of the truth and scare tatics. Fact: there is no global warming. The world is getting cooler, and as sunspot activity ceases, we enter another Maunder Minimum.
Scientists have been searching for a correlation between sunspot activity and climate for over a hundred years, and not found one. It's one of the most heavily researched topics in climate science. (And do note, that the Maunder minimum occurred well after the beginning of the so-called "little ice age".)
We measure the solar output from satellites, and have been doing so for many decades. One thing that measurements tell us with certainty is that the global temperature rise is not due to increases in solar output.
Next time Al Gore or Hillary Clinton tell you about "Global Warming", remember cui bono? Who benefits?
Al Gore is not a climate scientist, and, you know what? He isn't even cited by climate scientists. In fact, the only people I ever hear mention him are people trying to deny climate science.
In answer to your "cui bono" question, fossil fuels are a trillion dollar per year industry. Who do you think benefits?
Since Americans are the most polluting and also have the most money, they should pay. It's all their CO2 that got us into this mess.
Co2 will continue to rise until ALL nations are made to lower their emissions together. China is building out 700 GW of new coal plants, while the entire west has less than 700 GW .
Due to America's consumption of goods, esp. from China, all that is needed is for America, if not the west, to tax ALL consumed goods/services based on where the worst part/service comes from. This will get nations to either clean up, choose clean energy for the future (i.e. no more buying of coal plants from china), lose exported parts/service sales, or have local manufacturers/services leave those nations and move to others which choose to lower their emissions.
Use satellites to get the same precision (though accuracy can be argued), and then normalize based on emissions / $GDP. This later is because it is businesses and govs that choose the dirty routes, not citizens. How many citizens in china will vote to nearly DOUBLE their coal plants over the next 8 years, and yet, that is CHina's plan?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Never heard of them!
America pumps out the most CO2, and has in the past, and also has the most money. Seems obvious who should pay.
When erosion was a problem in the American South, we brought in kudzu as a solution, and look how marvelously that turned out. We quenched forest fires in Yellowstone for a century and look how well that went. Gosh.
Yep. That's an argument against geoengineering proposals to "fix" the climate; you have to examine the side-effects of the proposed solutions. The proposals that say "why worry about global warming, we'll just fix it with engineering" need to be very very carefully examined.
Gosh. It's almost as if Mother Nature is unpredictable, as if the climate has been changing since the beginning
Climate has been changing since the beginning. The human contribution isn't instead of natural variations, it is in addition to natural variations. It turns out that this human contribution is somewhat faster than historical climate changes we see in the fossil record, so right now it's the driver. But that doesn't mean that in the long term there aren't other effects as well.
, as if we are barely impacting and certainly not in control of things...
Two different things. We are definitely changing the average temperature, by about 1C so far (with more to come if we keep burning fossil fuels); the basic science of that is really very well understood at this point, although there is still quite a bit of uncertainty in the exact figure. Whether you call 1C "barely impacting" or not is a judgement call.
Overall, we are not "in control of things." We are, however, in control of some things, such as how much fossil fuel we burn.
You assume that both GPs have never heard of global warming prior to this exchange? They have their facts, as all of us here have, they just aren't using them right now. And frankly, why bother? The first GP is a paid shill or flamebait, and no amount of facts or studies will change that.
For the millionth time:
I'm happy to assume we're right about human-created global warming based on CO2 etc. emissions. Let's take that as a given and run it to the logical conclusion.
The important thing is: If we were to stop ALL emissions today, immediately, completely, globally... what happens? Does the situation fix itself? Over how long? What's the impact on, say, sea-level rises or whatever in even the BEST case scenario?
Because if those BEST POSSIBLE impact is, say, displace a million people, but the impact of cutting emissions to those amounts is people dying of... what? Starvation, energy shortage for heating, increased taxation, etc etc. then we can use that as a baseline to decide if we even SHOULD be cutting emissions or whether we're too far gone.
It's quite possible, still, today, that the best course of action - even if ALL the accepted science is not only right but under/over-stating the problem, that we still should let it happen and deal with the consequences rather than the actions we'd need to take to fix it (i.e. somehow find the energy and technology to clean gigatons of air quickly).
Everybody seems to still be working on the scare-mongering and the "just cut back" mantras without actually looking at where the trade-off of actual effects lies. Are you honestly telling me that if we cut all CO2 emissions tomorrow, put all our spare energy into cleaning the air, that somehow all the predictions of doom would never come to fruition? I can't say that I buy that line without some evidence of that. And that evidence - past the point where people actually perform all these actions, globally, co-operatively, perfectly and immediately - is severely lacking.
There's not even any suggestion that we could "fix" anything properly, more than just "limit the amount of further damage". It may well even be that we've already reached a point of no return, which means... well... does it matter what we do? We don't seem to have the models extending past that point to work out "is the cure worse than the disease" (and, yes, WE were the disease).
It's not that I don't believe their predictions are true, but they don't go far enough into the contrary side to look at what that means in terms of trade-off. We're just told to stop CO2 etc. and things will magically be better, but there's no evidence of that versus "not quite making it as bad as it would otherwise be".
Heading towards the precipice at 1000mph, it doesn't really matter if you ditch a bit of dead-weight en-route or not, it's still gonna hurt when you impact. Maybe not technically quite so much as if you had that extra weight, but it's really not even worth the effort to bail it out.
I'm honestly concerned that we'll sink billions into trying to fix an already runaway problem, and have nothing prepared for the real consequences, which will basically have the same dire impact as the worst of predictions anyway but we're still sitting there trying to limit people's energy use etc., which will - overall - have a worse impact than if we'd just ploughed through and used the money to deal with the inevitable consequences.
I'm not saying that is WHAT will happen, but I don't see that anyone has ever eliminated that as a possibility, or even classed it as unlikely, with any kind of rigour that approaches the science that warns of the dire consequences in the first place.
I'd honestly like to be proven wrong... but everything I've ever seen, read, heard about all say "Do 'this'... Because we say... Don't worry, it'll fix everything... but nobody has checked that's actually true... and nobody has weighed the cost of 'this' against the cost of what would have gone wrong anyway". That may be because it's too uncertain, of course, which only makes me wonder even more if we should actually be changing course if we don't know where we're headed anyway.
They're actually right. Since the last ice age, the planet has been hotter than it is now. So business as usual kthx.
Still winning the race to see who can pump out the most CO2 into the air. More than EU, twice China and about 7x India.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.economicshelp.org/...
Unfortunately afforestation was one of the approaches considered and found lacking.
This is extremely bad news. In effect, this is the hypothetical "Surprise! Global warming is much worse than previously thought!" news, just from the prevention side. Gigaton-scale carbon capture was necessary to prevent climate catastrophe and now it looks like it's not an option.
In a sane and responsible world this would be an emergency call to action, to replace all coal plants with the most renewable thing people can afford immediately to avoid the worst possible consequences.
Unfortunately this is a world where the world's now-3rd most powerful country and #2 carbon emitter is led by a reality TV star who thinks global warming is a hoax made up by the Chinese, and who just gutted renewable energy research.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
God you're dumb. It's not "impossible", but we can't do it fast enough to undo the warming cycle that we've started.
The most effect cure for global warming is a large nuclear war. The dust raised will cool the planet nicely, and if enough people get killed the anthropogenic factor in global warming will be reduced for a good while. Gaia doesn't care how you do it; don't be so self-centered.
the climate isn't broken
There has be three extinctions by the climate on Earth, and none was from global warming or C02.
In fact the complete opposite.
The Earth cooled because there was too much Oxygen in the atmosphere.
One of the most media avoided topics is that the seas are becoming more acidic, which harms shellfish production. Recent UW research shows you can intersperse shellfish beds with seagrass and other seaweeds to fix carbon. You can then eat the shellfish (carbon negative food intake) and the seagrass (carbon negative food intake), replacing higher level seafood or beef (which you should replace with bison, as they use less water and other resources for 1/20th the carbon impact).
Things like that are good. Shipping the resulting food by air, however, is bad and creates more emissions, so it should be shipped by rail or boat. Modern boats have lower emissions, and some rail systems run on wind power stored in either biofuel or cracked water (hydrogen/oxygen). Modern turboprop planes use 1/4 the emissions per mile travelled and modern jets can use 1/2 the emissions. But trains are a better choice on land, if not near a seaport.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Oh bullshit, both sides have their propaganda, carefully crafted in order to gain political power. The hysteria from the left, and complete lack of any funding to anyone who doesn't up the ante is proof positive that the science funding is rigged to get specific answers. What actually is happening to the climate is so completely divorced from the political hyperbole that the only rational analysis is "who's going to make a billion dollars from this propaganda?".
I will believe global warming is a real threat when the governments of the world deploy nuclear power in large numbers. Presumably these government officials have more information on the threat than any one reading this forum. The zero CO2 output of nuclear power is undeniable, or rather it's as close to zero as any other energy source that's being called "zero carbon".
I'm sure someone is going to claim that nuclear power is too expensive. Well, how much does the extinction of humanity cost? Also, this isn't saying that we can't also deploy wind and solar too, only that we'd get to zero CO2 output faster if nuclear power was part of the solution.
Then there are those that claim nuclear power would cause the spread of nuclear weapons. Tell me, what better way to dispose of fissile material do we have other than destroying it in a nuclear reactor? We'd encourage the destruction of weapons by showing that while we destroy the weapon material that bountiful and CO2 free energy can be produced.
What about the waste? Well, we can figure that out. We're talking about the extinction of humanity from too much CO2, aren't we? What's a greater threat? Global warming, or running out of holes to bury nuclear waste. Burying nuclear waste is a perfectly viable solution. An even better solution is processing the waste into more fuel, nuclear reactors, and so on, so we have more energy. Oh, but that costs a lot of money? How much is it worth to save humanity?
It seems the governments of the world fear nuclear power more than global warming. This just proves to me that global warming is nothing to fear. Oh, but nuclear power is unsafe. What's "safe" about inevitable global warming? We can use nuclear power and run the very small risk of some nuclear power accident, or we have the certainty of the end of civilization by global warming.
As much as the people in government talk about the threat of global warming they don't seem to be doing anything about it. If it is such a threat, and this threat so obvious, then "all the above" would include nuclear power.
The other option is that nuclear power is an actual and real threat to humanity. If that is the case then we'd see the governments of the world shutting down the existing 400+ reactors around the world. Those reactors must be safe or they'd be shut down already. We've proven nuclear power is safe, or "safe enough", to use. Let's have more nuclear power or you'll eventually have a lot of people calling bullshit on the global warming scare.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Global Warming is stupid.
Climate Change is stupid.
If you believe any of it YOU are stupid.
Yeah suck all Co2 from the atmosphere and see you all at the next frozen era ;)
It's not CO2, it's you. They won't tell you this outright but you're taking up space, resources and just you being here is causing damage to the planet. Until we have reasonable population controls in place it won't matter if the temps go up 20C, we'll have the four horseman of the apocalypse sooner.
In the words of George Carlin: The planet will be fine, the people will be fucked.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Use salt-waterable plants to turn the Sahara desert green and you'll reach gigaton absorption. For perspective, the Sahara is about the size of the United States.
And where exactly are you planning to get the massive amounts of energy needed to somehow turn the Sahara green? What you think it's a matter of digging a few ditches and planting some ground cover? How do you think that is going to work economically and who is going to pay for it? What makes you think that even if you by some miracle succeed that there wouldn't be severe unintended consequences?
I love it when slashdotters propose ridiculous one sentence solutions to massive problems as if it's the most trivial thing in the world.
But the costs are indirectly imposed on consumers, so they'll never figure it out. See also the Long Beach port going zero emissions (but you can pay if you aren't at zero), and California's cap and trade law (being used to fund a rail line from LA to SF that may or may not get built).
Engineer #1: "Look at our amazing CO2 scrubbing system!"
Engineer #2: "What's powering it?"
Engineer #1: "That very large diesel generator right over there!"
Engineer #2: Looks at floor... "You know..."
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
One unnoticed thing is that China, and to a lesser extent India and Germany, have been converting their old coal power plants (which were very dirty), to both cogeneration (where you recycle the waste heat for home heating and other purposes) and CO2 scrubbing. It's really 1970s tech, but it's cut their coal emissions (especially components of acid rain like N02 and S04) by about 30 percent. They had to decommission around 20 percent of the coal plants that couldn't be converted, and replaced those, but it's had a major impact on their emissions.
The only problems are: most CO2 scrubbers use water. This does not work very well in about half of China, and you have to collect the water and filtrate out the chemicals, but they're concentrated, so they do have some commercial uses. In desert areas you have to use things like underground wind trap systems, and they're very inefficient. But most of the coal plants are near water, so it's not as much of an impact as you'd think.
Right now, bicycle sharing and electric bike/transit/car/truck usage would have more of an impact on the rest of their emissions, when you look at the total picture, however. The low hanging fruit has been picked already.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If all this bad CO2 comes from people, it doesn't come from just people, it comes from *too many* people.
Overpopulation, in other words.
There is a sustainable level of population, one where we can burn fossil fuels without harm to the planet.
Our population should be trimmed to fit that.
Since we cannot ship people off-world just yet, that means an immediate worldwide freeze on pregnancy, implementing a birth control system everywhere, along with a Birthright Lottery (& give high IQ people 2x as many chances to win, because while we're at it we might as well do some selective breeding in/out).
Cheaters? Sure there will be. Put them straight into organ banks, no appeal, as they threaten the future of our entire race. (Murderers and pedos con go there too).
Problem solved, no politics needed.
Next?
From my POV, the oceanic section is significantly underevaluated. Of course planktonic algae isn't going to cut it. But there are hundreds, if not thousands of species of macroscopic marine algae. Ask someone that has a reef aquarium that uses a decent refugium how much chaetomorpha or caluerpa how much they pull out of their sump on a biweekly-monthly basis. What, 7-10 kgs for a 450l aquarium? The refugiums is what - a tenth of a cubic meter? How much can you grow at tropical latitudes in a floating collapsible net-box 1m deep by 3m across hexagon?! Scale that up, you can suck tons upon tons of CO2 out of the ocean and atmosphere, raising the ocean pH locally which helps rebuild coral reefs, shellfish fisheries, etc. Plus, if you choose your type of macroalgae properly, its edible. Harvest some, propagate some, and sink the rest....
They've been paid off by the big corporations to make spraying sulphuric acid into the atmosphere the only solution.
I will believe global warming is a real threat when the governments of the world deploy nuclear power in large numbers. Presumably these government officials have more information on the threat than any one reading this forum. The zero CO2 output of nuclear power is undeniable, or rather it's as close to zero as any other energy source that's being called "zero carbon".
There are a lot of climate activists who agree with you.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2017/08/03/the-real-climate-consensus-nuclear-power/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/03/climate-scientists-support-nuclear-power
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/189068-climate-scientists-to-green-activists-embrace-nuke-power
https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists/index.html
https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-and-global-warming
We're not entering the "Diamond Age", we are entering the graphene age; it's one of the most useful materials ever. Graphene is 100% carbon, and we are just beginning to learn how to use it at a time we have a YUGE surplus of carbon. The costs may be prohibitive now, but hopefully soon we will be making everything out of carbon, as soon as we can figure out how to lower the amount of energy input required. So the old adage about problems actually being opportunities MIGHT turn out to be true in this case. (Currently, graphene is made from methane, not C02. Methane is an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I read the section on sequestration of carbon into soil. It was a bizarre section. It made a point that the use of charcoal for cooking could release much carbon. This is a ridiculous point as it has nothing at all to do with sequestering carbon in soil. Charcoal can be produced from farm waste. this charcoal can then go into soil. This keeps that carbon in the soil while making the soil better. It is a self fueling process so no need to obtain or transport energy. This study gave little attention to this idea and even threw in a non sequitur to act as a rebuttal placeholder. Just this one section leads me to conclude that this article is a troll article.
ManBearPig called, his wants his 2007 misleading headline back.
C02 is plant food FFS.
"Negative emission technologies" is a fancy term for PLANTS. You know, like TREES.
Oh noes! We can't undo fast enough to stop the 1 degree change by 2080 that may or may not happen. No technology improvements could ever happen in that time frame either. We are doomed doomed! This heating cycle will be the death of us all! I'm sure we will only try ONE of the available options while not reducing any emissions. I guess since we can't capture the co2 in time we are just out of luck. Since the battle is already over let's open coal plants, burn more oil, and double co2 emissions since we are all screwed anyway.
Chemtrails?
You mean with like trees, and grass, and plants, and stuff? I'm thinking it might form some kind of cycle or something...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
You should maybe have thought of that one *before* liberating all the energy in those hydrocarbon chains. How about some nice algae instead? We can make some massive algal blooms, laying down lots of carbon-rich sediments, and then come back in a few million years for more oil!
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
"Realistically, carbon taxes won't even discourage the production of more CO2. As we've seen time and time again, when taxes or other economic distortions are imposed on an industry, the cost is just passed down to the end users, who just suck it up and pay more for the product/service in question."
Ah, yes, ordinary people don't count as free market decision makers, only the glorious captains of industry? Or perhaps those suppliers who deliver economic value while emitting less pollution will thrive, and those who do not will fail. Which is the point---reductions in emissions are essential, and technological absorption is not feasible.
"It's like those on the left go out of their way to deny and belittle any approach to this problem that will make a real, measurable, physical impact"
(In this case, it was scientists, who looked at the physical and economic feasibility of the methods, not the political left. And no doubt that if it were tried, the 'right' would complain).
Funny, I remember the right complaining endlessly about the economic and job impacts of taxation---clearly it does make a difference. The 'left' recognizes that monetary, not ethical decisions, run the world.
"They say "NO!" to extraordinarily clean, relative to the amount of power obtained, energy sources like nuclear power."
Right now, it's conservative money-focused boards of utilities who are turning off nuclear plants prematurely, and the reason is $$$---fossil fuel, in particular, natural gas, is cheap (right now). Carbon and greenhouse taxes would change this decision far more than anything liberals have to say.
By the way, pollution taxes and 'cap and trade' were originally conservative economic ideas to deal with the externalities in the most economically efficient way instead of by regulatory force. The cap and trade program for sulphate emissions was instituted by the US Reagan & GHWB administrations and was and is highly successful. When's the last time you heard about major acid rain problems?
"Re-greening the desert is actually one of the most effective ways to sequester CO2"
Until the plants live their lifespan at which time they die and re-release the carbon to the atmosphere. It's like stuffing the credit card bill in the drawer, instead of paying it off.
Actual sequestration means removing the carbon from the biosphere nearly permanently----making new coal and stuffing it somewhere geologically isolated, uncombustible and undigestible.
Why can't MULTIPLE avenues of sequestration be pursued?
Sure, any given one might not be a silver bullet.
But, all together?
Hell, simply moving over from Coal/Oil/Gas to Nuclear, Geothermal, Hydro and other renewables (Wind, Wave and Solar (multiple types)) globally would crater production.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
https://www.economicshelp.org/... Americans pump out twice the CO2 as Chinese people, and 8x as much as an Indian
Also more than the EU.
Much higher than the world average.
Even if we believed your silly nonsense about China doubling coal plants. And even if China's coal plants were the only source of China's CO2. China would still be producing less CO2 per person than the US !!
You are just a denier who refuses to see facts.
What a fucking idiot you are. So America offshoring all its manufacturing, increases its GDP and also increases some other countries pollution, and then those same products are then sold to Americans.
LOL your incompetence knows no bounds.
America produces the pollution causes the pollution and benefits from the pollution, but it's some other places problem...
Clueless idiot, if its only bad in poor places. Your claim is that when they make 10 times more CO2 it will be ok because they will also make 10 times the GDP?
Born on the wind and fell on his head.
Using your 'theories' as countries get richer and richer it's ok to make more and more CO2.
EU is way cleaner than USA by any measurement you want to make. Per person per GDP.
What is America going to do about it. Elect an anti-enviroment Trumpster and drill drill and dig dig?
China produces less than twice America's CO2 with more than four times the number of people.
Only complete imbeciles measure CO2 per country and think it means anything. Big countries are big and small countries are small, film at 11.
Stop making up shit and look at the facts
Way more than twice America, so better per GDP, way better as a % of total electricity. The only thing America is better at is per capita, but you keep claiming that doesn't matter, only matters now when it makes you look good...
And they make all your stuff!
The latest government shutdown makes it clear what cards you are going to play, I'm just waiting on your side to play the rest of the losing hand.
First off I reject your attempt to frame the issue as liberals being the ones unwilling to negotiate. It's the conservatives that refuse to accept anything other than total capitulation. That is what the Tea Party is all about. They proudly proclaim that they weren't voted into office to compromise and act accordingly.
Evidently you forgot the republicans shut the government down in 2013 for 16 days and threatened several more. That is the sort of tactics that happen when one party refuses to act like adults and negotiate and that party CLEARLY is the republicans right now. Not to say the dems haven't pulled some shady shit too but don't even try to argue to me that the movement of the republican party towards the far right has made them somehow the more reasonable group. You only could think that the republicans are the reasonable ones if you are suffering from massive confirmation bias.
We have all this because of gerrymandering. Both parties are guilty of this but the republicans have been more clever about it and it's a big part of why they currently control the House and a lot of state legislatures. They have drawn districts whereby they don't have to worry about losing to the other party. They only have to worry about losing in the primary to a more extreme candidate and the left is far less hell bent on ideological purity tests. You want to fix the partisan divide? Get rid of gerrymandering.
It's clear though, that the ultra partisan rhetoric is a bad idea for you guys in your efforts to get votes.
It's adorable that you think opposing Trump is somehow going to be a negative for the left. He's red meat to a hungry lion.
Being the partisan obstructionists or giving Trump a victory or two by working with him
It worked for the republicans under Obama so why shouldn't the left employ the same tactics to the same effect? Given the legislation that Trump and the republicans are proposing I'm totally fine with them obstructing this administration as long as needed. I think the republicans are going to get creamed in the upcoming election because their behavior has been thoroughly reprehensible and Trump is easily the worst president in my lifetime. (and that includes Nixon) Work with Trump? Hell no. I just want him out of office as soon as humanly possible.
Per capita is irrelevant as long as the government that operates China is one large opaque entity. You need to hold China's leaders responsible for the approximately 1/4th of the world's human caused CO2 emissions. Because China's population is more like 18% of the world, not >25%.
Dipshit, we can call you that since you are, had you done your work FIRST, you would have found out that most poor nations have a LOW emissions / GDP.
And when nations add more people to their count, then they can and will emit more. That is unless the nation no longer adds coal plants and does not buy IC vehicles.
But dipshits like you really never get it.
Exactly you incompetent moron.
Low emissions per gdp, and then as the gdp rises, so will the emissions...
eventually they will be as rich as first world and guess what they will pollute as much as the first wourld too. ie things will get worse and worse if everyone was like America.
you do realise rising emissions is bad for the enviroment, even when people are making more money...
When an American eats a steak, it comes from all over the planet. They are not the ones that decided how that cattle was raised and processed.
They are still the ones to decide to eat it idiot. And they decide where to buy it from too moron.
Americans choose, no one forces them.
They can choose to eat pork or chicken or rice.
When an American, like you, buys a car, until Tesla came along, all he could buy was a gas/diesel car. Sadly, the European idiots cheated in a big way and made things much worse for diesel. But since Europe's CO2 numbers, like China's are based on gov giving up data and NOT on real measurements, it worked out fine for them.
Same with cars dipshit, they could get an economical car, like Europeans, or an electric car like China, but they get the biggest most polluting car they can. And your government encourages you to do it by having cheap gas. China and the EU both have more expensive gas than the US and the people are poorer too!
Americans choose again, no one forces them.
They could take public transport, walk, get a small car.
When an American wastes his money on disposable crap, he is buying from China, just like everybody else. However, it was
Are other people forcing you to buy crap? Again Americans are choosing to pollute at every step.
So, who made the real decisions? Companies and Govs. Not consumers. The reason is that many times, consumers do not have a choice in the matter.
The people decide what to do, or is part of your claim that America is a totalitarian reigime and it forces it's people to pump out so much more CO2 than every one else. Aren't you all about the freedoms...
You just doubled down on the stupid didn't you. Just like your double quadruple and more share of pollution...
gas has gone from being "clean energy future" (pushed by the gas companies and not the people who are trying to fight climate change)
My Transformation Website
Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st
£19.6 billion and 9 years so for Hinkly point C.
http://www.renewablesfirst.co....
£3.1 million for 2MW wind turbine.
* 6000 to get 12GW (about equivalent to 3GW)
Nuclear is expensive and slow.
My Transformation Website
Kindle Books http://www.catprog.org/rev
Interactive CYOA http://www.catprog.org/st