Global Warming

[MediumTex]

Isn't renewable energy just a fat tail minimization strategy?

Renewable energy on any meaningful scale is just fossil fuel in drag.

Don't believe the hype.

Renewable energy has about as much chance of providing an answer to our energy needs as a child's lemonade stand has of paying all of a typical household's expenses.

[l82start]

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman  

Then where are all the scientific articles debunking the myth of climate change?

I guess we should rely on FOX news and Rush Limbaugh for the real scientific truth....


or maybe we should just defer to the scientists at Exxon Mobil...oh wait they even agree that global warming exists....

Richard Feynman was a Nobel prize winning physicist, the point he was making was that questioning not consensus or popular opinion is the fundamental principle of science...

given the overwhelming complexity of the earths atmosphere and environment and weather, and our close proximity to the sun, i cannot come to any dogmatic conclusions about global warming, i tend to believe science is exceptionally good at taking measurements (although even those can be wrong at times) maybe we contribute to warming, maybe we don't, but i would say that it is far to early to come to any conclusions about how much we influence it.

[doodle]

MT,

I think you are a brilliant guy, but I totally disagree with you regarding the potential of alternative energy combined with a readjustment of community design and the implementation of increased energy efficiency devices.

Sure it will require an adjustment to our lifestyles and economy....that is why we need to start a gradual transition now.

[AdamA]

Renewable energy on any meaningful scale is just fossil fuel in drag.

Even if we had great renewable energy technology it wouldn't solve our problems.  It would only allow our population to grow to the extent that we start using up some other nonrenewable necessity (food, water, air or maybe even physical space).  It's a flawed paradigm, in my opinion.

[doodle]

Does the scientific community respect the political right?  It seems like you have a sort of mutual disrespect going on there.

Scienctific conclusion doesn't have to respect political positions. That is asinine...

Oh...so this gravity thing is politically unpopular. It makes people fall down and body parts sag....No problem, we'll just refute all data regarding of gravity and the problem will disappear.

[MediumTex]

MT,

I think you are a brilliant guy, but I totally disagree with you regarding the potential of alternative energy combined with a readjustment of community design and the implementation of increased energy efficiency devices.

Sure it will require an adjustment to our lifestyles and economy....that is why we need to start a gradual transition now.

No rule against disagreeing with me.

I used to feel the way you feel right now.  When I really looked at what renewable energy is all about, though, it became clear to me that renewable energy involves a lot of science fiction projections that are only possible with a ready supply of fossil fuels to do the heavy lifting.

In order for renewable energy to have any hope of doing anything helpful on a large scale, our core assumptions about economic and population growth must be reconsidered in a fundamental way.

[stone]

I still think if oil was equally unaffordable for all 7B people on earth then we would immediately see effective renewable energy systems put in place and making a profit for those who financed them. The Saudis purposefully do not allow the oil price to spike up too much partly so as to prevent alternatives from being developed.

[AdamA]

Oh...so this gravity thing is politically unpopular. It makes people fall down and body parts sag....No problem, we'll just refute all data regarding of gravity and the problem will disappear.

Do you really think that's a fair comparison? 

You can design hundreds of reproducible experiments that will validate the theory of gravity.  You can also observe it empirically. 

[moda0306]

Here in MN we kind of take a lot of our energy use for granted, but I wonder if you took a combination of telecommuting, mass transit, alternative energy (solar in the south, even on peoples' roofs, more nuclear, maybe even nuclear fusion breakthrough), higher gas mileage vehicles, simply not travelling as much, and other things I haven't thought of, whether we'd actually be able to live relatively productive, happy lives on much less fossil fuels than we do now.

[l82start]

Oh...so this gravity thing is politically unpopular. It makes people fall down and body parts sag....No problem, we'll just refute all data regarding of gravity and the problem will disappear.

the next Einstein Galileo etc who makes leaps forward in our understanding of gravity wont be the guy that assumes because it is the popular or the politically correct or the theory with the largest consensus it must be right.... he will be the guy that sees what we know now as a starting point and thinks outside the box...

and maybe we will all get anti gravity boots 

[doodle]

Here in MN we kind of take a lot of our energy use for granted, but I wonder if you took a combination of telecommuting, mass transit, alternative energy (solar in the south, even on peoples' roofs, more nuclear, maybe even nuclear fusion breakthrough), higher gas mileage vehicles, simply not travelling as much, and other things I haven't thought of, whether we'd actually be able to live relatively productive, happy lives on much less fossil fuels than we do now.

Intentional communities already do this. Through intelligent design many of them basically function off the grid.

Through small adjustments in my lifestyle I personally have no car and my yearly power bills total under 300 dollars (half of which is fees and taxes). There is no reason this can't become a reality for all people.

the next Einstein Galileo etc who makes leaps forward in our understanding of gravity wont be the guy that assumes because it is the popular or the politically correct or the theory with the largest consensus it must be right.... he will be the guy that sees what we know now as a starting point and thinks outside the box...

That is what scientists do. They challenge accepted truths.....religion, big business, and politicians on the other hand......not so much.

[AdamA]

That is what scientists do. They challenge accepted truths.....religion, big business, and politicians on the other hand......not so much.

Doodle--

What do you think would happen to a climate scientist who had unequivocal proof that the theory of global warming was incorrect?

Do you think the other climate scientists would embrace him and his ideas?

I am skeptical.  

[SteveGo]

Ad published by the Cato Insitute in Nov 2008, concerning President Elect Obama's comments on climate change:

http://www.cato.org/special/climatechan ... rsion.html

Article summarizing main areas of discourse on climate change:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/a-few-no ... te-change/

This is not sorted out by any stretch, IMO.

[doodle]

I think it is foolish to discard the overwhelming scientific consensus because it just doesn't "feel" right to you. The debate on climate change has happened in the scientific community already and they have formulated a conclusion. I for one think it the height of absurdity for a bunch of lay people to blithely discard it.

the next Einstein Galileo etc who makes leaps forward in our understanding of gravity wont be the guy that assumes because it is the popular or the politically correct or the theory with the largest consensus it must be right.... he will be the guy that sees what we know now as a starting point and thinks outside the box...

That is what scientists do. They challenge accepted truths.....religion, big business, and politicians on the other hand......not so much.

the two views you express in these posts seem contradictory to me, "we should accept the theory because global warming scientists came to a conclusion and formed a consensus"... but what science does is the opposite... "it challenges accepted truths"... this makes global warming theory's seem to have more in common with religion big business and politics than science???

Simon,

The operative word in the first quote is "lay" people....I don't believe that lay people should blithely discard scientific consensus. They can question it but frankly how much weight should we give to the opinion of someone who can't even identify the elements on the periodic table?  

Adam A and Simon

Scientific theories are constantly overturned and reworked. Isn't this evidence that the truth seeking process in the scientific community is alive and well? I think that the idea hard data manipulation among a large group of competitive scientists over multiple generations smacks of a conspiracy theory........then again, maybe the Illuminati are manipulating climate data to gain social control and fufill their goal of eugenics.

[MediumTex]

Here in MN we kind of take a lot of our energy use for granted, but I wonder if you took a combination of telecommuting, mass transit, alternative energy (solar in the south, even on peoples' roofs, more nuclear, maybe even nuclear fusion breakthrough), higher gas mileage vehicles, simply not travelling as much, and other things I haven't thought of, whether we'd actually be able to live relatively productive, happy lives on much less fossil fuels than we do now.

Intentional communities already do this. Through intelligent design many of them basically function off the grid.

Through small adjustments in my lifestyle I personally have no car and my yearly power bills total under 300 dollars (half of which is fees and taxes). There is no reason this can't become a reality for all people.

Here is the problem with what you are describing: much of Europe, the U.S. and Japan have reduced their use of energy in general and fossil fuels in particular by simply offshoring many indsustrial functions that are especially energy intensive.  When this happens, it may feel like society is becoming less dependent upon certain energy forms, but the reality is that we are often becoming more dependent on them than ever overall, as the offshored destinations for industrial production often have much less environmentally friendly policies in place and less efficient facilities when compared to the country that offshored the work to them (and this regulation differential is often what drove the offshoring decision in the first place).

[doodle]

SteveGo,

That list is B.S. ..... just cause you have a Phd next to your name doesn't make you an expert on climatology. I work with a Spanish language Phd....but I sure don't give a rip what she thinks about the climate. Many of the others are meteorologists.....they predict whether you will need an umbrella tomorrow...not atmospheric climate change.

Regarding the other article it was written by this guy for the Cato institute:

Andrei Illarionov is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. From 2000 to December 2005 he was the chief economic adviser of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Illarionov also served as the president's personal representative (sherpa) in the G-8. He is one of Russia's most forceful and articulate advocates of an open society and democratic capitalism, and has been a long-time friend of the Cato Institute. Illarionov received his Ph.D. from St. Petersburg University in 1987. From 1993 to 1994 Illarionov served as chief economic adviser to the prime minister of the Russian Federation, Viktor Chernomyrdin. He resigned in February 1994 to protest changes in the government's economic policy. In July 1994 Illarionov founded the Institute of Economic Analysis and became its director. Illarionov has coauthored several economic programs for Russian governments and has written three books and more than 300 articles on Russian economic and social policies.

Do I really need to say any more? Why are we listening to the opinion of this guy when it comes to the climate? Would you let Mr. Illarionov diagnose and treat a cancer in your body? I mean he has a Phd....he should be qualified right? What about designing a rocket ship to travel to Mars. He has a Phd....surely he is qualified to design rocket ships.

[doodle]

MT,

Here is the problem with what you are describing: much of Europe, the U.S. and Japan have reduced their use of energy in general and fossil fuels in particular by simply offshoring many indsustrial functions that are especially energy intensive.  When this happens, it may feel like society is becoming less dependent upon certain energy forms, but the reality is that we are often becoming more dependent on them than ever overall, as the offshored destinations for industrial production often have much less environmentally friendly policies in place and less efficient facilities when compared to the country that offshored the work to them (and this regulation differential is often what drove the offshoring decision in the first place).

I never said there wouldn't be an adjustment to our lives. Most of my friends have about 50 pairs of shoes in their closets. Will their lives be drastically affected if say they were forced through increasingly scarce energy resources to make due with 5 pairs?

Will societies shrivel and die if families downsize from 2000 square feet to 1000 square feet of intelligently designed living area?

The opportunities for increases in efficiency (with little perceptible sacrifice to quality of life) are enormous!!!

Case in point, I went out this weekend to replace the lightbulbs in my house with LEDs to try to squeeze out some more savings off the power bill. They consume 10 times less energy than conventional incandescents and produce little heat. I'm sure they require about the same energy input to manufacture as an incandescent but consume 10 times less energy. That is a big savings right there.

I also believe that with intelligent design, we could eliminate the need for air-conditioning in many if not most buildings.  In California alone (a pretty temperate state) 30% of residential energy use is consumed by conditioning the air. Again, another opportunity for huge savings.

[doodle]

With 10% unemployment that is a lot of untapped energy right there! Maybe less fossil fuel slaves will be beneficial to jobs.

[AdamA]

With 10% unemployment that is a lot of untapped energy right there! Maybe less fossil fuel slaves will be beneficial to jobs.

Are you going to pay someone to push your car around town? 

[MediumTex]

MT,

Here is the problem with what you are describing: much of Europe, the U.S. and Japan have reduced their use of energy in general and fossil fuels in particular by simply offshoring many indsustrial functions that are especially energy intensive.  When this happens, it may feel like society is becoming less dependent upon certain energy forms, but the reality is that we are often becoming more dependent on them than ever overall, as the offshored destinations for industrial production often have much less environmentally friendly policies in place and less efficient facilities when compared to the country that offshored the work to them (and this regulation differential is often what drove the offshoring decision in the first place).

I never said there wouldn't be an adjustment to our lives. Most of my friends have about 50 pairs of shoes in their closets. Will their lives be drastically affected if say they were forced through increasingly scarce energy resources to make due with 5 pairs?

Will societies shrivel and die if families downsize from 2000 square feet to 1000 square feet of intelligently designed living area?

The opportunities for increases in efficiency (with little perceptible sacrifice to quality of life) are enormous!!!

Case in point, I went out this weekend to replace the lightbulbs in my house with LEDs to try to squeeze out some more savings off the power bill. They consume 10 times less energy than conventional incandescents and produce little heat. I'm sure they require about the same energy input to manufacture as an incandescent but consume 10 times less energy. That is a big savings right there.

I also believe that with intelligent design, we could eliminate the need for air-conditioning in many if not most buildings.  In California alone (a pretty temperate state) 30% of residential energy use is consumed by conditioning the air. Again, another opportunity for huge savings.

Read through your response above, though, and think about the assumptions that are embedded in it.

What you are basically saying is that we should still use the same natural resources, we should just use them more slowly, which only means that the date on which we run out of them will be a little farther away in the future.

What you are talking about is just buying humanity a little more time, but time for what?  To do a little more fiddling before our treasured belief systems collapse around us?

Conservation and efficiency are normally ways of staying within the existing paradigm for just a little longer.  Over periods of centuries, however, a much more comprehensive solution will be needed than LED lights and smaller cars.

Ultimately, humanity will find itself near 100% dependent upon renewable resources, as it was for most of history through about 1800.  When you are 100% dependent upon renewable resources, LED lights and smaller cars might seem like unimaginable luxuries.

I don't know what the answer is, but I think that much of the thinking around renewable energy and increased efficiency and conservations are like excellent tactics within a deeply flawed strategy.

[doodle]

Are you going to pay someone to push your car around town? 

No, but maybe a bicycle rickshaw.  ;D I ride a bicycle and within city limits I am faster than a car.

The last 50 years have been a radical departure from the way that humans have lived throughout history. It is time to recognize that we need to rediscover the way things worked 100 years ago. Buildings were designed to take advantage of the sun in the winter and shade in the summer. People dried clothes on lines outside their house. They walked places instead of jumping in Hummers. They took local trips instead of travelling to India to see a dentist. They ate seasonable fruits and vegetables instead of shipping food halfway around the world.

Things are going to change....and human society will return to the historical mean.

[LonerMatt]

the two views you express in these posts seem contradictory to me, "we should accept the theory because global warming scientists came to a conclusion and formed a consensus"... but what science does is the opposite... "it challenges accepted truths"...    this makes global warming theory's seem to have more in common with religion big business and politics than science???

Science is experimentation and discovery through observed, repeatable circumstances.

Religion is the denial of observation through faith.

Science is a tool I can use to understand how things work in the way we best understand now. Science doesn't (or rather, shouldn't), be proclaiming facts - because facts require perfect knowledge, and perfect knowledge is something we'll never have. It's insulting that people are looking for "ironclad proof" (whatever that is) or some factual basis - they are wanting something that when the field works at its best can never (and should never) provide.

Science seems to offer the exact opposite of religion, big business or politics - it is open for anyone to try to learn about (and I mean quite literally open, the information is accessible, even if it's difficult to understand) - religion, big business and politics are shadowy, strange and enigmatic (to be polite). Science adjusts its view when it's mistaken.

Your comparison is fatally simplistic and, if I may be so bold, deliberately ignorant (or polemic, depending on intent).

There's not some mystical acceptance of everything scientists write about or decide - but a combination of experimentation, decades of research, countless publications and a variety of findings in a variety of fields. Honestly, and I mean this, I think people who deny climate change is happening have more in common with religious fanatics than anyone else here.

We can debate man's role until the cows come home - and there's no "fact" to be found since we'll never (in my view) perfectly understand a situation without retrospect. But given the choices of apathy leading to destruction, or action leading to (at best) more efficient resource allocation, less pollution, a more aware and resource conservative population and a cleaner way to live with our Earth or (at worst) battered pride. Well, I know where I'm headed.

As an aside, I find it maddening that people seem to have the arrogance to assume that their "refutations" haven't been thought of or discarded by a relatively well trained an open field. Nothing in science matters unless its provable, replicable, shared and critiqued - and that's a rare set of criteria. If people have legitimate questions these (in all likelihood) have been answered, just look around.

To take this thinking to the extreme - I've seen people watch a comedian's take on Global Warming over NASA's, and really I have to wonder, are people only looking for what they want to see? Or what's happening?

So yes, there's always room for debate, unfortunately many people think all debaters are equal. They aren't. They can't be, and the ignorant should always be challenged when they assert their views without research or understanding (which is precisely the problem here). Somebody discussed gravity as observable and empirical (nothing is ever empirical, that's just what we always aim for, by the way) - the greenhouse effect is absolutely observable and completely tested in many, MANY studies from a range of different people, places, backgrounds and biases. The only thing we are unsure of is what the rate of change will be (which can't be predicted accurately because human activity is unpredictable) and what, exactly, is man's role in all of this (in which case my personal opinion is to be conservative, assume we're being destructive - which we constantly are in our environment - and improve).

What do you think would happen to a climate scientist who had unequivocal proof that the theory of global warming was incorrect?

Do you think the other climate scientists would embrace him and his ideas?

1. No one can tell the future, kthnxbai.
2. I think quite a few would be skeptical and challenge his views (as they should), but in realising they were mistaken have trouble transitioning, but move on.

[lazyboy]

I can see this discussion of global warming as a metaphysical problem. I think an important idea to grasp, that sometimes gets bypassed too quickly, is that we, as humans, are constantly voting through our actions, intentions, feelings and thoughts what kind of life we are living. We are influencing the results of this experiment of living at all times individually and collectively, consciously and unconsciously. The question should be what do we want to consciously create here on this planet. Einstein observed that the scientific observer is always influencing the observed. This should give us pause to reflect on our own biases and also what our deepest fears and highest intentions are for the planet. My argument here is basic and simple: What we intend may well be the result that we will get. This idea seems so simple, obvious and self evident in our own personal lives and if we can apply it to the planet as a whole then the global warming discussion can take on a deeper level of meaning. What I'm suggesting, here and now, is that we deeply consider, examine and contemplate our relationship to the earth, allow what emerges in our awareness and take appropriate action.

[LonerMatt]

What you are basically saying is that we should still use the same natural resources, we should just use them more slowly, which only means that the date on which we run out of them will be a little farther away in the future.

What you are talking about is just buying humanity a little more time, but time for what? 

Time to either adjust to complete collapse of energy systems as we understand them now (as much as time can be helpful).

Or time to adjust energy harvesting (in what ways we can) for a more appropriate future.

Renewables cannot get started on their own (they can't be manufactured without energy inputs), but there are certainly many ways we collectively can improve our energy use (when countries like Norway and New Zealand do so well with renewables I think there's definitely hope that it's possible).

That being said, your assumption is that time is the intended product of that post. I'd argue efficiency was and is a much more complex and potentially dangerous assumption.

[LonerMatt]

Simon,

The operative word in the first quote is "lay" people....I don't believe that lay people should blithely discard scientific consensus. They can question it but frankly how much weight should we give to the opinion of someone who can't even identify the elements on the periodic table?

Adam A and Simon

Scientific theories are constantly overturned and reworked. Isn't this evidence that the truth seeking process in the scientific community is alive and well? I think that the idea hard data manipulation among a large group of competitive scientists over multiple generations smacks of a conspiracy theory........then again, maybe the Illuminati are manipulating climate data to gain social control and fufill their goal of eugenics.

"lay" people should not blithely discard it.. but if they understand how science works they should understand that they shouldn't dogmatically insist that it is the full and undisputed truth either...

in the debate over warming, there is always a bit of mix and match between data and theory and which is actually being disputed or questioned.. there may be some side debate over methodology of data collection (heat islands and fudging for grants) but the bigger debate isn't about grand conspiracy's over the Illuminati manipulating data, it is over the the theory's about cause and effect, did we cause it? and can we predict what is going to happen next based on those theory's?

in-spite of multiple generations of data collection, i still tend to think that the shear size and number of forces at play in determining global temperature trends, are to large and unwieldy to come to anything approaching certainty about cause or effect.... (yet.... but do lets keep trying)
i remain skeptical of people that say the theory's are conclusive enough to warrant the government intervening.... but i am just a "lay" person

Surely there are ways the government can intervene that indirectly address potential man-made global warming that are direct solutions for other problems?

For example, a small and simple idea such as making sure new buildings meet an 8 or 9 star energy rating standard, or when new power plants are built trying to use renewable energy where possible (wind, solar, geothermal or hydro).

You're right - the time scale is unknown, so why not start now? We don't have to have a massive upheaval (although maybe we do, I'm not sure).