Global Warming Debate: Both Viewpoints Irrelevant

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Nuclear power + vertical farming.

Presto, the planets carrying capacity just went through the roof.

Problem solved.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Nuclear power + vertical farming.

Presto, the planets carrying capacity just went through the roof.

Problem solved.

Lee Harvey!

I heard you were dead...

 

[gumboot]

Nuclear power + vertical farming.

Presto, the planets carrying capacity just went through the roof.

Problem solved.

Vertical farming seems to be a particularly poorly thought out concept.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Vertical farming seems to be a particularly poorly thought out concept.

I wouldn't say that. Maximizing land use by stacking floors upon floors is the one of the core concepts of 20th and 21st century urban design. Local criminal organizations near where I live have demonstrated the capability of a few thousand square feet of space produce multiple growing seasons worth of crops in a single year. This is done even in our harsh Canadian winters by adding running water, artificial light and heat.

And that's the thing that would make it work. Here on the Canadian prairies, we have a much shorter growing season than in warmer locales like the American heartland to the south. So if you take an acre of land and pile thirty floors of hydroponics bays on top of it, you haven't turned one acre into thirty. It's more like 90 to 120. All you need to make it happen is enough juice to keep the lights on and the nutrient solution warm.

There was a good article about it in the November Scientific American (just a couple dozen pages after the most revoltingly biased garbage on wind and solar power generation ever published) that fleshes the concept out a little more.

 

[GreyICE]

GreyICE: Thank you for the counter arguments. Without them there wouldn't be a good discussion!

I can't believe that you did not know I was not literally talking about running out of atoms. I grant that it is technically possible given enough time, labor, energy, and know how to replace almost any resources, or material, or whatever you would prefer to call them. However it is also possible that our ability to do this is limited or problematic.

1. If we can replace the resources, but at a rate less than consumption, we still have a problem.
2. If we can replace the resources, but to do so requires excessive costs (whether in the form of labor, other resources, harmful environmental effects, etc)

Let me try stating my case a different way. Everything in the universe works based upon sets of rules. Our planet is a giant system of such rules. Fortunately for us, and everything else that is alive, this system regulates itself and mediates damage to continue conditions appropriate for life to continue to exist. However like all systems there are limits. This means there is a limit to the amount of food we can grow. There is a limit to the amount of land we can destroy or change before it set off adverse affects upon other areas of the system. There is a limit to the amount of clean drinkable water we can consume regularly. There is a limit to the amount we can pollute the system before it can no longer repair itself. We have seen the damage that we can do to smaller areas of this system and how long it can take for the system to repair itself. Therefor it is entirely feasible that continuing to increase population and resource use without mitigating this issue can have serious consequences.

The idea that we shouldn't convert to a more environmentally friendly and sustainable way of living because global warming isn't real, or it'll hurt our economy, or we aren't running out of resources seems flawed. You mention stuff like recycling, and better utilizing the suns energy, which is exactly what I suggest needs to be done so it seems we agree to some extent.

Now there is always the opinion, one that I certainly hope ends up being true, that technology will solve everything. Unfortunately when technology makes it possible for us to get more for less (like improved engine efficiency in cars to increase ave. mpg) we simply use/require more and either negate the improvement or use even more resources than we did before. I'm going off of memory from an article I read so hopefully this is all correct (or close enough) but if not please correct me. In the 70's engine efficiency was improved and the cars then had better gas mileage than today. This isn't because today's engines are worse than those of the 70's but because we keep getting bigger, heavier vehicles with more features that have ultimately reduced our mpg to less than what it was 30+ years ago.

I'm not entirely convinced we are doomed, or that technology can't solve these problem. In fact I think it will be very interesting to see what happens in the next 50 years. But as you've said we need to start planning, and there is no time like the present to figure out a long term solution.

First, I think you and me are essentially on the same page. But you are hung up on some myths. Improved fuel efficiency does not make you drive more. Do you ever think to yourself 'ooh, I have a really fuel efficient car, I should just go joyriding?' More likely, you use your car to go from point A to point B, and the amount of fuel it consumes is the amount of fuel it consumes.

This is across the board. More efficient light bulbs do not make us use 'more light.' In fact, quadrupling the amount of light in our house would be extremely uncomfortable for most of us. More efficient food production does not make us eat more (though the obesity 'epidemic' suggests we have to work on that a bit). More efficient concrete production does not make us make more walls, more efficient insulation does not cause us to heat our houses more, more efficient trains and airplanes does not make us want to travel more often.

Efficiency makes us consume less. It does not necessarily make us use more. Reduction is the most important thing.

We have NOT continued to pollute the system worse and worse. Many areas are much cleaner than they were. We do NOT have to constantly boost our electricity usage. Many areas have found ways to achieve the same quality (and in many cases improved quality) using less energy. We do NOT have to keep wasting things the same way, and in fact we are not.

Things are getting better. Yes, it's a process with fits and starts. Yes, we're not out of the woods. But we're on a progression, and we should keep up the good work, not pause to say that we haven't improved since 1970 - because we have.

P.S. A large part of the 'lower gas mileage' is the EPA changed the numbers to reflect realistic driving conditions. In the 1970s, gas mileage was measured while driving on a perfectly maintained straight road with the AC off at the ideal acceleration conditions. This is no longer the case. As I recall actual fuel economy was something like 15 mpg in 1970s.

 

[Ziggurat]

First, I think you and me are essentially on the same page. But you are hung up on some myths. Improved fuel efficiency does not make you drive more.

Driving people isn't the only use of transportation fuel. Improve fuel efficiency for freight of any kind (ships, airplanes, trucks, parcel vans), and you really will increase the amount of freight that gets shipped.

This is across the board. More efficient light bulbs do not make us use 'more light.'

In homes? No. In commercial applications? Yes.

More efficient concrete production does not make us make more walls,

Sure it does.

more efficient insulation does not cause us to heat our houses more

No, but we might use more insulation if it's more efficient.

more efficient trains and airplanes does not make us want to travel more often.

Umm... yes it does. Well, maybe not trains, they suck for travel, but again, freight. Make trains more efficient, train freight costs drop, train freight volume will increase. And more efficient planes will drop airplane ticket prices, and damned straight that will affect how much and/or how far people fly for vacation.

Efficiency makes us consume less.

Rarely. And that's certainly not true on a global scale, as the last 100 years have demonstrated: we're far more efficient at just about everything than we were in 1900, and yet we consume more too.

We have NOT continued to pollute the system worse and worse. Many areas are much cleaner than they were.

Efficiency and polution are not the same issue. Don't confuse them.

We do NOT have to constantly boost our electricity usage.

But we probably will. And increasing efficiencies will help us to do so, because it will mean we can get more and more out of our increased consumption.

Many areas have found ways to achieve the same quality (and in many cases improved quality) using less energy. We do NOT have to keep wasting things the same way, and in fact we are not.

"Waste" cannot be quantified. "Consumption" is the relevant quantity.

Things are getting better.

I agree. In particular, living standards are getting better, because consumption levels keep rising.

 

[SezMe]

Indeed. We don't know the solutions. I'm merely specifying the problem we need solutions to.

But one problem you have not addressed is distribution. I fully agree that in theory energy is our only constraint....globally. But local inequitable distribution of resources is also a fact that we (humanity) need to address. One reason is that local wars fought for resources can get out of hand (India + Pakistan + nukes) to the point where we never to get bump against the energy boundary.

 

[SezMe]

We have NOT continued to pollute the system worse and worse. Many areas are much cleaner than they were.

And many areas are dirtier than they were. The USA (and to a lesser extent Europe) have exported not only jobs but pollution. While that makes the USA cleaner, Asia is thus dirtier.

Overall, which is winning, technology to clean up or population mess up. I don't know.

 

[GreyICE]

Driving people isn't the only use of transportation fuel. Improve fuel efficiency for freight of any kind (ships, airplanes, trucks, parcel vans), and you really will increase the amount of freight that gets shipped.

I'm going to snip a lot of pointless garbage here, because it's basically you restating the same wrong thing a lot.

You've made a testable claim. The testable claim is that more efficiency is canceled out by more usage. To test it, we need a time when efficiency suddenly and dramatically changed, and check usage. We can't use 1900 to 2000, because too much has changed in a century to point and say 'look, efficiency causes more usage (it's like saying 'look, homeopathy was invented in the past century and we live longer! Correlation!').

So lets check recently. Has efficiency ever suddenly changed?

Well efficiency is measured in cost per mile to a company. If we assume they're sociopathic (i.e. have no external ethics motivating decisions beyond cost), then efficiency boils down to how much money you spend per unit.

And that has changed. Suddenly and dramatically. Fuel prices spiked recently, doubled: http://zfacts.com/p/35.html

This was a sustained, multi-year rise. In your theory, that should have halved the consumption.

It did not. Certain things became non-viable to ship, yes. And if fuel economy made it cheaper to ship things, certain things would become viable to ship. But we're not talking about it just 'growing to meet the efficiency' (especially lighting. Ye gods, commercial offices use lighting for the same thing residences do. It's not like replacing all the Halogens with T5s makes them want to blind their employees).

The rest is just you conflating things.

 

[Beerina]

Whether you believe that humans are causing global warming or not, whether you believe global warming is happening or not, I say it's utterly irrelevant. Either way I have outlined a simple drawing which I will use to help explain why we need to change the way our economy and society work.

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_131654b215c0f3779a.jpg[/qimg]

Many of our resources are finite. History shows that the human population has been continually increasing. History also shows that yearly resource use per person has been steadily increasing. Ultimately this means that we will consume limited resources at an ever increasing rate until they are depleted.

Bzzzzzt! Sorry, thanks for playing.

You like history? Read that.

History shows that, in a relatively free, property-owning society, the more people the better. They solve all these shortage problems as a natural fall-out from the way capitalism (as derivative of freedom) operates.

This is also against common sense. But, as skeptics, we are aware of many things that are common sense that are wrong. So why to think it's right? As with any theory worth its salt, it's been used to make predictions that have been proven correct over and over, often against the same kind of people making these "ZOMG we're running out of resources!" claims.

It's an issue of economics, not planet science. Those who claim it's planet science are the ones whose theories make predictions that, when tested against this one fail.

Over and over and over again. I can't overemphasize this. And when the gloom-and-doom fail, they hem and haw just like any religious "The world will end tomorrow!" and they shift the goalposts, make excuses, blah blah blah. But they're never right. Just always claiming they will be...someday. Just like religion.

 

[GreyICE]

History shows that, in a relatively free, property-owning society, the more people the better. They solve all these shortage problems as a natural fall-out from the way capitalism (as derivative of freedom) operates.

HAHAHA!

Okay, this is the opposite end of the spectrum. Free markets magically solve things with pixies.

 

[Ziggurat]

I'm going to snip a lot of pointless garbage here, because it's basically you restating the same wrong thing a lot.

You've made a testable claim. The testable claim is that more efficiency is canceled out by more usage.

Not quite. My explicit claim is that efficiency improvements generally increase usage. Whether or not that increased usage has a larger effect on consumption than the efficiency improvements themselves is another matter. I would say that in general that's true, but there are probably plenty of specific exceptions.

To test it, we need a time when efficiency suddenly and dramatically changed, and check usage. We can't use 1900 to 2000, because too much has changed in a century to point and say 'look, efficiency causes more usage (it's like saying 'look, homeopathy was invented in the past century and we live longer! Correlation!').

Except there's a problem with what you're suggesting too: namely, if you try to measure consumption changes on short time scales in response to dramatic efficiency improvements, then you might miss changes in consumption which take longer to materialize. Consumption need not reach equilibrium quickly. And while lots of things have changed from 1900 to 2000, from an economic point of view, I think it's rather fair to say that the biggest change is increased efficiency pretty much across the board. The ubiquity of the automobile? Much more efficient than horses. Diesel locomotives? Much more efficient than steam trains. The internet? Much more efficient than post. Etc, etc.

Well efficiency is measured in cost per mile to a company. If we assume they're sociopathic (i.e. have no external ethics motivating decisions beyond cost), then efficiency boils down to how much money you spend per unit.

No. Efficiency boils down to what you need to consume versus what you can produce. Changes in price do NOT necessarily equate to changes in efficiency.

And that has changed. Suddenly and dramatically. Fuel prices spiked recently, doubled: http://zfacts.com/p/35.html

We were talking about efficiency, not price. A price increase says nothing about an efficiency increase.

This was a sustained, multi-year rise. In your theory, that should have halved the consumption.

Um... no. We were talking about consumption changes versus efficiency, not versus price, but either way, nothing about my "theory" requires that a doubling of price would halve consumption. Especially on short time scales, there's a little something called elasticity. But again, nothing you've presented is at all related to efficiency versus consumption.

Ye gods, commercial offices use lighting for the same thing residences do.

Offices are not the only commercial usage of lighting. Exterior lighting is far more elastic than interior lighting.

 

[GreyICE]

Not quite. My explicit claim is that efficiency improvements generally increase usage. Whether or not that increased usage has a larger effect on consumption than the efficiency improvements themselves is another matter. I would say that in general that's true, but there are probably plenty of specific exceptions.

Except there's a problem with what you're suggesting too: namely, if you try to measure consumption changes on short time scales in response to dramatic efficiency improvements, then you might miss changes in consumption which take longer to materialize. Consumption need not reach equilibrium quickly. And while lots of things have changed from 1900 to 2000, from an economic point of view, I think it's rather fair to say that the biggest change is increased efficiency pretty much across the board. The ubiquity of the automobile? Much more efficient than horses. Diesel locomotives? Much more efficient than steam trains. The internet? Much more efficient than post. Etc, etc.

I used a time scale of at least five years. If you're saying the changes take MORE TIME than that, I'd say 'evidence?' Fuel consumption declined in response to rising prices, but not enough to even come close to negating the effect.

Your example with lights remains laughably stupid, your idea that discovering better insulation means you use more insulation (...) remains ridiculous, and basically your entire premise is unproven.

You've chosen one factor in a myriad of factors, and homed in on it.

No. Efficiency boils down to what you need to consume versus what you can produce. Changes in price do NOT necessarily equate to changes in efficiency.

Yes they do. I demonstrated that. You making a blanket statement otherwise is nonsense. A change in CONSUMPTION is the same as a change in PRODUCTION (which is what causes a price rise). Price is a nice way of tracking this, long term. Short term, speculation, etc., but no question fuel prices are high and will remain higher than 1999.

We were talking about efficiency, not price. A price increase says nothing about an efficiency increase.

...

Woah.

I heard the sound of economists jaws hitting the ground from HERE.

Um... no. We were talking about consumption changes versus efficiency, not versus price, but either way, nothing about my "theory" requires that a doubling of price would halve consumption. Especially on short time scales, there's a little something called elasticity. But again, nothing you've presented is at all related to efficiency versus consumption.

wait... really? You think this?

Offices are not the only commercial usage of lighting. Exterior lighting is far more elastic than interior lighting.

Interior lighting is a MUCH larger use than exterior lighting. And exterior lighting is often governed by laws.

But at this point I think we've established that you're making your facts fit the theory here.

 

[Ziggurat]

Fuel consumption declined in response to rising prices, but not enough to even come close to negating the effect.

Once again: price is not efficiency. The evidence you presented is therefore worthless.

Woah.

I heard the sound of economists jaws hitting the ground from HERE.

Uh, no. Efficiency and price are not unconnected, but they are NOT THE SAME THING. Economists know this quite well. I'm rather surprised that you seem unable to comprehend the distinction, I always thought you were smarter than that.

 

[GreyICE]

Once again: price is not efficiency. The evidence you presented is therefore worthless.

Do you dispute that to a shipping corporation, an increase in efficiency of fuel usage and a decrease in prices are identical? If you do dispute this, please present evidence as to why. The evidence as to how they are identical are simple - the company only cares about price/mile. Reducing usage and decreasing price are therefore the same thing.

Uh, no. Efficiency and price are not unconnected, but they are NOT THE SAME THING. Economists know this quite well. I'm rather surprised that you seem unable to comprehend the distinction, I always thought you were smarter than that.

Pay A LITTLE bit of attention here.

 

[Ziggurat]

Do you dispute that to a shipping corporation, an increase in efficiency of fuel usage and a decrease in prices are identical? If you do dispute this, please present evidence as to why.

Changes in consumption by one player will affect the entire economy - perhaps to a small degree, but the effect is nonetheless real. If a company spends less money but consumes the same amount of fuel to ship the same amount of boxes, that is rather obviously different than if it consumes less fuel to ship the same amount of boxes. The consumption of fuel has changed. That is a real, measurable difference between the two scenarios. And you're delusional if you think that it doesn't have consequences.

The evidence as to how they are identical are simple - the company only cares about price/mile.

But the market cares very much about how much fuel was consumed. Price is one mechanism for conveying information about that consumption, but it is not the same thing.

Reducing usage and decreasing price are therefore the same thing.

Pay A LITTLE bit of attention here.

Given that this thread is about the consumption of resources, and whether or not that's sustainable, it's particularly ironic for you to conflate spending with consumption. Pay attention indeed.

 

[GreyICE]

Changes in consumption by one player will affect the entire economy - perhaps to a small degree, but the effect is nonetheless real. If a company spends less money but consumes the same amount of fuel to ship the same amount of boxes, that is rather obviously different than if it consumes less fuel to ship the same amount of boxes. The consumption of fuel has changed. That is a real, measurable difference between the two scenarios. And you're delusional if you think that it doesn't have consequences.

Does it have consequences on the company's actions? Yes/no, Ziggurat? You've been dodging this for a long time, while getting increasingly more hostile.

This sort of baiting retreat doesn't really look good on you.

But the market cares very much about how much fuel was consumed. Price is one mechanism for conveying information about that consumption, but it is not the same thing.

You are wrong about how efficiency effects consumption. You are prevaricating around the obvious.

Given that this thread is about the consumption of resources, and whether or not that's sustainable, it's particularly ironic for you to conflate spending with consumption. Pay attention indeed.

This? This earns this:

 

[Ziggurat]

Does it have consequences on the company's actions? Yes/no, Ziggurat?

Are we talking about only one company? Yes/no, GreyICE?

No, we are not. We are talking about the economy as a whole, so the decisions of a single company taken in isolation are irrelevant. We are also talking about efficiency (which one would measure by production/consumption), not price. You cannot logically use price as a substitute for efficiency. They are not the same thing. Such a basic fact, and yet you still can't come to grips with it.

You are wrong about how efficiency effects consumption. You are prevaricating around the obvious.

And yet, in your example, price changed rapidly and dramatically, but efficiency did not. The only evidence you have presented has nothing to do with efficiency, but only with price. That is obvious, and you are prevaricating around it.

I guess irony is not a resource we are likely to run out of.

 

[GreyICE]

Are we talking about only one company? Yes/no, GreyICE?

No, we are not. We are talking about the economy as a whole, so the decisions of a single company taken in isolation are irrelevant. We are also talking about efficiency (which one would measure by production/consumption), not price. You cannot logically use price as a substitute for efficiency. They are not the same thing. Such a basic fact, and yet you still can't come to grips with it.

Your argument is entirely wrong, and still you backpedal.

The rise in price represents a very similar situation - a sudden change in the cost/benefit analysis of shipping long distance.

The result was not a net decrease in shipping proportional to the cost/benefit change.

Efficiency changes will not result in a net 'no change.' They will result in a net decrease. Increasing efficiency decreases usage. Your futile quest to insist otherwise has lead you to some strange places, and you are coming off as increasingly irrational here. You keep chanting your mantras, I see no discussion.

And yet, in your example, price changed rapidly and dramatically, but efficiency did not. The only evidence you have presented has nothing to do with efficiency, but only with price. That is obvious, and you are prevaricating around it.

But usage, Ziggy. Usage changed... not very much. It did not react as you seem to think it would. You've neglected very much in your analysis - namely that the demand for shipping is finite (even if it were free and instantaneous, there would be a finite amount of stuff shipped), based on non-transportation related factors as much as transportation, and less driven by cost than you seem to think.

An increasing efficiency in fuel usage would result in less fuel used, overall. You seem intent on denying this. This makes no sense.

I guess irony is not a resource we are likely to run out of.

Every now and then, someone seems intent on dethroning Osmium. Enjoy your run.

 

[drkitten]

If resource use causes pollution, and it most certainly does, then as resource use increases so does pollution.

Unfortunately, this is simply not true, as can be demonstrated mathematically. If resource use increases 5% per year, but technological improvements result in a 10% per year drop in pollution per unit of resource used, then resource use can climb without limit.

Year one, we burn 100 resource units (RU) at one pollution unit (PU)/RU == 100 PU generated
Year two, we burn 105 RU at 0.9 PU/RU = 94.5 PU generated
Year three, we burn 111 RU at 0.81 PU/RU = 89.2 PU generated

et cetera.

The question then becomes whether technological improvements trump resource consumption growth, and if so, whether it does so by enough of a margin or whether we need to interfere with this natural progression.

But a simple statement that resource growth automatically means pollution growth is ridiculous; putting in a single nuclear plant can create both dramatically lower pollution and dramatically more energy over a thousand peat fires.