Climate change - at last someone tells it like it is

room305 said:
You can't see how anyone wrote a book entitled "Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis--And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster" could have a vested interest in maintaining that anthropogenic global warming sceptics are in the pay of Exxon-Mobil?
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I would only call it a vested interest if it could be proven he just wrote the book to make a few bob. I think it's more likely he actually believes what he's writing about.

:)
 
extopia said:
I would only call it a vested interest if it could be proven he just wrote the book to make a few bob. I think it's more likely he actually believes what he's writing about.
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I don't doubt that he is genuine in his beliefs, just that his claims must be viewed in light of these beliefs.

So he claims that Exxon-Mobil have the ear of the Bush administration. Fair enough, I don't doubt that the world's most profitable corporation can exert influence on a government if it wishes.

However, is he likely to be as vehement in his condemnation of the massive government subsidies provided by that same administration to the Archer Daniels Midland company?
 
ivuernis said:
I meant it in the context of increased coal use for power generation (as is already happening) rather than the some type of mass Fischer-Tropsch process for the transport sector.

Although the idea of a coal(derived)-powered aircarft may not be as outlandish as it sounds...
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I wouldn't bet against on a whole host of increasing dirty power sources being used to power national/regional economies (as opposed to the "world economy") once the oil/gas decline starts to really bite and the climate be damned.
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I think it is only the developing countries that are increasing their coal-generated electricity use, simply because it is cheap, plentiful and there are less regulations regarding air pollution. These may increase in the future as oil and gas become harder to come by but it will still result in a huge overall reduction in CO2 emissions. Especially if carbon sequestration or scrubbing technologies are used in chimney stacks.

That plane sounds fantastic - perhaps there is some hope for Ryanair afterall!
 
Less people dying from Hypothermia . Climate change should be good for homeless/people who cannot afford to heat their homes.
 
room305 said:
These may increase in the future as oil and gas become harder to come by but it will still result in a huge overall reduction in CO2 emissions. Especially if carbon sequestration or scrubbing technologies are used in chimney stacks.
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CO2 (and CO, Sulphur Dioxide, Mercury and particulates) emissions are significantly greater from coal fired power stations per unit energy output than from oil and natural gas. There's currently no large scale power plant in operation with a full carbon capture and storage system and the long term storage of CO2 in for example geological formations is an unproven concept.
 
ivuernis said:
carbon sequestration is a chimera
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Not really. Carbon sequestration is a natural phenomenon. It's simple physics.

If you're talking about "artificial carbon sequestration" however, I suppose the jury is still out. But there's a lot of promising work going on in this field. It's too early to tell which methods are going to be the most viable (and the least damaging, as sequestration itself has unproven consequences).

It's probably going to be one of the most important elements of a global CO2 reduction policy.
 
extopia said:
Not really. Carbon sequestration is a natural phenomenon. It's simple physics.

If you're talking about "artificial carbon sequestration" however, I suppose the jury is still out.
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Of course I meant artificial or non-natural (outside nature) carbon capture and storage.
 
Nevertheless, to describe it as a "chimera" is to do a disservice to the good work being done in this field.
 
Climate change is the new green religion, Thou shalt not talk about climate change in vain. All ye who speak about it being cyclical or natural phenomenom are heretics and shall be beaten down until you agree with the concensus. Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

The earth is 4.5 billion years old and has had many heating and cooling cycles . Do you seriously believe our input during the last 100 years out of the earths 4.5 billion years is causing climate change.
 
room 305
that aircraft is already flying .the united states airforce fitted one of those engines to a b 52 bomber and on the 17 december were due to fit one to a c17 globemaster transport aircraft for a trans continental flight. 50/50 fuel mix jp-8 and this syntheteitc fuel blend ,they are also trying to get nato to change over as well
 
Niallers said:
The earth is 4.5 billion years old and has had many heating and cooling cycles . Do you seriously believe our input during the last 100 years out of the earths 4.5 billion years is causing climate change.
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Uh, yeah, many of us do. That's what this discussion is all about. The possibility that the current position could be down to a cyclical heating phase has been taken into account in the research. The science suggests that this particular comfort blanket is merely wishful thinking.
 
Such apparently blind faith in "the science" would tend to support the charge that "climate change is the new green religion".

Max McGuinness has a very interesting article in the Christmas issue of The Dubliner where he notes that "scientific evidence" can be used to support a range of patently ludicrous theories, for example that members of particular race groups are smarter/stupider than members of other races. He concludes that science should never be a replacement for common sense.
 
But the "science" of climate change is represented by its proponents, not as a massively complex theory or paradox such as the matters you list, but as a simplistic mantra, along the lines of "the earth is hotting up and mankind is to blame". Those who take the view that science is rarely THAT simple or straightforward have been branded as heretics.
 
extopia said:
Nevertheless, to describe it as a "chimera" is to do a disservice to the good work being done in this field.
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Ok, fair enough, but I doubt it's going to be the silver bullet some hope (and are saying) it will be.

Niallers said:
The earth is 4.5 billion years old and has had many heating and cooling cycles.
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Climatologists do take these natural cycles into account when modeling.

Niallers said:
Do you seriously believe our input during the last 100 years out of the earths 4.5 billion years is causing climate change.
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Outside of the dispute as to what is causing temperature changes there are many other examples of humans making vast (and largely negative) changes in the last 150 years, e.g. deforestation, habitat destruction, wildlife extinction, ozone depletion (thankfully averted). There are 6.5 billion of us after all and we do use up a lot of resources and emit quite a bit of emissions. We (as a species) can and are causing change on a global scale, if you want to argue that this does not or cannot extend to global temperature then that's your call.
 
... But deforestation and habitat destruction are sadly not new phenomena. The biggest case of deforestation in Ireland happened with the clearing of the native woodland that covered the country in the middle centuries of the last millennium.

Deforestation and the destruction of habitats do not explain the patterns of global cooling from the late 1930s until the 1970s.
 
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