Those exclude LULUCF (land use changes) - perhaps you have inclusive figures? (Although I'd be surprised if LULUCF could be bigger than the significant reductions in everything else.)
You've successfully demonstrated in spades your distinct lack of critical thinking. When you're in a hole stop digging (although I doubt you've even realized you're in a hole - Dunningâ"Kruger at its finest)
But it's all part of the conspiracy. Those evil liberal warmist archivers "corrected" the page in their database so that it gave the results they wanted. They were just correcting the raw data from their spiders before publishing. We want the original raw data and they won't give it to us!
We need the original waveforms on the ethernet cable. We don't want CRC checks, TCP retransmits and the like "correcting" the data. Have you even tried to get this data from them. "We don't have it. We processed it and immediately threw it away." It's obviously fraud at the highest levels all the way down.
Good. That's an improvement in your knowledge then.
Groupthink is science
Oops. Maybe not. You've confused cause and effect and clearly not understood what I wrote.
and CO2 is the sole problem.
Oh dear. The biggest problem here right now is your lack of critical thinking.
I assume since you are passionate about CO2
Passionate probably isn't the best word but I'll accept this in the sentiment I think you intended.
and saving the planet from destruction by this gas
Nope. I don't have kids and will never have kids. I merely need the economy to survive for another 50 years or so and it will definitely no longer be of any concern to me at all.
that's only destructive when it comes from humans
What!? It's fossil CO2 that is the problem. The primary sources are the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of concrete. Volcanoes are another source, small compared to the previous two but have had significant climate impact in the past. Their biggest climate impact now is short term cooling effects due to aerosols.
you will soon discontinuing breathing, yes?
No.
You can start with faulty premises, apply valid logic and arrive at an incorrect conclusion.
You can start with accurate premises, apply faulty logic and arrive at an incorrect conclusion.
You've gone one better. You've started with faulty premises, applied incorrect logic and arrived at a wrong conclusion. Unfortunately for you, two wrongs don't make a right or, as Pauli once so aptly put it, you aren't even wrong.
If there's one variable that affects the Earth's climate, it's the output of the Sun. If there's a second variable that affects the Earth's climate, it's the kinematics of the Earth about the Sun. Neither should be considered constant.
I don't get this. Neither are considered constant. The kinematics are sending us towards an ice age (15Kyears). The solar output is falling - slightly (which would lead to cooler temperatures) although I don't know whether that is expected to be a long (centuries) or short (years to decades) term thing.
But temperatures are rising. Something is overwhelming those natural effects.
consensus is not proof. some call this groupthink...
If 999 doctors say "you need to stop drinking that well water laced with arsenic to survive" and one holistic doctor says "dilute arsenic is good for you and anyway, shutting down that open cast mine that's polluting your well will cost the economy billions," you'd go with the homeopath?
The consensus of climate scientists isn't because they got around a table and decided what line they were going to peddle, they independently came to the same conclusion. And if you get them together you'll discover that they disagree vehemently on the finer nuances while agreeing completely on the big brush strokes.
They'll agree that we need to stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere. They probably won't agree on how to migrate the economy to a fossil free state nor even exactly how quickly it needs to be done. But every year that we ignore them adds another voice to the "we need to do it very fast even if it causes severe economic shocks" camp.
Take the arctic - the odd extremist is (was) saying no summer ice by 2016. As far as I can tell the consensus appears to be 3-4 decades and there are probably a few who say it will never happen.
(There's a rumour that the definition of ice free summer was very recently changed so as to be able to push the date out - it possibly went from a five year average 1MM sq km to five consecutive years 1MM sq km. Personally, I think this is a storm in a tea-cup due to someone writing one thing and meaning another but only time will tell if the new definition sticks - remember if it does that all the predictions you're heard up until now will be out possibly by 2+ decades)
What has been happening up until now is that the extremist (climate scientists) have been wrong - it's taken longer than they thought, but the rest have been wrong as well, it's been quicker than they predicted. Instead of you saying "oh, shit, 99.9% of climate scientists have previously underestimate the seriousness of the changes", your saying "hey, look, this one guy overestimated how serious it was therefore all the scientists are wrong".
Going back to my 999 doctors - if one of them says you'll be dead tomorrow if you continue drinking the water, you continue drinking it, and you don't die immediately, that's not evidence that the homeopath is right, it's just an incompetent and wrong application of logic.
If the arctic ice has disappeared in summer by 2030 you'll still be pointing at the 2016 figure. I remember when the mainstream scientists said it wouldn't happen this century. There's no way I'll live to the end of this century. There's a good chance that I'll survive 3-4 decades.
But part of the problem is that manufacturers just don't want us doing that stuff any more.
Look at things like openwrt. When the hardware exists, people hack on it and build great stuff that no manufacturer could afford to build.
But instead of embracing that, manufacturers go out of their way to stop people hacking on their devices.
Where can you find any usb memory stick/key that has a published interface to reflash it and make it do what you want? (You can do it easily with kits etc but I'd like something the size of a usb stick that does the same thing - ideally in a metal case so it doesn't get damaged when on a keyring with the rest of my keys)
(I've bought some very cheap usb memory sticks off ebay to hack on but it's so frustrating when you spend weeks just trying to get anything at all to happen instead of working on software to actually do anything useful. Fascinating to open them up and discover that there's an 8GB chip in there for a 128K stick - that's all they could find that actually works I guess:-) )
Every tablet seems locked down to the point where you spend days just getting past the manufacturer lockdowns always with the fear that one wrong step and you're going to permanently brick hundreds of pounds of hardware. A cooperative manufacturer would have a failsafe recovery mode, not booby traps.
I had hopes that the EU might eventually force this issue - maybe by the time I retire and have more time to experiment again - but I guess now we're leaving the EU we'll all be forced to be consumer sheep with no prospect of invention and discovery:-(
Except that according to its inventor (www.emdrive.com) thrust is related to not only power and cavity design, but also velocity. The net effect of this is, he claims, that the device has a terminal velocity of around 30km/s which is well below "free energy" speed.
And the solar system is orbiting the galactic centre at a speed of in excess of 200km/s. Therefore, according to its inventor, the EMDrive doesn't work.
How exactly do you intend to use the thrust to produce energy ?
The thing almost certainly only works if that thrust is used to move it - if you try and capture any of it to drive a turbine, the space-craft will stand still.
You run the drive generating thrust F at power P until you reach a speed v without extracting any energy. You then extract energy such that your retarding force exactly balances the thrust provided by the drive.
The thrust provided via the drive is using constant power but the retarding force is extracting F*v watts. If F>1/c N/W (photon drive) then you can choose a velocity v such that you can extract more energy than you're putting in without the vehicle slowing down
they assume that the only thing that matters is winning
This is, unfortunately, an inherent trait in humans.
There was, many years ago, a "competition" in Scientific American to win up to $1M
The rules were: 1. Random draw from all the entries received 2. You could enter as many times as you liked - to make this easier you could write multiple entries on a single postcard. (write the number of entries you wanted to submit on your postcard) 3. Final prize was $1M divided by the total number of entries.
It was estimated that there was in the order of 10K readers of the column. (Actually I think it was less than this but I can't be bothered to try and track down the columns again now) There had also been a detailed discussion of the prisoners dilemma and other related problems in the previous weeks.
It's immediately obvious that to win $1M you need to be the only entrant and send in a postcard with a single entry on it.
If every subscriber sent in a single postcard with a single entry on it then someone would win of the order of $100.
But some people sent in huge numbers - the postcard filled with '9's. Others went one better and put a 9 and then filled the postcard with '!'s (factorial). Others went even further.
IIRC the author (Douglas Hofstadter) wasn't actually able to determine who the winner was. He lacked the ability to randomly select from the total number of entries. He couldn't even tell which of the numbers was actually the largest.
However, whoever won, the number of entries was so large that the prize was zero for all intents and purposes.
Some people got it - some wrote in to say that they hadn't submitted an entry because they had metaphorically "tossed a coin" and lost and so allowed someone else to win a bigger prize. But so many people were more interested in winning nothing than someone winning something.
Most people have some time when they want to watch TV. While there's something on Netflix suitable they'll stay. But as soon as there isn't anything they'll look for alternatives and cancel their subscription.
It's that ages old beancounter issue. Making small "cost cutting" measures doesn't immediately lose you customers and increases your profits but it a) makes it harder to attract new customers, b) makes it more likely that regular customers will try alternatives and c) eventually triggers the regulars to be so dissatisfied that they leave and tell everyone "it used to be good but..."
If there's no mass then E=cp (from E^2 = c^2 p^2 + m_0^2 c^4)
So you've still got a problem with infinities
You've asserted that Energy is still conserved so E=hf should still hold (for a photon). Assuming Planck's constant doesn't change then \lambda must become infinite if c becomes infinite which, in turn implies that the universe must be infinitely large.
The problem with all these hairbrained schemes is that people throw them around without working through all the consequences and explaining exactly how they are all dealt with.
When that is done it's almost always the case that there's something apparent that we already know to be false.
(I'll leave it as an exercise to see what happens if Planck's constant also changes:-) I don't recall if it was Fantastic Voyage or Asimov's sequel but I vaguely remember that the basic theory was that they wanted to reduce h but it turned out that this actually increased c at the same time - so the idea isn't new, it's already been played with by SF authors. What would turn this from SF to science is working through all the implications instead of just handwaving them away)
Reading Slashdot comments it seems that many seasoned developers are dismissive of some pretty good new tech, even after it's been around for much longer than 5 years.
C# is a great example.
Lets assume that C# is, indeed, better than sliced bread.
However, in a linux shop with no C# development at all, no infrastructure to support it (mono?) and nobody who is knowledgeable in the tools, config, support, failure modes or problems, is it wise to "jump ship" from whatever technology is working currently?
I'm not saying it's definitely wrong but, changing to use C# isn't an "agile" thing. One developer who knows about it and can support it on his own desktop, can probably make it work - but can he make it work across the company more cost effectively than not adopting it? It's a business case that needs to be made.
And if that evangelist decides to leave after nine months because getting a company to adopt a "new improved" language turns out to be bloody hard work, will the company be able to continue with the investment so far or will it decide to go back to the tried and tested?
Many programmers refuse to open the Pandora's box and they stick to a tool, paradigm or coding style they know even though its not the best thing to solve the problem at hand.
Precisely the OP's point.
That's a typical trait of a junior developer, or an experienced developer who has worked solo for most of they're career.
I disagree.
The experienced developer has been chopping down trees for years with an axe. He's been putting up shelves with a drill. he's been cutting floorboards with a circular saw. And occasionally he's been cursing because he's having to make do with the wrong tool because although he knows what the right tool is, paying $lots for a tool he will use just once can't be justified.
Alongside that there are countless (less experienced) developers suggesting that he uses the circular saw to cut down the tree, the axe to put up the shelf, the drill to cut the floorboard and the experienced developer isn't particularly impressed.
But in the back of his mind he's always got that thought "what if that next tool is the chainsaw. " Just think how many trees I could cut down then. But even when the chainsaw comes along, he continues to use the circular saw on the floorboards, the drill for the shelves and, indeed, he may even still use the axe from time to time.
There is not enough insolation (sunlight striking the Earth) to power the current energy needs.
Where do you get ideas like this from? It's trivially untrue.
Solar constant is >1kW/m^2.
That's 1GW/km^2
Egypt alone is 1Mkm^2.
So we're talking about 1000TW peak generating capacity
Earths total energy consumption is the order of a hundred thousand TWh/year. Covering Egypt in solar panels would be able to generate that much energy in a few months with current technology, certainly less than a year.
If I remember my numbers correctly there's around 100km/degree * 360 degress * 100 km/degree * 60 degrees ~ 216 Egypts (including ocean) within 30 degrees of the equator. We're not even close to using 1% of the total solar energy available.
Quite frankly, the biggest problem with the brexit referendum question is that "leave the EU" has so many different meanings, from repeal the 1972 EU act but write identical laws to those we get from Europe into our books to go it alone and refuse to do any more business with the EU at all under any circumstances.
The argument now before parliament appears to be whether we should demand the ability to control immigration regardless of what other compromise we must then make or we should retain access to the single market, ditto compromises.
As far as I can tell, MPs are asking to be allowed to make that choice before TM activates article 50.
Some will, inevitably, try to use it to block Brexit completely but it doesn't appear that there's a majority who would be prepared to take that line.
I'm at a loss to think of something from technological history that is comparable to this possibility: something that didn't seen possible or feasible under the known laws of physics or nature, but turned out to actually "fly".
The laser perhaps? I don't think it could be conceived of until Einstein.
The difference with this discovery (if true) is that Einstein laid the theoretical framework and then the laser was built 43 years later (36 years for the maser) while in this case we appear to have an empirical device with no solid theory behind it (yet...)
It's important to note that this is a worst-case scenario No. The worst case scenario they considered is "Business as usual".
which typically means its somewhat improbable
Unfortunately not. It's the most likely scenario. The only positive note is that there doesn't appear to be a concerted effort to increase emissions so it's reasonably to reject scenarios with CO2e increasing faster than BaU (unless you think positive feedbacks for CO2 and CH4 emissions are starting to significantly kick in now)
Slashdot Mirror
From where are you getting your figures?
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/s...
That claims they're down 22% from 1990 levels.
Those exclude LULUCF (land use changes) - perhaps you have inclusive figures? (Although I'd be surprised if LULUCF could be bigger than the significant reductions in everything else.)
It was a hint, not the answer.
Another hint: what is the source of C14?
You've successfully demonstrated in spades your distinct lack of critical thinking. When you're in a hole stop digging (although I doubt you've even realized you're in a hole - Dunningâ"Kruger at its finest)
There is something different between the CO2 that you exhale and "fossil CO2"
Yes.
that allows infrared radiation to be absorbed by one and not the other?
But this isn't it.
Left as an exercise as to what the important difference is in this case.
Hint, CO2 that is exhaled contains trace amounts of C14. Fossil CO2 doesn't.
But it's all part of the conspiracy. Those evil liberal warmist archivers "corrected" the page in their database so that it gave the results they wanted. They were just correcting the raw data from their spiders before publishing. We want the original raw data and they won't give it to us!
We need the original waveforms on the ethernet cable. We don't want CRC checks, TCP retransmits and the like "correcting" the data. Have you even tried to get this data from them. "We don't have it. We processed it and immediately threw it away." It's obviously fraud at the highest levels all the way down.
Well, you've convinced me.
Good. That's an improvement in your knowledge then.
Groupthink is science
Oops. Maybe not. You've confused cause and effect and clearly not understood what I wrote.
and CO2 is the sole problem.
Oh dear. The biggest problem here right now is your lack of critical thinking.
I assume since you are passionate about CO2
Passionate probably isn't the best word but I'll accept this in the sentiment I think you intended.
and saving the planet from destruction by this gas
Nope. I don't have kids and will never have kids. I merely need the economy to survive for another 50 years or so and it will definitely no longer be of any concern to me at all.
that's only destructive when it comes from humans
What!? It's fossil CO2 that is the problem. The primary sources are the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of concrete. Volcanoes are another source, small compared to the previous two but have had significant climate impact in the past. Their biggest climate impact now is short term cooling effects due to aerosols.
you will soon discontinuing breathing, yes?
No.
You can start with faulty premises, apply valid logic and arrive at an incorrect conclusion.
You can start with accurate premises, apply faulty logic and arrive at an incorrect conclusion.
You've gone one better. You've started with faulty premises, applied incorrect logic and arrived at a wrong conclusion. Unfortunately for you, two wrongs don't make a right or, as Pauli once so aptly put it, you aren't even wrong.
If there's one variable that affects the Earth's climate, it's the output of the Sun. If there's a second variable that affects the Earth's climate, it's the kinematics of the Earth about the Sun. Neither should be considered constant.
I don't get this. Neither are considered constant. The kinematics are sending us towards an ice age (15Kyears). The solar output is falling - slightly (which would lead to cooler temperatures) although I don't know whether that is expected to be a long (centuries) or short (years to decades) term thing.
But temperatures are rising. Something is overwhelming those natural effects.
consensus is not proof. some call this groupthink...
If 999 doctors say "you need to stop drinking that well water laced with arsenic to survive" and one holistic doctor says "dilute arsenic is good for you and anyway, shutting down that open cast mine that's polluting your well will cost the economy billions," you'd go with the homeopath?
The consensus of climate scientists isn't because they got around a table and decided what line they were going to peddle, they independently came to the same conclusion. And if you get them together you'll discover that they disagree vehemently on the finer nuances while agreeing completely on the big brush strokes.
They'll agree that we need to stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere. They probably won't agree on how to migrate the economy to a fossil free state nor even exactly how quickly it needs to be done. But every year that we ignore them adds another voice to the "we need to do it very fast even if it causes severe economic shocks" camp.
Take the arctic - the odd extremist is (was) saying no summer ice by 2016. As far as I can tell the consensus appears to be 3-4 decades and there are probably a few who say it will never happen.
(There's a rumour that the definition of ice free summer was very recently changed so as to be able to push the date out - it possibly went from a five year average 1MM sq km to five consecutive years 1MM sq km. Personally, I think this is a storm in a tea-cup due to someone writing one thing and meaning another but only time will tell if the new definition sticks - remember if it does that all the predictions you're heard up until now will be out possibly by 2+ decades)
What has been happening up until now is that the extremist (climate scientists) have been wrong - it's taken longer than they thought, but the rest have been wrong as well, it's been quicker than they predicted. Instead of you saying "oh, shit, 99.9% of climate scientists have previously underestimate the seriousness of the changes", your saying "hey, look, this one guy overestimated how serious it was therefore all the scientists are wrong".
Going back to my 999 doctors - if one of them says you'll be dead tomorrow if you continue drinking the water, you continue drinking it, and you don't die immediately, that's not evidence that the homeopath is right, it's just an incompetent and wrong application of logic.
If the arctic ice has disappeared in summer by 2030 you'll still be pointing at the 2016 figure. I remember when the mainstream scientists said it wouldn't happen this century. There's no way I'll live to the end of this century. There's a good chance that I'll survive 3-4 decades.
Well said.
But part of the problem is that manufacturers just don't want us doing that stuff any more.
Look at things like openwrt. When the hardware exists, people hack on it and build great stuff that no manufacturer could afford to build.
But instead of embracing that, manufacturers go out of their way to stop people hacking on their devices.
Where can you find any usb memory stick/key that has a published interface to reflash it and make it do what you want? (You can do it easily with kits etc but I'd like something the size of a usb stick that does the same thing - ideally in a metal case so it doesn't get damaged when on a keyring with the rest of my keys)
(I've bought some very cheap usb memory sticks off ebay to hack on but it's so frustrating when you spend weeks just trying to get anything at all to happen instead of working on software to actually do anything useful. Fascinating to open them up and discover that there's an 8GB chip in there for a 128K stick - that's all they could find that actually works I guess :-) )
Every tablet seems locked down to the point where you spend days just getting past the manufacturer lockdowns always with the fear that one wrong step and you're going to permanently brick hundreds of pounds of hardware. A cooperative manufacturer would have a failsafe recovery mode, not booby traps.
I had hopes that the EU might eventually force this issue - maybe by the time I retire and have more time to experiment again - but I guess now we're leaving the EU we'll all be forced to be consumer sheep with no prospect of invention and discovery :-(
Except that according to its inventor (www.emdrive.com) thrust is related to not only power and cavity design, but also velocity. The net effect of this is, he claims, that the device has a terminal velocity of around 30km/s which is well below "free energy" speed.
And the solar system is orbiting the galactic centre at a speed of in excess of 200km/s. Therefore, according to its inventor, the EMDrive doesn't work.
QED.
How exactly do you intend to use the thrust to produce energy ?
The thing almost certainly only works if that thrust is used to move it - if you try and capture any of it to drive a turbine, the space-craft will stand still.
You run the drive generating thrust F at power P until you reach a speed v without extracting any energy. You then extract energy such that your retarding force exactly balances the thrust provided by the drive.
The thrust provided via the drive is using constant power but the retarding force is extracting F*v watts. If F>1/c N/W (photon drive) then you can choose a velocity v such that you can extract more energy than you're putting in without the vehicle slowing down
they assume that the only thing that matters is winning
This is, unfortunately, an inherent trait in humans.
There was, many years ago, a "competition" in Scientific American to win up to $1M
The rules were:
1. Random draw from all the entries received
2. You could enter as many times as you liked - to make this easier you could write multiple entries on a single postcard. (write the number of entries you wanted to submit on your postcard)
3. Final prize was $1M divided by the total number of entries.
It was estimated that there was in the order of 10K readers of the column. (Actually I think it was less than this but I can't be bothered to try and track down the columns again now) There had also been a detailed discussion of the prisoners dilemma and other related problems in the previous weeks.
It's immediately obvious that to win $1M you need to be the only entrant and send in a postcard with a single entry on it.
If every subscriber sent in a single postcard with a single entry on it then someone would win of the order of $100.
But some people sent in huge numbers - the postcard filled with '9's. Others went one better and put a 9 and then filled the postcard with '!'s (factorial). Others went even further.
IIRC the author (Douglas Hofstadter) wasn't actually able to determine who the winner was. He lacked the ability to randomly select from the total number of entries. He couldn't even tell which of the numbers was actually the largest.
However, whoever won, the number of entries was so large that the prize was zero for all intents and purposes.
Some people got it - some wrote in to say that they hadn't submitted an entry because they had metaphorically "tossed a coin" and lost and so allowed someone else to win a bigger prize. But so many people were more interested in winning nothing than someone winning something.
Of course. And no attribution required. It's public domain :-)
You can lead an ass to knowledge but you cannot make him learn.
But that's probably it.
Most people have some time when they want to watch TV. While there's something on Netflix suitable they'll stay. But as soon as there isn't anything they'll look for alternatives and cancel their subscription.
It's that ages old beancounter issue. Making small "cost cutting" measures doesn't immediately lose you customers and increases your profits but it a) makes it harder to attract new customers, b) makes it more likely that regular customers will try alternatives and c) eventually triggers the regulars to be so dissatisfied that they leave and tell everyone "it used to be good but..."
Door lock doesn't make any difference if the car is in water. You cannot open the door against the water pressure, locked or not.
That's why, if you're in a car that falls into water it's essential that you open the windows before the electrics short out
It stops people smashing a small window and then unlocking the door from the inside to get it.
If there's no mass then E=cp (from E^2 = c^2 p^2 + m_0^2 c^4)
So you've still got a problem with infinities
You've asserted that Energy is still conserved so E=hf should still hold (for a photon). Assuming Planck's constant doesn't change then \lambda must become infinite if c becomes infinite which, in turn implies that the universe must be infinitely large.
The problem with all these hairbrained schemes is that people throw them around without working through all the consequences and explaining exactly how they are all dealt with.
When that is done it's almost always the case that there's something apparent that we already know to be false.
(I'll leave it as an exercise to see what happens if Planck's constant also changes :-) I don't recall if it was Fantastic Voyage or Asimov's sequel but I vaguely remember that the basic theory was that they wanted to reduce h but it turned out that this actually increased c at the same time - so the idea isn't new, it's already been played with by SF authors. What would turn this from SF to science is working through all the implications instead of just handwaving them away)
Reading Slashdot comments it seems that many seasoned developers are dismissive of some pretty good new tech, even after it's been around for much longer than 5 years.
C# is a great example.
Lets assume that C# is, indeed, better than sliced bread.
However, in a linux shop with no C# development at all, no infrastructure to support it (mono?) and nobody who is knowledgeable in the tools, config, support, failure modes or problems, is it wise to "jump ship" from whatever technology is working currently?
I'm not saying it's definitely wrong but, changing to use C# isn't an "agile" thing. One developer who knows about it and can support it on his own desktop, can probably make it work - but can he make it work across the company more cost effectively than not adopting it? It's a business case that needs to be made.
And if that evangelist decides to leave after nine months because getting a company to adopt a "new improved" language turns out to be bloody hard work, will the company be able to continue with the investment so far or will it decide to go back to the tried and tested?
I disagree.
The experienced developer has been chopping down trees for years with an axe. He's been putting up shelves with a drill. he's been cutting floorboards with a circular saw. And occasionally he's been cursing because he's having to make do with the wrong tool because although he knows what the right tool is, paying $lots for a tool he will use just once can't be justified.
Alongside that there are countless (less experienced) developers suggesting that he uses the circular saw to cut down the tree, the axe to put up the shelf, the drill to cut the floorboard and the experienced developer isn't particularly impressed.
But in the back of his mind he's always got that thought "what if that next tool is the chainsaw. " Just think how many trees I could cut down then. But even when the chainsaw comes along, he continues to use the circular saw on the floorboards, the drill for the shelves and, indeed, he may even still use the axe from time to time.
There is not enough insolation (sunlight striking the Earth) to power the current energy needs.
Where do you get ideas like this from? It's trivially untrue.
Solar constant is >1kW/m^2.
That's 1GW/km^2
Egypt alone is 1Mkm^2.
So we're talking about 1000TW peak generating capacity
Earths total energy consumption is the order of a hundred thousand TWh/year. Covering Egypt in solar panels would be able to generate that much energy in a few months with current technology, certainly less than a year.
If I remember my numbers correctly there's around 100km/degree * 360 degress * 100 km/degree * 60 degrees ~ 216 Egypts (including ocean) within 30 degrees of the equator. We're not even close to using 1% of the total solar energy available.
Tamino doesn't see evidence of a slowdown:
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2...
Quite frankly, the biggest problem with the brexit referendum question is that "leave the EU" has so many different meanings, from repeal the 1972 EU act but write identical laws to those we get from Europe into our books to go it alone and refuse to do any more business with the EU at all under any circumstances.
The argument now before parliament appears to be whether we should demand the ability to control immigration regardless of what other compromise we must then make or we should retain access to the single market, ditto compromises.
As far as I can tell, MPs are asking to be allowed to make that choice before TM activates article 50.
Some will, inevitably, try to use it to block Brexit completely but it doesn't appear that there's a majority who would be prepared to take that line.
producing thrust when moving around the earth in both zero gravity
Minor nitpick but orbiting the Earth isn't zero gravity - it's free fall.
As we have no idea how this works, it might matter. (So the drive might work in low Earth orbit but not work well in interstellar space)
I'm at a loss to think of something from technological history that is comparable to this possibility: something that didn't seen possible or feasible under the known laws of physics or nature, but turned out to actually "fly".
The laser perhaps? I don't think it could be conceived of until Einstein.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The difference with this discovery (if true) is that Einstein laid the theoretical framework and then the laser was built 43 years later (36 years for the maser) while in this case we appear to have an empirical device with no solid theory behind it (yet...)
It's important to note that this is a worst-case scenario
No. The worst case scenario they considered is "Business as usual".
which typically means its somewhat improbable
Unfortunately not. It's the most likely scenario. The only positive note is that there doesn't appear to be a concerted effort to increase emissions so it's reasonably to reject scenarios with CO2e increasing faster than BaU (unless you think positive feedbacks for CO2 and CH4 emissions are starting to significantly kick in now)