Who is this "you"? And please read the post again; if you want to actually rebut the point, feel free.
Or you can stick to pointless passive-aggressiveness.
No, it was used (originally) against those who refuse to believe the consensus, regardless of the evidence presented and had no cogent rebuttals of their own or would grudgingly agree on the spot but then revert back to their previous position.
Chris Monckton is one example. He's actually worse because he does have a grasp of the research but notoriously cherry-picks.
And there's plenty of name-calling from the other side - from what I've found, they pretty much started the slandering.
If you check out wattsupwiththat.com, where the supposed "skeptics" hang out and they are vehemently opposed to the word denialist ( try including it in a post), you'll see they claim "we've NEVER denied warming".
Then go read some of the actual posts and comments from several years ago.
Good point but the work of the climatologists is pretty much openly available - if this is a corrupt scheme, there are a huge number of people involved.
Did you note that nothing of real substance came out of 13 years of emails from Climategate "beat the crap", "nature trick to hide the decline", pretty much covers all of it.
I took stock of about 3 years of my own e-mail with colleagues - if it were released unedited, unselected, I probably be arrested or sue on multiple counts
Don't lump us all in the same category. Many of us changed our behavior years ago - I began in '88 ( I've mostly lived in cities). The initial period sucks a lot ( figure on the 1st 3 months you wonder why the hell you're putting yourself through this ) but after that, it becomes second nature and you start wondering why you got sold on the whole consumption and convenience in the 1st place.
And I want everyone to change their behavior though we don't all have to change it to the same extent.
And who are all the "super-rich" bastards? Are they different from the super-rich fossil fuel fucks or a new oligarchy? I know Al Gore is doing pretty well but the prominent scientists aren't extremely wealthy.
This may be a very good thing for North Africa, in light of the Arab Spring. They have young populations, with many unemployed or barely making a living, most of the desert is just sitting there, baking away, and they'll get desalinized water as part of the deal. Jobs and job training, energy and water and someone else is fronting the cost.
Those costs are dropping which isn't likely to be the case for the fossil fuels plants. Even if carbon taxes are never enacted, the fossil fuels have greater externalized costs especially related to air quality, radioactivity ( for coal ) and other toxic emissions. Solar (PV, not thermal ) has some from the extraction processes for the raw materials but appear to be much less than coal and are getting better as the tech matures.
The amount allocated to Coal, Oil and Ethanol are an embarrassment; also, I've read that the oil subsidies have been in place for 100 years.
If the fossil fuels sources are required to do CO2 scrubbing or CCS, solar will quickly surpass them in affordability, subsidies or not.
For the oil industry, the NYT reports the subsidies are currently $4 billion/yr and these measures go back nearly 100 years. The petroleum industry claim to pay more in taxes and at a higher rate than other corporations but accounting for any corporation of that size is going to be very complex. And the companies have been setting up shops in tax-haven countries for a long time - the Deepwater Horizon is registered in Panama.
Another interesting fact - they've spent $350 million in lobbyists in only the last 3 years; close to $1 million per member of the House of Reps. Looks like they won't go down without a fight.
Renewables are getting better and the manufacturing techniques that are being developed to improve them will pay dividends in the future, assuming the US doesn't allow China to run away with them.
I hope to see the day where renewables can stand on their own - and it looks like that day isn't too far off for solar, which is a good thing for the southwest.
But, it's disingenuous to criticize the subsidies when the Oil and Coal industries benefit from tens of billions in federal and state subsidies - how is that defensible?
The nuclear argument is an interesting one since it seems the real barrier to getting them built ( outside of Germany, at any rate ) is financing. I've never understood why the supposedly cooler financial heads don't see nuclear as a slam dunk. Also, a number of proposals based on the AP1000 were rejected, are in limbo or were withdrawn, mostly because of safety issues with the designs. I don't know anywhere near enough to decide if those were warranted but the industry will have to work extra hard to allay fears. That said, you used the term "inexpense" to describe nuclear - based on its capital cost, that's hardly accurate.
The problem is that, in America, the extremists who don't believe in global warming are well-connected to the levers of power and are doing a masterful job of obstructionism and obfuscation.
My slight paraphrasing which you exaggerated considerably was made not long ago by a US congressman or senator. The doomsday scenario of global warming are still decades off into the future. The concern is if there's a tipping-point ( widely believed ), how much warming it'll take to get us there and when we'll reach it.
Some believe we may have already crossed that point - trouble is that we won't be sure for a long time.
You make it sound as though there just a bunch of ordinary people who disagree, with some wingnuts on the edges but there are powerful companies lined up to defend their interests. I hear a lot of talk, especially after Climategate that Gore is just doing this so he can make a billion dollars in carbon credits and that there is a rich cabal behind the greens and the IPCC and we should just "follow the money", overlooking the $1 TRILLION in US oil corp PROFITS in the last 10 years - a trillion reasons to support the status quo for some folks, no?
Mars has a very thin atmosphere, no oceans and its distance from the Sun, the solar radiation it receives and traps isn't being stored.Also small changes can make a big difference in a complex system. A change of.01% does seem insignificant but the change in solar irradiation during a solar cycle is only.06% from peak to trough across 11 years. Also, CO2 is not the only heat-trapper, just the one we've been having the most effect on and one of the most long-lasting. If we get to the point that a significant amount of the methane in the permafrost gets released - which has been happening faster and faster over the last decade - it will have a dramatically greater short-term effect than CO2.
The global redistribution scam has been going on for a while but wasn't linked to climate change. Now those who benefited most from the previous decades of the scam are crying foul because they may not be on top of the heap this time round.
Come on over. Been doing most of those things since '88. No kids, no car since '94, flown less than 20000 miles lifetime ( mostly before '83, none at all since '99 ), driven less than 100,000 miles, haven't owned a house in over a decade, now live in 700 sq-ft, bike to work twice weekly, public transit the rest of the time and no AC at home in 10 yrs.
All lighting has been CFL for 7 yrs, ditched TV 4 yrs ago and use a laptop most of the time.
It has long been predicted that global warming would cause weather extremes and weird climatic events. But there are interplays with other factors that, while they might mitigate those events, can have other, as yet unknown, effects. The research into global dimming and its effects on the African monsoon cycle makes for interesting reading - and a desire to stay the hell away from the Sahara.
And of course there's the increase in ocean heat content at various depths and what that might mean for ENSO events in the future.
And it's too late to complain about bickering - it's become politicized and you have various senior (non-scientists) policy-makers who only listen to those who tell them what they want to hear, refuse to believe the evidence in front of them and say ( and I'm only paraphrasing slightly ) that Jesus Christ won't let us destroy ourselves.
I don't have time to address all your points right now but consider this - even if the capacity factor for solar is as low as you claim, it's very well-matched to demand in most of the US southwest and similar developed countries. Imagine how much better it would have been for Texas if their grid had a couple GW of solar ( and that much less wind), especially through the hot, dry weather of the last couple years.
Also, why does it matter that solar isn't suitable right now for every possible type of building? Is there a shortage of large flat roofs and parking lots where you live? I can assure you that not the case of most of the ideal places in the Western world.
If there was a Solar Mandate in the Southwest to, within 10 years, install PV on every suitable commercial, gov't or military roof and build solar thermal plants in the very low-density areas, with at least 1/4 of them having 6-8 hrs storage, it would be a very different America, with a lot less coal crap in the air.
Not to worry, we can easily find you somewhere to live where you won't feel neglected by the blue-suited thugs. Or you can just go for some fresh air and join a peaceful protest. I suggest wearing a full-face helmet - batons to the cranium and rubber bullets to the face make for nasty ouchies.
What will probably happen is that the movers and shakers of the Formerly Too Big to Fail will end up running most of the upstarts, if only because they are still the inside men who know where the bodies are buried. As an example, look what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The boys in uniform left and returned to work in black suits, quickly converting from communism to capitalism while keeping their hands on the levers of power.
There's no subtext - if you believe that global warming / climate change is happening and it matters to you, then you should call out the deniers where they live, especially if you have a good grasp of the science and the issues.
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Who is this "you"? And please read the post again; if you want to actually rebut the point, feel free. Or you can stick to pointless passive-aggressiveness.
No, it was used (originally) against those who refuse to believe the consensus, regardless of the evidence presented and had no cogent rebuttals of their own or would grudgingly agree on the spot but then revert back to their previous position. Chris Monckton is one example. He's actually worse because he does have a grasp of the research but notoriously cherry-picks. And there's plenty of name-calling from the other side - from what I've found, they pretty much started the slandering.
If you check out wattsupwiththat.com, where the supposed "skeptics" hang out and they are vehemently opposed to the word denialist ( try including it in a post), you'll see they claim "we've NEVER denied warming". Then go read some of the actual posts and comments from several years ago.
Good point but the work of the climatologists is pretty much openly available - if this is a corrupt scheme, there are a huge number of people involved. Did you note that nothing of real substance came out of 13 years of emails from Climategate "beat the crap", "nature trick to hide the decline", pretty much covers all of it. I took stock of about 3 years of my own e-mail with colleagues - if it were released unedited, unselected, I probably be arrested or sue on multiple counts
Don't lump us all in the same category. Many of us changed our behavior years ago - I began in '88 ( I've mostly lived in cities). The initial period sucks a lot ( figure on the 1st 3 months you wonder why the hell you're putting yourself through this ) but after that, it becomes second nature and you start wondering why you got sold on the whole consumption and convenience in the 1st place. And I want everyone to change their behavior though we don't all have to change it to the same extent. And who are all the "super-rich" bastards? Are they different from the super-rich fossil fuel fucks or a new oligarchy? I know Al Gore is doing pretty well but the prominent scientists aren't extremely wealthy.
This may be a very good thing for North Africa, in light of the Arab Spring. They have young populations, with many unemployed or barely making a living, most of the desert is just sitting there, baking away, and they'll get desalinized water as part of the deal. Jobs and job training, energy and water and someone else is fronting the cost.
Those costs are dropping which isn't likely to be the case for the fossil fuels plants. Even if carbon taxes are never enacted, the fossil fuels have greater externalized costs especially related to air quality, radioactivity ( for coal ) and other toxic emissions. Solar (PV, not thermal ) has some from the extraction processes for the raw materials but appear to be much less than coal and are getting better as the tech matures.
The amount allocated to Coal, Oil and Ethanol are an embarrassment; also, I've read that the oil subsidies have been in place for 100 years.
If the fossil fuels sources are required to do CO2 scrubbing or CCS, solar will quickly surpass them in affordability, subsidies or not.
For the oil industry, the NYT reports the subsidies are currently $4 billion/yr and these measures go back nearly 100 years. The petroleum industry claim to pay more in taxes and at a higher rate than other corporations but accounting for any corporation of that size is going to be very complex. And the companies have been setting up shops in tax-haven countries for a long time - the Deepwater Horizon is registered in Panama. Another interesting fact - they've spent $350 million in lobbyists in only the last 3 years; close to $1 million per member of the House of Reps. Looks like they won't go down without a fight.
Renewables are getting better and the manufacturing techniques that are being developed to improve them will pay dividends in the future, assuming the US doesn't allow China to run away with them. I hope to see the day where renewables can stand on their own - and it looks like that day isn't too far off for solar, which is a good thing for the southwest. But, it's disingenuous to criticize the subsidies when the Oil and Coal industries benefit from tens of billions in federal and state subsidies - how is that defensible? The nuclear argument is an interesting one since it seems the real barrier to getting them built ( outside of Germany, at any rate ) is financing. I've never understood why the supposedly cooler financial heads don't see nuclear as a slam dunk. Also, a number of proposals based on the AP1000 were rejected, are in limbo or were withdrawn, mostly because of safety issues with the designs. I don't know anywhere near enough to decide if those were warranted but the industry will have to work extra hard to allay fears. That said, you used the term "inexpense" to describe nuclear - based on its capital cost, that's hardly accurate.
The problem is that, in America, the extremists who don't believe in global warming are well-connected to the levers of power and are doing a masterful job of obstructionism and obfuscation. My slight paraphrasing which you exaggerated considerably was made not long ago by a US congressman or senator. The doomsday scenario of global warming are still decades off into the future. The concern is if there's a tipping-point ( widely believed ), how much warming it'll take to get us there and when we'll reach it. Some believe we may have already crossed that point - trouble is that we won't be sure for a long time. You make it sound as though there just a bunch of ordinary people who disagree, with some wingnuts on the edges but there are powerful companies lined up to defend their interests. I hear a lot of talk, especially after Climategate that Gore is just doing this so he can make a billion dollars in carbon credits and that there is a rich cabal behind the greens and the IPCC and we should just "follow the money", overlooking the $1 TRILLION in US oil corp PROFITS in the last 10 years - a trillion reasons to support the status quo for some folks, no?
Why? Because I would produce less CO2 if I didn't have sex? Or because I don't do screw to make babies?
Mars has a very thin atmosphere, no oceans and its distance from the Sun, the solar radiation it receives and traps isn't being stored.Also small changes can make a big difference in a complex system. A change of .01% does seem insignificant but the change in solar irradiation during a solar cycle is only .06% from peak to trough across 11 years. Also, CO2 is not the only heat-trapper, just the one we've been having the most effect on and one of the most long-lasting. If we get to the point that a significant amount of the methane in the permafrost gets released - which has been happening faster and faster over the last decade - it will have a dramatically greater short-term effect than CO2.
The global redistribution scam has been going on for a while but wasn't linked to climate change. Now those who benefited most from the previous decades of the scam are crying foul because they may not be on top of the heap this time round.
Come on over. Been doing most of those things since '88. No kids, no car since '94, flown less than 20000 miles lifetime ( mostly before '83, none at all since '99 ), driven less than 100,000 miles, haven't owned a house in over a decade, now live in 700 sq-ft, bike to work twice weekly, public transit the rest of the time and no AC at home in 10 yrs. All lighting has been CFL for 7 yrs, ditched TV 4 yrs ago and use a laptop most of the time.
You mean like Christy, Michaels, Spencer, Lindzen and Pielke? Yeah, like that.
It has long been predicted that global warming would cause weather extremes and weird climatic events. But there are interplays with other factors that, while they might mitigate those events, can have other, as yet unknown, effects. The research into global dimming and its effects on the African monsoon cycle makes for interesting reading - and a desire to stay the hell away from the Sahara. And of course there's the increase in ocean heat content at various depths and what that might mean for ENSO events in the future. And it's too late to complain about bickering - it's become politicized and you have various senior (non-scientists) policy-makers who only listen to those who tell them what they want to hear, refuse to believe the evidence in front of them and say ( and I'm only paraphrasing slightly ) that Jesus Christ won't let us destroy ourselves.
You too? I'd blame it on hunger but I'd just finished eating. Maybe I shouldn't skip dessert.
I don't have time to address all your points right now but consider this - even if the capacity factor for solar is as low as you claim, it's very well-matched to demand in most of the US southwest and similar developed countries. Imagine how much better it would have been for Texas if their grid had a couple GW of solar ( and that much less wind), especially through the hot, dry weather of the last couple years. Also, why does it matter that solar isn't suitable right now for every possible type of building? Is there a shortage of large flat roofs and parking lots where you live? I can assure you that not the case of most of the ideal places in the Western world. If there was a Solar Mandate in the Southwest to, within 10 years, install PV on every suitable commercial, gov't or military roof and build solar thermal plants in the very low-density areas, with at least 1/4 of them having 6-8 hrs storage, it would be a very different America, with a lot less coal crap in the air.
That's because you weren't around in the early days of /.
It was quite commonplace.
Not to worry, we can easily find you somewhere to live where you won't feel neglected by the blue-suited thugs. Or you can just go for some fresh air and join a peaceful protest. I suggest wearing a full-face helmet - batons to the cranium and rubber bullets to the face make for nasty ouchies.
The government debt is one thing but household debt is a bigger factor in the economy and that grew wildly from 1980 to 2008. http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/amir.sufi/sufidebt.pdf
That one's still burning? I thought Red Adair had slammed the shut the Door to Hell.
No worries, coal seam fires like this one : http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/21/content_7120136.htm , some of which have been burning for decades should keep Dear Old Mother Urth toasty warm.
What will probably happen is that the movers and shakers of the Formerly Too Big to Fail will end up running most of the upstarts, if only because they are still the inside men who know where the bodies are buried. As an example, look what happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The boys in uniform left and returned to work in black suits, quickly converting from communism to capitalism while keeping their hands on the levers of power.
There's no subtext - if you believe that global warming / climate change is happening and it matters to you, then you should call out the deniers where they live, especially if you have a good grasp of the science and the issues.