Sub's Alternative Energy Thread

[ShockerPrez]

If you're willing to believe climate change is a threat that needs to be addressed, it is the textbook example of something that cannot be resolved via capitalism and the free market. Climate change is, by definition, the type of externality that a profit-seeking business would not take into consideration.

So the best solution for avoiding increased deaths from malaria, poor drinking water and the likes is not to make the countries that will be affected more free and capitalistic, but rather to have me ride my bike to work and America burn less fossil fuel?

[jdshock]

So the best solution for avoiding increased deaths from malaria, poor drinking water and the likes is not to make the countries that will be affected more free and capitalistic, but rather to have me ride my bike to work and America burn less fossil fuel?

What is your proposal? We show up with our troops and give 'em some freedom?

[ShockerPrez]

What is your proposal? We show up with our troops and give 'em some freedom?

My proposal is that some places suck to live because thats just the way it is. It aint because the climates changing, its becsuse its a desert, or its a tiny island with a volcano on it, or its in a jungle with mosquitos the size of crows. Or it sucks because a warlord runs the joint, or the president is a dictator and takes all the food and kills anyone who stands against him.

My solution is that America continue to do what makes us the best. And we cant be the best by curbing our energy consumption and going backwards. It doesnt make any sense or help the world.

My point is that the Earth is not a very kind place. Its hard to survive, and America and our fossil fuel consption aint to blame.

[CBB_Fan]

Does anyone really believe that we are headed for a global warming doomsday?

Seriously...

Will global warming kill people? A small number of people will probably die of heat stroke, but that isn't doomsday. So why does the US Military consider climate change a significant threat to the US? People.

Consider the US and UK's reaction to the displaced population of Syria. 4.8 million Syrians were displaced outside the country. This is a normal reaction to a deadly civil war, but what you may not know is that Syrian before the war suffered their worst drought in hundreds of years. 75% of farms failed and 85% of livestock died between 2006 and 2011, forcing many rural Syrians into cities and worsening existing conflicts.

The threat from climate change isn't the weather. It is the "threat multiplier" it represents, as people are far more prone to violence when food, water, and shelter are threatened.

Now consider three other countries. Iran is undergoing a water crisis. According to their minister of agriculture "If this situation is not reformed, in 30 years Iran will be a ghost town. Even if there is precipitation in the desert, there will be no yield, because the area for groundwater will be dried and water will remain at ground level and evaporate."

Iran has 77 million people, and unlike Syria they are hated throughout the Sunni Muslim world. How do you think Europe would react to ten million Iranians trying to enter their borders? We are talking about a number of migrants equal to the total illegal immigrant population in the US (or more) arriving in an extremely short time period. It is impossible to imagine it going as well as Syria's crisis, and we all know how that is going.

Now step that up again. This is from TODAY. Pakistan and India share water in the Indus Valley, and a ridiculous number of people depend on that resource. Relations are tense, both sides accusatory of the other, and war IS a possibility. This would be one of the first direct conflicts between nuclear states, and for some in Pakistan this is the only source of water.

Fast forward 20 years and add a drought, and you have a recipe for a one-of-a-kind disaster. Even if we "merely" have a conventional war, we are talking about a war being 17% of the world's population. We could death tolls rivaling WW2 in a full blown non-nuclear confrontation. And if a Pakistan and India send off a similar number refugees, it will cause a snowball effect, crashing the economies of surrounding countries. No country has sustain a sudden influx of refugees of that size, with the possibility of more refugees than the normal population.

That is the doomsday we should be worried about. We can worry about out of control temperature and feedback loops and wildlife extinctions later, the real issue is what humans will do to each other if they run out of food and water.

[jdshock]

It aint because the climates changing

This is the exact problem with these kinds of discussions. You criticize anyone who is willing to say there is a doomsday scenario. I give you a more reasonable prediction of what will happen. That reasonable prediction says millions are going to die in the next thirty years, directly due to climate change.

Your reaction is "yeah, I don't buy that it's because of climate change. Sucks for those folks who live in crappy countries."

[rayc]

Global warming is a good thing. Global cooling is a bad thing. There is never Global Status Quo.

Exactly. Here is a link to an interview everyone should read. It is LONG but worth the time for anyone interested in this topic.

http://www.thebestschools.org/special/karoly-happer-dialogue-global-warming/william-happer-interview/

I would recommend reading it in sections unless you have an hour or so to spend on it.
It is logically broken into 4 sections (I include the comments as a section).

1. Dr. Happer's background. Lengthy but provides adequate information to qualify himself in the field.

2. Scientific issues.

3. Societal issues.

4. Comments.

I would be interested in any comments from posters in this thread. Enjoy.

[CBB_Fan]

I would trust Dr. Happer in the field of physics and optics. As he has no professional experience in climate science and not a single paper on the subject his viewpoints on climate change are as valid as any other laypersons. He talks about negative feedback loops without discussing larger positive feedback loops, and fails to make any distinction between the plants that thrive in warming conditions like kudzu and those that suffer such as rice and many crops. He also makes the mistake of discussing flat CO2 levels instead of rates, as the concern is not that survival is impossible past x% of CO2 but that ecosystems cannot adjust to such a rapid increase.

[ShockerPrez]

Will global warming kill people? A small number of people will probably die of heat stroke, but that isn't doomsday. So why does the US Military consider climate change a significant threat to the US? People.

Consider the US and UK's reaction to the displaced population of Syria. 4.8 million Syrians were displaced outside the country. This is a normal reaction to a deadly civil war, but what you may not know is that Syrian before the war suffered their worst drought in hundreds of years. 75% of farms failed and 85% of livestock died between 2006 and 2011, forcing many rural Syrians into cities and worsening existing conflicts.

The threat from climate change isn't the weather. It is the "threat multiplier" it represents, as people are far more prone to violence when food, water, and shelter are threatened.

Now consider three other countries. Iran is undergoing a water crisis. According to their minister of agriculture "If this situation is not reformed, in 30 years Iran will be a ghost town. Even if there is precipitation in the desert, there will be no yield, because the area for groundwater will be dried and water will remain at ground level and evaporate."

Iran has 77 million people, and unlike Syria they are hated throughout the Sunni Muslim world. How do you think Europe would react to ten million Iranians trying to enter their borders? We are talking about a number of migrants equal to the total illegal immigrant population in the US (or more) arriving in an extremely short time period. It is impossible to imagine it going as well as Syria's crisis, and we all know how that is going.

Now step that up again. This is from TODAY. Pakistan and India share water in the Indus Valley, and a ridiculous number of people depend on that resource. Relations are tense, both sides accusatory of the other, and war IS a possibility. This would be one of the first direct conflicts between nuclear states, and for some in Pakistan this is the only source of water.

Fast forward 20 years and add a drought, and you have a recipe for a one-of-a-kind disaster. Even if we "merely" have a conventional war, we are talking about a war being 17% of the world's population. We could death tolls rivaling WW2 in a full blown non-nuclear confrontation. And if a Pakistan and India send off a similar number refugees, it will cause a snowball effect, crashing the economies of surrounding countries. No country has sustain a sudden influx of refugees of that size, with the possibility of more refugees than the normal population.

That is the doomsday we should be worried about. We can worry about out of control temperature and feedback loops and wildlife extinctions later, the real issue is what humans will do to each other if they run out of food and water.

Food, water and shelter are limited in these places because these places are controlled by dictarorships and are in very hostile climates not ideal for humans to exist in the first place. The force multiplier is that the region cant sustain the population, especially when the governments use their engineering and monetary resources to make nukes to kill jews instead of building infrastructure to sustain their populations.

[wufan]

We've crossed the whole spectrum above. Is CC real? Is the data legit? Should we care, and if so, what should be done?

[wufan]

It wasn't a request for complete data. All of the data was available online. Environmental-Witch Hunter Lamar Smith (who has received a large chunk of change from the oil and gas industry) requested all internal communication surrounding the study.

What could possibly be the reason? Because when you have thousands of emails, and you know what you're looking for, you can cherry pick anything to make it look like someone said something they didn't. It happened with the Clinton emails here on Shockernet. People would say "I found this email that said she hates the American people!" and that was the headline. Obviously our government officials aren't allowed to break the law, but you still need a warrant to search their houses. Just filing subpoena after subpoena like Smith has done is an attempt to find controversy where there is none.

An independent study confirmed the findings of the NOAA.

I still want to know what it is you're waiting for, though. You aren't swayed by the data. You aren't swayed by the fact that the vast majority of scientists are on board with the idea of human caused climate change. What is it you're waiting for? What does the science need to say for you to believe climate change is a concern? You gave me an example of something that you wanted to happen, but it's obvious that your stance on that issue is just based on your previously existing belief because an independent study confirmed the findings and it's clear that the data had actually been released, it was emails that were being subpoenaed. So, tell me, what is it that you need to be convinced?

Here's what I am waiting for: An overlay of similar data sets without extrapolation or smoothing. Want to talk about buoys? Talk about what the buoys tell us. Want to talk about satellites? List actual satellite temps. What they should NOT be doing is correcting the data from one set to align with another and extrapolating the future. They are weighting the data to tell a story, and ever since this started, the story of the temperature changed. It isn't hard, but they aren't doing this for a reason...because it doesn't present a story worth telling.

BTW: the correction to calibration is about 0.1 degrees, which is about the same as the suggested rise trump over the last decade. This rise didn't exist until they adjusted it up. It's also only slightly more than the calibrated capability of the instrument. Bad science guys!

[ShockerPrez]

This is the exact problem with these kinds of discussions. You criticize anyone who is willing to say there is a doomsday scenario. I give you a more reasonable prediction of what will happen. That reasonable prediction says millions are going to die in the next thirty years, directly due to climate change.

Your reaction is "yeah, I don't buy that it's because of climate change. Sucks for those folks who live in crappy countries."

The reasonable prediction from the WHO could very well happen independent of climate change. Just based on population increases, and as I keep pointing out, the fact that the places most suceptible are poverty stricken.

I'm seriously not trying to be flippant. I'm just trying to illustrate that these places where climate change is being felt the most, just happen to coincide with extreme poverty, government corruption, hostile climates and environments to start with and such.

And the solution is to look at the US and see what we can do to help, and the best we come up with is using less fossil fuel?

[jdshock]

The reasonable prediction from the WHO could very well happen independent of climate change.

This is literally the point of their predictions: deaths will occur due to those issues in the next decades. Things like poverty, dictatorships, etc. will all be reasons those causes exist. The WHO's prediction is that global warming will make those issues worse. More people will die because of climate change.

You are willfully ignoring the point that climate change will make it worse by saying "some deaths are going to happen due to malaria anyway."

[wufan]

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/temperature-monitoring.php

Read the first section. Buoys are artificially cool and have to be adjusted. Think about that.

[CBB_Fan]

Here's what I am waiting for: An overlay of similar data sets without extrapolation or smoothing. Want to talk about buoys? Talk about what the buoys tell us. Want to talk about satellites? List actual satellite temps. What they should NOT be doing is correcting the data from one set to align with another and extrapolating the future. They are weighting the data to tell a story, and ever since this started, the story of the temperature changed. It isn't hard, but they aren't doing this for a reason...because it doesn't present a story worth telling.

They DO list "actual temperatures." The daily readouts of a single station come from a form like this. Not an extrapolation at all, and your ignorance of that fact is not an argument. The process for collecting that data is free information. There are four main datasets used are: HadCRUT4, GISTEMP, MLOST, and the non-acronymed dataset by the Japan Meteorological Agency. If you want to start disproving the data, you can download it yourself and go to town.

The issue with this data is rather simple: When a ship measures ocean temperature it does so by pumping the water to the engine room. This is known as an Engine Room Intake, and was adopted because it is more uniform than the previous method of simply putting a thermometer in a bucket of fresh sea water. While consistent with other ship measurements of the same type, moving the water to a hotter location like an engine room makes the measurements hotter. As we improved in the past by moving from buckets to ERIs, we've improved by moving away from ERIs to buoy measurements.

Now you can average your global temperatures without accounting for that, but to put it simply you'd be wrong if you thought that was more "true" or accurate. You call also take a bunch of measurements at the equator and then a bunch of measurements at the poles and claim a catastrophic cooling, but that would also be wrong. Or you can take ERI data and compare it to buoy data and claim cooling. Failing to account for changes in distribution and measurement type is FAR worse than the alternative of documenting the artificial affect that those changes cause and correcting for it.

Now it is too bad all that averaging and weighing is hidden behind closed doors so scientists can hide their nefarious tampering. Except, again, it isn't. That information is freely available. If the books are cooked, YOU can find out. So can anyone else. And it turns out, whenever they run the numbers according the best available practices, they turn out more or less the same. Bad results only come up when people use bad science.

[ShockerPrez]

This is literally the point of their predictions: deaths will occur due to those issues in the next decades. Things like poverty, dictatorships, etc. will all be reasons those causes exist. The WHO's prediction is that global warming will make those issues worse. More people will die because of climate change.

You are willfully ignoring the point that climate change will make it worse by saying "some deaths are going to happen due to malaria anyway."

Ok. So you agree that these crappy, horrible conditions exist independently of climate change. Its just that climate change will make it worse?