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IPCC Climate Change Report Calls For Urgent Action To Phase Out Fossil Fuels (bbc.com)
The United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a report that says global temperatures are heading towards 3 degrees C, and that the original goal of keeping the rise under 1.5 degrees C will require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society." While the window of opportunity is not yet closed, the prospect looks unlikely and hugely expensive. BBC reports: The critical 33-page Summary for Policymakers certainly bears the hallmarks of difficult negotiations between climate researchers determined to stick to what their studies have shown and political representatives more concerned with economies and living standards. Despite the inevitable compromises, there are some key messages that come through loud and and clear. "The first is that limiting warming to 1.5C brings a lot of benefits compared with limiting it to 2 degrees. It really reduces the impacts of climate change in very important ways," said Prof Jim Skea, who is a co-chair of the IPCC. "The second is the unprecedented nature of the changes that are required if we are to limit warming to 1.5C -- changes to energy systems, changes to the way we manage land, changes to the way we move around with transportation."
"Scientists might want to write in capital letters, 'ACT NOW IDIOTS,' but they need to say that with facts and numbers," said Kaisa Kosonen, from Greenpeace, who was an observer at the negotiations. "And they have." The researchers have used these facts and numbers to paint a picture of the world with a dangerous fever, caused by humans. We used to think if we could keep warming below 2 degrees this century then the changes we would experience would be manageable. Not any more. This new study says that going past 1.5C is dicing with the planet's liveability. And the 1.5C temperature "guard rail" could be exceeded in just 12 years in 2030. We can stay below it but it will require urgent, large-scale changes from governments and individuals, plus we will have to invest a massive pile of cash every year, around 2.5% of global GDP, for two decades. Even then, we will still need machines, trees and plants to capture carbon from the air that we can then store deep underground. Forever! In order to get to 1.5C, the report says the following will be necessary: Global emissions of CO2 need to decline by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030; Renewables are estimated to provide up to 85% of global electricity by 2050; Coal is expected to reduce to close to zero; Up to 7 million sq km of land will be needed for energy crops (a bit less than the size of Australia); and Global net zero emissions by 2050. As if this wasn't demanding enough, the report says that to limit warming to 1.5C, it will involve "annual average investment needs in the energy system of around $2.4 trillion" between 2016 and 2035.
If the planet reaches 2C of warming, coral reefs would be almost entirely wiped out and global sea-levels will rise around 10 centimeters more. "There are also significant impacts on ocean temperatures and acidity, and the ability to grow crops like rice, maize and wheat," reports The Guardian.
Further reading: Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040.
"Scientists might want to write in capital letters, 'ACT NOW IDIOTS,' but they need to say that with facts and numbers," said Kaisa Kosonen, from Greenpeace, who was an observer at the negotiations. "And they have." The researchers have used these facts and numbers to paint a picture of the world with a dangerous fever, caused by humans. We used to think if we could keep warming below 2 degrees this century then the changes we would experience would be manageable. Not any more. This new study says that going past 1.5C is dicing with the planet's liveability. And the 1.5C temperature "guard rail" could be exceeded in just 12 years in 2030. We can stay below it but it will require urgent, large-scale changes from governments and individuals, plus we will have to invest a massive pile of cash every year, around 2.5% of global GDP, for two decades. Even then, we will still need machines, trees and plants to capture carbon from the air that we can then store deep underground. Forever! In order to get to 1.5C, the report says the following will be necessary: Global emissions of CO2 need to decline by 45% from 2010 levels by 2030; Renewables are estimated to provide up to 85% of global electricity by 2050; Coal is expected to reduce to close to zero; Up to 7 million sq km of land will be needed for energy crops (a bit less than the size of Australia); and Global net zero emissions by 2050. As if this wasn't demanding enough, the report says that to limit warming to 1.5C, it will involve "annual average investment needs in the energy system of around $2.4 trillion" between 2016 and 2035.
If the planet reaches 2C of warming, coral reefs would be almost entirely wiped out and global sea-levels will rise around 10 centimeters more. "There are also significant impacts on ocean temperatures and acidity, and the ability to grow crops like rice, maize and wheat," reports The Guardian.
Further reading: Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040.
I'm goinga build an ark
I'd finish your wall first, Don.
(Opens window and sticks hand outside)
Yeah, sounds about right.
"Close the door! What, were you born in a barn?" -- Police chief, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
y'know... the planet doesn't care if humans are on it or not. if we're all dead (cooked, starved, killed in food riots), the planet will be peaceful and recover from our cancerous pathological behaviour, soon enough. Agent Smith: "you humans are like a plague. a disease. and we? we... are the cure..."
the world is run by corporations, not people. corporations are run by shareholders. a large part of the stock game is run by algorithms calculating and trading stocks for maximum efficiency. that algorithm does not care about the weather or the long term suitability of our planet.
Cue obligatory XKCD on climate, in another probably vain attempt to educate the dunderheads:
https://xkcd.com/1732/
Solar Reserve have some great low externality base load solar power stations. The heat is stored in molten salt and is available when the sun goes down. Base load solar plant like this can be scaled up, I have no affiliation with them however I find their technology interesting.
Coupled with domestic, industrial and commercial P.V there is enough energy in the sun to build power infrastructure. Combined with the terawatts of power available with wind and geothermal does anyone think the oil and coal industry want this technology to be developed and advanced?
I reason that any form of massive dynamic grid will need a lot of intelligence to make the power available where it is needed, which means interesting technological avenues to explore, a massive explosion of information technology and, fortunes to be made as the economy changes. If we can overcome the economic inertia.
None of the criticisms of these technologies ever ask what it would take to build such infrastructures and all of the technologies look like they scale well. We know we can't continue the way we are going because we will die. This is not just about the planet - Save the Humans, the planet will be just fine.
The only rational conclusion is that the world is being run by complete anti-social psychopaths who actually want such an outcome, otherwise it would be done already. The excuses are less and less believable every day.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
While the US federal government has a distinct lack of political will change pollution, it is still possible for states to take action that will have a wide effect.
For example, a state could require an environmental tax on all products (including imports) that are equivalent to the cost the remove the pollution expelled in the production (or use) of the product. They could then use that money to fun CO2 capture systems. Naturally, you would want to ramp this up over a few years as to reduce the economic impact. While the demands of a single state would have a small impact, it would provide the political cover for other states to join in.
This would soon bankrupt coal power plants and quickly point power companies toward ramping up environmentally friendly power sources lest competition take their profits. So if some state politicians can just grow a pair and do this then we'll be on our way to environmental recovery.
Good progress is made by the brave, not the cowards who only think of themselves.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
So they recommend people to use trains, fly less and use video conferencing. When they all flew to South Korea for their conference..
"All animals are equal, and some animals are more equal than the others."
Speaking as a Canadian, a 10C increase would be quite nice(even tolerable in summer)... If we could hold back the climate refugees ;p
Simply put, if you don't put this in terms of monetary impact to those involved (politicians, government) then you're going to get ignored.
There's nothing better than saying: If you do nothing, then your land with factory/plant X is going to be full of water and unusable - this means your businesses in that area (which probably lobby you) won't exist, and it'll cost this much to move them if you do nothing. Over time, this will multiply and become hugely expensive, certainly more expensive than doing something about it and limiting emissions (etc other stuff in report to mitigate warming)
Facts mean little to politicians. I thought people knew this already?
If such a person existed, he/she could organize a grand climate Panmunjom.
The right would have to admit that the greenhouse mechanism is plausible and that current data shows warming. There may be disagreement about exactly how much there is and at what point 'weather' becomes 'climate,' but it's out there, and growing.
The left would have to allow us to use all carbon-free technologies in addressing the problem, rather than just the ones that are tiny and cute. In the real world, we still need energy-usinh big cities and heavy industries.
"ACT NOW IDIOTS" is indeed the most appropriate language for the stupids.
But... is it?
Is it ACTUALLY more expensive to not do anything? Certainly, morally, but in terms of actual solutions and their efficacy and the knock-on effects and the cost of implementations - the data is actually thin on the ground.
The Paris agreement is an example. Even if we all stuck to it, these same research bodies are now saying it's not enough.
If the cost of not-drowing-in-Waterworld is to actually make many modern conveniences so expensive and unobtainable, have we "won"? Is that "better"? Is people aren't being flooded out of the coastal regions, but nobody can afford their electricity bill, or medicines and oils and products and shipping is suddenly twice as expensive?
Everyone's done the "cost analysis" of not doing something. Nobody has (realistically) done the cost analysis of actually doing something that might work - or even really suggested what that is.
It's a huge bugbear to me. The solutions are half-assed casual suggestions ("release less CO2", "stop burning oil"), etc. but the COST of doing so is not just a number on a balance sheet. More old people will die in winter, more things we take for granted won't be practical, and the associated error-bars are HUGE because we just don't know what's going to happen.
I'm perfectly happy to trust in science and saying yes, this is happening, it's bad, it's caused by us. Let's take that as an "assumption" to work from even if you don't personally believe it.
Now what? What do we do that fixes it? We stop burning coal. Okay, what would that affect? To my knowledge only one country in the world is coal-free on any regular basis (Germany?), and that's still one of the countries most reliant on coal overall. It's ALWAYS fossil fuels. Then nuclear. Then biomass (trees!). Then all the other "renewable" sources.
So just a simple statement as "don't burn coal" drastically affects the economy and energy production of every country on the planet. That's going to knock into heating, cooling and industry before anything else. Which is going to kill people (even if only the elderly) and make everything more expensive.
And that's just one item. Taken together, do the effects of "let's just burn everything, ramp up energy and use that resource to find a better solution" actually kill less or more people over the next 100 years? We don't know. Few ever study the "other side" of the coin.
The problem with this kind of thing, which I wholeheartedly believe is conveying a necessary message, is that the message boils down to "DO THIS OR DIE!" and then someone in the crowd says "But... if we do that... do we not die anyway? Just in a different way, while destroying industry and society and causing more damage long-term?" And nobody has even the decency to look sheepish or say "Well, no, actually we looked and it wouldn't hurt at all if we did X instead".
The research into that side might exist, but it's certainly not being advertised and not being made popular and almost certainly not being done as rigorously or as seriously as the scaremongering.
I'd honestly like to know - if we do EVERYTHING - if we all get unanimous worldwide co-operation and overnight we all become vegans who wash their clothes on rocks, solar-power the entire world, never burn so much as a match again, pump all our energy resources into reversing the CO2 increase, recycle every plastic bag in every landfill in the planet, etc. etc. etc. - whatever loony ideas we can come up with - will that *actually* make it better than the alternative? Because I see drastically little evidence that way. I know we all say "it's there, it's what the scientists say"... but as I consider myself a scientist, I can't honestly look and say "I must recommend this path, or indeed ANY path, out of this mess, because it will be better than the thing we think might happen if we don't".
Everyone acknowledges the problem. The solution eludes us. And the cost-benefit analysis of any dream we can imagine is really "Er... dunno... probably not" at best.
Stop flying around the world for stupid fucking holidays
Go well
Think I'm exaggerating? Australia just recently gave up on its effort to meet its Paris climate agreement carbon reduction targets.
Lots of folks gonna' be packing up and moving to escape rising seas and suffocating heat (e.g., S. Arizona).
i wouldn't want to be in an ark in a hurricane
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
That's a very US-centric view. In the EU, for example, we have considerably more control over corporations. See our environmental and privacy protections, for example. We also tend to have more limits on the funding of political parties and the amount they can spend, which really helps keep things from getting as bad as the US.
Having said that, even in the US the corporations don't have total control. Look at emission limits on cars, surely if big oil and car manufacturers were running things those wouldn't exist.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I have a cousin who works as an enviromental consultant - helps small companies reduce their carbon footprint. But every year she takes at least 2 long haul holidays with her bf, usually to the far east. But wait, thats ok according to her - because once they get their they don't hire a car but cycle around! No, I'm not making this shit up. And yes, she's a millenial.
STFU.
Spin a giant fresnel lens (or simply a diffuser) at L1 to shade the earth, like was already suggested in 2004 by Gregory Benford. He said you could use plastic, but I have my doubts that would survive very long. Aluminium oxide maybe? L1 delta v isn't much higher than LEO, so with SpaceX costs this should be doable for 10s of billions in lift cost.
A fraction of the opportunity cost of destroying the global economy and triggering WW3.
Is this temperature graph showing the temperature data before or after NOAA's retroactive 'corrections' to the temperature record? It's curious that all the corrections make historical temperatures colder and recent temperatures warmer. Almost as if they needed to fudge the data so that the 'global warming crisis' wouldn't fizzle out in the face of lack of evidence.
LOL, Germany? You mean the country that shut down its nuclear power plants for "safety" reasons only to have them replaced with coal power plants?
Long haul flight is basically around 2 kg fuel per seat for every 100km. For a long haul like , say, 8000 km that is about 160 Kg fuel time 2 for return that's 320 Kg fuel or 640 Kg per two persons. Compare that for average fuel consumption car is 9 kg per 100 Km. Let us say 10. So the distance corresponding is 6400 km of car, or about 8000 miles. Somebody doing 8 mils of commuting every day will have done that in 4 month. That is also by the way the same consumption as somebody doing their holiday in car, so barring you going only 20 miles away for holiday, you'll consume as much. And in the grand scheme of thing, that will probably be nothing compared to the carbon footprint reduction for most company. So you can take your millennial joke , and shove it (I am much older than a millennial but I can't appreciate people which use that as a cheap shot).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
No, that would be a Permian–Triassic extinction event, which was 8 degrees higher.
Literally the CO2 in the sea, chokes everything in the sea, it dies, decays,, sulphur fills the air, land animals die, 98% species wipeout. Everyone dead.
Yeah, and you also suppress speech, political parties, and imprison people for saying mean words, and ignore criminality committed by particular racial/ethnic groups. It's sure working out well. But let's be realistic, because those limits on the funding of political parties work out about as well as nothing. See the most recent bit where several left wing parties, in various EU countries which held power loosened fundraising rules in order to get more money from corporate donors, then re-tightened the rules after public outcry...and the fact they were about to lose the election.
Look at emission limits on cars, surely if big oil and car manufacturers were running things those wouldn't exist.
Possibly, but that hasn't happened. Yet we can see the "allowances" given to cities and businesses because they allow a financial trade off into the government coffers. Like dumping fresh water out of reservoirs during a drought, or allowing cities to dump raw sewage into rivers(by paying a fine) but causing downstream cities to halt intake because they can't treat it, or allow companies to overfish as long as they pay a fine on each catch in treaty violation. Looking at you EU, and your abuse of fishing treaties. Something that even China is doing a better job on.
Om, nomnomnom...
Sadly the possibility of everyone being dead years from now is not considered by these algorithms. HFT bots don't consider what's going to happen beyond the next few seconds. Most companies don't look beyond the next few quarters - usually not beyond 1 quarter. Some industries like insurance look further ahead and are already taking global warming into account, but most don't.
Humanity is strapped to a machine that is indifferent to human suffering or ecological collapse and is dragging us toward catastrophe for our species and most of the life in the known universe.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Hardly, and depending on context "the EU" isn't even one single entity. But none the less, there are things that the EU does better than the US, and vice versa. Discussing them and learning from each other is a good thing, no?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Because you looked at one year's data and ignored a decades long trend to make your point, that's why.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And shareholders are people. So you're saying that:
the world is not run by people
AND
the world is run by people
For what it's worth, if you have a 401k, it is very likely that YOU are a shareholder. It's utterly certain that I am a shareholder, in about a dozen companies, not counting 401k, IRA, and similar items that own shares....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This is the massive threat to humanity we've seen in sci-fi movies, usually represented by an invading alien species or some massive natural(ish) disaster, but in real life it was our own pollution that first posed a huge threat to us all.
And now we see how we react as a species to that threat. We didn't temporarily put aside our differences to work toward a common goal as fiction has often speculated. Instead most people kind of brushed the problem off and went back to focusing on the small-scale problems in their own lives, and a few people convinced themselves that the threat was made up and we'd all be fine. When we already had a good idea of how dangerous this threat was, those people elected a raging moron who shared their collectively suicidal beliefs to what was at the time the most powerful political office in the world.
The biggest threat to humanity is ourselves. Working to optimize our societies into what is effectively a perfect breeding ground for psychopaths over the last few hundred years (and especially over the last few decades) has been biting us in the ass the entire time and is about to finally rip out our throats.
I think our only hope is a millennial-driven political revolution - vote out every conservative everywhere across the globe, and put something between social democrats and democratic socialists in power so we can refocus our societies on benefiting as much of humanity as possible and defeat the incredibly short-sighted and largely detrimental business interests driving us to collective ruin.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Actually, your story is a great example of why most people aren't really making an effort to change behaviors over climate change concerns. .... These things are relatively non-negotiable. Most of us only have so much income we can spend on things, and making more requires MORE energy usage. Maybe you start a service business as a side job or second job? Well, now you're traveling around to client sites in your spare time and running errands for needed supplies to do the work. With the high cost of such propositions as switching your vehicles to electric cars, it's out of financial reach for many people still.
At the end of the day, we need to use a lot of energy to accomplish the things in life we want to do. Everything from taking those trips to visit family or friends to the daily work commute needed to earn a paycheck
The biggest changes will only come about as the primary energy sources are converted over from burning fossil fuels. The power generation plants are actually doing this, but it's a very slow process that's (perhaps ironically) slowed down quite a bit by all the legal requirements for things like "environmental impact studies" - foisted upon the utility companies by the likes of Greenpeace. The main solution will probably be nuclear power - which is the toughest one to put online without a lot of resistance from environmental groups.
Honestly, I feel like I've almost over-extended myself already, financially, investing in some of these "Green" solutions. I put as many PV solar panels on my roof as the company could fit, using the most efficient ones per square foot available at the time. I traded in a Jeep and a sports car to get a used Tesla S. And I just took out a loan to do some home repairs that included ripping down the old siding and material behind it and replacing it with better insulated, modern materials. So hopefully, that cuts down on my winter heating bill and energy usage. So I'm going to sleep well at night that I've done my share. But realistically, all of this is a tiny drop in the bucket in the big picture -- even if it's a huge chunk of my total income.
But that aside I'm going to ask the same question I continue to ask - what is the correct temperature and who gets to decide?
It's a meaningless question. There is no "correct temperature". The real question is what temperatures are compatible with maintaining a complex global civilization? We've built this civilization on a certain temperature regime and changing temperatures are going to cause costly adaptation to the new regime. It's not clear yet just how costly that adaptation will be but chances are it's going to be a lot more than you seem to think.
CO2 cannot be responsible for the presented temperature increase because 1 molecule out of 2500 can't increase ambient temperature by that much,
Not that crap again. When a CO2 (or other GHG molecule) absorbs an infrared photon that added energy is quickly transferred to other non-GHG molecules in the atmosphere 99+% of the time. Eventually another infrared photon is emitted in a random direction so approximately half of them head back to the surface further warming it. Here's a quote I saved that explains it in more detail:
It is first necessary to understand that molecules are made up of atoms (with mass) are held together by bonds, much like two balls linked by springs, and therefore have ways of vibrating at specific frequencies.
The bonds between two atoms in a molecule are particularly strong, and can only vibrate at very high frequencies (emphasize frequencies over energies) well above the frequency of infrared or the solar radiation spectrum.
However, molecules with 3 or more atoms can vibrate by changing the angles between the three atoms, and they can vibrate at additional (lower) frequencies. Molecules like CO2 and H2O have vibrational frequencies within the infrared range. In these vibrations, the strong bonds between Carbon and Oxygen may still have very high vibrational frequencies, but the two Oxygen atoms can vibrate toward or away from each other at this lower frequency.
Molecules with more than 3 atoms can vibrate in even more ways (which means more and more frequencies). Examples are CH4, CFCs, etc.
When upward radiation close to the right frequency hits a CO2 molecule, it can excite the vibrational mode at that frequency. The outward radiation is reduced by the amount of energy that goes into the vibration. We see the reduced amount of outward radiation in the spectra observed by downward looking satellites.
[The observant student then might ask why the energy that goes into the vibration does not just get sent back out to space by emitting a photon – after all, if the same molecule gets hit over and over with photons won’t the vibrational energy increase and increase? There are two answers: the simple part is that yes, the energy can be re-emitted, but the direction of the emitted photons does not have to have the same upward angle. In fact, the extra energy will as likely go down as up. On average, only half of the incoming energy continues on an upward path, half heads back toward Earth to participate in the answer to question 3.
The second answer comes from equipartion of energy. Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the molecules. This kinetic energy is made up of not only the vibrational energy, but also the rotational energy and the classical kinetic energy of moving molecules.
When one molecule with high vibrational energy bumps into another molecule (even one without a vibrational mode) some of that vibration can go into kicking the other molecule into faster motion or higher rotation. So energy gets lost from the vibrational mode and transferred into the general temperature of the surrounding gas. The CO2 molecule has a unique way to absorb energy at a particular frequency, but that energy gets transferred very quickly to its neighboring molecules, most of which have no way to emit radiation at that frequency.
First, I view
As an observer of this conversation, pointing out someone's snobbishness with, a highly-snobbish tone digs into the point you're trying to make.
"My fear is if North Korea nukes us, Trump gonna get us into a war" - Maxine Waters
You realize she never said that, right? She said nothing even close - it's not an honest mistake or a misquote but just pure fabrication. I know it doesn't matter in this post-truth world but there are plenty of other cringe-worthy quotes available, so why go for a fake one?
Enigma
Please, please keep educating yourself about this:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/ex...
The first link you have up there is for the US southeast which is a noisy outlier in temperature trends compared to the global climate. Southeast US trends are not representative of the world.
Those temperature adjustments made by NOAA are tiny compared to the scale of the temperature rise over the past 40 years (see link above). And they result in *less* cooling since 1900 instead of more.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Everyone acknowledges the problem. The solution eludes us.
Marine cloud brightening.
And the cost-benefit analysis of any dream we can imagine is really "Er... dunno... probably not" at best.
Ocean rise is currently the biggest economic impact, since so many people live on the coast. So keeping track of ocean levels is key.
Funny thing about imprisoning people. Do you know which country has both the highest incarceration rate and the largest prison population (the latter actually higher than in the Soviet GULAGs)?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Let's just remind ourselves that you are going apeshit
Hey Hey, lets not blow this out of portion. Seems to me he is just going a little batshit, but not at the apeshit level. Lets not ratchet this up THAT level if we can help it. :)
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
now simply background noise
Their doom and gloom warnings have always been about the distant future, and they continue to be. This isn't about people proclaiming the end of the world is near, and then the date passes with nothing happening. The claims they have made about the near-time have actually come to pass - actual observed global warming is well within the predictions made by their models. There is no reason to doubt that they will get less accurate with time and refinement.
having been adjusted and interpolated time and again
Of course it's been adjusted and interpolated - how else to you normalize inputs from more than one source? They don't have perfect data; it's all observational science. They don't have lots of earths to experiment on, or the ability to jump back in time with proper instrumentation.
each one passes without the world ending
Provide even a single example of this.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Ah, the old "Gore is a hypocrite therefore the science is wrong" argument. What next - Feynmann could be an ass therefore quantum mechanics is bunk?
in the larger fight between those who believe in Complete Government Control and those who believe in Individual Freedom.
Is there no one in between those two world views? Why is politics always a fight between extremists with voices of reason being excluded from the contest? Climate change should have nothing to do with politics, except that so money have placed their political fortunes on denying climate change.
Everyone acknowledges the problem. The solution eludes us.
The solution does not elude us. I've listened to many experts on energy and they all agree on several key points.
First key point, more nuclear power. Nuclear power is safe, costs are less than wind and solar, reliable, and has lower CO2 emissions than any other energy source we have. The nuclear power plants we have now are getting old and will need to be replaced. We will need to start building nuclear power reactors now so when it's time to retire these old reactors we have something to take their place.
Second key point, more natural gas. While this might seem counter productive this is vital as a means to transition from energy sources in current use of higher CO2 contributions, specifically coal and oil. To make vehicles move requires a fuel that is energy dense, plentiful, inexpensive, and easily converted to motive force. While natural gas isn't as energy dense as gasoline or diesel fuel it is close enough that conversion should be of little cost with the benefit of an immediate reduction of CO2 produced per mile by 30% or more. Much of the reductions in CO2 in the USA has been from switching electricity production from coal to natural gas. We can do better with nuclear power but in the time it will take to build those nuclear power plants we can burn natural gas for electricity and work to switch transportation to natural gas.
Third key point, stop the subsidies. Subsidizing energy sources prevents the competition needed to drive lesser products and technologies from the market. There's enough solar and wind companies now that there can be real competition based on who can provide energy at the lowest price. What's happening now is that the winners are those with the best lobbyists than the best technology. Stop subsidizing bad windmills, solar collectors, electric cars, and so on, so natural market forces allow the best to come to market. Maybe there was a time when these subsidies were needed but that time has passed.
This is not a fourth key point really but more an addendum to the point above, stop with pushing so much solar power! This keeps getting brought up again and again. Solar power is bad for the grid because it provides lots of power in the day and nothing at night, and does so nationwide all at the same time. At least with wind it's randomized a bit, there's some at night, and without the drop off in the evening when energy is needed most. Solar is also quite expensive, produces waste that's difficult to recycle, and takes a lot of area for the energy produced. Putting the collectors on rooftops only adds to the cost, even if it allows for preserving use of the land under it, and also adds to the risk of injuries and death to those installing and maintaining them. We need more wind and nuclear before we need to resort to expensive and generally problematic solar.
We have solutions but also a federal government seemingly unwilling or unable to implement them.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
It's easy to have low gulag prisoner rates when most people simply die in the gulag(dead bodies don't count, and it keeps the ledgers clean). That's coming from someone who's grandfather spent 20 years in one for refusing to give his cows to "the state" oh and they demanded he provide the same next year.
Om, nomnomnom...
Worse, better... these are usually compared against the averages. In reality, everything - temperature estimates, predictions, ocean levels - have pretty large error ranges. For the most part, actual measurements are falling within the error bars of the predictions.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I don't know what point you are trying to make.
Also, no one wipes my ass - I force the servants to lick it clean.
What? WHY ARE YOU STARING AT ME?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Soon to be two years data. Why is the EU increasing their carbon output?
That's probably Britain burning all our bridges.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Apparently you aren't very good at reading. I'm not being a snob at all.
Yes, yes you are. When you make out you are better than someone or they are somehow worthless because of some ill defined 'what they are' metric that you decide. Even using a term like eurosnob invalidates the entire point you are trying to make and if you can't see that then you are a fucking idiot to boot.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
No. I'd be happy with a proper accounting of the costs, rather than not accounting for it at all for over a hundred years and letting the problems be paid for by other people.
Isn't it the libertarian credo that the market should be able to decide? So let's make it an even market and have the polluter pay. Get rid of all subsidy, be it direct or indirect.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.