Conservatives and climate change

[BenBurch]

That report has been shown to be based on non-peer reviewed research, taken from the website of a "long standing critic of wind power".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jan/09/wind-turbines-increasing-carbon-emissions

Uuuunlucky.

In other words; "MHaze provides a useless citation already known to be a lie."

*yawn*

 

[kmortis]

I just move a few posts off to AAH for being off-topic and/or uncivil. Please keep to the topic, and remember that the topic isn't the other posters.

And play nice.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: kmortis

 

[uke2se]

Internet-tough-guy violent fantasies aside, your plan as a couple of flaws.

First of all, a snail darter is a fish, and DDT is an insecticide. (Looks like your knowledge of biology and chemistry is right up there with your knowledge of climatology.) As hilarious as it would be to watch a bunch of rednecks stomping around in a riverbed and using insecticide to try to kill a fish, it's probably not the most effective method to achieve your goal.

Secondly, lefty liberal loons are a wily bunch. They would probably be crafty enough to plan their protest on a day when Larry the Cable Guy was in town or McDonald's reintroduced the McRib. So your "minions" would be otherwise occupied.

But I will give your plan points for theatricality. It's runs the gamut from insanely stupid ("Let's go stomp some fish!") to just insane ("Let's poison an entire ecosystem!"). I've never seen something so filled with hateful crazy that wasn't a plot to kill James Bond.

Sometimes I weep for humanity because of the antics of people like mhaze. I get frustrated seeing stupidity like the kind he's spreading being taken seriously, and I feel seriously down seeing otherwise intelligent people swept up in the wave of willful ignorance emanating from the denialist crowd.

Then I read a post like the one quoted above, and I feel a bit better.

Thanks.

 

[Trakar]

Oh, but environmental "concerns" have stalled or derailed numerous nuclear plants. This is a history that's been written up. And a steady, long term program to build nuclear plants simply has got to deal with crank lawsuits.

In fact, my plan to make energy independence or at least the nuclear part of it, a national security matter, not only makes common sense, but is the only way to enable the building of large numbers of nuclear plants on a schedule.

But the issue at hand isn't energy independence, it is reducing and eliminating carbon emissions. Remember the agreed to goal here was to come up with policy measures that deal with climate change not trying to come up with schemes to exasperate those issues.

Really? Since a lot of methane is burned off at well heads, to the extent that was recovered and used as liquid fuel...

again the idea is to eliminate fossil carbon emissions

From the rest of this non-response, you illustrate that you cannot and will not seriously discuss policy issues related to climate change, and if you aren't going to engage in that dialogue there is no further reason for me to attempt to hold that discussion with you.

 

[lomiller]

Nonsense. I'm glad this isn't being posted in the science forum. The uncertainty is a direct result of several phenomenon including cloud cover being poorly understood, not as a result of "chance".

Speaking of nonsense...

If cloud formation really does act in a way that prevents a radiative imbalance from heating the planet wouldn’t be able to exit a glaciation. If anything changed to warm the planet up these magic clouds would form and stop that from happening.

To the subject of uncertainly. No, cloud formation is not an example of scientists not knowing the underlying rules of how clouds for, it’s a question of the inherent uncertainly and difficulty in calculating the outcome just as I said in my previous post.

Or as a famous man once said "...God doesn't play dice with the World"

As has already been pointed out that famous man was famously wrong in that assertion.

 

[lomiller]

I was addressing your posting of a debunked claim that wind farms produce more carbon than they prevent the production of. Finance doesn't even feature in that claim.

My own view on wind farms is that they may not be financially viable as an energy source without subsidies to private companies, but they are beneficial to society as a whole because they reduce our carbon output and the rate at which oil is depleted, slowing down climate change and peak oil.

When you consider all subsidies and externalities wind probably comes closer to paying it’s own way than any of its competitors. It’s comparable in cost to nuclear despite the fact nuclear receives large amounts of government funding for research and administration. Fossils are cheaper, but only because they don’t have to price in their CO2 emissions. Hydroelectric is good, but does involve significant costs in terms of flooding and mercury pollution that end up being socialized. Solar has it’s own pollution issues, but has the distinct advantage of having it’s peak output line up with peak demand.

My view is that we need to price in the cost of CO2 emissions, build a HVDC backbone to facilitate a national/continental scale electricity market and let the decisions between Nuclear, hydroelectric, Solar, Wind and whatever else resolve itself by whichever turns out to be most competitive in the open market.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

I agree, that had to be the strangest attempt at criticism I've ever seen

I supported the claim that money played a part in Mann's exoneration. This was not (here) a criticism of Mann but of the Penn State whitewash.
(Malcolm): "Trust, of people who did not deserve it, and money. I suppose you could go farther back and blame State-subsidized research. The appeal for research money plays better if the research topic has important implications, and what's more important than saving Earth?"
(DavidJames): "Please provide detailed, verifiable and unbiased evidence support those claims."

 

[DavidJames]

I supported the claim that money played a part in Mann's exoneration. This was not (here) a criticism of Mann but of the Penn State whitewash.
(Malcolm): "Trust, of people who did not deserve it, and money. I suppose you could go farther back and blame State-subsidized research. The appeal for research money plays better if the research topic has important implications, and what's more important than saving Earth?"
(DavidJames): "Please provide detailed, verifiable and unbiased evidence support those claims."

That he got money in no way suggests anything other then he got money. Only the twisted mind of a conspiracy theorists will twist it to match their delusion.

 

[DC]

I supported the claim that money played a part in Mann's exoneration. This was not (here) a criticism of Mann but of the Penn State whitewash.
(Malcolm): "Trust, of people who did not deserve it, and money. I suppose you could go farther back and blame State-subsidized research. The appeal for research money plays better if the research topic has important implications, and what's more important than saving Earth?"
(DavidJames): "Please provide detailed, verifiable and unbiased evidence support those claims."

why are all the other scientists around the world and the scientific institutions around the world not comming out? for the one scientific institution that would come out and blow the whole hoax it would surely be very lucrative, they would be world famous within minutes. but they all keep providing evidence in support of AGW. you think they are all in for the money?

 

[stokes234]

Okay, those I'd eliminate entirely. Those ones that by your admission are totally worthless economically. But as noted, just from existing mothballed wind farms, equipment could be moved to sites where it might have considerable utility and value. If not, scrap the junk.

Oh. And don't build more worthless junk. Build stuff that has "value". That means it's worth more than it cost, and that means that it can be financed, and built, and ran profitably.

Windfarms don't need to be profitable to a private company to be a good financial idea for a government to implement. But the debate was how best to prevent climate change, not how to make money from new sources of energy. The fact that you consider something that reduces our carbon output to be "useless junk" because it isn't financially viable just goes to show why people didn't want to debate climate change policy with you - you can't see the benefit because you won't accept the science.

 

[mhaze]

But the issue at hand isn't energy independence, it is reducing and eliminating carbon emissions. Remember the agreed to goal here was to come up with policy measures that deal with climate change not trying to come up with schemes to exasperate those issues.

again the idea is to eliminate fossil carbon emissions

From the rest of this non-response, you illustrate that you cannot and will not seriously discuss policy issues related to climate change, and if you aren't going to engage in that dialogue there is no further reason for me to attempt to hold that discussion with you.

Actually, you are wrong. You are stridently advocating A VIEWPOINT. And you don't control the topic or regulate the opinions people have on the matter, to make them conform to your point of view.

Quoting from the OP,.

It’s reasonable to argue that a meaningful deal to cut carbon emissions among the worst emitting nations (China, the United States, the EU, India, and Russia among them) is almost surely beyond reach and that our focus should be on adaptation (see here) and relatively low-cost investments in technologies rather than drastic carbon cuts.

My suggestions are directly in line with this. If you do not want to discuss the subject as contained in the OP, then, there is no reason for you to be discussing anything on this thread.

Although you might want to note that a keystone element of the plan I laid out was a substantial increase in the fraction of power generated by nuclear. A change to hundreds of billions in positive balance of trade, thru increased percentages of nuclear power, is in fact "exporting electricity from nuclear" (in addition to home consumption). That has an effect on the "areas of concern" that you have.

Thus I argue that regarding what to do, regarding what you consider to be an urgent crisis (and which many others don't) is to do nothing.

 

[lomiller]

I supported the claim that money played a part in Mann's exoneration. This was not (here) a criticism of Mann but of the Penn State whitewash.

The only money mentioned is research grants. Virtually all university professors get or at least try to get research grants and the ones who routinely get published in tier 1 peer reviewed journals like Science, Nature and PNAS nearly always do.

At best, your “criticism” amounts to you complaining that there is funding available for research in the US. This of course ties into the nonsensical anti-science conservative view that universities shouldn’t be doing any research at all, so even at its best it’s damming that you think this is a criticism. The reality, however, is that what you provided was an excerpt from one of the official reports on “climategate” that was highly complementary and supportive of Mann and seems to think it was evidence of malfeasance on his part.

 

[mhaze]

Windfarms don't need to be profitable to a private company to be a good financial idea for a government to implement. But the debate was how best to prevent climate change, not how to make money from new sources of energy. The fact that you consider something that reduces our carbon output to be "useless junk" because it isn't financially viable just goes to show why people didn't want to debate climate change policy with you - you can't see the benefit because you won't accept the science.

Crazy talk.

It's up to you are other green dreamers, to invent things that sell in the open market which are green to your dreamy standards. And which are cheaper, and thus win market share. It's not the job for consumers to buy more expensive, shoddier products, or to have those forced on them by governments, because they are allegedly greener.

 

[stokes234]

Crazy talk.

It's up to you are other green dreamers, to invent things that sell in the open market which are green to your dreamy standards. And which are cheaper, and thus win market share. It's not the job for consumers to buy more expensive, shoddier products, or to have those forced on them by governments, because they are allegedly greener.

Actually, it is the job of consumers to prevent climate change. If consumers (ie. the human population of the world) don't do it, nobody will. And no, it isn't crazy talk to say that something can make financial sense to a government without being profitable to a private company.

 

[lomiller]

It's up to you are other green dreamers, to invent things that sell in the open market which are green to your dreamy standards. And which are cheaper, and thus win market share.

This is a fine ideal, but not one that works if the existing players benefit from an externality the way fossil fuels do.

 

[stokes234]

This is a fine ideal, but not one that works if the existing players benefit from an externality the way fossil fuels do.

It's an extreme view even for people who believe completely in the free market. To quote Friedrich Hayek, a staunch advocate of the free market and strong influence on Milton Friedman, talking about the role of governments in The Road to Serfdom:

"...nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories, be confined to the owner of the property in question, or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation."

There's no way to reconcile the above view with the idea that the government shouldn't interfere to prevent the damage caused by emitting CO2, unless you think you know more about the climate than the global community of climate scientists do, and have used this phenominal brainpower to deduce that they are wrong.

 

[johnny karate]

Indeed, you too stand up for the First Amendment rights of snail darters.

There's that bizarre lie again.

Unless when you said "squashing dissent and legal challenges to nuclear power plants by presidential executive order" you were referring to protests and lawsuits organized by fish...

Crazy talk.

Indeed.

Oh, and regarding thorium reactors? I don't think the regulatory commission approves of experimentation in reactor design within the scope of a private company. We do need regulation. But yeah, if you want to have just old designs built, we'll let India and China design, test and build thorium reactors. Oh, and by the way? Does my proposal include shutting down the Dept. of Energy or changing it's mission? Nope. Not at all. Should we be engaged in research on thorium reactors regardless of the proposed fast build program?

Uh-huh. That's great. It's also irrelevant to the fact the you lied when you claimed your little plan was "private industry". It's not.

That's where you cast your vote as a knuckle dragging luddite or as someone who can see a way forward from the current situation.

Irony, thy name is mhaze:

The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life.

...

In modern usage, "Luddite" is a term describing those opposed to industrialization, automaton, computerization or new technologies in general.

 

[johnny karate]

It's up to you are other green dreamers, to invent things that sell in the open market which are green to your dreamy standards. And which are cheaper, and thus win market share.

Do the green dreamers get the benefit of government financing and government intervention in the face of dissent, or is that something only reserved for the dreams of science-deniers?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Do the green dreamers get the benefit of government financing and government intervention...

Wind farms, Solyndra, carbon credits.

 

[mhaze]

Actually, it is the job of consumers to prevent climate change. If consumers (ie. the human population of the world) don't do it, nobody will. And no, it isn't crazy talk to say that something can make financial sense to a government without being profitable to a private company.

It's up to you are other green dreamers, to invent things that sell in the open market which are green to your dreamy standards. And which are cheaper, and thus win market share. It's not the job for consumers to buy more expensive, shoddier products, or to have those forced on them by governments, because they are allegedly greener.

If you want to advertise "Greeniness" and use that attribute to capture market share, go to it. Just don't come whining when things don't go your way, and start claiming that "government should FORCE...."