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Coal Miner at 11:45 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
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Should be pretty easy to switch to RE in a small country like NZ. 80% of electricity, mostly from Hydro; but only 40% overall energy from RE; but that is better than the 6% or so RE in the US.
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We're slowly going to RE, mostly in electrical production. If EVs can reduce cost of gas, I'll be happy, but when that happens fewer people buy EVs. EVs are almost insignificant now - maybe 1% of sales, with the EIA projecting 6% of sales by 2040. Hybrids topped out at 3.2% of sales and are now about 2% of sales due to low gas prices. If you can use one and can afford it, great. I need a car that will cover longer distances than EVs. Hybrids are not a solution to carbon, and EVs are only if the source is not adding carbon.
I'm hoping a workable and economical solution will be found soon to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Here's a top of the head proposal: Build desalinazion plants (nuke powered perhaps) along the ocean coasts of dry areas with decent soil. Water the land and grow plants to absorb CO2 - perhaps trees.
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nigelj at 11:29 AM on 11 February 2017What do gorilla suits and blowfish fallacies have to do with climate change?
Digby Scorgie @5, yes the emails were a giant blowfish, permeating the campaign and media and distracting from everything really important. The woman was a bit slack with her computer systems, but it was never the big issue it was claimed to be. Obamas birth certificate was also a blowfish.
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nigelj at 11:17 AM on 11 February 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
Chriskoz @11, one correction to my comment immediately above. I meant to say climate change is not "only" a social problem. Clearly it is a social issue in that those who currently benefit from buring the most fossil fuels are not those going to be most affected. And it's a self interest family weath issue that is perceived to be an insulator.
But it's also the things I said related to politics and so on. This is why humanity is struggling with the climate issue, its complex and muti facetted. What's needed is some circuit breaker that cuts through all this.
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John Hartz at 10:53 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
@ Coal Miner #60: Something for you to chew on:
The world could reach peak oil and coal in as little as three years—not because either is close to running out, but because of the falling cost of solar power and electric cars and stronger climate policy.
A new report from the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the Carbon Tracker Initiative analyzed how much demand for solar and EVs could impact demand for fossil fuels, and how quickly that could happen. Researchers modeled various levels of climate policy and energy demand, and the low and dropping costs of low-carbon technology.
"We've been aware through our research here at Imperial about the very dramatic cost reductions in solar photovoltaics and also lithium ion batteries…and about the potential for photovoltaics and electric vehicles to cause disruption in the energy market if their costs reach particular tipping points," says Ajay Ghambir, a research fellow at the Grantham Institute. "What we wanted to do was get underneath some of the hype and try and think about what some of the consequences would be of very fast take-up of these technologies, driven by their cost-competitiveness, on the energy system."
The World Could Reach Peak Coal and Oil in Three Years Thanks to Cheap Renewables by Adele Peters, Coexist, Feb 7, 2017
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nigelj at 10:43 AM on 11 February 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
Chriskoz @11, just another thing, people like Trump who don't care about climate change have enough money, and probably gamble that their children, and their childrens children will be insulated by inherited money. But of course it's a gamble, because ultimately nobody will be able to escape the negative affects.
Climate change is not really a cost problem, but I'm not sure it is a social problem. I would say climate change is not basically even a science denial problem, with the vast majority.
Climate change is an ideological problem about community versus individual rights, and it is a problem of political will that is tied to campaign donations, and a problem of psychological addiction to fossil fuels that subconsciously distorts our thinking.
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Tom Curtis at 10:31 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @54, diesel can be produced from electricity, water and CO2. So can jet fuel. Given that, solving the standing energy problem (as has been demonstrated by those cities) defacto solves the problem for transport. There may be some time to commercialization of those processes, but the transport problem (particularly air transport) is well recognized as the most intractable problem to solve. (That is part of the reason why we should be converting to renewable supplies of standing energy far more rapidly then we are currently doing.)
Interestingly, one of the problems with renewable energy is that you have to overbuild capacity so that the variable supply will be sufficient in periods of low wind/overcast conditions. The excess energy produced in the periods of oversupply is effectively free, and can readilly be harnessed to create fuels, desalinate water, or in other processes that are not time critical, and will be economic (or significantly more so) given the supply of very cheap energy (if variable).
(This will be my last reply to Coal Miner to avoid dogpiling.)
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nigelj at 10:23 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @60
"Bottom line is that when it is economically sound RE will replace FFs. It's happening slowly. Energy for buildings is easy. It will take a while to convert all of them, but it may happen. For now, FF are the way to go for the projects I mentioned - that's why I mentioned them."
No that is a little simplistic, with respect. Alternative energy is already economically sound, as it is very close to fossil fuel costs, and doesn't have to be identical. It is economically sound enough right now.
However markets will not, or may not, adopt renewables if they are even slightly more costly, given the nature of markets.The wider adoption is an entirely political choice that requires economic incentives like subsidies, or regulatory directives, or carbon taxes etc. Personally given the small difference in costs it would not require much of a subsidy or other mechanism. That is the irony.
The thing in the way is not the technical means or affordable prices, but political will.
Energy for buildings is indeed a bit easier. Insulation, and low energy systems, bring quite good and immediate cost savings, as well as reduced CO2, so government incentives may not be needed so much
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Tom Curtis at 10:22 AM on 11 February 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
GB @87, first, the Sun is gradually getting warmer over time. The formula that describes its rate of warming is:
L(t)/L(c) = 1/(1+2*(1-t/t(c))/5)
Where L(t) is the luminosity at time, t, L(c) is the current luminosity of 3.85 *10^26 Watts, t is the time in Gigayears from the formation of the Sun, and t(c) is the current time since the formation of the Sun, or 4.57 Gigayears.
Using this formula we can calculate that to maintain the same temperature as we had in the preindustrial, in the Carboniferous (when most coal, and hence most fossil carbon was laid down) we would have required an extra 700 ppmv of CO2 in the atmosphere to maintain preindustrial temperatures. 100 million years ago (the approximate age of most oil (but see also the age of the Tethys sea, were most middle eastern oil was laid down), we would have required an additional 130 ppmv of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Of course, CO2 pumped straight into the atmosphere does not simply stay there, but over time, achieves equilibrium with the ocean, and with the chemical weathering process.
That means to achieve a stable eqilibrium the actual amount of CO2 not locked up in fossil fuels would have had to be 4 or more times the 830 ppmv indicated just by considering insolation. Allowing for the much faster chemical weathering prior to the carboniferous (ie, when there were no land plants to slow weathering) it would have been much more. And more still again to account for the fact that in the Carboniferous and earlier, the Earth was warmer than it currently is. Although an exact calculation of the amount of CO2 locked away to balance these factors is not available, these back of the envelope calculations show the magnitudes are in the right range.
More exact (but still approximate) calculations using carbon cycle models reproduce the history of Earth's temperature quite well, given known changes in CO2 concentration:
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nigelj at 10:12 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
OPOF says "The fragility of the current global economy is due to previous generations failing to ensure that only lasting better ways of living were allowed to compete for popularity and profitability.'
Correct. An example of an unsustainable market might be the American derivatives market, that is implicated as a causal factor in the 2008 financial crash. This market was irresponsibly structured, largely unregulated by government, and used flawed products. It was not a sustainable market, and its products were deliberately incomprehensible to get past clients and regulators. It was a market driven by extraordinary attempts to push the limits, and make financial gains that were little more than gambling or some sort of game.
After the housing market tanked out, the derivative market weaknesses were exposed and it collapsed, requiring government bail outs of some of the affected institutions. The collapse made the whole crash worse. The perpetrators escaped unscathed, and the tax payers paid the clean up costs, to a large extent.
The general banking system followed an almost identical pattern, with poor ethical practices and bonus systems that rewarded excessive risk taking, that lead to collapses and tax payer funded bail outs. This is well documented on the economist.com
I'm sceptical about carbon emissions trading schemes (Cap and Trade) as they could go the same way. These schemes are ok when in a text book, but run against difficulties in the real world, and are easy to manipulate in nefarious ways, by both devious governments and corporates. We have better options, like carbon taxes or systems that promote renewable electricity more directly and simply.
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Digby Scorgie at 09:57 AM on 11 February 2017What do gorilla suits and blowfish fallacies have to do with climate change?
When I described the blowfish fallacy to my wife, she immediately saw the parallel with Hillary's e-mails. In hindsight it's obvious.
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chriskoz at 09:41 AM on 11 February 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
bjchip@8,
I would laso add to your observations the fact that those who benefit the current use of FF, polluting the air with CO2 and stomping the largest footprint on environment in general are not those who are affected by the resulting climate change as revealed by (Samson 2011). Further to that, most impacts will play out with 30-40 year delay, i.e. within the lifetime of next generation; the more serious impacts, the more current generation procrastinates the mitigation. So, intergenerational ethics are involved here.
All of that confirms what I've been pionting throughout this site many times: AGW is not an environmental problem but social problem. If it was environmental problem only, it would've been resolved already, or at least contained for the next couple hundred years. The technology for necessary emission reductions already exists, and the lifestyle changes to further reduce our emissions are not that hard, certainly much easier IMO than e.g. lifestyle changes in allied nations during WW2 to combat nazism.
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Coal Miner at 09:12 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Bottom line is that when it is economically sound RE will replace FFs. It's happening slowly. Energy for buildings is easy. It will take a while to convert all of them, but it may happen. For now, FF are the way to go for the projects I mentioned - that's why I mentioned them. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:39 AM on 11 February 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
GB... For starters, carbon is the sixth most abundant element in the universe but that's very different than the "carbon cycle" being discussed here. The carbon in fossil fuels was part of an ancient carbon cycle from millions of years ago that has since become sequestered in the earth's crust. Fossil fuels (or "hydrocarbons") are ancient plant and animal life.
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Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
If we are to assume that humans only recycle Carbon without adding any, and fossil fuels are not part of the cycle anymore, it begs to asks the question "where all the carbon came from before it became fossil fuel".?
If carbon in CO2 (now stored in fossil fuels) was in the atmosphere to start with, how come the planet cooled down? Thanks for simple answer, I am not Scientist.
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One Planet Only Forever at 08:03 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner,
The fragility of the current global economy is due to previous generations failing to ensure that only lasting better ways of living were allowed to compete for popularity and profitability.
Helping improve the future for all of humanity has not been the objective. The result has been a steady stream of developments that are harmful to the future of humanity.
Alberta, in Canada, is an example of an overdeveloped delusional economic perception. The push to rapidly expand the rate of extraction of bitumen from the sands of Alberta to be burned around the globe has created "a fragile economic situation" (and allows Alberta to claim the extraction activity does not contribute significantly to the CO2 problem, because they do not count the CO2 created to ship the un-upgraded stuff, upgrade it to a refinable oil, refine the upgrade stuff into burnable product, ship it to be loaded for burning and the ultimate burning - and they also exclude the potential that the Petroleum Coke waste produced by upgrading the stuff by the likes of Koch Industry operations will also be sold to burn - and burning the Pet Coke is worse than burning low grade coal).
Many similar gambles on getting away with behaving less acceptably have developed. It is undeniably harmful to the future of humanity to claim that such developments need to be prolonged, or be allowed to recoup the investments gambled on them. Some particularly uncaring people even try to claim that the unacceptable activities must be allowed to expand, claiming that the problems they create can only be solved by wealthier people.
Of course, the wealthy people today do not have to pay a penny to solve the future problems. That is part of the fallacy of such claims. Fundamentally, it is unacceptable for any portion of humanity to benefit in ways that create problems for other portions of humanity. That includes any current generation of humanity creating problems that will be faced by future generations.
So, from the perspective of the golden rule of making things better than you found them, "how much of the current developed economic delusions of prosperity have to disappear to stop making problems for future generations" is not really relevant. No amount of such unjustified perceived value having to be given up by a portion of the current generation Trumps the need to stop making bigger problems that future generations will have to deal with. However, whatever real wealth is available to the current generation needs to used to ensure that the least fortunate live a decent basic life (something that the flawed economic games have failed to do even though measures of wealth have grown faster than population, including in regions like Africa).
The future of humanity requires the rapid transition to truly lasting ways of living, the quicker the better, no matter how the economics of such ways of living compare to less acceptable ways of living that may be able to have popular support easily Trumped up for.
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nigelj at 07:35 AM on 11 February 2017Whistleblower: ‘I knew people would misuse this.’ They did - to attack climate science
OPOF @5, yes I see that does fit your context. But perhaps deceived mind is more accurate.
Terms are problematic. I struggle with them.
If I'm using a contentious term, eg capitalism, free markets, I now always explain what I understand these things to mean.
People are using the term elite in a snarling, derogatory sense. It's twisted the meaning of the word from something to be admired to the opposite. It's become almost secret code among a certain group to put the elite down.
It's similar to the use of the term "politically correct" which carries massively critical connotations, yet defines accurate definition.
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nigelj at 07:09 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
You want a demonstartion case on renewaable electricity? I live in New Zealand. We already get approximately 80% of our electricty from renewables, including hydro, geothermal and wind. Much of the rest is gas from local sources. More wind power is planned, but right now supply is a little ahead of demand.
The system works and electricty is moderately priced.
Of course we are lucky to have had geothermal power and I'm sure coal miner types of people will say we dont have a really large wind power grid as yet, but the bottom line is we are 80% renewables, and electricty wholesale electricity costs are moderate. Retail costs are hiked up at times, but this is due to features of the market and spot pricing, not the nature of the sources.
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nigelj at 07:01 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Rob Honeycutt @56, exactly it's a game of shifting goal posts, and also setting the bar so high it is impossible.
And the denialists will demand all 5 demonstration projects are built, before they make a decision on anything.
Then when demostration projects are built, they will say they don't believe the data. And if the data is replicated, they will say CO2 is plant food.
The important thing is we already know all renewable problems can be solved eventually, at an affordable price, from numerous lines of evidence, so theres no reason not to start on building the easy ones now.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:49 AM on 11 February 2017Whistleblower: ‘I knew people would misuse this.’ They did - to attack climate science
nigelj,
I will clarify that my reference to a Made-up mind is more about the thoughts and beliefs lacking a substantive basis in the known observable understandable reality of things and what is actually going on.
Which highlights how problematic using "Terms" can be.
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Rob Honeycutt at 06:47 AM on 11 February 2017What do gorilla suits and blowfish fallacies have to do with climate change?
CM... That TED video is very good. It's probably more complex than most people can grasp, though.
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nigelj at 06:38 AM on 11 February 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
William Leslie @9, I have seen several polls showing young people accept climate science in much greater numbers than older people, despite the disinformation campaigns. I expect this is partly because schools teach the science these days, and also more about critical thinking. The older generation didn't get all this, and are set in their ways.
But your studies are really interesting.
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nigelj at 06:22 AM on 11 February 2017What do gorilla suits and blowfish fallacies have to do with climate change?
Coal Miner @2,
"Best bet if you want to convince the public at this point is to make very detailed evidence and explanations for how it works (CO2 absorption of heat) available online."
For those that are interested or have sufficient maths such details on the greenhouse effect are obviously easily googled.
And a detailed explanation of the greenhouse effect or physics of CO2 is not the best way to convince the public. Virtually nobody is going to do this sort of reading, as they don't have the time, and also won't understand what they are reading. They don't have a physics degree, or a few spare years to get one.
I have already explained this to you, so in my view you are just deliberately spreading a "red herring" argument, ( as discussed above).
Popular books on climate change teach the simple basics of the greenhouse effect and are already available and are quick to read. It's hard enough getting people to read even those.
Some people do think climate change is all a conspiracy. The same people probably think 911 was a conspiracy. They will also think laboratory experiments and equations on CO2 are a conspiracy or fake data.
One way way to prove it's not a conspiracy or agenda, is for people to read more about logical fallacies as discussed in the article, and why conspiracy theories are dumb. There are plenty of easy to read books on this, that are very entertaining as well.
Another way is for a few more politicians to start showing some courage and leadership, by speaking out about the climate problem. But right now they get campaign donations from the fossil fuel lobby, so we have a classic "catch 22" situation.
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Eclectic at 01:50 AM on 11 February 2017There is no consensus
Spassapparat @744 & prior :
two points for your consideration, are (A) the design of the Cook-2013 study included a second part where the scientific paper authors were surveyed to discover their assessments of their own papers, regarding attribution ... and this second part confirmed the accuracy of the first part
and (B) the average "age" of the papers equalled approx. 2005 ... so 10 years or more ago. Reading the Cook et al. study shows that later papers were more "attributive" than earlier papers. This result is exactly what one would expect, in view of scientific research subsequent to 2005 all indicating the high [ approx. 100% ] attribution to human-causation of global warming. (See the latest IPCC summaries)
Additionally, if you look around the world today, you find almost no genuine climate scientists who attempt to support a contrary [ =non-human ] attribution for the present & continuing rapid warming.
We can enjoy having Spass with words & rhetoric, but it is our duty to look at the Realitaet — the physical reality of atoms & energies which underlie the words. That reality is experiencing major warming, and the causation is scientifically very clear and obvious.
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William Leslie at 01:41 AM on 11 February 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
It's unfortunate that so much time and energy needs to be expended debunking the denialists over and over and over again. Another approach is to inoculate young people and others with open minds who are capable of being reached before they fall into the rabbit hole of denialism. Search "LA Times fake news vaccine" for an article in the subject.
"The scientific consensus on climate change gets diluted as the public sorts between real news and fake news, facts and alternative facts. Misinformation can spread like a virus.
But just like a virus, it may be possible to “vaccinate” people against the effects of fake news, according to a new study in the journal Global Challenges.
“There’s phony arguments out there, but when you alert people to who’s putting them out and why, it may dampen their impact,” said Riley Dunlap, an environmental sociologist at Oklahoma State University who was not involved with the study."
Moderator Response:[JH] The article you are referencing is:
It's possible to 'vaccinate' Americans against fake news, experiment shows by Sean Greene, Los Angeles Times, Jan 26, 2017
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:31 AM on 11 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
CM @54... This is a rather silly game of repeatedly moving the goalposts. It seems to me you won't be convinced of anything until 100% renewables are 100% in place.
Moving away from fossil fuels and toward renewables is a process. It's a process that will take at least another 30-40 years. And ultimately it's going to be a mix of energy sources through the rest of this century, at least. The whole point is, because there's been so much delay, we have to reduce our use off carbon emitting energy sources very quickly. Renewables offer the best, fastest and cheapest pathway to do this.
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michael sweet at 22:21 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner,
No-one is against demonstration projects. You need to withdraw your false claim. I find it amusing that you insist that renewable energy cannot be expanded until it proves (to your extremely high standard) that it is more economic. At the same time you insist that uneconomic demonstration projects be constructed all over the USA to show renewable energy will work. No-one is proposing that airplanes have to be replaced tomorrow. That solution will be worked out as we build out the WWS electricity supply system. The low hanging fruit of electricity, heat and short range travel will take 10 years to fill. Batteries in 10 years will be much better than today and will serve for some of the items you want to see.
GIve me one good reason that we should build a long range electric train demonstration project in the USA when they already exist in many locations around the globe? Are engineers in the USA too stupid to fly to China, Japan or Europe to see their trains? The Bolt car already has a long enough range for 99% of uses at a reasonable cost. Your insistance that you require proof that the last 0.05% of use can be met to your standard before we start is not reasonable, it is just being contrary. It is more likely that people will come up with a different transportation model for long range travel, like using trains to ship your car or renting a car when they get there (as I currently do).
Your arguments are devolving into just saying "I don't believe it". The detailed data you say you want to see is already available on the internet. All the quantum transitions for AGW were well known decades ago. Google is your friend. You just have to look for it instead of complaining about Al Gore.
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Coal Miner at 21:31 PM on 10 February 2017What do gorilla suits and blowfish fallacies have to do with climate change?
Best bet if you want to convince the public at this point is to make very detailed evidence and explanations for how it works available online. Not the little cartoons on youtube but info on how the heating works, show some calculations at different wavelengths of light, why you know that wavelength is heating and this one isn't heating, etc, etc.
This one isn't bad - could be one in a long series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EJOO3xAjTk
Many think it's a conspiracy to get tax money, get control over FFs, get control over people, etc. Al being a politician, pushing it, did not make it more believeable.
Moderator Response:[JH] If you are looking for equations, go to The Science of Doom website.
Sloganeering snipped.
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Coal Miner at 21:05 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
53 - TC
Making residential and small businesses run on RE is fairly easy. I'd like to see it done to some long distance and heavy duty transportation projects in the US. Not just a short light rail or EVs operating inside a city. I'm talking cross country infrastructure, freight trains, airliners, etc. Most in the US have never seen it.
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Tom Curtis at 18:26 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @47, as far as showing it is possible to transition to a renewable economy - done.
"The city of Aspen, Colorado announced earlier this month that it will be running on 100 percent renewable energy by the end of the year, making it the third city in America to do so. Burlington, Vermont and Greensburg, Kansas, which decided to make the move after it was devastated by a powerful tornado in 2007, have also gone 100 percent renewable. Other U.S. cities, including Santa Monica and San Francisco, have set targets to transition to 100 percent renewable energy."
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nigelj at 17:55 PM on 10 February 2017What do gorilla suits and blowfish fallacies have to do with climate change?
"Every movement that has rejected a scientific consensus, exhibits the same five characteristics of science denial (concisely summarized by the acronym FLICC). These are fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking and conspiracy theories."
Well said. Just add on fake news or maybe alternative truths, the latest development in anti science rhetoric.
People appear to get very wound up and angry and dismissive of some new theories, due to vested interests, fear, and / or political leanings, and they will be happy to accept any logical fallacy. It's very hard undoing this, but people do eventually realise the denialist arguments are nonsense, and illogical tricks, but it takes time.
There is however plenty people can do to point out these fallacies and tactics to people they know. I have done this when I can.
However I notice that are so called media make almost no attempt to point out these logical fallacies and tactics. You might be tempted to suspect the media would rather keep the so called "debate" going, to create a controversy to get readers.
A picture paints a thousand words. I would have thought that one look at the latest temperature graphs would get the message across that climate change is a problem. For some reason some people just don't get it, but I guess this is a perfect example of missing the gorilla in the room by being distracted by all the "noise".
I notice our media have put the latest temperature data on the backpages, in tiny little articles. I don't know about America.
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Coal Miner at 17:47 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
48, 49, 50
I'd say if the believers are against even minor renewable demonstration projects, then we'll have to wait for the private companies to figure out that renewables are cheaper than FFs. If they are, it will happen.
In the mean time, perhaps fusion will be perfected and we will not need renewables. With cheap fusion energy we could probably do whatever is needed to remove as much CO2 from the atmosphere as is deemed necessary. I know there are ways of removing it, but don't know costs, etc.
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nigelj at 17:07 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Lachlan @ 45, I don't know those numbers, so you will have to use google. However my understanding is that 2 degrees is still considered the official target, and so locked in warming clearly doesn't get us to that point. My understanding is the the experts say we still have a window of opportunity, but need to get a move on. Of course the Trumpists are desperately trying to delay things, and close that window.
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nigelj at 17:02 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner @47
"Let's see my 5 very simple projects built as demonstration projects to prove it all works."
I don't see a need for an electric train or electric car project demonstration. We already have dozens of electric trains around the world, and know its 100% feasible and what the costs are, so its pretty basic to see what an entire network would cost. Electric trains are something that could be started tomorrow. Clearly as you say they could be built and run etc by the private sector. I'm ok with subsidies in certain situations.
The other point is we don't have to build prototypes of everything in your list to start on "one thing".
We also have enough solid enough evidence everything in your list is feasible. You dont need to be Albert Einstein to work out electic farm equipment is feasible, and the costs would not be prohibitive.
The most challenging element is air travel, but we have many options from energy neutral biofuels, alternative propellants, or use of forests as an offset carbon sink ( or better use of soils as an enhanced carbon sink).
Plenty of countries have already got charging stations for electric cars. There's no point trialling things that already exist somewhere in the world.
Regarding your comment on costs of a transition to renewable energy. The Stern Report is admittedly several years old now, and not 100% accepted by all economists, but just using it as a simple starting point, it calculated that the cost of avoiding dangerous climate change by transitioning to renewable energy etc as 1% of gloabl gdp per year. This is not huge and puts it in perspective. Even double that is very small.
It should also be added that renewable energy costs have dropped a lot since the report was done, and are getting very close to fossil fuel sources.
Now 1% of gdp, is 1% of global economic output, which equates very roughly to 1% of peoples incomes. I don't pretend this is an accurate proxy or comparison, and it could be a bit more, but again it shows we are not facing massive costs, and does give a rough ballpark of where things are at.
And obviously a total renewable energy tranistion can't possibly all be completed by the eend of next week, but various sources have shown there is still a window of opportunity to make it work.
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Rob Honeycutt at 16:52 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
And... in terms of "showing the people of the US"... well, most people don't really pay attention to where their electricity comes from. They just know they pay the bill each month and the lights come on.
What's important, and what is happening is, investors have to (and do) understand that levelized cost for coal is higher than other sources. And they know that coal is getting more expensive while costs for wind and solar continue to fall. Already based on levelized costs renewables are cheaper. The ponies are already out of the gate and are half way down the back stretch. We know who's winning and we know who's losing.
The only issue is, how fast can we deploy this stuff so we can avoid the worst effects of climate change?
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Rob Honeycutt at 16:45 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Sorry, Coal Miner, but there are no 100% coal markets. So even where coal is still heavily used, EV's are not "coal powered."
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Coal Miner at 14:46 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
42, 43, 44, 46 -
No, my post is not rhetoric. Show the people of the United States how affordable and doable a FF free economy is. Let's see my 5 very simple projects built as demonstration projects to prove it all works. If it's economical then private industry will be happy to do it on their own; if it's not economical, then states which support a FF economy can provide subsidies. The projects are not huge. Rails and freeways exist - Tesla or some other company should be able to provide charging stations for the freeway project. You say it is easily done. I want to see it done. Yes, the commercial airliner will be tough, but let's see what can be done so we know whether the Jacobson report goals can actually be achieved.
46 - many of the current fleet of EV are coal powered - as you know, in some locations that's what generates the electricity to charge the batteries.
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Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
CM - Solar energy now employs more people than oil and gas exploration, with industry employment increasing about 12x faster than employment in general. Renewables create more jobs than fossil fuels, which can only be good for the economy. Coal is shrinking fast, as gas is cheaper, wind is cheaper, and solar is approaching cost competitive for new energy sources. Not to mention that the cheap coal has already been exploited, what remains will cost more and more for extraction. Renewables just make economic sense.
Long range individual transportation will probably be one of the last sectors to go full electric due to energy density, but as others have noted synthetic carbon neutral fuels have the energy density to deal with that. In the meantime efficiency improvements can greatly reduce total carbon emissions - my plug in hybrid car runs 50 miles (which is sufficient for most days) on pure electric, and manages 42mpg after that.
In fact, I find your choice of energy challenges revealing - the fact that current tech doesn't support pure electric for long range by no means invalidates the capability of replacing the lion's share of our needs with renewables. It's worth pointing out that the Chevy Bolt gets 240 miles per charge, Tesla is capable of 310, and Tesla feels that within the decade they will be able to do more than 50% charge in 10-15 minutes for long range travel. Not to mention fuel cells, which can be refueled about as fast as gas tanks. Your choice of challenges appears to be more rhetoric than realistic.
And with respect to your handle - it's been a while since coal powered cars were considered viable, let alone state of the art.
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Lachlan at 13:00 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
nigelj @ 32:
I would care how much warming is "locked in" by the current emissions. You're right that is not useful as a "lower bound" for the future warming, since we will continue emitting for the foreseeable futuer. Their role is as an better reflection of the "current status" than the current global temperature (or even ocean heat content) is.
The current temperature trend says we're only about 1C higher than [mumble], but if the "locked in" warming is 1.5C, then we know that plans for limiting warming to 1.5C must involve geoengineering.
Does anyone know off hand what the current locked in equilibrium warming is? (If not, I can trawl the web myself...)
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Lachlan at 12:53 PM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner, comment 15:
Nobody seems to have replied to your question. The answer, of course, is that we should do 1, 3 and 4. They aren't mutually exclusive. The fact that people on this site complain about Trump doesn't mean they aren't also pushing for other organisations to act, or reducing their own carbon footprints.
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nigelj at 11:59 AM on 10 February 2017Whistleblower: ‘I knew people would misuse this.’ They did - to attack climate science
One Planet Only Forever @3
"Being Elite (the best of a group) is actually now "bad" in a made-up mind. Anyone who presents a better understanding that is contrary to the beliefs of the made-up mind can be accused of being an Elite."
This rings true. It's a great shame elites are coming into disrepute, because whatever failings they have, and they are human, expert knowledge is preferable to the sort of wild claims we are seeing from some quarters, particularly the Donald Trump crowd.
I would just say regarding made up minds, modes of human thinking probably exist on a "bell curve" with most people being moderates in the middle, and open minded, a few towards the edges are very fixed or stubborn by nature, maybe quite a big few, and at the other extreme are people that are so flexible they don't know their own mind. But in this respect winning the climate debate is a fight over the middle ground people, like politics is often a fight over moderates or swing voters. It's very hard to convince the extremists or conspiracy theorests.This is mostly so, but of course the election in America has taken on an unusual dimension.
But given "warmists" are trying to win the hearts and minds of people in the middle, they need to communicate in ways that will persuade these people.
"The fundamentally flawed belief that the free actions of everyone in a free market will develop good results has been around for a very long time (it is a core principle of Freedman's Chicago School of Economics preaching)."
Yes it's simplistic. All markets do is allocate resources reasonably well in economic ways on short term time frames. They are provably poor at considering long term consequences, or things that degrade the air or oceans. This is why markets must have rules and boundaries and usually do have, except in Trumpland.
"And what is required to advance humanity needs to be defended against the attempts to deem it things like Socialism or Communism. "Advancing all of humanity to a lasting better future" needs to be understood to be the objective. Giving it a name, or allowing it to be given a name, would be Bad."
Yes, this avoids emotive and ideological battles to some extent. It's interesting how some people insist on labels, or obsess over labels.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:30 AM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
I would guess there's a big difference between the amount of coal (overall) and the amount of economically viable coal. On a levelized cost basis coal is losing in the market even before a carbon tax goes into place.
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michael sweet at 11:15 AM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner,
In 2013 China had 48 megameters of electric railway line. Electric trains are more efficient, have more powerful locomotives and are less polluting than diesel. Many other countries have large electric train systems.
Jacobson calls for replacing airlines last due to the need to develop new technology for his plan. If you do not mind inefficient use of power and pollution from jet engines, you can make jet fuel from sea water using renewable energy. The navy claims costs of $3-6 per gallon. You could use current planes. Since airline use is a relatively small use of overall power it would mean a few more wind turbines or solar farms.
Electric trains can do most long hauling currently done by inefficient trucks. That is one way your 1500 mile cities could work. Electric Local delivery trucks are already designed and in use, as are electric buses. Current electric only cars have 300 mile ranges and can be recharged in 30 minutes. If you stopped every 4-5 hours for food you could recharge while you ate. I imagine the range of electric cars will continue to improve. If you put your car on an electric train you could sleep all the way to your destination.
Since there is currently no market, farm machines have not yet been developed. Since the entire country is electrified it does not seem like a big stretch to electrify harvesters. If you insist on waiting to start until the system has been completely built it will never be possible to make any changes. Perhaps the batteries currently being developed for trucks will work for harvesters. The rapid advances in electric cars suggest that these types of machines can be built once electricty is available.
I found most of these examples using Google. Jacobson's web site addresses these issues also.
I think the claims that 230 years of coal remain in the ground are overstated. Current coal mines are already on low grade coal. The value of low grade coal is not very high. Coal companies claim they cannot afford to reclaim the mines thay have abandoned ($4.5 billion in West Virginia alone). Current consumption overseas will use up that coal much sooner than 230 years if the world does not switch to renewables.
Fortunately, China and India are investing a lot in renewables. Their primary concern appears to be reduction of pollution, but it helps climate concerns also. Will Trump allow the Chinese to take over this opportunity for future profit from American businesses?
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bjchip at 11:11 AM on 10 February 2017Correcting Warren Meyer on Forbes
It isn't wrong to expect catastrophe, but it isn't in climate science that you find it. It is in human behaviour when civilization is stressed to the point of collapse, or when it actually collapses. The stress is inherent in the future conditions we're creating now. The resulting wars, starvation and disease however, are not climate.
That's sort of a problem. Climate Science doesn't talk about those results because they aren't "Climate Science" - they are "Social Science" and Psychology and History that tell us of those results. Economics seldom discusses them correctly, labeling them as "externalities". Pollies think about them as vote losing propositions. It is... a problem. Without good communication of the real risks to the future, and Forbes is almost as guilty as the WSJ of making sure that businessmen and high-rollers are completely misinformed (Murdoch has a criminal disregard of truth - I understand the Daily Mail has been effectively "de-listed" by wiki), democracy is doomed and civilization depends on the efforts of whatever enlightened autocrats are found in control of the world.
Catastrophe isn't in the climate... the planet will be fine... its just that we humans will have a hell of a time.
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One Planet Only Forever at 10:43 AM on 10 February 2017Whistleblower: ‘I knew people would misuse this.’ They did - to attack climate science
In communication science it is understood that the First message received about an issue can have more power than any later information.
People can get away with reinforcing more unbelievable beliefs every time they get to publish a lie or a twist of fact free of immediate challenge for clarification of understanding (like Trump Tweets). Many of their followers have made-up their minds about what to believe.
Attempts to provide more infomrtaion can reach into some minds and lead to a change. But with powerfully motivated delusions, like the belief that it is OK to want to continue to personally benefit from the burning of fossil fuels, attempting to change the made-up beliefs with added information can trigger a powerful defensive reaction. And the predecessors of the current day likes of Team Trump have created some key misunderstandings in many made-up minds.
Being Elite (the best of a group) is actually now "bad" in a made-up mind. Anyone who presents a better understanding that is contrary to the beliefs of the made-up mind can be accused of being an Elite.
That type of twist is a deliberate attempt to innoculate am easily made-up mind against better understanding. And efforts should be started to correct the misrepresentation of the term Elite.
The same goes for Fake News. That term can be applied to any reporting that is contrary to the interests of those who thrive on the damaging misunderstandings they can develop in easily made-up minds, minds that desire personal benefit/interests more than they care about the potential consequences to others (or even themselves) of what they want to do.
Unfortunately places like the USA have created large pools of easily impressed people, people immersed in misleading messaging (advertising) and believing that they have the right to believe whatever they want and do whatever they please in pursuit of personal interests without needing to better understand if what they do is potentially detrimental to the advancement of humanity to a truly lasting better future (Wall Streeters as well as Trump Team fans).
Climate science has unwittingly exposed the need to actually undo those Fundamentally Misguided Beliefs.
That is why I try to introduce the understanding of the unacceptability of burning up non-renewable buried hydorcarbons very early in a discussion about climate science. It leads to the very challenging point that in competitions for popularrity and profitability people willing to behave less acceptably have a competitive advantage until they can't get away with it any more.
The fundamentally flawed belief that the free actions of everyone in a free market will develop good results has been around for a very long time (it is a core principle of Freedman's Chicago School of Economics preaching). The understanding that it is flawed has also been around for a very long time. Understanding that it is fatally flawed has failed to Win popular support, developing never-ending streams of damaging consequences to advancement of humanity.
The Serengetti attack on individual climate scientists can potentially be meaningfully countered by all of the diverse groups who strive to help advance humanity to a lasting better future recognising that together they are far more powerful than the few among us who only care about their own short-term interests.
It could be very powerful if the rebuttals of each climate science related attack were shared in the communications of every other group that strives to overcome the damaging realities created by short-term pursuits of personal interest. And sharing the better understanding/rebuttals of similar attacks on the actions of other groups could grow a very diverse and resiliant team that better understands what is required to effectively advance humanity.
And what is required to advance humanity needs to be defended against the attempts to deem it things like Socialism or Communism. "Advancing all of humanity to a lasting better future" needs to be understood to be the objective. Giving it a name, or allowing it to be given a name, would be Bad.
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Coal Miner at 10:10 AM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
39
The government says the US has enough coal for 256 years but that may be based on BAU:
This article in last paragraph says there is enough for 225 years but I'm not sure if that is for the US or the world:
Says coal use worldwide is increasing faster than renewables.
Yes, we're going to switch to renewables but it will not happen quickly.
Moderator Response:[RH] Shortened and activated links.
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Coal Miner at 09:59 AM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
39
Thanks for the plan link. I scanned it briefly. Will check some of his numbers. Didn't look hard but saw no time-table for implementation.
Would like to see the following things powered by electrical sources described in the report for each of the following:
1) One railroad not less than 1,000 miles long.
2) One airliner similar to a 767.
3) One 18 wheeler.
4) One large corn harvesting farm (tractors, combines, etc) in Nebraska.
5) One fleet of vehicles (cars or trucks) operating between 2 cities separated by not less than 1,500 miles.
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Jim Hunt at 09:52 AM on 10 February 2017Mail on Sunday launches the first salvo in the latest war against climate scientists
Intriguing news from my personal perspective. I've long advocated that surrealism is the better part of valour, and it seems the Met Office has picked up that baton with enthusiasm! See Richard Betts mercilessly poking David Rose with a pointy stick:
http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2017/02/climategate-2-falls-at-the-first-hurdle/#Feb-9Eat your heart out Josh!
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Spassapparat at 09:45 AM on 10 February 2017There is no consensus
I have now dabbled with the search tool you posted a bit and looked up papers whose abstracts include 'attribute'. Just on the first page, I found several papers that use the word attribute, but in association with someting other than climate change attributed to human impact. Did your analysis of the word attribute and its cognates only include such papers that used the word attribute and its cognates specifically for this purpose?
Also, I was wondering about what the paper is actually saying. If we include category 2 and 3, don't we have to dial down what we are saying to what is included in the weakest category (category 3), i.e. all we can say is 97% of papers agree that humans are causing global warming to some extent. That is decidedly not how this paper is used in public discourse though, I think in many instances this paper is used to say that not only do humans cause global warming, but they are also the major cause and the degree of effect on nature/climate is in some way dangerous and needs to be mitigated. This only is true for a minority of the papers though. Would you agree with this assessment?
Thanks!
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Spassapparat at 08:07 AM on 10 February 2017There is no consensus
Mr. Curtis,
thanks so much for your quick reply! I agree with everything you have written, and I do think that Legates et al.'s 0,03 number is completely bogus.
What I did agree with Legates et al. is that Cook et al's wording is at least unfortunate. In my opinion, if, as is Cook et al's outset question, you want to figure out the number of papers who accept the hypothesis that 'human activity is responsible for most of current GW' you cannot include papers that write that 'human activity is contributing to current GW' as part of the total number of papers that agree with 'human activity is responsible for most of current GW. Now the word 'attribute' is a different ballpark, since if I write 'current GW is attributed to human activity' then I actually mean, in contrast to 'contribute', that most (or all) of current GW is due to human activity. (or at least, this is my understanding, I am not a native speaker of English)
I do believe that words matter. In my view, then, papers that use the word 'attribute' or similar should have been separated from papers that use 'contribute', 'play a part/role', 'add to', etc. If this is what is done in the analysis you posted, then this shows that Cook et al's analysis is robust to Legates et al's critique.
I have another question: something that is also critiqued in Legates et al. as well as other critical papers is the issue of the search term used - they claim that the search term 'global warming' or 'global climate change' biases against critical research since at least some critical research does not use these terms - do you give any credence to the view that this is a significant bias?
Thanks again!
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michael sweet at 07:56 AM on 10 February 2017Repeal without replace: a dangerous GOP strategy on Obamacare and climate
Coal Miner:
Jacobson et al have a detailed plan for the entire world to convert entirely over to renewable energy. (link is to Jacobson's website). They find that energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels and provide more jobs. Health will be better (currently coal pollution kills about 15,000 people per year in the USA alone every year). His plan calls for generating about 50% of power with solar, 40% with wind and the rest with a variety of power soources. His plan calls for conversion to entirely WWS power by 2050. detailed USA plan. Other mixes of wind, solar and other power sources will also work.
Jacobson's plan has been reviewed and refined for 5-10 years. His papers have been cited hundreds of times. He has shown costs are reasonable (costs have been substantially reduced over the past 5 years, especially for solar power), materials exist for all planned uses and enough wind and solar are available in the USA to provide power 100% of the time. It will be cheaper than fossil fuels. Adding in the avoidance of costs from AGW it is much much cheaper to build out WWS. Denier web sites do not talk about Jacobson, they falsely claim that it is not possible to power the economy with WWS.
Can you show a coal plan that shows enough coal exists to power the entire world for even 100 years? Already the best coal is gone and they are mining poorer and poorer deposits. Coal is no longer economic, all the coal companies in the USA are going bankrupt. Do you really want them to hang around just long enough to ruin the atmosphere for the entire world?
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