# Have we reached a tipping point?



## begreen

The latest news from the arctic is not good.









						Sea 'Boiling' with Methane in Siberia is Unlike Anything Seen Before
					

The researchers were able to scoop the bubbling water out of the sea with buckets.




					www.newsweek.com
				












						The permafrost bomb is ticking » Yale Climate Connections
					

We must act now to disarm it.




					www.yaleclimateconnections.org


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## AlbergSteve

A few years ago my wife used climate change as a base for for teaching grammar, writing skills and critical thinking in her first year university courses. She had to stop because it got too depressing for her and too traumatizing for the students.


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## WinterinWI

Wow, I guess there will be no need for seasoned wood for winter 2021. Shame I spent the last couple days splitting and stacking.


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## begreen

It's not like flipping a switch, at least I hope not . And it doesn't mean the end of winter  soon in WI. But things may get uncomfortable with the transalaska pipeline sitting on all that permafrost.


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## Microduck17

The human race has taken so much for granted for so long. I suppose its going to take everything being turned upside down before enough people wake up to make meaningful change. 

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk


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## Seasoned Oak

We are already in a normal warming period. Between glacier periods. Without it we probably wouldnt be here. Dont worry it will only take medium size asteroid or one of  the many volcanoes worldwide erupting to cool things off again ,perhaps too much. Enjoy it while you can.


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## semipro

AlbergSteve said:


> A few years ago my wife used climate change as a base for for teaching grammar, writing skills and critical thinking in her first year university courses. She had to stop because it got too depressing for her and too traumatizing for the students.


I've come to a similar conclusion lately.  I like to discuss concepts and events rather than people or sports.  The trouble is that discussing topics like this or politics has become such a downer that I find I avoid those conversations now to avoid being a downer.
It doesn't leave me a lot to discuss so I focus on projects -- which is why I like hanging out here and in the DIY room.


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## begreen

It is a bummer, but I have kids and need to help plan for their futures. We may slow down what we have started, but reversal at this stage seems quite unlikely.  I find myself and some in our community starting to face the questions raised if we admit that we have passed the point of reversing what has been done. These are huge systems with a momentum that carries for a very long time. If so, what are the anticipated effects, how do we adjust? How do we help those affected and provide the needs of the community?


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## Knots

I worked in aviation.  Manufacturers brought new engines to market that get 15% better gas mileage but operators are flying something like 20% more aircraft and they spend more time in the air.  I dunno if technology is going to keep pace with a new direction...


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## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> We may slow down what we have started, but reversal at this stage seems quite unlikely.


Reversal is not in our list of options. We didn t start it,it started 12000 yrs ago . We may
affect the pace of the current warming period around the edges but we give ourselves too much credit for that. After all it has been much warmer in the past than is is now or will get anytime soon.  All the hysteria should go toward dealing with the inevitable results instead of the blame game. Ill start listening to the radicals when they give up their cars ,air travel,burgers and smart phones and all live off the grid.  Until then they are just as culpable as anyone else.


begreen said:


> These are huge systems with a momentum that carries for a very long time. If so, what are the anticipated effects, how do we adjust? How do we help those affected and provide the needs of the community?


This is the right response. IMO


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## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> Reversal is not in our list of options. We didn t start it,it started 12000 yrs ago . We may
> affect the pace of the current warming period around the edges but we give ourselves too much credit for that.


Different cause and effect. That's a whole different ball game.  They are not equivalent and don't correlate. Atmospheric CO2 levels have not been this high for millions of years. This increase started with the industrial revolution.


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## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Different cause and effect. They are not equivalent and don't correlate. That's a whole different ball game.  Atmospheric CO2 levels have not been this high for millions of years. This increase started with the industrial revolution.


But whats the solution. Since virtually no one is willing to give up that industrial revolution the only thing left is preparing for the effects. Even if the whole US decided to go back to the stone age the rest of the world that matters will not.  We should be discussing how to deal with it ,not whose fault it is. We already know its everyones.   The amount of warming we can turn around at this point is probably insignificant. I think the tipping point was most likely 50 yrs ago or more.


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## ABMax24

Seasoned Oak said:


> But whats the solution. Since virtually no one is willing to give up that industrial revolution the only thing left is preparing for the effects. Even if the whole US decided to go back to the stone age the rest of the world that matters will not.  We should be discussing how to deal with it ,not whose fault it is. We already know its everyones.   The amount of warming we can turn around at this point is probably insignificant. I think the tipping point was most likely 50 yrs ago or more.



Start by voting in a President that recognizes climate change. This is a huge aspect, there are many nations around around the world that are devoted to reducing carbon, but are reluctant to when the largest emitter (the US) pulls out of the Paris Agreement and continues business as usual.

The fact is that some of the most developed countries with the best ability to reduce the dependence on Fossil Fuels choose not to, instead asking developing countries to reduce their emissions. Could any of us imagine what North America would be like without 300 years of the use of fossil fuels to advance our societies? It is our turn to go first.

I'm also not convinced there is a tipping point as such, it is all shades of grey, the more CO2 we dump into the atmosphere the faster the temperature will rise, the higher it will peak, and the longer it will take to return to "normal".


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## Seasoned Oak

The blame game continues.................


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## semipro

Seasoned Oak said:


> The blame game continues.................


I think its recognition rather than blame.

Put graphically - https://xkcd.com/1732/


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## ABMax24

Seasoned Oak said:


> The blame game continues.................



Data doesn't lie....


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## Seasoned Oak

semipro said:


> I think its recognition rather than blame.
> 
> Put graphically - https://xkcd.com/1732/


Realistic solutions are needed, not the "green new deal" .   Im all for solutions that work. And realistically ones people will accept on a large scale,preferably worldwide.  Id say we are most likely looking at the current path of warming or higher given population growth and more people moving from undevoloped nations to developed ones. So we had better get busy with solutions that  work.  Im not optimistic about it happening.


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## Seasoned Oak

ABMax24 said:


> Data doesn't lie....
> 
> View attachment 249183


I believe the data ,im not a questioning the data , just the amount of time spent looking for the culprits when we and our lifestyle are all the culprits. And some of those pointing fingers are the worst offenders.


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## Ashful

ABMax24 said:


> Data doesn't lie....
> 
> View attachment 249183



Americans have always been among the most productive in the world. That there is proof!

Our biggest problem is that we’ve tied the recognition of climate change to our political ideologies, the modern religion. I don’t know the solution, but the problem is obvious, both sides are speaking about unconfirmed probabilities as if they’re proven fact.

The reality is that the incomplete data we have mostly supports the view of the left, but having been so wrapped up in national politics, we have half the country who can’t accept it. Past exaggerations and jumps to incorrect conclusions don’t help the cause, and give opposition more justification to continue arguing the point.


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## Ashful

ABMax24 said:


> Data doesn't lie....
> 
> View attachment 249183



Americans have always been among the most productive in the world. That there is proof!

Our biggest problem is that we’ve tied the recognition of climate change to our political ideologies, the modern religion. I don’t know the solution, but the problem is obvious, both sides are speaking about unconfirmed probabilities as if they’re proven fact.

The reality is that the data we have mostly supports the view of the left, but having been so wrapped up in national politics, we have half the country who can’t accept it.  As long as the politician fighting for climate change is also trying to take a larger fraction of my hard-earned income as a penalty for working hard and being successful, it’s impossible to support them.  Past exaggerations and jumps to incorrect conclusions don’t help the cause, and give opposition more justification to continue arguing the point.


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## Highbeam

There never was a way to stop “it”. Just a lot of people trying to profit from “it”. Just like the people trying to profit by causing “it”. We’re all trying to do the best for ourselves.
At this point that means making choices that help us thrive if “it” ever happens. I’m not buying a low bank waterfront home on the ocean for example.


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## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> But whats the solution. Since virtually no one is willing to give up that industrial revolution the only thing left is preparing for the effects. Even if the whole US decided to go back to the stone age the rest of the world that matters will not.  We should be discussing how to deal with it ,not whose fault it is. We already know its everyones.   The amount of warming we can turn around at this point is probably insignificant. I think the tipping point was most likely 50 yrs ago or more.


That is a good question. It is a multi-faceted issue. Here are the top 20 addressable points to slowdown carbon emissions in order of effect.












						Table of Solutions | Project Drawdown
					






					www.drawdown.org


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## SpaceBus

I think free education and Healthcare would also go a long ways in reducing the carbon footprint. More educated folks working on the problem, the better and a healthier population is a less needy population.


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## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> I think free education and Healthcare would also go a long ways in reducing the carbon footprint. More educated folks working on the problem, the better and a healthier population is a less needy population.


You do know there is no such thing as "free" ,just things someone else is paying for. Heathcare was never this expensive until more people got it for free, now its unaffordable to many of those paying for it. Same with education , the Govt is wrecking that with easy student loans. All the easy money pushing tuition thru the roof.   Your carbon footprint grows with income, so higher income earners have a larger carbon footprint. Sometimes much larger, think al gore and those in his income bkt.


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## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> That is a good question. It is a multi-faceted issue. Here are the top 20 addressable points to slowdown carbon emissions in order of effect.


From what iv read deforestation is a big part of the problem. The very things that are needed to sequester carbon are being burned at an alarming and increasing rate. 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ent-jair-bolsonaro-suggests-cause/2082066001/


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## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> From what iv read deforestation is a big part of the problem. The very things that are needed to sequester carbon are being burned at an alarming rate.



... and here we are in a wood burning forum. [emoji14]


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## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> ... and here we are in a wood burning forum. [emoji14]


Been only cutting standing dead trees this year, if that helps. Cut some today.


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## Ashful

begreen said:


> That is a good question. It is a multi-faceted issue. Here are the top 20 addressable points to slowdown carbon emissions in order of effect.
> 
> View attachment 249194
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> Table of Solutions | Project Drawdown
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> www.drawdown.org



“Educating girls” set me back a few seconds, then I remembered previously published stats about the relationship between education and age at birth of first child. My own diverse circle of childhood friends reflect those stats pretty well, with the most educated having kids the latest in life. That’s one way to slow down population growth. 

If you want your head to really spin, check world population estimates at the beginning and end of the great plague. This wasn’t all that long ago, in the grand scale of humanity, but my how we’ve grown.


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## Seasoned Oak

Also the world population before and after some of the big volcanic events. (toba) ect.   And the yrs of cold and famine that followed.


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## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> You do know there is no such thing as "free" ,just things someone else is paying for. Heathcare was never this expensive until more people got it for free, now its unaffordable to many of those paying for it. Same with education , the Govt is wrecking that with easy student loans. All the easy money pushing tuition thru the roof.   Your carbon footprint grows with income, so higher income earners have a larger carbon footprint. Sometimes much larger, think al gore and those in his income bkt.


Fine, replace free with universal, same difference in the end. I don't know why you blame Al Gore for being born rich. Good for him for trying to wake people up to the issues looming over all of us despite that very thing hurting his bottom line.

You can't possibly say that grants and scholarships have caused the escalating cost of education. Healthcare has been expensive for decades, so don't blame poor people that need to see the doctor. You are at the same time saying rich people and poor people are the problem. I guess we can both agree that humans are the issue.


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## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> Been only cutting standing dead trees this year, if that helps. Cut some today.


I think if you burn this way your carbon footprint is pretty minimal. It's considered sustainable to cut one cord per acre per year for cutting living trees. From my understanding burning a dead tree is carbon neutral since it would just be releasing that carbon if it were to rot in the woods.


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## Seasoned Oak

Govt involvement is where things seem go off the rails. Very few Govt takeovers result in a better product at a reasonable cost.


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## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> I think if you burn this way your carbon footprint is pretty minimal. It's considered sustainable to cut one cord per acre per year for cutting living trees. From my understanding burning a dead tree is carbon neutral since it would just be releasing that carbon if it were to rot in the woods.


Its just that trees seem to be dying at a faster rate. Iv lost about 15 to 20%  of my entire woodlot in the last few years.  Some very heathy looking trees in the middle of the growth cycle too. Different species. All  deciduous trees. Not sure why.


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## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> Govt involvement is where things seem go off the rails. Very few Govt takeovers result in a better product at a reasonable cost.


If that was the case then per capita healthcare costs where they have national healthcare, (almost the entire rest of the world),  should be much higher than ours, but just the opposite is true. Why, because all of the middlemen skimming off bucks are eliminated.  We are the only industrialized nation without national healthcare. The only one. And we pay for this privilege. Bigly.


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## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> If that was the case then per capita healthcare costs where they have national healthcare, (almost the entire rest of the world),  should be much higher than ours, but just the opposite is true. Why, because all of the middlemen skimming off bucks are eliminated.  We are the only industrialized nation without national healthcare. The only one. And we pay for this privilege. Bigly.


Then were doing something  very wrong because the more this Govt gets involved the worse it gets. The middlemen now are the insurance companies and they are skimming plenty.  That got a lot worse with ACA.  Our local "nonprofit" HC provider will soon have bought out and monopolized the whole state ,so we can forget about any type of competition in the future. I had high hopes for ACA but it seems to have made things worse. If we ever go national,the  ACA model, IMO is not going to be the best vehicle.


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## ABMax24

Seasoned Oak said:


> Then were doing something  very wrong because the more this Govt gets involved the worse it gets. The middlemen now are the insurance companies and they are skimming plenty.  That got a lot worse with ACA.  Our local "nonprofit" HC provider will soon have bought out and monopolized the whole state ,so we can forget about any type of competition in the future.



You have to leave private enterprise out of it, everyone trying to make a profit drives the cost up. Here in Canada the hospitals and health system are managed by the provinces with funding being provided from the federal government. Is it the best system? Probably not, but every citizen is entitled to care regardless of wealth. The downfall of this is we have the best doctors leave Canada to work stateside because they can make 2-3 times the money if they start their own practice. The average doctor here makes $300k a year, so I've got a good idea as to why healthcare in the US is so expensive.

Education is much the same way. K-12 is free to attend and post secondary is mostly paid for by the government with tuition and books for the average program being $6-7k per year, and can easily be paid for by a part time job or a government issued student loan. This allows someone to become an Engineer, Accountant, Teacher, etc for about $25k, which by my understanding is still less than a single year at many American institutions.


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## Seasoned Oak

Most other countries with universal HC, canada included are not ponying up $700 Billion a year policing the world like the US is and another few trillion in ongoing expendatures for needless wars. Which is a one of the reason why  comparing Govt expenses in the US with everyone else is not possible dollar for dollar.   Id gladly trade a big chunk of the 700B and most of those wars for better HC and let the world manage it own affairs with less intervention. So getting back to the cost of climate change,we seem to have other priorities.


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## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> If that was the case then per capita healthcare costs where they have national healthcare, (almost the entire rest of the world),  should be much higher than ours, but just the opposite is true. Why, because all of the middlemen skimming off bucks are eliminated.  We are the only industrialized nation without national healthcare. The only one. And we pay for this privilege. Bigly.



This is exactly the case. It cost $1,000 to get a few vials of blood tested. Thankfully my insurance is pretty good and covers $750. A bag of salt water costs over $100 when administered by the hospital. There are thousands of examples.


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## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> Most other countries with universal HC, canada included are not ponying up $700 Billion a year policing the world like the US is and another few trillion in ongoing expendatures for needless wars. Which is a one of the reason why  comparing Govt expenses in the US with everyone else is not possible dollar for dollar.   Id gladly trade a big chunk of the 700B and most of those wars for better HC and let the world manage it own affairs with less intervention. So getting back to the cost of climate change,we seem to have other priorities.


Nobody asked us to police the world, and we do a chit job anyway. Also, it would cost pennies (compared to the budget) to provide universal Healthcare when profits aren't the priority.


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## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> Then were doing something  very wrong because the more this Govt gets involved the worse it gets. The middlemen now are the insurance companies and they are skimming plenty.  That got a lot worse with ACA.  Our local "nonprofit" HC provider will soon have bought out and monopolized the whole state ,so we can forget about any type of competition in the future. I had high hopes for ACA but it seems to have made things worse. If we ever go national,the  ACA model, IMO is not going to be the best vehicle.



It's also only been instituted for a short period of time. I doubt the Great New Deal went over very well either at first.


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## begreen

All those big expense cost a whole lot less in Canada and abroad. Actually your out of pocket costs would likely be zero.


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## Seasoned Oak

When your spending more $ than the next 7 highest spending countries China , Russia, UK , France , Japan, Saudi Arabia and India combined, for war machines and armies, its hard to cover everything else that matters. Looks like no money for not just HC but climate change too.


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## begreen

Got that right. And lots of middlemen there too, skimming off th he cream.


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## EatenByLimestone

I'm convinced that the best way to clean the air,  make people healthier, reduce CO2, etc is actually really cheap, and easy.  It doesnt require us to change our life style or even sign onto the Paris agreement.

Start blowing insulation into the walls and ceilings of houses.  In my area I'd bet 3/4 of the houses built before 1970 dont have wall insulation.   Many dont even have attic insulation.   Cellulose can be blown into the walls cheaply.  It will improve health, tie up carbon, use less energy in the summer and winter.   There arent any real downsides.  

Don't play politics and do the rich/poor/owner occupied/rental thing.   Somebody owns it.  Dollar for dollar tax credit.   

You'll see energy usage plummet.   

The savings will give every family more to spend on whatever they want.   Can you imagine the boost to the economy if a family's heating bill for the winter is cut in half?   The average heating bill in my area is probably between 2 and 4k/ household.  Median income for a family of 4 is $44k.   That is money a family can feel!


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## Ashful

EatenByLimestone said:


> Start blowing insulation into the walls and ceilings of houses...  You'll see energy usage plummet.


Well, yes... home heating is one of the single largest sectors of our national energy usage, so it makes an easy target to pick if you want to single out one thing.

But a look at the actual numbers is a good demonstration of how no one thing is going to get us to where many say we need to be.  Home heating makes up approximately 11% of national energy usage.  Home cooling makes up an additional 5%.  If we suppose that 50% of the homes are deficient, and could improve the energy loss of those homes by 25% on average, you could cut national energy usage by 2%.  That's not nothing, but I wouldn't call it "plummeting", either.









						The National Academies presents: What You Need to Know About Energy
					

Want to understand the basics of America's current energy situation? The National Academies, advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine, provides objective information about the United States' current energy sources and uses, as well as a look forward to the future of energy.




					needtoknow.nas.edu
				












						The Age of the Housing Stock by State | Eye On Housing
					

In January, Eye on Housing took a look at the age of housing stock. According to the latest data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development American Housing Survey (AHS), the median age of an owner-occupied home in the United States was 35 years old as of the 2011 survey. The median...



					eyeonhousing.org
				




What's surprising to me, in the NAS link above, is that global shipping of product isn't really singled out as an isolated factor.  Maybe the data is just to difficult to obtain and condense, but between shipping nearly every consumer good in every one of our houses here from China, shipping our raw materials back to those manufacturing sites, the movement of crude and refined petroleum products, and the behemoth of Amazon.com, I'm really surprised that "shipping" isn't our number one single highest consumption of energy.


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## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> Well, yes... home heating is one of the single largest sectors of our national energy usage, so it makes an easy target to pick if you want to single out one thing.
> 
> But a look at the actual numbers is a good demonstration of how no one thing is going to get us to where many say we need to be.  Home heating makes up approximately 11% of national energy usage.  Home cooling makes up an additional 5%.  If we suppose that 50% of the homes are deficient, and could improve the energy loss of those homes by 25% on average, you could cut national energy usage by 2%.  That's not nothing, but I wouldn't call it "plummeting", either.
> 
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> The National Academies presents: What You Need to Know About Energy
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> Want to understand the basics of America's current energy situation? The National Academies, advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine, provides objective information about the United States' current energy sources and uses, as well as a look forward to the future of energy.
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> 
> needtoknow.nas.edu
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> The Age of the Housing Stock by State | Eye On Housing
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> In January, Eye on Housing took a look at the age of housing stock. According to the latest data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development American Housing Survey (AHS), the median age of an owner-occupied home in the United States was 35 years old as of the 2011 survey. The median...
> 
> 
> 
> eyeonhousing.org
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> 
> What's surprising to me, in the NAS link above, is that global shipping of product isn't really singled out as an isolated factor.  Maybe the data is just to difficult to obtain and condense, but between shipping nearly every consumer good in every one of our houses here from China, shipping our raw materials back to those manufacturing sites, the movement of crude and refined petroleum products, and the behemoth of Amazon.com, I'm really surprised that "shipping" isn't our number one single highest consumption of energy.


It probably is, just look at all of the pushes towards alternatives in trucking and even planes. Boats are just a matter of time. I think a big part of the problem is the way maritime laws are written. Even just converting boats and ships to silent propulsion will be much appreciated by all marine life. I think we forget that the planet isn't only being ruined for humans, most living things are threatened as well. I guess the jellyfish will be ok.


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## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> All those big expense cost a whole lot less in Canada and abroad. Actually your out of pocket costs would likely be zero.


If i were looking for low cost quality HC abroad, id be in the philippines. I remember spending 3 days in a private room in a 1st class hospital in Cebu City in 2010 and the entire bill was less than $200. That included Meds, Meals and 24 hr care and 9 bags of IV for dehydration.  In the countryside its even more affordable. I witnessed a doctor treat a patient in a rural clinic in 2002 for about an hour for 90 pesos .   About $1.80 US.  Conversion rate is @ 50 pesos to $1.


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## EatenByLimestone

Ashful said:


> Well, yes... home heating is one of the single largest sectors of our national energy usage, so it makes an easy target to pick if you want to single out one thing.
> 
> But a look at the actual numbers is a good demonstration of how no one thing is going to get us to where many say we need to be.  Home heating makes up approximately 11% of national energy usage.  Home cooling makes up an additional 5%.  If we suppose that 50% of the homes are deficient, and could improve the energy loss of those homes by 25% on average, you could cut national energy usage by 2%.  That's not nothing, but I wouldn't call it "plummeting", either.



I think it would snowball.   How many older cars would get replaced with a "raise" like that? Etc


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## Ashful

EatenByLimestone said:


> I think it would snowball. How many older cars would get replaced with a "raise" like that? Etc



People having more disposable income could have a negative impact on energy usage, travel always goes way up.


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## ABMax24

Ashful said:


> People having more disposable income could have a negative impact on energy usage, travel always goes way up.



That hits the nail on the head.

We live in a more affluent area than most of Canada, many people drive pickups, have bigger houses, own jet boats, sleds, quads, take winter vacations to Mexico or the Caribbean. Very rarely have I ever seen people use their extra cash to reduce their carbon footprint.


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## Ashful

ABMax24 said:


> Very rarely have I ever seen people use their extra cash to reduce their carbon footprint.


No kidding:







It feels a little disheartening, when most of my favorite cars come with a gas guzzler tax, and many private yachts or private jets burn more fuel in a single day than I can run thru all of my cars combined in a full year.


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## begreen

Yes, manor lawns, huge houses (often multiple houses), a lot more household consumption, frequent flights, etc. all add up. Affluence is why Saudi Arabia US , Canada, Australia are the top 4 per capita emitters in the world.


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## SpaceBus

Perhaps tree farming on a global scale could deal with the sea level rise and the carbon issue at the same time. This morning I was thinking about all the water being released into the atmosphere as rainforest are being burned. Recently I saw a series on Netflix about earth from an astronaut's perspective and there's a literal river of water above the amazon rain forest. These forests are being destroyed world wide and that means loads and loads of hot water is being dumped into the atmosphere.

Trees are the most efficient carbon scrubber ever made. We can make stuff out of them and they store huge amounts of water. @Seasoned Oak said something along these lines in an earlier post I believe.


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## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> No kidding:
> 
> It feels a little disheartening, when most of my favorite cars come with a gas guzzler tax, and many private yachts or private jets burn more fuel in a single day than I can run thru all of my cars combined in a full year.



I do agree, it is disheartening. At least he's using his wealth to try and make the planet cleaner and generally nicer place to be. That's pretty cool to me.


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## Seasoned Oak

This means the most important thing the climate preaching elite can do is promote tree planting. Are they doing that? Or just flying around in private jets trying to make the rest of us feel guilty. Ill take them seriously when big al goes OFF THE GRID.


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## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Yes, manor lawns, huge houses (often multiple houses), a lot more household consumption, frequent flights, etc. all add up. Affluence is why Saudi Arabia US , Canada, Australia are the top 4 per capita emitters in the world.


Which is exactly why they sound so hypocritical preaching to us.


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## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Perhaps tree farming on a global scale could deal with the sea level rise and the carbon issue at the same time.


Instead i think we are going the other way . We need more but are getting less(trees).









						World losing area of forest the size of the UK each year, report finds
					

Chance of ending deforestation by 2030 seems lower than when pledge was made five years ago




					www.theguardian.com
				



[/QUOTE]


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## begreen

I wish the answer was as simple as planting a lot of trees. It's not. There are two obvious problems, one is time. Trees take a while before becoming effective. The old growth lost was exceptionally effective. But prairie grasslands are also very effective and they grow much faster. Massive hemp and bamboo farms would help reduce deforestation while acting as renewable carbon sinks that don't need fossil fuel fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides. And our current industrial agriculture systems are removing a huge amount of carbon from the soil instead of using the soils as a carbon sink. But all of this is just a portion of the big picture. To slow down the massive accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere will take a dramatic change on many fronts.


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## EatenByLimestone

Wouldn't it depend on the type of tree grown?   It seems like you'd want 2 things, fast growth, and a woody stem to hold your carbon.   Poplar would do that.   They grow pretty fast and are well suited for growing on disturbed soil.   Furthermore, your climax and undergrowth can start under their canopy and take over once the poplar has matured and died.  

Many of the family farms have gone back to forest in north America.    There are more trees in NA now than during the civil war.  It's one of the reasons why ticks have exploded.   More habitat.


----------



## begreen

That is not incorrect, but this is still talking a 10-20 yr time frame and it would have to be large scale. I have read arguments for young forests' uptake vs old growth. Each appear to have their benefits. And yes, we have regrown a lot of forests in the US, but in other areas here clear-cutting still happens large scale. And global deforestation is still large scale. The lost of tropical rainforests is devastating in the Amazon and Indonesia.

Land use is complex and sometimes the important issues are missed. Coastal development and pollution have destroyed a lot of mangrove forests, eel grass and kelp beds which turn out to be surprisingly good carbon sinks as well as tremendous marine habitats.


----------



## semipro

My next door neighbor, a fatherly older gentleman, visited this weekend while I was working on my solar PV installation.  He mentioned that he didn't see what all the fuss was about with climate change, that the air was visibly cleaner than when he was a kid, and that "when half the scientists tell you one thing and the other half tell you the opposite, what are you going to believe?" I remarked that the split was more like 97%/3% and that I've seen first hand the impacts of climate change occurring in our 18 years on our property (e.g. flora,fauna, snowfall, temps, etc.).   I could tell he wasn't buying that and I wasn't going to sway his opinion so I changed the subject.   I wondered where he was getting his data, 50/50?


----------



## SpaceBus

Indeed, it will take some dramatic action, like stopping the Amazon from burning down, find out why California is on fire again, prevent another Smoky Mou





semipro said:


> My next door neighbor, a fatherly older gentleman, visited this weekend while I was working on my solar PV installation.  He mentioned that he didn't see what all the fuss was about with climate change, that the air was visibly cleaner than when he was a kid, and that "when half the scientists tell you one thing and the other half tell you the opposite, what are you going to believe?" I remarked that the split was more like 97%/3% and that I've seen first hand the impacts of climate change occurring in our 18 years on our property (e.g. flora,fauna, snowfall, temps, etc.).   I could tell he wasn't buying that and I wasn't going to sway his opinion so I changed the subject.   I wondered where he was getting his data, 50/50?



Fox News. They give an equal voice to both sides despite unequal representation in the scientific community.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Indeed, it will take some dramatic action, like stopping the Amazon from burning down, find out why California is on fire again, prevent another Smoky Mou
> 
> Fox News. They give an equal voice to both sides despite unequal representation in the scientific community.


Fox news is the only news giving both sides  of issues these days. Most other sources are one side only. The lines between opinion and real news have disappeared.


----------



## begreen

There are about 2% of the world's respected climate scientists that are championing climate change denial. 98% of the world's climate scientists agree in human-influenced climate change. Why should there be an equal representation of views, especially when a large portion of that 2% are fossil fuel industry paid deniers? Fox has very little news, it is almost all opinion and that formula has infected other cable news shows too. Science is often the victim in this pundit-based landscape.


----------



## begreen

If you want to learn specifics about the role of soil, plants, and trees on carbon in the atmosphere, here is a good lecture by a world-respected soil scientist, Rattan Lal.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Fox has very little news, it is almost all opinion and that formula has infected other cable news shows too.


98% of other networks is Liberal opinion.  CNN is 98% liberal opinion. 2% news. I watch them both ,just to see how whacky they can get. Also the waters continue to get muddy conflating climate deniers with those who absolutely accept the science but also accept the science about just whats possible and probable to be done about it.  For all the screaming i dont see masses of people on either side giving up their modern day carbon creating lifestyle.


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> There are about 2% of the world's respected climate scientists that are championing climate change denial. 98% of the world's climate scientists agree in human-influenced climate change. Why should there be an equal representation of views, especially when a large portion of that 2% are fossil fuel industry paid deniers? Fox has very little news, it is almost all opinion and that formula has infected other cable news shows too. Science is often the victim in this pundit-based landscape.



At one point in history, 98% of scientists believed the world was flat, so I wouldn't discount anything based on that argument.

Do humans have some effect on this planet? Obviously yes, everything on the planet has influence to some degree. There is no shortage of scientists that claim to know exactly the effect that humans have on the climate, as well as what will happen in the next 10, 20 years if nothing changes. Been watching that recurring arrogance my entire life. 

Nowadays whenever I hear the doom/gloom predictions and solutions that just so happen to always line up with a certain political party's objectives, I just roll my eyes, go on with my life, trying to be responsible and minimize my impact on nature.


----------



## begreen

Haven't watched cable news since the 1990s. Pulled the plug back then. I am no fan of pundits and talking heads trying to fill up a 24hr broadcast cycle.


----------



## begreen

WinterinWI said:


> At one point in history, 98% of scientists believed the world was flat, so I wouldn't discount anything based on that argument.


That is not a true statement, they were not scientists.


WinterinWI said:


> Nowadays whenever I hear the doom/gloom predictions and solutions that just so happen to always line up with a certain political party's objectives, I just roll my eyes, go on with my life, trying to be responsible and minimize my impact on nature.


 This is not a political objective and curse Al Gore for making it one. That said, I applaud all that take personal responsibility to minimize their impact.


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## Ashful

Guys, the networks taking up defense for both sides of the aisle are almost equally deplorable. Which you find “objective” versus “opinion” is going to be entirely dependent on your world view.

They both mix opinion with facts to a degree that make it difficult for any casual observer to distinguish one from the other. Fox, CNN and MSNBC all have a long history of reporting factual news, but only the fraction of it that supports their narrative. You need to watch them all, if you want any real perspective, but few people seem to do that.


----------



## begreen

Or don't watch any of them. Read and do some meaningful research.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Or don't watch any of them. Read and do some meaningful research.


Dont believe everything you read either.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Most of us here are taking personal responsibly for our impact ,but we live in a world with a sea of people taking none at all.  And growing.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> Dont believe everything you read either.


I should hope not!


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> Or don't watch any of them. Read and do some meaningful research.



I may not be as well-read as some here, but it appears to me that written news is even less peer-reviewed or fact checked than what’s on TV, today. Don’t assume that just because it’s written, that it’s somehow more noble, or less for the entertainment of one half the population.


----------



## CaptSpiff

begreen said:


> This is not a political objective and curse Al Gore for making it one.


This thread brings to mind my state's governor Andrew Cuomo. He self declares as a "Green Champion", then applies muscle to close the Indian Point nuclear power station, at the same time fast tracking the building of two new monster size natural gas power plants in the same region.  He doesn't support new fossil base electric generation but his experts advised that downstate (ie NYC) could see summer supply shortfalls and possible rotating blackout if the Nuc power wasn't replaced in that part of the electric grid.

Now we have a new Gas power station in Middletown NY making 750MW, and the Cricket Valley Gas power station east of Poughkeepsie
 NY schedule to be commissioned in 2020 making 1000MW. The Indian Point Nuc site will shut down its two units over the next two years (-2000MW).

So here's a "green" guy who thinks it's good to shut down 2000MW of zero carbon energy, and replace it with 1750MW of fossil production.

It may be "real" to you BeGreen, but to most it's a political tool, and we pay either way.


----------



## begreen

Indian Point is old. It went in when I was a young lad. I can see decommissioning it. The licenses expired about 5 yrs ago right? And yes the trend is to replace cheap natural gas plants, but that is not a great solution. It's still fossil fuel based and the methane leakage from the thousands of fracked wells is significant. Replacing it with a modern nuke (or thorium?) reactor would probably be a better move, but wildly unpopular, so what were his choices?


----------



## CaptSpiff

begreen said:


> Indian Point is old.


Yup. No doubt the same can be said of us. 

I would have preferred he use his "green" muscle to convince the plant operators to rebuild the cooling system to use dry condensers. Indian Point was fighting a loosing battle with the DEC to re-license using the Hudson River water. It would have been a big score to improve river quality, save jobs and the tax base in Buchanan NY, and not suck the nipple of the "fracking" industry which he personally banned in NYS.


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## ABMax24

I'm not sure how others feel but I personally would rather live next to a gas power plant or gas processing plant vs a nuclear plant. I really like the idea of Nuclear and believe it can be done safely, but having worked in construction of gas processing facilities my entire career I understand the risks, fire, gas release and explosion are a lot less widespread than a radioactive release. 

Until the public accepts nuclear energy or large scale energy storage comes to fruition a large portion of the energy supply will come from hydraulically fractured natural gas wells.


----------



## Chas0218

I find it ironic how so many are for change and needing for this or that. How many of you have given up burning wood and fossil fuels, added solar panels to your houses and became 100% self sufficient? How many own only electric cars (I won't debate how bad they are compared to ICE cars)? 

I'm sorry climate change, global warming, whatever name you want to call it has been going on for 1000s of years. Last I checked we don't have the glaciers in NY forming the Great Lakes Still. Granted humans may have sped it up but it was going to happen even if we were still living in caves and communicating by grunting and hand gestures. Eventually we will be in a cooling cycle probably not back to the Ice age kind of cooling but it will happen. Hell the sun will be gone at some point too are we to blame for that too, using up too much of it's energy? I mean how long has the Sun been burning and how long do we have left from it? I don't think anyone really knows the answers to all this. Even articles published back in the 90s said we wouldn't be alive 9 years ago but here we are. It's cyclic just grab a seat we are all along for the ride lets not make it more turbulent.


----------



## Chas0218

SpaceBus said:


> I think free education and Healthcare would also go a long ways in reducing the carbon footprint. More educated folks working on the problem, the better and a healthier population is a less needy population.


Yes lots of free things would be nice but unfortunately these things all need money. Doctors aren't going to work for free and what is the point of doing well in college if it's free? If something happens to me I want the best doctor top of his class to work on me, I don't want some person that barely made it through to work on me. If education was free how many people would strive to do better? I don't think anything good would come from free healthcare and education.

I feel that there should be discounts given to those students that excel and are top of their class. Also think their should be different trigger points for financial aid. How about degrees that matter will be discounted? Trade school incentives? I mean there are 100s if not 1000s of ways to create some sort professional competitive edge to motivate people. If you aren't a competitive kind of person go flip burgers you need to have drive to get things done and be a productive member of society.


----------



## SpaceBus

Chas0218 said:


> Yes lots of free things would be nice but unfortunately these things all need money. Doctors aren't going to work for free and what is the point of doing well in college if it's free? If something happens to me I want the best doctor top of his class to work on me, I don't want some person that barely made it through to work on me. If education was free how many people would strive to do better? I don't think anything good would come from free healthcare and education.
> 
> I feel that there should be discounts given to those students that excel and are top of their class. Also think their should be different trigger points for financial aid. How about degrees that matter will be discounted? Trade school incentives? I mean there are 100s if not 1000s of ways to create some sort professional competitive edge to motivate people. If you aren't a competitive kind of person go flip burgers you need to have drive to get things done and be a productive member of society.



The money is already there, being wasted on new Tanks, the Joint Strike Fighter, and many other monetary black holes. 

The more educated people there are, the more people are working on solutions. Not everyone was lucky enough to be born into the middle class. There are millions of kids that will have no opportunity for any kind of higher education. You all focus on free degrees, what about free trade school? That's a part of education. Not eveything is a degree in basket weaving. 

Access to Healthcare should be a right. My MIL can't afford to get a flu shot. If we weren't paying for her to get it then she could lose her job, health, or die. Every year thousands of people die because they can't afford a flu shot. You guys act like this is a game, but people are dying. Think about the economic burden that puts on the American people. Nobody can be denied health care, so when poor people without insurance go to the emergency room tax payers are footing the bill anyway. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and costs about one tenth as well. We would likely pay less tax with a universal Healthcare system, which the military and federal employees already have access to! This is just one example. Think about the myriad of health problems that Americans face that are preventable. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and countless other potentially life ending diseases are easily prevented with regular routine health care. If folks were educated on top of universal health care, then Americans really would be unstoppable. 


Would you rather have more tanks collecting dust in a field or not have to worry about what happens if you get hurt on the job?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> The money is already there, being wasted on new Tanks, the Joint Strike Fighter, and many other monetary black holes.


Well there's on thing we completely agree on is the war machine has been out of control for a long long time.   I'm with Tulsi on that one. The insanity of getting involved in every skirmish on the globe will sap our resources for things we really need. But as far as college ,we are in desperate need of trades people. We already have plenty of philosophers and only 52 % of college students actually graduate.  And plenty of that number are on free grants.  More free college only seem to make the colleges richer and drive the tuition higher. And all the crying over student loans , the average student debt is 30 k ,the price of a car today. If you cant buy a car with your college degree salary,then youve wasted your time there.or picked the wrong degree. Not my problem or my responsibility to pay for it.


----------



## Chas0218

SpaceBus said:


> The money is already there, being wasted on new Tanks, the Joint Strike Fighter, and many other monetary black holes.
> 
> The more educated people there are, the more people are working on solutions. Not everyone was lucky enough to be born into the middle class. There are millions of kids that will have no opportunity for any kind of higher education. You all focus on free degrees, what about free trade school? That's a part of education. Not eveything is a degree in basket weaving.
> 
> Access to Healthcare should be a right. My MIL can't afford to get a flu shot. If we weren't paying for her to get it then she could lose her job, health, or die. Every year thousands of people die because they can't afford a flu shot. You guys act like this is a game, but people are dying. Think about the economic burden that puts on the American people. Nobody can be denied health care, so when poor people without insurance go to the emergency room tax payers are footing the bill anyway. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and costs about one tenth as well. We would likely pay less tax with a universal Healthcare system, which the military and federal employees already have access to! This is just one example. Think about the myriad of health problems that Americans face that are preventable. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and countless other potentially life ending diseases are easily prevented with regular routine health care. If folks were educated on top of universal health care, then Americans really would be unstoppable.
> 
> 
> Would you rather have more tanks collecting dust in a field or not have to worry about what happens if you get hurt on the job?


How do you correlate free education means more people working? People that currently pay for college still don't work so how would it being free make people want to work? Lucky to be born in middle class? If lucky means have $75,000 in school loans to become a teacher that (in NY) requires a Masters Degree to Make $41,000? My parents couldn't help me out with college so I was all on my own. I worked hard to get my degree and am awarded with a job. It all comes down to life decisions, I started my college career as a machinist at that point all the trade jobs were moving over seas, I made the decision to change to education. 

So you're telling me that Obamacare doesn't take care of your MIL? How would a government based universal healthcare be different, isn't that what Obamacare is? Your MIL can't afford a flu shot, Walmarts nationwide give them out for $20 with NO health coverage. I had a grandmother that was on a fixed income with medicare and it covered her flu shot. 

Military wise I would prefer to have stuff we don't need than need stuff we don't have.  The calculated cost of healthcare is $3.5 trillion/year for our nation, please tell me how we will get all the money from some tanks "sitting in a field"? Hypothetically lets say you're right maybe the first year not building tanks would pay for it but what about the next year lets project out 10 years growing at 4% like years past how will the added 4% cost of healthcare be covered? How about with the universal healthcare that says your MIL isn't sick enough to get treatment or what about you? Universal healthcare doesn't guarantee treatment! I know there are people that are denied on current healthcare systems but not for treatment but for tests. I'm also confused as to how anyone is denied healthcare Obamacare is healthcare for everyone, you have to deny healthcare through the gov't and pay a fine if you don't take the coverage or don't have your own healthcare. When the gov't owns the healthcare system they will decide whether you get treatment plan not you and/or your doctor. My father retired military I have seen and heard the stories of VA care you have no idea how bad the VA system is. Federal employees have healthcare through providers just like everyone else that has healthcare through a provider their plans are just different. Lets put it this way, unless all government officials and employees go on universal healthcare the rest of the public shouldn't. 

Your logic is flawed there is no way support a universal healthcare system without taxing every individual $10,000 more ($10,739 was the healthcare expenses per a person in the US last year) per a year, and that doesn't cover any free education that you would like everyone to receive.


----------



## Ashful

Chas0218 said:


> I'm sorry climate change, global warming, whatever name you want to call it has been going on for 1000s of years.


Not to pick nits, but this is a pretty serious error. Climate change has been happening for 4.54 billion years, give or take 50 million years.

We have good data on the climate change over the last several hundred million years, and written records covering the last several thousand years. This same data is parsed differently to both prove and disprove man’s effect on climate change, depending on your politics.



Chas0218 said:


> I feel that there should be discounts given to those students that excel and are top of their class. Also think their should be different trigger points for financial aid. How about degrees that matter will be discounted?


This is already the case. I received full tuition, plus salary, for pursuing a Ph.D. in engineering, as do many others. Good luck in getting the same for philosophy, but for hard-working students in technical disciplines, there is always funding. 88% of undergraduate students at the university where I did my graduate studies received some sort of financial aid, and 50% of that was academically based (top performers in high school).  So, I’m not really sure what argument you are trying to make, here.


----------



## Chas0218

Ashful said:


> Not to pick nits, but this is a pretty serious error. Climate change has been happening for 4.54 billion years, give or take 50 million years.
> 
> We have good data on the climate change over the last several hundred million years, and written records covering the last several thousand years. This same data is parsed differently to both prove and disprove man’s effect on climate change, depending on your politics.
> 
> 
> This is already the case. I received full tuition, plus salary, for pursuing a Ph.D. in engineering, as do many others. Good luck in getting the same for philosophy, but for hard-working students in technical disciplines, there is always funding. 88% of undergraduate students at the university where I did my graduate studies received some sort of financial aid, and 50% of that was academically based (top performers in high school).  *So, I’m not really sure what argument you are trying to make, here.*


I'm referring to the amount of time we (humans) have been impacting the environment. Anything before us we can't change because we weren't in the equation (depending what you believe). My point was more that we have been warming since the ice age. Yes the climate is changing.

It isn't across the board and in all concentrations with worker shortages. In the near future in NY we are going to have a teacher shortage. If that is the case why not give incentives. There are very few jobs that will pay for higher education and even less state and federal gov't incentives. The governor of NY just came out with free college for illegals and free college for anyone with household income less than 100k and willing to stay in NY 4 years after graduating.


----------



## spirilis

For those spouting various facts or factoids about climate changing over X number of billions of years or whatnot, take a look at this free online course:









						Climate Change: The Science and Global Impact
					

We need to understand the science behind global warming to avoid the most damaging and irreversible climate change impacts on people and planet.




					www.edx.org
				




Dr. Michael Mann (PSU) will set the record straight for ya.

Yes climate has changed for billions of years, no we don't have any evidence from paleoclimatology yet that it's ever changed AS FAST as it is right now!  We're shifting the climate at least a million times faster than the fastest we've ever seen from paleoclimatology research.

There are many feedback systems in play here that alter what Earth's atmosphere and biosphere will do under these conditions, we have no real precedent for how it will react with the speed of climate change we are observing.  (Btw, it is fossil fuels responsible for most of it, we have isotopic fingerprints from the atmosphere's CO2 to thank for verifying this.)


----------



## Chas0218

Ashful said:


> Not to pick nits, but this is a pretty serious error. Climate change has been happening for 4.54 billion years, give or take 50 million years.
> 
> We have good data on the climate change over the last several hundred million years, and written records covering the last several thousand years. This same data is parsed differently to both prove and disprove man’s effect on climate change, depending on your politics.
> 
> 
> This is already the case. I received full tuition, plus salary, for pursuing a Ph.D. in engineering, as do many others. Good luck in getting the same for philosophy, but for hard-working students in technical disciplines, there is always funding. 88% of undergraduate students at the university where I did my graduate studies received some sort of financial aid, and 50% of that was academically based (top performers in high school).  So, I’m not really sure what argument you are trying to make, here.


I forgot to mention that financial aid also is consider federal subsidized loans, not free money. Almost all students qualify for some sort of subsidized loans just different amounts based on household income.


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## spirilis

The basic problem over all is, how do we retool modern society into one that uses largely non-GHG emitting energy sources, and can grow its energy usage commensurate with our desire to improve our lifestyle, while allowing those less endowed to improve their lifestyle as well.

Burning things is a bad deal for this.  Every BTU of heat you get from burning things adds another 100,000 BTUs of heat to the planet over a ~300 year horizon of CO2 residence by way of infrared radiative forcing.

But we're really good at burning things, and lots of burnable things give us dense energy that batteries can't match.  I'm hopeful carbon-neutral fuel technology (active CO2 sequestration and conversion into synthetic hydrocarbons) will get its due attention and effort, so long as we can power the process with non-burned fuels.  I am hopeful agriculture can provide us biofuels that don't cost us more carbon than they provide, but I am also leery of land-use-case concerns and unintended consequences from that.

I don't believe anybody is truly "guilty" of "causing" global warming, it's the sum of quadrillions of choices made with good intentions in mind along with the basic reality of exponential growth from humanity's enormous success with technology since the industrial revolution.  We are running up against the mother of all growing pains.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Chas0218 said:


> The governor of NY just came out with free college for illegals and free college for anyone with household income less than 100k and willing to stay in NY 4 years after graduating.


4 YRs ? That could be a deal breaker right there. I guess they figure they could tax it back out of you in 4 short yrs.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> 4 YRs ? That could be a deal breaker right there. I guess they figure they could tax it back out of you in 4 short yrs.


Looks like things are drifting off topic today. Start a new topic on education in the Inglenook.


Chas0218 said:


> I find it ironic how so many are for change and needing for this or that. How many of you have given up burning wood and fossil fuels, added solar panels to your houses and became 100% self sufficient? How many own only electric cars (I won't debate how bad they are compared to ICE cars)?


Yes to all the above, except burning wood which is more carbon neutral. Fossil fuel furnace was pulled in 2006. Plus we grow a lot of our own food and try to buy locally.


----------



## ABMax24

Chas0218 said:


> I find it ironic how so many are for change and needing for this or that. How many of you have given up burning wood and fossil fuels, added solar panels to your houses and became 100% self sufficient? How many own only electric cars (I won't debate how bad they are compared to ICE cars)?



In the last 2 years we have: installed 3kw of solar panels to cover 100% of our annual electrical needs, replaced all lights with LED, increased the attic insulation to R-50, Installed a wood stove to hopefully cover ~75% of our heating needs displacing natural gas, we have parked my diesel F350 driving my gf's diesel Colorado instead that gets twice the mileage as our commuter vehicle. 

I figure that for 2020 our CO2 emissions from fossil sources will be less than half that of 2018. And our quality of life hasn't changed. We drive a nicer riding vehicle that's easier to park, we have to get and split wood but we like drives in the country anyway, and a little exercise does us good.


----------



## Microduck17

I have a 5kw solar system that has reduced my grid power consumption by about 3/4 and we heat by wood exclusively using keroseane and electric as backup. I plan on moving to a larger property and rasing most of my own food. The path humanity is currently on is not sustainable long term. My goal is to get as far removed from the failing systems as possible before they crash down around us. 

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk


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## Ashful

With options to support and drive expansion of clean power generation thru deregulation, is the manufacture, installation, and eventual disposal of private solar and the often associated storage really a more environmentally responsible choice?  In other words, if you can sign up to buy your energy from companies employing renewable sources, wouldn’t this be more efficient and promote more widespread change than installing your own less efficient private system?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

All a drop in the bucket IMO as long as the population continues to increase. Most especially the population in developed countries even if thru immigration. As well as most of the population doing nothing but consuming ,and not much is the way of substantial changes to lifestyle. Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but that seems the reality to me.


----------



## Zack R

Ashful said:


> With options to support and drive expansion of clean power generation thru deregulation, is the manufacture, installation, and eventual disposal of private solar and the often associated storage really a more environmentally responsible choice?  In other words, if you can sign up to buy your energy from companies employing renewable sources, wouldn’t this be more efficient and promote more widespread change than installing your own less efficient private system?



I'd say the best approach is to encourage both. For folks with the space and resources to install their own solar system they should be encouraged. For everyone else we should continually modernize and clean up the commercial power generation system as a whole.

One major change that is currently underway and will only accelerate in the coming years are improvements in energy storage (on a commercial scale). Increased adoption of energy storage will take away the key disadvantage of renewable energy (variable output) further driving down the cost of renewable energy and therefore increasing development nationwide.

Here's an example from this morning. Notice how the natural gas energy production is displaced by  solar as soon as it ramps up for the day. Now imagine if there was a massive storage reserve that could carry some of that load, which would reduce the need for natural gas usage. Of course you would need to "fill" the battery storage from somewhere and that could come from increased wind energy development since wind power output is often higher at night, while at the same time electricity demand is lower. 

http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx


----------



## Ashful

Zack R said:


> One major change that is currently underway and will only accelerate in the coming years are improvements in energy storage (on a commercial scale). Increased adoption of energy storage will take away the key disadvantage of renewable energy (variable output) further driving down the cost of renewable energy and therefore increasing development nationwide.


I’ve been saying it since nearly the day I saw my first EV, this is going to solve our storage problem. 100 million EV’s plugged into the grid at any given time, if properly managed by a smart company like Tesla or other third-party, can provide a massive amount of storage. Furthermore, with the nation’s fleet of EV’s charging primarily overnight, it’s an opportunity for more nuclear baseline, which can’t be throttled on a daily time scale.


----------



## begreen

For those that think some warmer temps could be a good thing, here is another domino effect discovery by an experiment in Minnesota on how accelerated warming affect the local ecosystem. It's funded by the US Department of Energy and is a collaboration between the USDA Forest Service and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. 









						Tucked away in a northern Minnesota forest, researchers work on first-of-its-kind climate change experiment
					

Only a few years into the decade-long experiment, researchers are starting to see results - and they're not good.




					www.kare11.com


----------



## spirilis

begreen said:


> For those that think some warmer temps could be a good thing, here is another domino effect discovery by an experiment in Minnesota on how accelerated warming affect the local ecosystem. It's funded by the US Department of Energy and is a collaboration between the USDA Forest Service and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tucked away in a northern Minnesota forest, researchers work on first-of-its-kind climate change experiment
> 
> 
> Only a few years into the decade-long experiment, researchers are starting to see results - and they're not good.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.kare11.com


Wow.  More positive feedback in the climate system--all that peat moss decomposing accelerates the process faster.


----------



## Where2

Ashful said:


> With options to support and drive expansion of clean power generation thru deregulation, is the manufacture, installation, and eventual disposal of private solar and the often associated storage really a more environmentally responsible choice?  In other words, if you can sign up to buy your energy from companies employing renewable sources, wouldn’t this be more efficient and promote more widespread change than installing your own less efficient private system?



Answer to second question* NO: *For starters: my 4.4kW PV system doesn't have the inherent energy losses between the generation facility and my house (Grid losses). My array's cost also doesn't have the overhead for flying the CEO of the local power company over my house at 7:50AM, five days a week in a helicopter from Miami, the stock options they give him as a perk, his employer 401k contribution, his health insurance expenses, nor does my PV array have the expense of shareholder profits for a monopoly company. Quite honestly, the power company seems to be doing quite well without my monthly payment. They installed several 75MW PV installations last year, without my monthly contributions. 

As for "disposal of private solar": Main components of my array are Glass, Aluminum, Copper, the silicon cells themselves (which still produce power if you break them in two), the plastic back sheet, and the encapsulant (with a consistency of silicone RTV). I'm not quite sure why anyone envisions "disposal of PV array components" to be difficult? They don't contain nearly the crazy cocktail of  hazardous fluids that a modern automobile contains, and yet as a society we somehow manage to recycle cars, trucks, and semis without destroying our environment. A PV array doesn't contain trace amounts of radioactive material like a smoke detector, but everyone can have a smoke detector in their house...

As for personal energy storage, I have a 35kW battery. It has four wheels, and a VW badge on it. When the grid monopolist figures out a way to tie my over-generating home PV array to my EV sitting in my office parking lot 5' from a power outlet together, then my overproduction at my residence at solar noon can go into my EV battery. In the meantime, I just use Net Metering to give me the same result, and charge the EV on the weekend at the house.


----------



## allhandsworking

How do scientists know that gases haven’t been bioling up for centuries?


----------



## begreen

allhandsworking said:


> How do scientists know that gases haven’t been bioling up for centuries?


That's a good question. The surface of permafrost can melt slightly every warm summer. Permafrost depth can vary from a few feet to a thousand feet. It is the deep permafrost that has been frozen for many thousands of years that is the concern. This is where the gases are trapped due to rotting vegetation trapped at the time of freezing. The concern now is that there’s twice as much carbon in the permafrost as there is in the air today. It doesn't take a scientist to understand the impact if this all melts. 









						Thawing Permafrost: Why It Matters
					

In these recent hot summer days, as my colleague Xinnan Zhu was walking outside exposed to the outdoor temperature of nearly 100°F, she felt like she was going to melt like an ice cube under the sun. As the Arctic Climate Impacts Stanback researcher, it was far more hot and humid outside our UCS off



					blog.ucsusa.org
				











						Why Thawing Permafrost Matters
					

As the Arctic warms, the unfreezing of permafrost poses a threat to the planet.




					blogs.ei.columbia.edu


----------



## Ctwoodtick

Seasoned Oak said:


> Reversal is not in our list of options. We didn t start it,it started 12000 yrs ago . We may
> affect the pace of the current warming period around the edges but we give ourselves too much credit for that. After all it has been much warmer in the past than is is now or will get anytime soon.  All the hysteria should go toward dealing with the inevitable results instead of the blame game. Ill start listening to the radicals when they give up their cars ,air travel,burgers and smart phones and all live off the grid.  Until then they are just as culpable as anyone else.
> 
> This is the right response. IMO


To be fair, many of the “radicals” have pushed for cleaner cars, are vegetarian, etc. sorry but those folks are not as culpable as anyone else, as you put it. I bet there are a lot of people that would give up some modern conveniences for a healthier place to live. I will play the blame game and blame the marrying of big polluters with their political henchmen. I also blame the people who should be smart enough on climate change, but instead push that thought away as un-American in someway. Those people are more culpable.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Nothing Un-american about dealing with climate change but like every other issue it can be made political to push a particular agenda from either side. In the current political enviroment theres not much consensus on any one issue except for of course staying the course on regime change wars.Seems to be a lot of support of that on both sides. To  me the radicals are the ones calling for everyone to change their lifestyles except themselves.  And as others here pointed out , the carbon footprint goes up with income levels with few exceptions,in this and other countries


----------



## begreen

The agenda from the other side (that of big oil) started decades ago when their scientists warned them of the effects of fossil fuel on the atmosphere. From there they made a choice. Instead of doing the socially responsible thing they instead decided to launch a massive disinformation campaign in order to confuse and divide public opinion. That is what we are dealing with today.


----------



## ABMax24

begreen said:


> The agenda from the other side (that of big oil) started decades ago when their scientists warned them of the effects of fossil fuel on the atmosphere. From there they made a choice. Instead of doing the socially responsible thing they instead decided to launch a massive disinformation campaign in order to confuse and divide public opinion. That is what we are dealing with today.




People have no idea the actual power of oil companies. Right now in Canada some of the largest environmental groups opposing oil and gas pipelines are funded by US oil as it is not in the US interest to have Canada sell it's oil on the world market. If Canadian oil is landlocked we have to continue to sell it to the US at huge discounts, and its working. In December of 2018 West Texas Intermediate Crude sold for $50US/barrel, while Canada was selling Western Canadian Select Crude to the US for $6US/barrel. Yet I nor anyone else seen this discount reflected in fuel prices, it just went into the pockets of oil companies and their shareholders.


----------



## Ashful

Meh... “big oil”, as if there’s some evil mastermind behind the entire industry, or anything other than competing companies doing what companies do to survive and generate the maximum profit shareholders demand.

I didn’t elect any company to govern or protect us, they’re simply operating within the boundaries our and other governments have created for them. There is blame to be cast for the result, but it’s with your elected and appointed officials who create the parameters within which a corporation can operate, not the corporation for doing the one thing they’re designed to do.


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> Meh... “big oil”, as if there’s some evil mastermind behind the entire industry, or anything other than competing companies doing what companies do to survive and generate the maximum profit shareholders demand.
> 
> I didn’t elect any company to govern or protect us, they’re simply operating within the boundaries our and other governments have created for them. There is blame to be cast for the result, but it’s with your elected and appointed officials who create the parameters within which a corporation can operate, not the corporation for doing the one thing they’re designed to do.


Not Big Oil, in this case, the example given is Exxon.
"In a confidential 1998 memo, ExxonMobil’s senior environmental lobbyist stated the Orwellian goal of this corporate campaign: “Victory will be achieved when … average citizens ‘understand’ uncertainties in climate science,” and when “recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the ‘conventional wisdom.'”

If a corporation's survival means resorting to public harm then that behavior is pathological. I don't understand how that can be condoned or just act like it is normal. The fact that there was proven intent to deceive is despicable. The fact that they were not shut down and broken up shows how deeply entrenched their money is.








						Exxon Sowed Doubt About Climate Science for Decades by Stressing Uncertainty - Inside Climate News
					

As he wrapped up nine years as the federal government’s chief scientist for global warming research, Michael MacCracken lashed out at ExxonMobil for opposing the advance of climate science. His own great-grandfather, he told the Exxon board, had been John D. Rockefeller’s legal counsel a century...




					insideclimatenews.org


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Where ther is demand, there is supply,same as the drug problem. As long as demand for petro fuels remains and even increases ,you cant blame "big oil"  for supplying that demand.  And as long as politicians can take unlimited amounts of money from the same people they claim to regulate, those people and companies will get their way.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Another study.


			Ice ages are triggered by Antarctic sea ice rising, study finds


----------



## Ctwoodtick

> Where ther is demand, there is supply,same as the drug problem. As long as demand for petro fuels remains and even increases ,you cant blame "big oil"  for supplying that demand.  And as long as politicians can take unlimited amounts of money from the same people they claim to regulate, those people and companies will get their way.


     What you described of oil and politics is worth of blame certainly. Very much a rigged system that begreen accurately described as   pathological.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> Another study.
> 
> 
> Ice ages are triggered by Antarctic sea ice rising, study finds


Their simple, single-basin model shows how the increase in Antarctic sea ice *in a colder climate* could trigger a waterfall of changes that could contribute to tipping the global climate into glacial periods. This could happen but it would take a minor shift in the earth's orbit or something of that nature to set this into motion.

It's good work, we don't understand the ice age cycle fully yet. It sounds like there are several models, some disagreeing with others. I don't see them saying that their model is applicable to climate conditions evolving today due to anthropogenic causes.

The study is here:








						Global cooling linked to increased glacial carbon storage via changes in Antarctic sea ice - Nature Geoscience
					

Isolation of deep water around Antarctica due to surface cooling can explain half of the change in atmospheric CO2 levels through glacialâ€“interglacial cycles, according to coupled oceanâ€“sea ice and biogeochemical numerical modelling.




					www.nature.com


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ctwoodtick said:


> What you described of oil and politics is worth of blame certainly. Very much a rigged system that begreen accurately described as   pathological.


So change it. A rigged system the we all so willingly patrticipate in.  Complaining about it does nothing.  No large masses of people giving up their carbon based lifestyle, so we will deal with the consequences.


----------



## ABMax24

Seasoned Oak said:


> So change it. A rigged system the we all so willingly patrticipate in.  Complaining about it does nothing.  No large masses of people giving up their carbon based lifestyle, so we will deal with the consequences.



How do you change a system or an organization that has enough money and resources to discredit or corrupt any individual that opposes their viewpoint?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

ABMax24 said:


> How do you change a system or an organization that has enough money and resources to discredit or corrupt any individual that opposes their viewpoint?


Thats kinda my point,you cant ,and i dont spend a lot of time worrying about things i cant change. Like the Govt,big oil and climate change. Better to put all my efforts into dealing with it. Same for all 3. Sure we can all do our small part, but unless theres an immediate crisis, looming ,nothing much gets done. Been that way for a long time.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

Seasoned Oak said:


> Thats kinda my point,you cant ,and i dont spend a lot of time worrying about things i cant change. Like the Govt,big oil and climate change. Better to put all my efforts into dealing with it. Same for all 3. Sure we can all do our small part, but unless theres an immediate crisis, looming ,nothing much gets done. Been that way for a long time.





Seasoned Oak said:


> So change it. A rigged system the we all so willingly patrticipate in.  Complaining about it does nothing.  No large masses of people giving up their carbon based lifestyle, so we will deal with the consequences.


  Well, regarding changing it, we have some choices coming up in this next election. We can choose continued ignorance or something different than that. It may not solve the problem but I’m sick of this clown saying whatever he wants and lots of people kinda nodding their heads.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Interesting regarding politics no matter which party gets into power, very little changes. Even when a single party has control of all 3 branches.( irregardless of party)Leads me to believe none of them are in it for us, only for themselves. So again i will deal with it.


----------



## spirilis

allhandsworking said:


> How do scientists know that gases haven’t been bioling up for centuries?


Atmospheric carbon isotope ratios, which have been shifting rapidly since ~1850.









						RealClimate: How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?
					

RealClimate: Note:This is an update to an earlier post, which many found to be too technical. The original, and a series of comments on it, can be found here. See also a more recent post here for an even less technical discussion. Over the last 150 years, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have...




					www.realclimate.org
				




It's one of the damning "fingerprints" at the scene of the crime.


----------



## WinterinWI

A number of years ago, I remember being told that Lake Michigan was at or near record low levels. I was assured that the experts had figured it out, the science was settled. Human induced climate change was to blame. The level would continue to drop indefinitely. Voting for a certain political party would be our only hope of reversing it.

Fast forward to today. Lake Michigan is at or near record highs. I am assured that the experts have figured it out, the science is settled (for real this time). The cause is human induced climate change. It will cause the level to rise and fall ever faster.  Unless...

What I have learned: Any change in the planet is caused by human induced climate change. Anyone who doubts the "experts" (even though their past predictions may have been totally wrong) must live in a cave and believe the Earth is flat.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

WinterinWI said:


> What I have learned: Any change in the planet is caused by human induced climate change.


Iv heard that for every flood and every hurricane for awhile now.  Is it causing the cali fires or is it overgrowth not being allowed to burn periodically and when it finally does its biblical. Maybe a little bit of both.


----------



## spirilis

Seasoned Oak said:


> Iv heard that for every flood and every hurricane for awhile now.  Is it causing the cali fires or is it overgrowth not being allowed to burn periodically and when it finally does its biblical. Maybe a little bit of both.


A bit of both.  PG&E probably could have gotten away with a few more years or maybe a decade of mismanagement of their infrastructure & lack of trimming had global warming not set in.  Global warming/climate change just caught them sooner with their pants down.

It's not like climate change can or should be blamed for everything weather-related, it's just that everything weather-related has a little bit of bias added by climate change.  It's a steadily rising signal against the background noise of everything else that affects weather.  We can expect that "signal" to get louder and louder by the year.


----------



## spirilis

It's like tuning your car's wheel alignment out of spec a little more each year.  No you can't blame that near-fatal accident on bad alignment, but I wonder if those tires would have had better tread and traction and wouldn't have skidded across a lane if you'd have corrected the problem instead or planned around it by replacing tires every year.

Likewise, dealing with the additional stressors from climate change will get expensive and require we get on our infrastructure game quickly.


----------



## Ashful

WinterinWI said:


> A number of years ago, I remember being told that Lake Michigan was at or near record low levels. I was assured that the experts had figured it out, the science was settled. Human induced climate change was to blame. The level would continue to drop indefinitely. Voting for a certain political party would be our only hope of reversing it.
> 
> Fast forward to today. Lake Michigan is at or near record highs. I am assured that the experts have figured it out, the science is settled (for real this time). The cause is human induced climate change. It will cause the level to rise and fall ever faster. Unless...
> 
> What I have learned: Any change in the planet is caused by human induced climate change. Anyone who doubts the "experts" (even though their past predictions may have been totally wrong) must live in a cave and believe the Earth is flat.



Amusing post, and I get your point. But I’d be surprised if there was ever 100% consensus or certainty on the cause and impact of the prior water level drop. More importantly, past inaccuracies or errors do not invalidate present predictions.

This is an enormous and complicated system, with a lot of noise and incomplete understanding of the inputs and feedback systems. Characterization of those unknowns increases each year, and even the rate of characterization is increasing each year, such that improvement in the models year by year is accelerating.

That’s not to say there’s anywhere near 100% certainty, but citing inaccuracies in what can today be called some pretty crude and infantile models of 20 years’ past is not really treating the problem or the science with any honesty.

So, while I don’t work in this field, it appears to me that we are at a point where enough of the models have been in close enough agreement for a long time, to the point where refutation of the human contribution to climate change is nearly impossible to deny. At this point, the more valid debate appears to be one of magnitudes, in what fraction of climate change is due to our contributions, the level to which we are able to reduce those contributions, and what the financial and social impact will be.


----------



## DBoon

> Chas0218 said:
> I find it ironic how so many are for change and needing for this or that. How many of you have given up burning wood and fossil fuels, added solar panels to your houses and became 100% self sufficient? How many own only electric cars (I won't debate how bad they are compared to ICE cars)?



Installed a 5 kW array and added another 10 kW a month ago. Production is about 15 MWh/yr, projected. House this is at is being remodeled and will use GSHP with radiant floor heating (consumption ~4 MWh/yr, never running the woodstock), all electric hot water, kitchen, etc. (using about 6 MWh/yr), and the balance will power my 1 year old Chevy Bolt (today 35,000 miles/year at 4.5 miles/kWh = 8 MWh/yr). This is a not large house (1750 square feet). The ~2000 square foot vegetable garden grows much of our food. The woodlot provides blown down trees for wood to burn in the woodstove. I probably use about 30-40 gallons of gas a year in my lawn tractor and farm tractor. 

Existing house just had a Fujitsu mini-split installed, and we burn locally cut wood (see above). Previously, we'd use about 350 gallons of oil a year. With the mini split, probably cut that in half. Our electricity is 100% wind and solar option, for which we pay about a 1.5 cent/kWh premium. My wife still drives a 40 mpg gas car about 12,000 miles per year, so add 300 gallons of gas to the mix. 

In a year or two, I'll be 100% carbon neutral, once the house remodel is finished, excepting the wife's car, which will likely be utilized for long trips only. 

It's what I think is the right thing to do, and how I've chosen to spend my money.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

DBoon said:


> It's what I think is the right thing to do, and how I've chosen to spend my money.


You would be in the very small minority.  Add a single family to the carbon based population of a first world country and all your carbon neutral contributions are offset right there. Not that what your doing is meaningless ,i think its great, but will it change the climate equation.  Very little IMO.  As far as saving money on energy your approach is top notch. But unless its adopted by large numbers of people in first world countries ,may not solve the problem.


----------



## Where2

Seasoned Oak said:


> You would be in the very small minority.  Add a single family to the carbon based population of a first world country and all your carbon neutral contributions are offset right there. Not that what your doing is meaningless ,i think its great, but will it change the climate equation very little IMO.  As far as saving money on energy your approach is top notch. But unless its adopted by large numbers of people in first world countries, may not solve the problem.



I don't see why this approach cannot be adopted by large numbers of people in first world countries. Two months ago, I took delivery of my e-Golf (BEV), and parked my fossil fueled VW (which I last refueled in August prior to hurricane Dorian). In two months, I've driven the old 40+mpg VW less than 5 times and consumed less than 4 gallons of fossil fuel since it was last refueled. Our house is 100% electric. Our 4.4kW PV array only generated about 50% of our electric needs before the BEV came into the picture. The 4.4kW takes up my entire second floor, south facing roof face. Adding another 5.5kW ground mount PV array to our current 4.4kW roof mounted array is "in the works". By "in the works", I mean: the panels and inverters are in the garage, I need a ground mounting system and permit documents to make legal generation occur. At that point, the wife's 40mpg vehicle becomes the "main carbon source" at our home, but we have a carbon capture setup in place for that.  My wife and I have 40+ acres of managed forested property. According to tenmilliontrees.org: "A mature tree absorbs carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 pounds per year. In one year, an *acre of forest* can *absorb* twice the *CO2* produced by the average car's annual mileage." 

A walk in the woods is incredible therapy for many of the issues discussed in this thread.


----------



## SpaceBus

My wife and I are actively working on reducing our carbon footprint. It's a growing trend among many first world countries. The folks wringing their hands saying we can't do anything for xyz reasons can just keep on keeping on while the rest of us do something.


----------



## ABMax24

Where2 said:


> I don't see why this approach cannot be adopted by large numbers of people in first world countries.



I think that is a great way to look at it, and as a society we can do orders of magnitude better than what is currently being done.

But there are many technological hurdles to overcome yet before this can become widespread, particularly in climates like mine. Space heating is a very taxing load on the energy systems and unfortunately comes at the time when renewable energy is the most inefficient to use. Our electrical grid often reaches peak demand on cold days yet most homes and businesses are heated by natural gas, this immense electrical load comes mostly from the furnace motors.

Electric cars are seeing slow adoption here for the same reasons, -40 temps sap a huge amount of the battery to create cabin heat, and a significant amount of electricity is needed from a constant charging source to keep the batteries warm enough to be usable while the car is parked.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

The most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint(by a mile) is the one no one is discussing.




__





						Science | AAAS
					






					www.sciencemag.org


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Where2 said:


> I don't see why this approach cannot be adopted by large numbers of people in first world countries.


Probably because 46% of the population cant come up with $400 for an emergency expense. And thats in this country, the richest on the planet.


			https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/05/25/the-shocking-number-of-americans-who-cant-cover-a-400-expense/


----------



## SpaceBus

There is no surprise. Those options all mean less profit, which means negative growth, which means a recession.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Another shoe that will be droppping for many years into the future.
64% of americans will be destitute upon retirement. 48% of those dont even care. I doubt this group will be springing for solar panels and an electric car.








						64% of Americans Aren’t Prepared For Retirement — and 48% Don’t Care
					

Are younger generations setting themselves up to fail?




					www.gobankingrates.com


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> There is no surprise. Those options all mean less profit, which means negative growth, which means a recession.


I have no doubt there is a recession(or depression) coming.  Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> My wife and I are actively working on reducing our carbon footprint.


Iv been doing this for years but more  for economic reasons. Iv got my heating load down to about 50% (Or less) of what it was in the same house 30 yrs ago.  No electric car but i do have a solar room that mostly heats the whole house on sunny winter days.  Eventually there may be an electric vehicle in the future, but only when it can provide the same utility vs cost as my ICE vehicles do today.  My wood stove went out yesterday morning and i still didnt make another fire yet and its in the mid 30s outside,70 in the house right now.


----------



## Ashful

SpaceBus said:


> There is no surprise. Those options all mean less profit, which means negative growth, which means a recession.



Historically, it’s actually the opposite. There has never been a net boost to living conditions and quality of life larger and faster than the one generation following the bubonic plague, versus just the decade before. The same can be said to a smaller degree for Spanish flu, preceding the roaring 20’s and even WW2 preceding the growth of the 1950’s.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

ABMax24 said:


> . Our electrical grid often reaches peak demand on cold days yet most homes and businesses are heated by natural gas, this immense electrical load comes mostly from the furnace motors.


I believe record peak demand actually occurs on the hottest days of the summer. Cooling is universally electrically fueled.
Whereas heating comes from a variety of fuel sources. Very cold winter days do come close to summer peak levels though. Possibly even NG  and oil heated homes are using some electric supplemental heat.
https://pplweb.mediaroom.com/news-releases?item=48492?asPDF=1?asPDF=1?asPDF=1?asPDF=1


----------



## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> Historically, it’s actually the opposite. There has never been a net boost to living conditions and quality of life larger and faster than the one generation following the bubonic plague, versus just the decade before. The same can be said to a smaller degree for Spanish flu, preceding the roaring 20’s and even WW2 preceding the growth of the 1950’s.


The 20's also gave birth to the great depression. WWII was a war of profit for the US, we barely even got involved (there is much more to be said about this elsewhere). Before the war, there was depression. Your examples hardly follow the norm. Patterns don't lie, and when you have a loss of people or money, economies suffer. Perhaps there is a boom after a plauge, but of course there would be since there would also be a boom in population.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Perhaps there is a boom after a plauge, but of course there would be since there would also be a boom in population.


Must be some truth to that as most of the economic predictions are always pinning their hopes on growth,GDP ect. Countries with a declining population seem to suffer economically ,like Japan and many European countries.


----------



## ABMax24

Seasoned Oak said:


> I believe record peak demand actually occurs on the hottest days of the summer. Cooling is universally electrically fueled.
> Whereas heating comes from a variety of fuel sources. Very cold winter days do come close to summer peak levels though. Possibly even NG  and oil heated homes are using some electric supplemental heat.
> https://pplweb.mediaroom.com/news-releases?item=48492?asPDF=1?asPDF=1?asPDF=1?asPDF=1



While generally that is correct for most of North America, we are in a different scenario. The average home here does not have AC due to the climate, yet we all have central heating of some sort, often with an auxiliary heating system as well. The vast majority of heating is done by NG here due to cost, with the blowers driven electrically.

It does stand to reason that the winter is the highest demand, and in fact for 2018 it was, with the peak on January 11th,  as shown on the top of page 6 of this report. It is also shown again in the monthly average load report on page 7, showing that the winter has higher consumption than summer months.



			https://www.aeso.ca/download/listedfiles/2018-Annual-Market-Stats-WEB-FINAL.pdf


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> The most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint(by a mile) is the one no one is discussing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Science | AAAS
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.sciencemag.org


Yup. That's been brought up a few times here and is the reason why the Drawdown report places educating women in the top ten.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

Seasoned Oak said:


> Another shoe that will be droppping for many years into the future.
> 64% of americans will be destitute upon retirement. 48% of those dont even care. I doubt this group will be springing for solar panels and an electric car.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 64% of Americans Aren’t Prepared For Retirement — and 48% Don’t Care
> 
> 
> Are younger generations setting themselves up to fail?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.gobankingrates.com


     I may be a bit off topic here, I’d love to see what the stats are on Americans who use a budget to run their homes. My guess is that a big majority of Americans can’t describe what one is.  In talking with enough older people, I definitely think it is harder to make it now then in years ago. I also think a lot of people live way beyond their means in this country.


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> Yup. That's been brought up a few times here and is the reason why the Drawdown report places educating women in the top ten.



Yes, I have seen you link that before:





__





						A little quiz on climate change
					

This is a quick and fun way to learn a bit about the best solutions for drawing down emissions affecting climate change. Takes just a few minutes and is educational.  https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/04/specials/climate-change-solutions-quiz/index.html




					www.hearth.com
				




What would you propose for educating the clueless women? Maybe mandatory planned parenthood classes?

In today's society, the definition of "woman" becomes more blurred every day. Who should all be required to attend?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ctwoodtick said:


> I may be a bit off topic here, I’d love to see what the stats are on Americans who use a budget to run their homes. My guess is that a big majority of Americans can’t describe what one is.


 That would also apply to the Govt. They use a budget to  run  the country but dont seem to know what one is.


----------



## begreen

Back on topic, regardless of cause, the effects are definitely being noted out here. 








						Why are birds and seals starving in a Bering Sea full of fish?
					

The animal die-offs offer the world a stark example of the perils of rising ocean temperatures, which already are upending parts of the Bering Sea ecosystem as climate change — driven by greenhouse-gas pollution — unfolds in Alaska at a breakneck pace.




					www.seattletimes.com


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Back on topic, regardless of cause, the effects are definitely being noted out here.


May want to check those birds for a belly full of plastic. Thats what is killing them elsewhere.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> May want to check those birds for a belly full of plastic. Thats what is killing them elsewhere.


The article mentions that they found some plastics in their stomachs, but not in overwhelming amounts. That has been found in many, especially in sea birds, whales, turtles, etc.  in other parts of the world.


----------



## begreen

Meanwhile, the administration is pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, a solo departure and not backed by science.













						Scientists Around the World Declare 'Climate Emergency'
					

More than 11,000 signatories to a new research paper argue that we need new ways to measure the impacts of a changing climate on human society




					www.smithsonianmag.com


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> Meanwhile, the administration is pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, a solo departure and not backed by science.


You've brought this up a few times recently, and I guess it can sound bad on the surface, if you don't look any deeper.  But do note the door has been left open to (likely) re-enter the agreement, under terms that are less uniquely damaging to the US.  In fact, it's very unlikely we won't re-enter, when more favorable terms are achieved, as permanent withdraw will likely result in other countries heavily penalizing US exports with carbon taxes.  This strikes directly at the GOP financial base, which won't fly.

Following the usual pattern Trump has taken while in office, this is likely nothing more than a negotiation strategy, never start negotiation at your desired closing price.


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> Back on topic, regardless of cause, the effects are definitely being noted out here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why are birds and seals starving in a Bering Sea full of fish?
> 
> 
> The animal die-offs offer the world a stark example of the perils of rising ocean temperatures, which already are upending parts of the Bering Sea ecosystem as climate change — driven by greenhouse-gas pollution — unfolds in Alaska at a breakneck pace.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.seattletimes.com






begreen said:


> Meanwhile, the administration is pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, a solo departure and not backed by science.
> 
> View attachment 250615
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Scientists Around the World Declare 'Climate Emergency'
> 
> 
> More than 11,000 signatories to a new research paper argue that we need new ways to measure the impacts of a changing climate on human society
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.smithsonianmag.com



Interesting how you move the thread back on topic, then immediately pivot back to politics.

Impeach!


----------



## Ashful

WinterinWI said:


> Interesting how you move the thread back on topic, then immediately pivot back to politics.
> 
> Impeach!



It’s impossible to separate the two. Begreen is doing a better job than most could, in this regard, but it is an impossible job.

The thread is really about the scientific question of whether we’ve reached a tipping point, but it’s impossible to not then progress into causes and cures, either of which are wrapped in policy, and thus politics.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> You would be in the very small minority.  Add a single family to the carbon based population of a first world country and all your carbon neutral contributions are offset right there. Not that what your doing is meaningless ,i think its great, but will it change the climate equation.  Very little IMO.  As far as saving money on energy your approach is top notch. But unless its adopted by large numbers of people in first world countries ,may not solve the problem.


Change doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen. People want to see change and most want to leave a better world for their children. We were early adopters of solar and an electric car. For a few years, we were sort of loners, but people asked questions about our solar setup and car. Word of mouth and personal experience are powerful. And the word spread. Being rural, but a neighbor of Seattle where gas prices are high, our local gas prices are very high, so electric driving makes good sense. Now in our small community, there are hundreds of solar installations and electric cars. Like ripples in a pond the word is spreading outward. We live in hilly country so brakes wear out faster. Being rural, car maintenance can be a bit of a pain due to fewer mechanics unless one goes to the city to have the work done. An electric car fits in perfectly. Our car has 37K on it and the brakes are at 60% still. The only maintenance has been tire rotations and a couple oil changes for the generator.

The same thing can be said for consumption. Locally, through education, networking and persistence, in 5 yrs. we have managed to double the community recycling rate every other year. We talked the county into providing a system for yard waste composting that has taken thousands of tons of organics out of the landfill stream. And this is not just our community. As we network we are finding many communities doing the same, some a lot better! As these networks communicate, support has grown to the point where we now have a statewide voice that is eliminating as much single-use plastic as possible from the waste stream. In the past two years several of these bills have passed. Change can happen, even if you are an individual.


----------



## DBoon

Seasoned Oak said:


> You would be in the very small minority.


Well yeah, for now. But like begreen said, people see it and start asking questions, and it shakes up their assumptions. In the rural area that I live half the year, people ask a lot of questions about the solar panels - it is obvious that they didn't know this was a possibility or was told it doesn't work. It's a great opportunity to give them a tour of the house I am renovating, show them the production meter, show them the geothermal system it's connected to, etc. 

Same thing with the car. Nobody at my employer even had a plug-in hybrid. I bought an EV, lots of people started asking me questions about how they worked, what the range was, did it work in the winter, how much did it cost, etc. The answers are all good - people just don't know. Now, 10 months later, there is another full EV and two plug-in HEVs in the parking lot, along with a charging system. When people see it and talk about it, it gets real and isn't some abstract fantasy anymore.


----------



## SpaceBus

DBoon said:


> Well yeah, for now. But like begreen said, people see it and start asking questions, and it shakes up their assumptions. In the rural area that I live half the year, people ask a lot of questions about the solar panels - it is obvious that they didn't know this was a possibility or was told it doesn't work. It's a great opportunity to give them a tour of the house I am renovating, show them the production meter, show them the geothermal system it's connected to, etc.
> 
> Same thing with the car. Nobody at my employer even had a plug-in hybrid. I bought an EV, lots of people started asking me questions about how they worked, what the range was, did it work in the winter, how much did it cost, etc. The answers are all good - people just don't know. Now, 10 months later, there is another full EV and two plug-in HEVs in the parking lot, along with a charging system. When people see it and talk about it, it gets real and isn't some abstract fantasy anymore.


Seeing is believing


----------



## Seasoned Oak

The question is  will electric cars and solar panels slow global warming. As long as the population continues to increase and the majority of the rest or the world does little or nothing to reduce their carbon footprint,probably not a significant amount.   At least not enough to  avoid a tipping point which may have already occurred.  In fact the warming seems to be increasing at a faster rate all the time , so clearly much more is needed to make any meaningful impact.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> The question is will electric cars and solar panels slow global warming. As long as the population continues to increase and the majority of the rest or the world does little or nothing to reduce their carbon footprint,probably not a significant amount. At least not enough to avoid a tipping point which may have already occurred. In fact the warming seems to be increasing at a faster rate all the time , so clearly much more is needed to make any meaningful impact.



... and we’ve come full circle. But I think we already answered that question, to the degree it’s possible. See the links in begreen’s post #22 and my post #45.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Any reliable numbers on how much the effort so far has slowed the warming ?


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Any reliable numbers on how much the effort so far has slowed the warming ?



I think that would be a difficult correlation to make, directly. Estimates could be made on the impact of that one factor, but I fail to understand why that would matter for anything other than arguing what fraction of our tax money goes toward incentivizing one alternative over another. Of course, I always argue that number should be zero, beyond the necessary evil of some short-term programs sometimes required to create momentum.

We know 28% of the total US energy usage is transportation fuels, and 58% of that is in passenger cars, meaning fuel for passenger cars make up 16% of the total national energy use. That is substantial. Given that we have technology to replace ICE’s with something cleaner, that is also become more attractive and viable each year, there’s not much point in trying to argue the merit of going that direction.

You can always poke holes, anytime data is incomplete or the equation is in flux, but what’s the point? Like you, I love the roar of a big displacement ICE, and will likely always own one for my fun car. But it’s really just silly to try to poke any holes in the overall merit of EV’s as a long-term improvement for masses of commuters, no matter the exact percentage of their contribution.

Damn... I’m starting to sound like a leftie.  [emoji12]


----------



## Seasoned Oak

I can definitely see an EV in my future but more for reasons other than any percieved effect on the climate. I think ill get sucked in by the performance vs cost of fuel and get hooked on the overall simplicity of the concept. I do think of them as an improvement in many ways of relying on a single method of propulsion and all the complexities that come with ICE transportion. Plus its nice to see some competition in a sector thats had none for so long.


----------



## sloeffle

Ashful said:


> Damn... I’m starting to sound like a leftie.  [emoji12]


Glad to have a fellow member of the 10% club posting here.


----------



## begreen

It's become apparent that we have underestimated the velocity at which the planet is warming. Human change in relation is moving much slower. Soon, the discussion of whether this or that is contributing more and what is most effective may be a moot point. Everything will start to change at this increasingly accelerated pace.

This is an opinion piece, but it does summarize part of why we have missed the mark and why scientists seriously underestimated the rate of change.








						Opinion | How Scientists Got Climate Change So Wrong (Published 2019)
					

Few thought it would arrive so quickly. Now we’re facing consequences once viewed as fringe scenarios.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> This is an opinion piece, but it does summarize part of why we have missed the mark and why scientists seriously underestimated the rate of change.


Yea  i see the opinion part near the end where the NY Times just cant help themselves to stick to the science.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> Yea  i see the opinion part near the end where the NY Times just cant help themselves to stick to the science.


That is not the voice of the paper, it is the opinion of the independent author. And yes, like it or not, US policy shifts are not helping.


----------



## Where2

ABMax24 said:


> I think that is a great way to look at it, and as a society we can do orders of magnitude better than what is currently being done.
> 
> But there are many technological hurdles to overcome yet before this can become widespread, particularly in climates like mine. Space heating is a very taxing load on the energy systems and unfortunately comes at the time when renewable energy is the most inefficient to use. Our electrical grid often reaches peak demand on cold days yet most homes and businesses are heated by natural gas, this immense electrical load comes mostly from the furnace motors.
> 
> Electric cars are seeing slow adoption here for the same reasons, -40 temps sap a huge amount of the battery to create cabin heat, and a significant amount of electricity is needed from a constant charging source to keep the batteries warm enough to be usable while the car is parked.



How many first world homes are leaking energy profusely? I'm not saying everyone needs to live in a brand new house (new homes have their own issues), but having lived for more than 20 years in a house built close to 60 years ago, there are plenty of opportunities for making old homes more efficient which lowers demand on fossil fuels from the power plants for years to come. 

As a native of Florida, -11°F (-24°C) saps nearly ALL my energy to get out of a warm bed with an electric blanket. You have my respect for being willing to get out of bed in AB when it's -40°C. (My freezer doesn't get that cold.) To combat your BEV concern regarding poor range when batteries are in extreme cold situations, why could this not be solved with something as simple as a fossil fuel space heater similar to what the air cooled Porsche and VW's used to use? Webasto still makes fossil fueled heating devices for cars, boats, caravans and motor homes. Throw a parking heater in the BEV, and put a purpose built heating device to a task that fossil fuel works well for. Automobiles have taken the engine "waste heat" for granted for decades. Most automobiles are poorly insulated steel containers which have been heated for decades with "waste heat" that was going to be thrown away otherwise. In many BEV's, there may be an aerodynamic underbody panel to help air pass smoothly under the car, but most will NOT have an insulating blanket to help keep the batteries more hospitably warm in -40°C. If you're warming the vehicle cabin with a fossil fueled heater, you've generally got one side of the battery hospitably warm to human standards. If we can keep the space shuttle from burning up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, then there's probably some form of ruggedized insulation out there we could put on the bottom of a BEV battery to keep some warmth from being wasted to the cold air around the car. If you installed these battery insulation panels when you installed your snow tires and removed them when you remove your snow tires, we could probably solve a large chunk of the battery range concern in cold climates. 

VW employed a "heat pump" to better equip their battery powered cars for extended use in colder climates. I'm not saying that's a solution for -40°C, most heat pumps will find little heat energy to extract from the air at -40°C.  I didn't bother with that option, because where I live we don't see prolonged sub-freezing temperatures. 

Your -40°C is extreme, but apparently a reasonable climatic hurdle where you live. I remember in college trying to use my SLR camera in near freezing weather and having to warm up the battery to be able to take photos. In your climate, a true hybrid vehicle may be a better solution, since it already carries a tank of fossil fuel around, and could be easily retrofitted with a parking heater style system. My e-Golf was designed from a chassis that also carries conventional fossil fueled engines in the engine bay. As a result, there is an enormous amount of unused space under the hood in the engine compartment. Fitting something the size of a parking heater under the hood would be easy. Where to put fuel, so that it's safe in a vehicle crash, that's a different story.  However, if some dedicated engineering minds treated this problem as if our lives depended on coming up with a solution, rather than sticking heads in the sand and ignoring the problem. We might approach a solution before the problem gets totally out of hand. In Europe (not sold this side of the Atlantic), VW sells a Golf GTE model that can plug in, or drive using fossil fuels (a true plug in Hybrid). Certainly, the Chevrolet Volt already does this plug-in Hybrid concept well and has been discussed.


----------



## woodgeek

The question re energy is that people want energy 'services' heat, light, transport, food.  They care about the cost of those services (all historically quite low in 2019) but not how they are produced.  They want the heat to come on when they hit the button, they really don't care about the box in the basement.

And we are having more people globally, and those people want more services, so it looks like an impossible situation.   But the renewable power revolution is happening, globally, and the US is bringing up the rear to be honest, and has been for a long time.  So dinging those folks overseas that aren't doing anything.... just wow. 

We have spent a LOT of time around here thinking about home heating, obviously, but if you can buy zero carbon electricity for cheap enough to heat your house ... then we don't need to scrap the old place and build a passive house.  So, it is ALL ABOUT decarbonizing the electrical grid AND electrifying everything.  Period.  We will still have emissions, from food production, land use, making stuff, etc.  But we will be more than halfway there. In the milder climates of the US, heat pumps already dominate.  New Englanders with oil boilers don't get it, but by far most people have electrical heat or gas already.  HP tech has improved, and they are continuing to spread north.  And again, its not about getting the last 10% of homes, its about getting the carbon free needle over 50%, about getting the middle.

For the grid, we can already see the outlines clearly at this point.  Coal is collapsing, economically, under its own weight.  Gas and renewables are taking its place.  I know gas leakage is a problem, but unlike CO2, it won't stick around for 500 years, just 20-30.  So it still makes sense as a bridge fuel.  And by that I mean gas is great for filling in supply for wind and solar before diurnal storage becomes cheap, and for augmenting supply seasonally (like those winters New England is famous for).  The utilities KNOW what is coming over the next couple decades, and they are trying, if slowly to adapt and be ready.

So the big problem now is OIL.  I am at a meeting of Chem-E's right now, and no one I talk to has a clue about the coming upheaval in the oil market.  That is OIL DEMAND WILL PEAK.  When Coal demand peaked a few years back, the coal majors when from some of the largest companies in the world to bankrupt, in the space of a year.  The CW shifted that it wasn't a growth industry, it was a permanent decline industry, despite still being massively productive.   And the valuations collapsed.

The oil majors (esp Exxon) are still selling the line of 'Oil demand will keep going up for decades'.  When that CW shifts, many of them will get wiped out valuation-wise, despite some continuing to operate (at a lower scale).  Independent analysts indicate that Exxon is the least well positioned major to handle peak demand, and likely to go belly up first (bc its oil production is more expensive than others, and they have the least hedging in gas).  The management is fighting this reality with PR, rather than moving the business model.  One can only conclude that the current mgmt is parasitic, getting what the can out before the ship goes down.

And what makes all this happen: EVs.  Petroleum IS liquid coal from a CO2 intensity POV, it just doesn't make your hands as dirty.  It needs to go.  And the oil majors, in their 'energy outlook 20XX' booklets, cite increasing auto sales outside the US as their primary evidence that oil demand with grow forever.  Take that away, and the growth market disappears.  So CHEAP, NICE EVs, when they arrive, will kill the oil companies.  Seriously.  There will still be oil in use in 2100, but not nearly as much as today.  And the problem is not about making the demand zero, its about the difference in finances bw growing and declining industries in our financial system.

And the other key thing about EVs is that they will HELP the electric companies decarbonize.  Electrical demand will grow, and it is much easier to rebuild the generation fleet (and borrow money to do so) when demand is growing, than it is when demand is shrinking.  By slowly lifting electrical demand, EVs allow rolling out RE at scale with private finance.

As for tipping points, I don't like the term.  I think there are some tipping points, where a forest gets eaten by beetles, that couldn't spread previously.  Or a wildfire can wipe out an arid forest.  Or the habitat in a National Part changes to the point the animals trapped within go extinct.  But I have never seen any credible science about a global climate tipping point.  But the little ones are bad enough.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> the overall merit of EV’s as a long-term improvement for masses of commuters, no matter the exact percentage of their contribution.
> [emoji12]


That said you must be thinking of an EV in your future. The performance tesla would be my guess. Not?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Solar grid tie was a great option for many ,but the utilities (at least my Electric company)keep coming up with ways to make it a bad deal. More fees, paying you less or nothing for home generated electrons. They even abandoned time of use meters for long term grandfathered  in customers ,which i didnt think was possible.  Now they are backing out of the generation  part of production more and more so i guess they see the writing on the wall for the future.


----------



## CaptSpiff

woodgeek said:


> The question re energy is that people want energy 'services' heat, light, transport, food.  They care about the cost of those services (all historically quite low in 2019) but not how they are produced.  They want the heat to come on when they hit the button, they really don't care about the box in the basement.


Welcome back WoodGeek, you are missed.
Your above statement really does capture 90% of the consumer population. In my case, I had an oil fired boiler. When it came time to replace it I made an economic decision and went with a NG boiler. In 20 years, I expect I'll make an economic decision and replace that boiler with an Electric tankless wall mount unit (God willing that I'm still alive).



woodgeek said:


> New Englanders with oil boilers don't get it, but by far most people have electrical heat or gas already.


Oh, we get it, but it is a small minority of zelots holding up approvals of 3 major NG pipelines into the NY/New England region. The NG winter supply problems prevent stable wholesale NG prices, prevent NG Utilities from expending their distribution network into more neighborhoods (ie build-out moratoriums), and prevent more electric power plants to do full scale NG conversions or even site re-powering to combined-cycle (because of site dual fuel requirements, ie 3 days of oil on hand for a new gas power plant). New Englanders would love to be able to make the economic decision to move away from oil.

I think the "no fossil under any circumstances" crowd are really their own worst enemy. Getting reliable lower cost Natural Gas into New England would:
1. allow home and business oil to gas conversions now (lowers cost & lowers GHG; 30 year impact)
2. allows wider electric power plant conversions (lowers electric cost & lowers GHG; 40 year impact)
3. lower electric rates will foster more rapid conversion form ICE to BEV vehicle fleet.
4. lower electric rates will foster more rapid conversion to home heating (air source HP and tankless boiler conversions).
5. may slow renewable energy (wind & solar), but not much as price/cost continue to drop for both every year.



woodgeek said:


> And again, its not about getting the last 10% of homes, its about getting the carbon free needle over 50%, about getting the middle.


AMEN !


----------



## ABMax24

Where2 said:


> How many first world homes are leaking energy profusely? I'm not saying everyone needs to live in a brand new house (new homes have their own issues), but having lived for more than 20 years in a house built close to 60 years ago, there are plenty of opportunities for making old homes more efficient which lowers demand on fossil fuels from the power plants for years to come.
> 
> As a native of Florida, -11°F (-24°C) saps nearly ALL my energy to get out of a warm bed with an electric blanket. You have my respect for being willing to get out of bed in AB when it's -40°C. (My freezer doesn't get that cold.) To combat your BEV concern regarding poor range when batteries are in extreme cold situations, why could this not be solved with something as simple as a fossil fuel space heater similar to what the air cooled Porsche and VW's used to use? Webasto still makes fossil fueled heating devices for cars, boats, caravans and motor homes. Throw a parking heater in the BEV, and put a purpose built heating device to a task that fossil fuel works well for. Automobiles have taken the engine "waste heat" for granted for decades. Most automobiles are poorly insulated steel containers which have been heated for decades with "waste heat" that was going to be thrown away otherwise. In many BEV's, there may be an aerodynamic underbody panel to help air pass smoothly under the car, but most will NOT have an insulating blanket to help keep the batteries more hospitably warm in -40°C. If you're warming the vehicle cabin with a fossil fueled heater, you've generally got one side of the battery hospitably warm to human standards. If we can keep the space shuttle from burning up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, then there's probably some form of ruggedized insulation out there we could put on the bottom of a BEV battery to keep some warmth from being wasted to the cold air around the car. If you installed these battery insulation panels when you installed your snow tires and removed them when you remove your snow tires, we could probably solve a large chunk of the battery range concern in cold climates.
> 
> VW employed a "heat pump" to better equip their battery powered cars for extended use in colder climates. I'm not saying that's a solution for -40°C, most heat pumps will find little heat energy to extract from the air at -40°C.  I didn't bother with that option, because where I live we don't see prolonged sub-freezing temperatures.
> 
> Your -40°C is extreme, but apparently a reasonable climatic hurdle where you live. I remember in college trying to use my SLR camera in near freezing weather and having to warm up the battery to be able to take photos. In your climate, a true hybrid vehicle may be a better solution, since it already carries a tank of fossil fuel around, and could be easily retrofitted with a parking heater style system. My e-Golf was designed from a chassis that also carries conventional fossil fueled engines in the engine bay. As a result, there is an enormous amount of unused space under the hood in the engine compartment. Fitting something the size of a parking heater under the hood would be easy. Where to put fuel, so that it's safe in a vehicle crash, that's a different story.  However, if some dedicated engineering minds treated this problem as if our lives depended on coming up with a solution, rather than sticking heads in the sand and ignoring the problem. We might approach a solution before the problem gets totally out of hand. In Europe (not sold this side of the Atlantic), VW sells a Golf GTE model that can plug in, or drive using fossil fuels (a true plug in Hybrid). Certainly, the Chevrolet Volt already does this plug-in Hybrid concept well and has been discussed.



I agree that there is a lot of improvement to be made in homes, but we have had building codes in place for a long time now that enforce fairly strict rules on new construction. It would be difficult to find a house up here that has just 2x4 walls with R-12 insulation in the walls, and R22 in the roof. The vast majority of houses are 2x6 walls with R-20 insulation and R-40 in the roof. The building code was just changed 4 years ago making R-22 walls and R-50 attic insulation mandatory. The houses are also built very airtight and now require a heat recovery ventilator for fresh air ventilation, recovering the waste heat from exhaust air to heat incoming cold air.
The biggest area for improvement is in heating, until about 10 years ago high efficiency furnaces and water heaters weren't common, so replacing those 80% efficient units with 95% ones would see an improvement. But it's really hard for a homeowner to justify replacing something like an $1100 tanked water heater for a $4000 tankless high efficiency unit on a cost basis, the savings won't pay for the upgrade. Natural gas does represent the overwhelming majority of fuel use however, oil and coal never really caught on here, most of the people that did have it replaced it 20-40 years ago when natural gas was brought into more rural communities. Propane is now often used in rural settings where natural gas isn't available. Making heating about as clean as possible while still using fossil fuels. Currently our electrical grid only produces about 10% of its energy from renewables, the rest coming from natural gas and coal, making it less efficient than burning natural gas in your own home.

-40 can be extremely brutal, and its often easier to get out of bed than it is to get the equipment you need to run to start in those temps. In those temperatures many vehicles (especially diesels) need to have a plug in block heater to get enough heat into the engine to start. I have a diesel F350 and my GF a diesel Colorado that should be plugged in when its colder than -25. This could be taken into account with an electric car, this same energy could be used to heat the battery instead of the engine block. The biggest hurdle with this is getting car makers to realize we are a big enough market to be worthwhile incorporating the changes into their cars. Canada has a population of 38 million, about the same as California, and only about 10% of the US as a whole. The insulated battery would work, along with a better insulated cabin, we just need a manufacturer to implement it, or an aftermarket company to build a retrofit kit.

As to heat pumps, i have not yet seen a viable model that will work well in those temps either, rarely a house will have one here, but they are then ground source heat pumps, or only used to about -10 after which another system takes over for heating. A fossil fuel powered cabin/battery heater could work as well, but I'd want to see some numbers to show it is actually more efficient first. I'm concerned that between the electricity to move the car and the fossil heaters it might just be more efficient to power the vehicle with fossil fuels.

Plug in hybrids would be an option, although I haven't seen many, the purist "greenies" want a true EV to displace fossil fuels entirely, and the rest of us can't justify the extra cost for the amount of fuel used. Hybrids tend to shine in cities in stop and go traffic, up here communities are smaller, and a larger portion of mileage is on the highway travelling long distances. Our 2018 Chevy Colorado Diesel gets 8L/100km (29mpg) on the highway, a 2018 Chevy 1500 Hybrid gets 9.5L/100km (24mpg) on the highway. Although the 1500 is a bigger vehicle it would serve the same purpose as the Colorado for us, so we went with a conventional diesel engine with better economy and lower purchase price.

There are a few Toyota Prius around, but some have suffered issues with short battery life from the cold temperatures, but hopefully this can be or has been rectified. There is also the issue of driving in a place where it's winter 6 months of the year in a low clearance front wheel drive vehicle. Also a reason we use a small 4x4 truck as a daily driver.


----------



## Ashful

woodgeek said:


> The question re energy is that...As for tipping points, I don't like the term.


As isnightful and intelligent a post as we’ve come to expect from you, woodgeek. Glad to see you here, you’ve been missed!


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> That said you must be thinking of an EV in your future. The performance tesla would be my guess. Not?



It’s under consideration, but I have a love-hate relationship with current Tesla management. Great cars in so many ways, but stupid-high pricing for what you’re getting, and perhaps the most deceptive marketing since the snake-oil salesmen of pre-Victorian times. The majority of other EV’s presently on the market are aimed at guys like @jebatty and @woodgeek, and I respect that, but I’m not willing to sit on a sheet of cardboard in the plastic cockpit of a Leaf for the sake of devaluing my Exxon stock holdings.


----------



## WinterinWI

We must have reached a tipping point. Global warming is bringing record low temperatures to Wisconsin for this time of year. I'm sure @begreen will link me yet another (unbiased) NY Times article that clearly explains why global warming is causing the record cold temps.


----------



## begreen

WinterinWI said:


> We must have reached a tipping point. Global warming is bringing record low temperatures to Wisconsin for this time of year. I'm sure @begreen will link me yet another (unbiased) NY Times article that clearly explains why global warming is causing the record cold temps.


No can do, other than pass along an often repeated reminder that local weather is not climate. In the meantime, massive fires are still burning in Siberia and in Australia they are battling major wildfires a couple months early. Sept and Oct 2019 were the warmest globally on record. Indications are that 2019 may go down as the record warmest, TBD.








						October was hottest in Earth's recorded history, say scientists
					

Temperatures in Europe 1.1C higher than 30-year average, EU data shows




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> No can do, other than pass along an often repeated reminder that local weather is not climate. In the meantime, massive fires are still burning in Siberia and in Australia they are battling major wildfires a couple months early. Sept and Oct 2019 were the warmest globally on record. Indications are that 2019 may go down as the record warmest, TBD.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> October was hottest in Earth's recorded history, say scientists
> 
> 
> Temperatures in Europe 1.1C higher than 30-year average, EU data shows
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.independent.co.uk



So local weather is not climate so it is not relevant. However, localized methane bubbles in Siberia (article linked in your original post) is?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

WinterinWI said:


> We must have reached a tipping point. Global warming is bringing record low temperatures to Wisconsin for this time of year. I'm sure @begreen will link me yet another (unbiased) NY Times article that clearly explains why global warming is causing the record cold temps.


What seems to be happening is the cold artic air is being pushed right down on top of us, while warmer air from places south of there(like just north of hawaii) is moving in up there to replace it. I know at times its colder here than in parts of alaska.


----------



## begreen

WinterinWI said:


> So local weather is not climate so it is not relevant. However, localized methane bubbles in Siberia (article linked in your original post) is?


Climate is the composite of weather conditions in a region, throughout the year, averaged over a series of years. Weather is relevant as part of a long term average. It's what is happening now. We are seeing many weather anomalies due to climate change. Stalled weather systems and some extreme weather events are the results of higher atmospheric and ocean temperatures. 

Methane release from permafrost meltdown is a symptom of planetary warming, just like receding disappearing glaciers. Permafrost melting and methane release are not just in Siberia, this is happening throughout the Arctic, including Alaska and Canada. It will accelerate with the increasingly higher temps occurring in the Arctic. The reserves of trapped methane under permafrost are huge. Methane is a serious greenhouse gas. It traps up to 100 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.









						NASA - What's the Difference Between Weather and Climate?
					

What's the Difference Between Weather and Climate?




					www.nasa.gov


----------



## Ashful

WinterinWI said:


> So local weather is not climate so it is not relevant. However, localized methane bubbles in Siberia (article linked in your original post) is?



When one company fails to meet their predicted growth (while ironically still making a lot of money), and their stock tanks as a result of it, it doesn’t mean we’re in a depression. Likewise, weather for one week in one location has only a small effect on annual global averages.

Here’s an interesting one, modeling done almost 20 years ago predicted that the anticipated rise in global temperatures over the next 25’ish years had the potential to stall the Gulf Stream. This would plunge Europe into a mini ice age, effectively normalizing their temperature for their latitude, while global temperature was actually rising. I’m not sure what the models, undoubtedly somewhat refined over the last 20 years say about this today, but it’s a demonstration of the loose and sometimes contradictory relationship between local and global conditions.


----------



## revicam2

Ashful said:


> When one company fails to meet their predicted growth (while ironically still making a lot of money), and their stock tanks as a result of it, it doesn’t mean we’re in a depression. Likewise, weather for one week in one location has only a small effect on annual global averages.
> 
> Here’s an interesting one, modeling done almost 20 years ago predicted that the anticipated rise in global temperatures over the next 25’ish years had the potential to stall the Gulf Stream. This would plunge Europe into a mini ice age, effectively normalizing their temperature for their latitude, while global temperature was actually rising. I’m not sure what the models, undoubtedly somewhat refined over the last 20 years say about this today, but it’s a demonstration of the loose and sometimes contradictory relationship between local and global conditions.


this is a twit from a local weather  met.
weather sure was 'extreme' from 1883-1885 and thousands of years before and thousands of years going forward once in a lifetime weather happens somewhere everyday. bc our life cycle is so small compared to weather cycles



Just puts the lifetime of climate and weather together in our lifetime? Local weather met is Tim Kelly, NECN Boston.


----------



## woodgeek

Sorry, I've been having access issues...

Capt, I think we agree that New England needs access to more Nat Gas.  But it seems that there are two stories...one that 'environmentalists' and NIMBYs are blocking new pipelines.  The other story is that existing pipelines were running way below capacity during recent polar vortex events, due to utilities (legally) booking access to pipelines, and then cancelling the use the day before, shich looks like profiteering.

I don't know which, of either or both are true.  I know a similar situation prevailed in LA in the early 2000s, resulting in blackouts.  And history showed that it was not enviros or NIMBYs, but some bros are ENRON profiteering. So I tend to prefer the second scenario.


----------



## CaptSpiff

woodgeek said:


> I don't know which, of either or both are true.  I know a similar situation prevailed in LA in the early 2000s, resulting in blackouts.  And history showed that it was not enviros or NIMBYs, but some bros are ENRON profiteering. So I tend to prefer the second scenario.


ENRON was a pipeline management company way before they got in the Electric Energy market "game".  That's where they learned the game. So who knows!?!

What I do know is a "constrained market" is never good for the customer, and a new pipeline or two would drop NG prices in New England significantly.


----------



## ABMax24

CaptSpiff said:


> ENRON was a pipeline management company way before they got in the Electric Energy market "game".  That's where they learned the game. So who knows!?!
> 
> What I do know is a "constrained market" is never good for the customer, and a new pipeline or two would drop NG prices in New England significantly.



Hey I have a solution! We have more gas than we know what to do with, producers are almost giving it away! Draw us a line on the map and it'll be there by next winter!


----------



## begreen

The UN has officially warned that 2020 must be an action year to avoid the point of no return. 








						UN chief warns of ‘point of no return’ on climate change
					

MADRID (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the world’s efforts to stop climate change have been “utterly inadequate" so far and there is a danger global warming could pass the “point of no return...




					apnews.com
				




Meanwhile, Australia is still in springtime and the eastern forests are afire. This is home to the koala. 85% of their habitat has been destroyed and summer hasn't started for them yet.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> The UN has officially warned that 2020 must be an action year to avoid the point of no return.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> UN chief warns of ‘point of no return’ on climate change
> 
> 
> MADRID (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the world’s efforts to stop climate change have been “utterly inadequate" so far and there is a danger global warming could pass the “point of no return...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> apnews.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .



If you Google “environmentalist point of no return” and scroll down past the advertised links, two of the top four hits say that (1) we already passed it a few years ago, and that (2) we will hit it in 2035. Digging farther down you’ll see mention of scientists agreeing we will hit this magical tipping point almost every year of the last four decades.

I don’t think it’s a useful term to use as broadly as this. There likely are tipping points, with regard to many separate and distinct criteria, but it’s pretty clear that the “15,000 scientists” who agreed we had already passed it two years ago must disagree with this latest UN statement.


----------



## CaptSpiff

Ashful said:


> ...., but it’s pretty clear that the “15,000 scientists” who agreed we had already passed it two years ago must disagree with this latest UN statement.


OUCH!  (palm raised to forehead)


----------



## Highbeam

CaptSpiff said:


> OUCH!  (palm raised to forehead)



But I’m totally cereal this time.


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> If you Google “environmentalist point of no return” and scroll down past the advertised links, two of the top four hits say that (1) we already passed it a few years ago, and that (2) we will hit it in 2035. Digging farther down you’ll see mention of scientists agreeing we will hit this magical tipping point almost every year of the last four decades.
> 
> I don’t think it’s a useful term to use as broadly as this. There likely are tipping points, with regard to many separate and distinct criteria, but it’s pretty clear that the “15,000 scientists” who agreed we had already passed it two years ago must disagree with this latest UN statement.


Agreed. There are a lot of moving pieces here including where the goal post is set. Still, arguing about whether we are already screwed or about to be is as weak as arguing whether to bail faster or just not care. There is a lot that can be done and most regrettably the biggest offenders on the planet are the ones doing far less than their fair share.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> Agreed. There are a lot of moving pieces here including where the goal post is set. Still arguing about whether we are already screwed or about to be is as weak as arguing whether to bail faster or just not care. There is a lot that can be done and most regrettably the biggest offenders on the planet are the ones doing far less than their fair share.



Agreed on that. I see the tide of social pressures turning, though. Owning a power yacht, private jet, or even a little Hellcat may soon be akin to putting a “kick me” sign on one’s back. Social awareness and moral pressure are a mighty powerful force for change.


----------



## begreen

One of the main issues that make this a moving target is not bad science, it's bad politics. The nationally determined contributions set out by the 2015 Paris Accord have not been realized. China, India, Japan and the US are not doing their fair share. Emissions are accelerating atmospheric and ocean carbon at a time by which we should now be slowing down. That means more aggressive targets are needed to stabilize global climate systems. Additionally, we are learning more and have a lot more data accrued. Also, the role of some large systems, like the oceans and agriculture, for example, were underestimated.


----------



## CaptSpiff

begreen said:


> One of the main issues that make this a moving target is not bad science, it's bad politics. The nationally determined contributions set out by the 2015 Paris Accord have not been realized. China, India, Japan and the US are not doing their *fair share*. Emissions are accelerating atmospheric and ocean carbon at a time by which we should now be slowing down. That means more aggressive targets are needed to stabilize global climate systems. Additionally, we are learning more and have a lot more data accrued. Also, the role of some large systems, like the oceans and agriculture, for example, were underestimated.


Ah, "fair share" is a concept we have all been trying to manage since we were 2 years old. Probably was even part of the family table conversation at last week's Thanksgiving get together. How did that settle out?

Truth I've found is few are willing to pay the cost of "fair share". What I believe people will pay for is "hard" solutions. They will come in the form of technological innovations as we experience more weather deviations which directly affect us. NYC for example has concluded that future "sea gates" will likely be needed across the Varrazzano Narrows to prevent storm surge type flooding which we experienced during Sandy. Unfortunately the folks on the hi-water side will likely have to raise their homes by 8 feet. When locals were asked, they thought it was "fair" only if the Federal Govt paid for it.

The technological innovation is coming,... and we will pay for it. Whether we think we got (or paid) our *fair share* will continue to be discussed.


----------



## begreen

CaptSpiff said:


> Ah, "fair share" is a concept we have all been trying to manage since we were 2 years old. Probably was even part of the family table conversation at last week's Thanksgiving get together. How did that settle out?
> 
> Truth I've found is few are willing to pay the cost of "fair share". What I believe people will pay for is "hard" solutions. They will come in the form of technological innovations as we experience more weather deviations which directly affect us. NYC for example has concluded that future "sea gates" will likely be needed across the Varrazzano Narrows to prevent storm surge type flooding which we experienced during Sandy. Unfortunately the folks on the hi-water side will likely have to raise their homes by 8 feet. When locals were asked they thought it was "fair" only if the Federal Govt paid for it.
> 
> The technological innovation is coming,... and we will pay for it. Whether we think we got (or paid) our *fair share* will continue to be discussed.


You’re right that sovereign states can and will be selfish unless they realize that this is a global issue that doesn’t give a damn about National interests. Technology may provide some solutions for some problems but that is treating the symptoms and not the causes.


----------



## SpaceBus

We need to stop converting minerals/fossil fuels into carbon. Unless there's a large shift in the way humans use energy resources I can only see nuclear power being capable of supporting demand without destroying the planet with carbon.


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> You’re right that sovereign states can and will be selfish unless they realize that this is a global issue that doesn’t give a damn about National interests. Technology may provide some solutions for some problems but that is treating the symptoms and not the causes.



Sounds like you are proposing a global ruling class to whom all must answer to their superior wisdom and carry out any request in the name of climate preservation.


----------



## SpaceBus

WinterinWI said:


> Sounds like you are proposing a global ruling class to whom all must answer to their superior wisdom and carry out any request in the name of climate preservation.


That's what we have now, but with petrochemical companies at the helm.


----------



## begreen

WinterinWI said:


> Sounds like you are proposing a global ruling class to whom all must answer to their superior wisdom and carry out any request in the name of climate preservation.


The banking industry already has that role whether we like it or not. This is more about the preservation of life itself.


----------



## Sodbuster

Seasoned Oak said:


> 98% of other networks is Liberal opinion.  CNN is 98% liberal opinion. 2% news. I watch them both ,just to see how whacky they can get. Also the waters continue to get muddy conflating climate deniers with those who absolutely accept the science but also accept the science about just whats possible and probable to be done about it.  For all the screaming i dont see masses of people on either side giving up their modern day carbon creating lifestyle.



Exactly, follow the money, unless  the scientist say it's not about the money, then it's really about the money. If there was little to no climate change, what grants would fund theses scientists, what would they study? And they are heavily subsidized by grants. I've also noticed that Spring came late last year and winter really early. Climate change or cyclical cycles? Were did the ice sheet go that covered almost all of North America. Must have had a cooling, then a long warming period. Almost everything in nature is cyclical. The weatherman can't predict the weather more than 3 days out, yet we're supposed to believe they know what happened millions of years ago? Give me a break!


----------



## begreen

Climate is being studied because the impact of the anthropogenic change will affect everything. This report came out last Friday. It is endorsed by NASA, NOAA, the Department of Defense, and 10 other federal scientific agencies.
Take a moment to at least read the summary:








						Fourth National Climate Assessment: Summary Findings
					

This report is an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change, with a focus on the United States. It represents the second of two volumes of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990.




					nca2018.globalchange.gov


----------



## WinterinWI

SpaceBus said:


> That's what we have now, but with petrochemical companies at the helm.



Oil companies hardly have the ability to directly create international law. What they do have is a lot of $ and resources to lobby for their agenda, which is not the same.

You suggested earlier in this thread (or maybe it was another thread) that "free" education and health care would go a long ways in fighting climate change. So do you think that this global ruling class should be able to mandate "free" education and healthcare for all in the world in the name of fighting climate change? Of course this theoretical ruling class would need the ability to force all to follow their ways, or it would be powerless and fail. Sounds like they would be much more powerful than oil companies' wildest dreams.

As far as "Big oil", I think it's is past it's prime and likely that industry will be starting a long slow decline. Even if it were magically gone tomorrow, I doubt the "10yrs left" climate change alarmism would stop. The movement seems to be much more about advancing socialism/communism than anything else.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Its not just China and India that will be slow to curb carbon use,its 50% of americans that live day to day with zero disposable income. Everything in that sector will be cost driven. Even the well off in the US are talking the talk, but most are not walking the walk. Nuclear would go a long way to fix this but cant seem to shake its bad boy reputation.


----------



## SpaceBus

Who would need force when a subsidized lifestyle and a clean planet are the outcome?


----------



## begreen

WinterinWI said:


> Oil companies hardly have the ability to directly create international law. What they do have is a lot of $ and resources to lobby for their agenda, which is not the same.


They can do much more than lobby. They can insert those lobbyists and their ex-execs into key government offices and positions, thus becoming the ones that write and sign legislation and choose the judges in the court reviewing cases pertaining to them. This is what is happening now.

In the meantime, carbon emissions have hit record highs in 2019. Exactly the wrong direction we need to be seeing. This is in spite of declining coal emissions and the trend will continue until fossil fuel use is reigned in. It's like having a champagne party on the Titanic as the boats are being lowered.








						Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit a Record in 2019, Even as Coal Fades (Published 2019)
					

Global consumption of coal declined unexpectedly this year, but a surge in oil and gas pushed up greenhouse gas emissions over all.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## WinterinWI

SpaceBus said:


> Who would need force when a subsidized lifestyle and a clean planet are the outcome?



Yes the utopia...


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> They can do much more than lobby. They can insert those lobbyists and their ex-execs into key government offices and positions, thus becoming the ones that write and sign legislation and choose the judges in the court reviewing cases pertaining to them. This is what is happening now.



I wasn't talking about the national level, you indicated earlier, national interests would keep many countries from participating. I was talking on an international level about your desire for a global ruling class that can impose and enforce any societal rules it wishes in the name of (settled) climate science.


----------



## SpaceBus

WinterinWI said:


> I wasn't talking about the national level, you indicated earlier, national interests would keep many countries from participating. I was talking on an international level about your desire for a global ruling class that can impose and enforce any societal rules it wishes in the name of (settled) climate science.


Yes, that would be the petrochemical companies which have their toes in every pool. The petro companies are not alone in this. There are plenty of other industries, but everything overwhelmingly relies on the petro companies for every logistical need. The only mass transportation that doesn't use oil would be trains, but coal is hardly the answer either.

As you can see a fiercely competitive renewable/electric drive marketplace can solve most of the issues that we currently face. There's a wonderful biomass plant near me, but how could it ever be green energy when it takes petroleum to process the fuel? Solar and wind just cut out the petro companies all together. Now you can use electric tools that don't pollute, aside from initial production of the tools. Which is another point, plastic tools. Remember when tools lasted a lifetime? Well industry does and they don't miss it. They would much rather sell far more tools that will always break, more energy use. 

You see this never ending spiral of waste. Converting carbon fuels into gasses will never be sustainable and we must change. No matter what kind of weird scenario you are suggesting that pro renewable folks want is irrelevant. You are the past, renewable energy is the future. No matter can be destroyed or lost, we are currently just making a bunch of solid and liquid matter into gasses and smaller solids. This is stupid, no matter how much I like chainsaws and race cars, this has to end.


----------



## WinterinWI

SpaceBus said:


> No matter what kind of weird scenario you are suggesting that pro renewable folks want is irrelevant.



Just laying out what I keep hearing and asking for clarification.



SpaceBus said:


> You are the past, renewable energy is the future.



As much as I hate to admit it, I am a millennial, so hopefully I'll be around for awhile!


----------



## SpaceBus

WinterinWI said:


> Just laying out what I keep hearing and asking for clarification.
> 
> 
> 
> As much as I hate to admit it, I am a millennial, so hopefully I'll be around for awhile!



Millennials are setting up the groundwork for the kids that are just now getting into high school to really alter the paradigm. Millennials will be voted into office in a few years by the new generation. It won't be some kind of dystopic overlord situation, simply elected leaders that support industry that won't destroy the planet. The goal is to continue the status quo with a balanced energy exchange, not live out A Brave New World.


----------



## begreen

WinterinWI said:


> I wasn't talking about the national level, you indicated earlier, national interests would keep many countries from participating. I was talking on an international level about your desire for a global ruling class that can impose and enforce any societal rules it wishes in the name of (settled) climate science.


Clarification - I expressed no desire for a global ruling class. These are your words. Your thoughts.  It would be a lot better if world powers realized it's sink or swim and aligned toward a common purpose. The cost of not doing so is much greater than maintaining the status quo.


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> Clarification - I expressed no desire for a global ruling class. These are your words. Your thoughts.  It would be a lot better if world powers realized it's sink or swim and aligned toward a common purpose. The cost of not doing so is much greater than maintaining the status quo.



I guess I misunderstood you then, that seemed to be what you were getting at. What would you propose then? Paris climate accord type of deal? That approach is problematic at best. A handful of countries sit around a table and nod their heads, agreeing to take action that will damage their own economies. Countries that don't participate laugh as they improve their global position as other countries hurt themselves. Some of those countries are nefarious with imperialistic ambitions. Some of the participants agree, but do nothing. Quite a joke actually.

30+ years of failed predictions of imminent doom are also starting to weigh awfully heavily on the global cooling/global warming/climate change/whatever it's called now movement.


----------



## begreen

This is where I want our country and Japan to take leadership in exploring and developing carbon negative solutions. If we lead and develop alternatives then others like India will adopt and follow.


WinterinWI said:


> 30+ years of failed predictions of imminent doom are also starting to weigh awfully heavily on the global cooling/global warming/climate change/whatever it's called now movement.


It doesn't matter till they are correct, right? This reminds me of a tragic situation that occurred in March 2014 up north in Oso, WA. Many years ago developers got some riverside real estate in a quiet valley for cheap. They started selling lots and putting in infrastructure in spite of warnings that the area might not be geologically stable. This was ignored of course, because the scientist predictions hadn't come true for the last decade. Houses started going in, developers made money and then a hill a few miles away collapsed. The warnings went out again and were poo-pooed. It's a beautiful riverside spot and the land is cheap, what could go wrong? Scientists again pointed out instability going back to 1937, but they were ignored. That was a long time ago was the response. Thena timber company started logging the mountain above. The loggers were given clear boundaries set up to ensure a safety zone for the developing community down below. But as usual, greed took over and while no one was looking the logging crept over the boundary. Warnings went out and again were ignored. There were now too many houses and too much money invested to change the plan.  Besides, life was good. Then one Sunday morning, after a spell of heavy rains, the entire mountainside collapsed. Heavy rains and soil saturation had reached the tipping point. In a matter of minutes, the mountainside let loose and a massive mudslide wiped out everything including the highway almost a mile away. 43 people were killed.

Coming up with exact dates is not going to happen, but where is the sense in putting the gas to the floor as one heads toward a cliff? Does one depend on the brakes (technology) at the last minute? Good luck with that plan.


----------



## vinny11950

Check out what the melting permafrost is revealing.









						Was This 18,000-Year-Old Puppy Frozen in Siberian Permafrost the Ancestor of Wolves, Dogs or Both?
					

DNA tests on the well-preserved remains can't determine whether the little canine was wild or domestic




					www.smithsonianmag.com
				




These feedback loops are already happening, regardless of what we do now.  

I think it now comes down to adapting and surviving.  What does survival mean?  I don't know.  Are geographically advantaged cities that plan, have economies of scale and people talent, are they going to thrive?  Or is it going to be small rural communities ?

I think areas that don't flood, burn and have ample fresh water sources, are the places to be.  This means mass migrations.  Its what humans do to survive.


----------



## SpaceBus

I think the canine mummy is interesting, but hardly proof of anything.


----------



## begreen

Latest NOAA report on the Arctic.




__





						2019 Headlines
					

Arctic ecosystems and communities are increasingly at risk due to continued warming and declining sea ice The Arctic marine ecosystem and the communities that depend upon it continue to experience unprecedented changes as a result of warming air temperatures, declining sea ice, and warming...



					www.arctic.noaa.gov
				




Summary


----------



## woodnomore

So if I give the Gov't more money that will fix the weather?


----------



## begreen

woodnomore said:


> So if I give the Gov't more money that will fix the weather?


Weather is not the issue. Rather than sending in more money, tell your representatives to focus on addressing the impacts of climate change.  Wasting less on war would be a good place to start.


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> Weather is not the issue. Rather than sending in more money, tell your representatives to focus on addressing the impacts of climate change.  Wasting less on war would be a good place to start.



Despite the media predictions after our current president was elected, he has not started WWIII. As far as war goes, we are in a relatively peaceful time at present.

Your comment about not sending money to the government to combat climate change is confusing. I can't recall any representative recently proposing a climate change solution that didn't come with a massive tax, restructuring of society or redistribution of wealth.

We do have a 16yr old girl named by time magazine as person of the year. She quit school, and is now preaching the cause of climate change, maybe she'll save us all. I feel bad for her, she is a child being used as a pawn by the left, entering a rough life of politics at a young age. She is rich though, and will continue to get richer, so I guess I don't feel that bad. She'll be the new Al Gore, do as I say not as I do.


----------



## vinny11950

WinterinWI said:


> Your comment about not sending money to the government to combat climate change is confusing. I can't recall any representative recently proposing a climate change solution that didn't come with a massive tax, restructuring of society or redistribution of wealth.



We can point to the same subsidies at the state and federal level for the fossil fuel industry that is costing the tax payer billions of dollars.  That is a redistribution of wealth that has been going on for decades.  The same for pollution created by drillers/refiners etc.,, that is a cost that is passed on to every body else.  Why should a company get to pollute the air and water we need to survive and not pay a price for it? That is something the government should regulate because it benefits us all.  All the regulations now being rolled back for clean air and water will have serious, negative health effects on thousands of people, maybe you and I, too.

And shouldn't we transition to cleaner energy, like solar and wind, now that we have the technology to do it?  It will give us cleaner air, water, mitigate global warming while creating thousands of jobs here at home.

At some level you have to realize you don't have an argument, rather a list of talking points that are well past their shelf life.


----------



## begreen

WinterinWI said:


> As far as war goes, we are in a relatively peaceful time at present.


Tell the almost 10,000 troops in Afghanistan that. We are still in an 18 yr war in there. Total cost is approaching $1 Trillion. Add another trillion for their medical and disability payments coming. And almost 7000 US deaths so far (not including the many suicides). Mighty costly for a "peaceful" time.


WinterinWI said:


> Your comment about not sending money to the government to combat climate change is confusing. I can't recall any representative recently proposing a climate change solution that didn't come with a massive tax, restructuring of society or redistribution of wealth.


Instead of sending more money, stop wasting it on wars and amping up the military budget. We outspend the budgets of all major nations - combined - on the military. We crank out tanks and humvees by the thousands just to park in the desert. And that is just one instance.


WinterinWI said:


> We do have a 16yr old girl named by time magazine as person of the year. She quit school, and is now preaching the cause of climate change, maybe she'll save us all. I feel bad for her, she is a child being used as a pawn by the left, entering a rough life of politics at a young age. She is rich though,


Again, misinformed. She is taking a break and has not quit school, though she is getting one heck of an education in the meantime. And though her family is well off,  she is not rich. More mythos.  For her age, she’s quite remarkable and must also be very courageous.


----------



## CaptSpiff

begreen said:


> Latest NOAA report on the Arctic.



Thanks for that NOAA report and that CBS_News YouTube video on Arctic Melting. 
I did not enjoy the CBS_News video of the exasperated former weatherman who gave up his lucrative career to become a Climate Alerter.

When the video ended, YouTube presented 6 related videos including a documentary from DW (the German equivalent of PBS) TV.
That also covered the melting Arctic ice, but from a Greenlandic and Inuit perspective. A perspective I have honestly not thought much about.
They are clearly looking forward to the relaxing of this long Ice Age the earth has been experiencing. Perspective is everything.


----------



## begreen

Infinite consumption of a finite resource is a short term proposition. While a few thousands in Greenland may temporarily benefit from the warming, millions will suffer and die. Warming Greenland is not all good. They were dealing with uncontrolled wildfires there last summer. All a matter of perspective.


----------



## CaptSpiff

begreen said:


> Tell the almost 10,000 troops in Afghanistan that. We are still in an 18 yr war in there. Total cost is approaching $1 Trillion. Add another trillion for their medical and disability payments coming. And almost 7000 US deaths so far (not including the many suicides). Mighty costly for a "peaceful" time.
> 
> Instead of sending more money, stop wasting it on wars and amping up the military budget. We outspend the budgets of all major nations - combined - on the military. We crank out tanks and humvees by the thousands just to park in the desert. And that is just one instance.


Boy,... you hit that one a mile!
We've made so much progress to become energy self-sufficient, while not harming our population by letting energy costs rise to negatively affect our economy. And we've set ourselves up to transition our fossil based economy into one which soon will be heavily renewable based. The country no longer needs the Middle East products. It is high time for us to reduce our police actions and bring our troops home.

But you know who does need the Middle East oil? Europe, Japan and South East Asia. They have been some of the biggest beneficiaries of the US subsidies to the fossil fuel industry. Time for them to carry a bit more weight, starting in Europe. Instead of asking their countries to increase NATO funding to 2% of their own GDPs, we should tell them the US will begin a 5 year time line to reduce NATO funding by the US to the annual avg % of all individual members. With 100% of that savings going into US infrastructure and clean energy transition.

I'm seeing a Pelosi/Trump hug-fest in the future. (Hey, ... cough-cough, ... maybe this stuff *is* a lot stronger today than back in the day)


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> Instead of sending more money, stop wasting it on wars and amping up the military budget. We outspend the budgets of all major nations - combined - on the military. We crank out tanks and humvees by the thousands just to park in the desert. And that is just one instance.


We can agree on the US global policing role, however, as much as you hate military spending, it is necessary to some degree. If we hadn't spent money to have a powerful military in the past, we'd probably be speaking German right now (and also not allowed to argue, which maybe you'd prefer)


begreen said:


> And though her family is well off,  she is not rich. More mythos.  For her age, she’s quite remarkable and must also be very courageous.


She'll be rich soon!


----------



## SpaceBus

Lol, this is not a peaceful time. Perhaps more peaceful than 1944 or 1968, but not exactly peaceful when multiple genocides are taking place and concentration camps are filling with Muslims and Latinos.


----------



## SpaceBus

WinterinWI said:


> We can agree on the US global policing role, however, as much as you hate military spending, it is necessary to some degree. If we hadn't spent money to have a powerful military in the past, we'd probably be speaking German right now (and also not allowed to argue, which maybe you'd prefer)
> 
> 
> 
> She'll be rich soon!


No, we would not be speaking German as they didn't want a war with us. The United States only got involved at the tail end. The Russians won the war in real life, Americans won it in text books.


----------



## begreen

Meanwhile, back in Greenland


----------



## CaptSpiff

SpaceBus said:


> Lol, this is not a peaceful time. Perhaps more peaceful than 1944 or 1968, but not exactly peaceful when multiple genocides are taking place and concentration camps are filling with Muslims and Latinos.


Perhaps in another thread you can explain in a few sentences how you define "concentration camps".


----------



## begreen

CaptSpiff said:


> Perhaps in another thread you can explain in a few sentences how you define "concentration camps".


Definitely another thread, in the Inglenook.


----------



## vinny11950

Tipping point be tipping.

Australia fires








						Australia fires: Military to be deployed to help rescue effort
					

Aircraft and ships will be sent to New South Wales and Victoria, as thousands flee to the coast.



					www.bbc.com
				








Moscow winter








						Moscow wonders where winter has gone as temperatures hit 133-year high
					

Residents of Moscow are wondering where winter has gone as the highest December temperatures for 133 years deprive the Russian capital of its customary covering of snow.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## begreen

That is a truly horrifying situation. Australia is overwhelmed by fire. Temps are in the 100s and the fire line has pushed people to the edge of the ocean for survival. Roads are impassible, so there is no way out. Tourists and homeowners are trapped in one town, on the beach, waiting for this nightmare to end.


----------



## vinny11950

Vox.com has a pretty good article on 3 different tree species that help fight global warming.  They help maintain ecosystems, trap large amounts of carbon, and create rain.  At a minimum governments around the world should be organizing to protect these forests.   But we won't.  Because of the usual reasons. So things will get worse.









						These 3 supertrees can protect us from climate collapse
					

But can we protect them?




					www.vox.com


----------



## Sawset

I wonder how much and how long natural bush fires in Australia have been suppressed. And like parts of the US that historically have burned,  how policies will now change.


----------



## begreen

Looks like most of their firefighters are volunteers, which is astounding.  Extended drought and extended, extraordinarily high temps seem to be the issue. Not sure about fire suppression, but add eucalyptus forests with exceptionally high oil content. We won't know until this is over but so far it is estimated that the fires have killed *480 million* animals, including roughly a third of the koalas in New South Wales. Temps of 111º are expected this week.


----------



## SpaceBus

vinny11950 said:


> Vox.com has a pretty good article on 3 different tree species that help fight global warming.  They help maintain ecosystems, trap large amounts of carbon, and create rain.  At a minimum governments around the world should be organizing to protect these forests.   But we won't.  Because of the usual reasons. So things will get worse.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> These 3 supertrees can protect us from climate collapse
> 
> 
> But can we protect them?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com


This is one of the most upsetting parts for me.


----------



## SpaceBus

Sawset said:


> I wonder how much and how long natural bush fires in Australia have been suppressed. And like parts of the US that historically have burned,  how policies will now change.


I was just reading about this a few weeks ago. They even changed the Smokey Bear slogan! Now it goes "Only you can prevent Wildfires"


----------



## begreen

SpaceBus said:


> This is one of the most upsetting parts for me.


Happening here too. Oregon forests are getting clearcut quickly.


----------



## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> Happening here too. Oregon forests are getting clearcut quickly.
> View attachment 254504


That's horrible. The locals tell me that Maine has very environmentally friendly logging practices/laws, but it's hard to tell when I see trucks full of logs all the time.


----------



## revicam2

Noticed clear cut gif in Oregon . Relative is at OSU, director OSU research forest. For those so inclined many answers to what is going on in fire mgmt is probably found in one of his many co-authored publications. Most of what I have looked at stress fuel mgmt, and two major causes( human and lightening). https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/author/stephen-fitzgerald


----------



## woodgeek

I visited the uni at Eugene when I gave a job talk in 1999, and again to give a talk in 2018.

In 1999, the campus felt like a summer camp in the woods, evergreen trees everywhere.  In 2018, it looked and felt like Austin, TX. Strip malls everywhere and nary a tree.


----------



## EatenByLimestone

When I was mapping wetlands we mapped a lot of prior farmland that had reverted to forest.


----------



## revicam2

EatenByLimestone said:


> When I was mapping wetlands we mapped a lot of prior farmland that had reverted to forest.


I was always taught the pond( small ponds even lakes fill in with age), wet lands, swamp, young forest, forest,ect. Been goin on for ever, no?


----------



## EatenByLimestone

You bet!  

My main job was looking at aerial photography and the vegetation, topography,  etc.   2 weeks a year of waterlogged soil is enough to change the plants that'll grow there.

Many family farms are reverting back to forest now that they are no longer being worked... plowed land, then grasses and shrubs, then you go into trees and their succession between species.   If you know what you're looking for you can see it all from aerial photography.   100+ years ago the land was cleared.  Now it's going back to nature.

Given time, nature will reclaim everything.


----------



## SpaceBus

EatenByLimestone said:


> You bet!
> 
> My main job was looking at aerial photography and the vegetation, topography,  etc.   2 weeks a year of waterlogged soil is enough to change the plants that'll grow there.
> 
> Many family farms are reverting back to forest now that they are no longer being worked... plowed land, then grasses and shrubs, then you go into trees and their succession between species.   If you know what you're looking for you can see it all from aerial photography.   100+ years ago the land was cleared.  Now it's going back to nature.
> 
> Given time, nature will reclaim everything.


Yes, but we have to stop destroying it faster than it can recover.


----------



## begreen

EatenByLimestone said:


> Given time, nature will reclaim everything.


It will happen eventually, once she has rid herself of the pesky vermin on her skin.


SpaceBus said:


> Yes, but we have to stop destroying it faster than it can recover.


 But consumption drives the economy!


----------



## EatenByLimestone

@SpaceBus


There's nothing that we can do that'll beat what nature can do.   










						The Adirondacks are Burning: A Brief History of Forest Fires | Adirondack Experience
					

The Adirondacks have a long history of epic blazes. While there are no recent comparisons with the terrible devastation faced by the west, fire is no stranger to the vast […]




					www.theadkx.org
				





And who can forget the Yellowstone fires in 1988?









						Fire - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service)
					

fire, wildfire




					www.nps.gov
				





What do you think happened after the first rain?    How many tons of fragile ecosystem nutrients washed away?    Look at Yellowstone now.    I visited in the late 90s and there was a young forest full of 10 year old trees.     

Nature will fix itself given time.    Any pollution will be encapsulated and eventually will be pushed down a subduction zone.   Species will come and go.   I'm not saying we shouldn't do everything we can to make this a better world, but we aren't going to do anything that nature can't fix.


----------



## revicam2

SpaceBus said:


> Yes, but we have to stop destroying it faster than it can recover.


/
Where I started with the GIF by the moderator, 2000-16 you see a yr-2?(so fast who knows) brown then green, new brown becomes the new green. No way to tell if those clear cuts are replaced by green growth or green roofs? just an observation. Probably a small or non existent part of the tip pt?


----------



## SpaceBus

EatenByLimestone said:


> @SpaceBus
> There's nothing that we can do that'll beat what nature can do.


Those fires were most likely caused by humans not letting natural fires take care of dry underbrush followed by humans starting fires that go out of control. Not to mention unseasonably dry weather in some places but huge amounts of rain in others. It's all messed up, but you really can't ignore the clear cutting in NC and elsewhere along with the burning of rain forests elsewhere. NC is really tragic given the burning of the Smokey mountains and the clear cutting on the costal side.


----------



## begreen

revicam2 said:


> No way to tell if those clear cuts are replaced by green growth or green roofs?


Underbrush starts growing pretty quickly, but that has nowhere near the carbon-storing capacity of large old trees.








						Pacific Northwest forests fit trifecta for curbing climate change — if we stop logging them
					

Study shows trees along the coast and in the Cascade and Olympic mountains have the most potential to sequester carbon.




					crosscut.com


----------



## revicam2

begreen said:


> Underbrush starts growing pretty quickly, but that has nowhere near the carbon-storing capacity of large old trees.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pacific Northwest forests fit trifecta for curbing climate change — if we stop logging them
> 
> 
> Study shows trees along the coast and in the Cascade and Olympic mountains have the most potential to sequester carbon.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> crosscut.com


 If the clear cut is harvest not commercial development. the last paragraph from the article, https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog/files/project/pdf/ec1498.pdf


 Ultimately, it is your legal responsibility to reforest a site following harvest, which is typically financed by income from the timber harvest.


----------



## begreen

revicam2 said:


> If the clear cut is harvest not commercial development. the last paragraph from the article, https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/sites/catalog/files/project/pdf/ec1498.pdf
> 
> 
> Ultimately, it is your legal responsibility to reforest a site following harvest, which is typically financed by income from the timber harvest.


Indeed, many are, but that model doesn't work too well when one views that 40-60 year regrowth time is too long for carbon sequestration and that the damage done to watersheds and the life that they support is irreparable. Also, monocrop replanting lacks the diversity of a healthy forest which invites insect and disease failures.


----------



## revicam2

begreen said:


> Indeed, many are, but that model doesn't work too well when one views that 40-60 year regrowth time is too long for carbon sequestration and that the damage done to watersheds and the life that they support is irreparable. Also, monocrop replanting lacks the diversity of a healthy forest which invites insect and disease failures.


I would not think that most foresters look at their crop as a carbon sequestering business ! 

I will note that Steve's 2008 article is probably light years away from some newly added techniques and practices as he previously  ran the OSU "research forests" He does state on selection,"It is possible to plant more than one species in an area. To be successful, become familiar with the ecological requirements (tolerance to frost, high temperatures, light, and moisture) of the different species and their growth habits. Investigate very carefully before planting non-native (also called “exotic”) tree species. Consult a local forester for specific information on selecting species suitable for your area. " In general I would think the folks at OSU both teach future foresters and use extension service to re-educate those already in the field about those new techniques.

So if the damage is as common as you seem know it is, shame on those foresters and state officals ignoring bad practice. I prefer to think the business is more in line with what is taught at OSU and probably  every other well thought of university Forestry dept.


----------



## SpaceBus

revicam2 said:


> I would not think that most foresters look at their crop as a carbon sequestering business !
> 
> I will note that Steve's 2008 article is probably light years away from some newly added techniques and practices as he previously  ran the OSU "research forests" He does state on selection,"It is possible to plant more than one species in an area. To be successful, become familiar with the ecological requirements (tolerance to frost, high temperatures, light, and moisture) of the different species and their growth habits. Investigate very carefully before planting non-native (also called “exotic”) tree species. Consult a local forester for specific information on selecting species suitable for your area. " In general I would think the folks at OSU both teach future foresters and use extension service to re-educate those already in the field about those new techniques.
> 
> So if the damage is as common as you seem know it is, shame on those foresters and state officals ignoring bad practice. I prefer to think the business is more in line with what is taught at OSU and probably  every other well thought of university Forestry dept.


Why would you think that logging companies would use expensive logging practices without oversight? There is illegal logging happening every day. Europe and Latin America are suffering due to tree poaching.


----------



## revicam2

SpaceBus said:


> Why would you think that logging companies would use expensive logging practices without oversight? There is illegal logging happening every day. Europe and Latin America are suffering due to tree poaching.


Why would you think that logging companies would use expensive logging practices without oversight? 

where did I say that?


----------



## SpaceBus

revicam2 said:


> Why would you think that logging companies would use expensive logging practices without oversight?
> 
> where did I say that?





revicam2 said:


> I would not think that most foresters look at their crop as a carbon sequestering business !
> 
> I will note that Steve's 2008 article is probably light years away from some newly added techniques and practices as he previously  ran the OSU "research forests" He does state on selection,"It is possible to plant more than one species in an area. To be successful, become familiar with the ecological requirements (tolerance to frost, high temperatures, light, and moisture) of the different species and their growth habits. Investigate very carefully before planting non-native (also called “exotic”) tree species. Consult a local forester for specific information on selecting species suitable for your area. " In general I would think the folks at OSU both teach future foresters and use extension service to re-educate those already in the field about those new techniques.
> 
> So if the damage is as common as you seem know it is, shame on those foresters and state officals ignoring bad practice. I prefer to think the business is more in line with what is taught at OSU and probably  every other well thought of university Forestry dept.



Your second paragraph in the quoted text.


----------



## revicam2

SpaceBus said:


> Your second paragraph in the quoted text.


You lost me on quote from steve's article.  put in for bg monocrop comment?


----------



## SpaceBus

revicam2 said:


> You lost me on quote from steve's article.  put in for bg monocrop comment?


This is an assumption that those conducting the logging will do it right.


----------



## revicam2

SpaceBus said:


> This is an assumption that those conducting the logging will do it right.


 In the context with the lead in sentence. There are some bad actors yes. But if you are serious about your out in the open eco-sensitive business you are probably utilizing the stuff put out by  univ. forestry depts.  So, yes they probably are spending and it doing rt as a  industry. Just info ,not in 2nd pp and not in quoted section, last pp. That is where you lost me!
my opinion, you have yours


----------



## SpaceBus

revicam2 said:


> In the context with the lead in sentence. There are some bad actors yes. But if you are serious about your out in the open eco-sensitive business you are probably utilizing the stuff put out by  univ. forestry depts.  So, yes they probably are spending and it doing rt as a  industry. Just info ,not in 2nd pp and not in quoted section, last pp. That is where you lost me!
> my opinion, you have yours



The US Forestry Service is one of the least funded branches of the government. I hardly think universities have the manpower or authority to enforce logging regulations. Most logging operations have little to no oversight and are located far from any enforcement authorities. When the cats are away the mice will play. It's very clear from satellite images and global air quality that logging laws are not being enforced strictly anywhere.


----------



## begreen

revicam2 said:


> I would not think that most foresters look at their crop as a carbon sequestering business !


Really?








						Climate Change
					

Our working forests contribute to climate change solutions




					www.weyerhaeuser.com
				






revicam2 said:


> In the context with the lead in sentence. There are some bad actors yes. But if you are serious about your out in the open eco-sensitive business you are probably utilizing the stuff put out by univ. forestry depts. So, yes they probably are spending and it doing rt as a industry. Just info ,not in 2nd pp and not in quoted section, last pp.


Unfortunately every act conducted by government has a human element, which means it has a political element, including those affected by the regulatory states. This is how Boeing managed to rush a flawed plane to market.


----------



## revicam2

begreen said:


> Really?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Climate Change
> 
> 
> Our working forests contribute to climate change solutions
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.weyerhaeuser.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Unfortunately every act conducted by government has a human element, which means it has a political element, including those affected by the regulatory states. This is how Boeing managed to rush a flawed plane to market.


REALLY? WOULDN'T YOU? Your product grows on co2, faster than when co2 levels of the 50's -70's. So haeuser's a great company, they get all this waste energy and fit your great company, if even by default. wouldn't you use free energy bark, chips,saw dust, ect??? they now fit your great carbon sequester co because their product hits at the dreaded co2, which it grows on. let's forget they clear cut and only save money on a byproduct, where do they make money not reclaim or save it, but by growing, cutting , and processing trees.! My guess using space bus analogy of statements , you love your neighbor weyerhhaeuser. That is an eye opener!

your second pt., I would say OB(golf), politics not allowed,! I will use space bus again , your comment seems to say that the gov't let Boeing build a plane they knew would crash

 just my opine on what I read


----------



## SpaceBus

... 

I think the point is that most people do not do the right thing when nobody is watching. We don't understand why you think that exploiters of natural resources will do something that costs more money without any incentive. I think it's pretty clear at this point that natural resources all over the planet have not been properly managed.


----------



## begreen

How's the weather Doug?


----------



## revicam2

begreen said:


> How's the weather Doug?


Pretty nice, past the age of loving snow and ice, so I really don't mind this
	

		
			
		

		
	



model shows more warm rain a week out. Hope you folks in your area got some of the rain you've needed. Thanks to T kelly, NECN for tweet.


----------



## vinny11950

Back on the Australia fires, the hot season still has months to go, so no wet period anytime soon.  The videos from people at the beaches are horrible.



			https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/01/02/amid-bush-fire-crisis-this-weekend-may-bring-australia-its-most-dangerous-fire-weather-conditions-yet/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter


----------



## semipro

We just had our warmest winter holiday season in 20 years here.  I wore shorts one day and was grateful for the favorable weather for my work outside. 
Finding a tick on one of our dogs and seeing a mosquito in our garage yesterday though, I was reminded of the unfavorable consequences that we see and expect -- and way more concerning -- those we don't expect. 
Yeah, I was able to work outside but California, and now Australia and other places, are paying the price for my convenience.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

vinny11950 said:


> Back on the Australia fires, the hot season still has months to go, so no wet period anytime soon.  The videos from people at the beaches are horrible.


Yea it s not like Australia has endless forestland to spare. Pretty much a giant desert with forests around the edges which is where all the fires are. Nothing to burn in the interior except sand.


----------



## woodgeek

If it gets hot enough for the sand to catch, we have real problems.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

woodgeek said:


> If it gets hot enough for the sand to catch, we have real problems.


Yea i could have worded that a little better.


----------



## begreen

Their national capitol has had the worst city air quality in the world for several days running. Brush fires are predicted to go on for months. After this, I think the next big issue they are going to have is flooding when/if the fall and winter rains start. That and the loss of precious topsoil due to runoff.  It's a pretty dire situation.


----------



## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> Their national capitol has had the worst city air quality in the world for several days running. Brush fires are predicted to go on for months. After this, I think the next big issue they are going to have is flooding when/if the fall and winter rains start. That and the loss of precious topsoil due to runoff.  It's a pretty dire situation.


We might be seeing a new type of migrant.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Its like a giant southern california, high winds, low humidity and drought conditions for months in the dry season.  3/4 of Australia was arid or semi-arid before the current drought.


----------



## begreen

Sometimes it helps to quantify human impact on the planet in terms we can understand. When one talks billions and trillions the quantity can numb the mind. A recent study of how much energy the oceans are absorbing does this. Last year was a record. How much heat? An equivalent of every person on earth pointing 100 hairdryers on high toward the ocean, 24/7 for a year. Or in other terms, the equivalent to 5 Hiroshima bombs every second. “The less technical term is: It’s a $hit-ton of energy,” he said.









						‘5 Hiroshima Bombs of Heat, Every Second’: The World's Oceans Absorbed Record-Level Heat Last Year
					

It's a stark assessment of ocean temperatures, the best measure for how much the world has heated.




					www.vice.com
				











						2019 Was 2nd Hottest Year Globally on Record, and Oceans are the Warmest They've Ever Been
					

Scientists announced that 2019 now ranks as the second hottest year globally. It comes in second to 2016 by less than 1 degree Fahrenheit.




					time.com
				











						Record-setting ocean warmth continued in 2019
					

A new analysis conducted by an international team shows that the world's oceans were the warmest in 2019 than any other time in recorded human history, especially between the surface and a depth of 2,000 meters, and that the past ten years have been the warmest on record for global ocean...



					www.eurekalert.org


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> View attachment 255316


When I first saw that graph, the “fake news” skeptic in me wondered why only certain years were highlighted, as if points that didn’t support the narrative were suppressed.  Of course, in this example that’s not the case, so I wonder why the author of that graph didn’t just use this more useful view:




In fact the NASA site from which I sourced that graph has a cool global temperature map that you can view year by year, as temperature change by location, by dragging a slider to a given year.









						Global Surface Temperature | NASA Global Climate Change
					

Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.




					climate.nasa.gov
				




Damn you, begreen... you’re going to make an environmentalist out of me.


----------



## begreen

The question is not if we will reach the tipping point, but when. We are already seeing cascading failures in the environment and ecosystems. For example, some penguin die-offs are severe (50% for some) as krill populations are falling due to ocean warming and acidification. 








						As Climate Change Worsens, A Cascade of Tipping Points Looms
					

New research warns that the earth may be approaching key tipping points, including the runaway loss of ice sheets, that could fundamentally disrupt the global climate system. A growing concern is a change in ocean circulation, which could alter climate patterns in a profound way.




					e360.yale.edu


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> The question is not if we will reach the tipping point, but when.


It seems obvious the tipping point was reached long ago and this big ship is sailing full speed ahead ,so rather than dwell on the tipping point i think we should find ways to deal with the inevitable results. For the short term i wont be buying any beachfront property or any property in flood plains or fire zones.


----------



## Ashful

Obvious that change is happening, yes.   But a very large fraction of the population is still either selling or buying the narrative that it isn’t, or that it’s just a natural process, not human-influenced.  It would seem you need to solve that problem, before we can end the endless cycle of one administration repealing the actions of the prior.


----------



## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> Obvious that change is happening, yes.   But a very large fraction of the population is still either selling or buying the narrative that it isn’t, or that it’s just a natural process, not human-influenced.  It would seem you need to solve that problem, before we can end the endless cycle of one administration repealing the actions of the prior.


Figuring out who, if anyone, shoulders the blame is not a default option. It is indeed the answer given by those spinning the narrative. They want you to think the exact cause is equally important to fixing the issue. Western, or perhaps all, philosophy places a great deal of importance on assigning blame.


----------



## begreen

The effects of ocean acidification due to excess atmospheric carbon dioxide are showing up globally. The oceans are 70% of the planet's surface. They produce over 50% of the air we breathe.   Tiny plankton are what generate this oxygen. They are dying. The effects of acidification are now showing up in our local waters now with a rapid decline in crab populations. This is a one-way path for humanity. 
https://www.ecowatch.com/pacific-ocean-acidification-2644943545.html


----------



## begreen

More than just the canary, the whole avian population is in serious decline. Silent spring is becoming a reality. 








						Ornithologists, Birdwatchers Uncover Staggering Magnitude of Bird Population Decline
					

Correction appended. Cornell Lab of Ornithology conservation scientist Dr. Ken Rosenberg led an international team of 12 scientists in an analysis of decades of data on bird population — and the conclusion is disturbing. In the last 50 years, one in four birds in North America has...




					cornellsun.com


----------



## AlbergSteve

Don't forget about the "Blob" right here on our doorstep - if you've got a few minutes to see its effects on common murres *here*.


----------



## semipro

begreen said:


> More than just the canary, the whole avian population is in serious decline. Silent spring is becoming a reality.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ornithologists, Birdwatchers Uncover Staggering Magnitude of Bird Population Decline
> 
> 
> Correction appended. Cornell Lab of Ornithology conservation scientist Dr. Ken Rosenberg led an international team of 12 scientists in an analysis of decades of data on bird population — and the conclusion is disturbing. In the last 50 years, one in four birds in North America has...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> cornellsun.com


Sad... An asteroid couldn't completely take out the dinosaurs but we might. 
Maybe related to the decline in insect biomass.  I used to hate what bugs did to my windshield on a warm summer night.


----------



## begreen

semipro said:


> Sad... An asteroid couldn't completely take out the dinosaurs but we might.
> Maybe related to the decline in insect biomass.  I used to hate what bugs did to my windshield on a warm summer night.


Yes, it is all related.


----------



## Ashful

Too many people.  Coincidentally, I’ve been listening to a lot of old NASA interviews and raw footage.  It’s simultaneously amusing and depressing that most of the astronauts and leadership team thought we’d have colonized their moon and Mars, by now. 

Maybe those New World Order folks were onto something, when they proclaimed we need to keep world population at 500M.


----------



## semipro

I've always thought that controlling the human population would be the least painful way of becoming a sustainable society. 
Nature will ultimately restore balance but I don't think that humans are going to like how its done.
And, our place now as a dominant species on the earth will result in us dragging a lot of other species down with us.


----------



## SpaceBus

Population isn't the issue, it's how we are spread out and conduct business. Giant ships loafing across the oceans belching smog is not sustainable. Clearing the rainforest for farmland is not sustainable. Everyone on the planet needs to learn there is no free lunch and all this energy is coming from somewhere. As smart as humans are there is definitely a way to live in a sustainable way without eugenics, population control measures, etc. Moving to the moon or Mars is definitely not the answer either. What kind of sense does it make to deplete the earth further to make bases that are only going to drain more energy and resources? Every human on this planet could comfortably live in an area the size of Texas, maybe even smaller.


----------



## Ashful

SpaceBus said:


> Population isn't the issue, it's how we are spread out and conduct business. ... Every human on this planet could comfortably live in an area the size of Texas, maybe even smaller.


... says the guy who just bought a large piece of remote property in rural Maine!


----------



## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> ... says the guy who just bought a large piece of remote property in rural Maine!


Hey, I do appreciate my privacy, but I also work very hard to minimize my carbon, environmental impact and live in a way that is not damaging to the planet. Now this is not to say I'm some ascetic monk or whatever, my life isn't totally carbon neutral, but I am trying. If everyone tried just a little, and then kept trying a little more every day, then this wouldn't be such an issue. Millennials are the first generation to grow up with almost unlimited access to information and most support environmental causes. Education is the key to overcoming the shortcomings of our fathers and mothers, not damning their lineages to the dust.

Who do you think would suffer the most under population controls?

Edit: I also don't literally think that everyone needs to live in an area the size of Texas. My point being that there is plenty of space but our energy supply train is the issue.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Population isn't the issue, it's how we are spread out and conduct business.   Every human on this planet could comfortably live in an area the size of Texas, maybe even smaller.


Wow ,who would want to live on top of 7 Billion people packed into a state the size of Texas .No one here on Hearth, thats for sure. Face it SpaceBus, you cant and you  wont change human nature. Nature will handle the population again , just like in the not too distant past when it was reduced to less than 50,000 individuals. Just 12000 yr ago population  was a mere 1 million.  Next big Pandemic probably will do that.  If not an asteroid  or volcano blowing its top. Possibly yellowstone.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

*What could         intervene?*

         1. *Starvation* - Can we feed 8 billion people?
         --- Many say no. Drought-induced *famine*

         2. *Disease Epidemic* -
         --- SARS, a new bird flu, *Ebola*?

         3. *Nuclear winter* -
         --- *Super         volcano*, nuclear war, comet, asteroid?

         4. *Birth rate change*
         --- Happening now

         5. *The **Earth's         poles flip*
         --- Calamity, happened many times before

         6. *The Apocalypse* (religion induced)
         --- People lose their minds on massive scale
Could probably throw in climate change down the road for No 7. That would be related to No 1. and No 2.


----------



## ABMax24

SpaceBus said:


> Population isn't the issue, it's how we are spread out and conduct business. Giant ships loafing across the oceans belching smog is not sustainable. Clearing the rainforest for farmland is not sustainable. Everyone on the planet needs to learn there is no free lunch and all this energy is coming from somewhere. As smart as humans are there is definitely a way to live in a sustainable way without eugenics, population control measures, etc. Moving to the moon or Mars is definitely not the answer either. What kind of sense does it make to deplete the earth further to make bases that are only going to drain more energy and resources? Every human on this planet could comfortably live in an area the size of Texas, maybe even smaller.



I think what you're not taking into account is the location of resources that we use as a human race. That's the big reason we are spread out all over the planet, why people thousands of years ago moved to new places, to find better resources. We live where can find and extract primary resources. I live in an area where the climate and remoteness makes just sustaining life incredibly energy intensive, yet we have a city of almost 75,000 because there are trees to be logged, oil and gas to extract, and huge tracts of prairie for growing grain.

Overpopulation is unfortunately the problem, the fact is it takes a given amount of land to produce enough resources for every person on this planet. For every urban area we need a developed rural area to supply the resources and a transportation system to move people and materials back and forth.

For example of the materials we produce locally only a small amount is consumed here: Some of the oil is refined here and shipped around Western Canada, the rest is shipped to the US or some to Asia. The grain is also shipped to Asia. The timber is made into lumber and pulp and is shipped all over Canada, the US, and to Asia. The large population centers elsewhere lack these resources and make this a necessity to sustain modern life.

I don't know how we fix the problem, particularly when there is no incentive to give up modern conveniences that are so dependent on the constant supply of resources.


----------



## SpaceBus

ABMax24 said:


> I think what you're not taking into account is the location of resources that we use as a human race. That's the big reason we are spread out all over the planet, why people thousands of years ago moved to new places, to find better resources. We live where can find and extract primary resources. I live in an area where the climate and remoteness makes just sustaining life incredibly energy intensive, yet we have a city of almost 75,000 because there are trees to be logged, oil and gas to extract, and huge tracts of prairie for growing grain.
> 
> Overpopulation is unfortunately the problem, the fact is it takes a given amount of land to produce enough resources for every person on this planet. For every urban area we need a developed rural area to supply the resources and a transportation system to move people and materials back and forth.
> 
> For example of the materials we produce locally only a small amount is consumed here: Some of the oil is refined here and shipped around Western Canada, the rest is shipped to the US or some to Asia. The grain is also shipped to Asia. The timber is made into lumber and pulp and is shipped all over Canada, the US, and to Asia. The large population centers elsewhere lack these resources and make this a necessity to sustain modern life.
> 
> I don't know how we fix the problem, particularly when there is no incentive to give up modern conveniences that are so dependent on the constant supply of resources.


Like I said, I don't want a literal centralist lifestyle. My point being the way we use the energy is the issue. We as a people need to invest into a clean energy future. Currently things are run in a linear fashion where the current person driving the ship doesn't have to deal with the aftermath. The people who will deal with the aftermath of uncapped production are Millennials and their children. The planet can support human population numbers, but only if humans change the way we manage the planet's resources. Shipping goods isn't the problem, shipping goods with fossil fuels that pollute the environment and deplete resources is just one problem among many.


----------



## Ashful

ABMax24 said:


> I think what you're not taking into account is the location of resources that we use as a human race. That's the big reason we are spread out all over the planet, why people thousands of years ago moved to new places, to find better resources. We live where can find and extract primary resources. I live in an area where the climate and remoteness makes just sustaining life incredibly energy intensive, yet we have a city of almost 75,000 because there are trees to be logged, oil and gas to extract, and huge tracts of prairie for growing grain.
> 
> Overpopulation is unfortunately the problem, the fact is it takes a given amount of land to produce enough resources for every person on this planet. For every urban area we need a developed rural area to supply the resources and a transportation system to move people and materials back and forth.
> 
> For example of the materials we produce locally only a small amount is consumed here: Some of the oil is refined here and shipped around Western Canada, the rest is shipped to the US or some to Asia. The grain is also shipped to Asia. The timber is made into lumber and pulp and is shipped all over Canada, the US, and to Asia. The large population centers elsewhere lack these resources and make this a necessity to sustain modern life.
> 
> I don't know how we fix the problem, particularly when there is no incentive to give up modern conveniences that are so dependent on the constant supply of resources.


Easily the best post on this thread.  Thank you for that.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

The combination of ever increasing population and much of the major fish stocks down to just 10%  left . Happening right now.
"Compared to 1950, only *10%* of large *fish* such as tuna, cod, and halibut remain in the oceans. More than 200 million people around the world earn their living in the fishing industry. " And many more millions are sustained daily on a diet of fish.


----------



## ABMax24

SpaceBus said:


> Like I said, I don't want a literal centralist lifestyle. My point being the way we use the energy is the issue. We as a people need to invest into a clean energy future. Currently things are run in a linear fashion where the current person driving the ship doesn't have to deal with the aftermath. The people who will deal with the aftermath of uncapped production are Millennials and their children. The planet can support human population numbers, but only if humans change the way we manage the planet's resources. Shipping goods isn't the problem, shipping goods with fossil fuels that pollute the environment and deplete resources is just one problem among many.



These are the exact issues we are wrestling with here in Canada right now, particularly Western Canada. We have groups of individuals that believe an immediate moratorium on any new fossil fuel development should be imposed. The city of Vancouver has even went as far as to say the streets with be fossil fuel free by 2030, and effectively made it impossible to install natural gas in new construction requiring all heating to come from other sources, being mostly electric. These same people are also protesting the building of a new hydro-electric dam in the northern corner of the province that will help to provide the energy needed for electric cars and electric heat to make these goals a reality. All the while the city is expanding the airport and building a pipeline from the local refinery to supply the ever growing need for jet-fuel.

While many of us here in Alberta earn our living developing and exporting fossil fuels. How do we make an instant transition to green energy that many are calling for? The money for this infrastructure must come from somewhere, and quite frankly the technology doesn't even exist yet to make this a reality, and won't until long term grid scale energy storage is possible. So do we shoot ourselves in the foot, shut down all industry and hope some miracle comes along to employ us or do we continue to develop our resources responsibly and use the revenue from this to advance our society.

As it stands all coal power plants will be shut down in Canada by 2030, a few of our plants in Alberta have already been converted to natural gas, with a few more high efficiency combined cycle natural gas plants scheduled to be built, on top of the other coal plants yet to be converted. We are even building LNG plants on the west coast that will allow us to ship natural gas to other countries to replace oil and coal as fuels. Yet we still face fierce opposition to these acts saying they don't go far enough.

The conclusion I have come to is change is needed, that burning fossil based fuels must come to an end. Unfortunately there is very little consensus and even less real thought on the best ways for us to achieve this. We have a huge list of environmental groups here in Canada, all pushing their own agenda, that essentially make any project impossible to build. One doesn't like wind turbines because they kill birds, the other doesn't like hydro-electric because it disrupts watershed ecosystems, another biomass because it requires logging of forests, the other fossil fuels because of climate change. So what do we do? There are so many calling for change and so few that actually contribute any logic thought into solving the problem, and even fewer that pose solutions that don't require the tax payer to fork over billions of dollars.

I am a part of the industry that is demonized as being the cause of climate change, particularly in the eyes of US based environmental groups. If there was no demand for oil and gas there would be no oil and gas companies and no development. Alberta's oil and gas industry sets the gold standard for oil and gas development for the world in technological advancement, worker rights and safety, and environmental protection.

The thought I would like to leave on this topic is how do we balance the needs of today with those of the future? How do we cost effectively transition energy sources without creating a mountain of debt for future generations and without causing huge disruptions to the employment of people today and their standard of living? To what end do we need to protect the environment, and who should have the authority to determine what energy projects are for the greater good and which are not?


----------



## begreen

ABMax24 said:


> Alberta's oil and gas industry sets the gold standard for oil and gas development for the world in technological advancement, worker rights and safety, and environmental protection.


How is this the gold standard in environmental protection?








						Alberta, Canada's oil sands is the world's most destructive oil operation—and it's growing
					

Can Canada develop its climate leadership and its lucrative oil sands too?




					www.nationalgeographic.com
				











						Environmental impact of Alberta tar sands 'horrible,' expert says (PHOTOS)
					

Part Two: With government oversight in question and toxins piling up, residents say they are being poisoned and disempowered.




					www.pri.org


----------



## Easy Livin’ 3000

I worked in the investment business before I retired last year.  Part of my job was to present the firm's view on the economy to boards, committees, executives.  One of the constant messages was the importance of GDP growth (even though there is ironically zero correlation with stock market returns in the short term).  

Over time, as I presented the GDP growth number, which is currently driven by consumption, at about 70%, and the law of compounding (another important concept in investing), I eventually realized that we are quickly on a collision course with planetary destruction, mass extinction and, even if we survive it, it's not gonna be someplace anyone wants to live.

Couple the simple arithmetic of compounding in the context of consumption with the rate of technological change, which is also compounding.  Add in a big dash of human nature, which has a huge greed component,  is overwhelmingly short sighted, and is loaded with ignorance and denial.  Finally, make the issue a social one instead of a math and science one, and the really bad people can now manipulate enough of the population to make it impossible politically to do anything about it.

Sorry folks, if you look at this as a simple math problem (and you should), the human race is toast, at our own hands.  It's just a matter of time.  If you have young children, you should be very sad for what we have done.


----------



## SpaceBus

ABMax24 said:


> These are the exact issues we are wrestling with here in Canada right now, particularly Western Canada. We have groups of individuals that believe an immediate moratorium on any new fossil fuel development should be imposed. The city of Vancouver has even went as far as to say the streets with be fossil fuel free by 2030, and effectively made it impossible to install natural gas in new construction requiring all heating to come from other sources, being mostly electric. These same people are also protesting the building of a new hydro-electric dam in the northern corner of the province that will help to provide the energy needed for electric cars and electric heat to make these goals a reality. All the while the city is expanding the airport and building a pipeline from the local refinery to supply the ever growing need for jet-fuel.
> 
> While many of us here in Alberta earn our living developing and exporting fossil fuels. How do we make an instant transition to green energy that many are calling for? The money for this infrastructure must come from somewhere, and quite frankly the technology doesn't even exist yet to make this a reality, and won't until long term grid scale energy storage is possible. So do we shoot ourselves in the foot, shut down all industry and hope some miracle comes along to employ us or do we continue to develop our resources responsibly and use the revenue from this to advance our society.
> 
> As it stands all coal power plants will be shut down in Canada by 2030, a few of our plants in Alberta have already been converted to natural gas, with a few more high efficiency combined cycle natural gas plants scheduled to be built, on top of the other coal plants yet to be converted. We are even building LNG plants on the west coast that will allow us to ship natural gas to other countries to replace oil and coal as fuels. Yet we still face fierce opposition to these acts saying they don't go far enough.
> 
> The conclusion I have come to is change is needed, that burning fossil based fuels must come to an end. Unfortunately there is very little consensus and even less real thought on the best ways for us to achieve this. We have a huge list of environmental groups here in Canada, all pushing their own agenda, that essentially make any project impossible to build. One doesn't like wind turbines because they kill birds, the other doesn't like hydro-electric because it disrupts watershed ecosystems, another biomass because it requires logging of forests, the other fossil fuels because of climate change. So what do we do? There are so many calling for change and so few that actually contribute any logic thought into solving the problem, and even fewer that pose solutions that don't require the tax payer to fork over billions of dollars.
> 
> I am a part of the industry that is demonized as being the cause of climate change, particularly in the eyes of US based environmental groups. If there was no demand for oil and gas there would be no oil and gas companies and no development. Alberta's oil and gas industry sets the gold standard for oil and gas development for the world in technological advancement, worker rights and safety, and environmental protection.
> 
> The thought I would like to leave on this topic is how do we balance the needs of today with those of the future? How do we cost effectively transition energy sources without creating a mountain of debt for future generations and without causing huge disruptions to the employment of people today and their standard of living? To what end do we need to protect the environment, and who should have the authority to determine what energy projects are for the greater good and which are not?


I do understand that things can't change overnight. There's a huge wealth disparity that is also included in this mess. Many people have made incredible profits at the expense of the environment and everyone else. Obviously you and I don't have the wealth to end climate change and deforesf


Easy Livin’ 3000 said:


> I worked in the investment business before I retired last year.  Part of my job was to present the firm's view on the economy to boards, committees, executives.  One of the constant messages was the importance of GDP growth (even though there is ironically zero correlation with stock market returns in the short term).
> 
> Over time, as I presented the GDP growth number, which is currently driven by consumption, at about 70%, and the law of compounding (another important concept in investing), I eventually realized that we are quickly on a collision course with planetary destruction, mass extinction and, even if we survive it, it's not gonna be someplace anyone wants to live.
> 
> Couple the simple arithmetic of compounding in the context of consumption with the rate of technological change, which is also compounding.  Add in a big dash of human nature, which has a huge greed component,  is overwhelmingly short sighted, and is loaded with ignorance and denial.  Finally, make the issue a social one instead of a math and science one, and the really bad people can now manipulate enough of the population to make it impossible politically to do anything about it.
> 
> Sorry folks, if you look at this as a simple math problem (and you should), the human race is toast, at our own hands.  It's just a matter of time.  If you have young children, you should be very sad for what we have done.



Your last paragraph illustrates why I'm OK with not having children.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Your last paragraph illustrates why I'm OK with not having children.


We're not only leaving them pollution but 22 Trillion of DEBT.
I for one would gladly pay more to clean up the mess we have made and craft a better way.  Start at the source and work from there. It can provide a lot of jobs .


----------



## Easy Livin’ 3000

SpaceBus said:


> I do understand that things can't change overnight. There's a huge wealth disparity that is also included in this mess. Many people have made incredible profits at the expense of the environment and everyone else. Obviously you and I don't have the wealth to end climate change and deforesf
> 
> 
> Your last paragraph illustrates why I'm OK with not having children.


One more nugget of data- The two wealthiest human beings today, and of all time, are making their massive wealth through two companies that encourage incredibly wasteful  and largly unnecessary consumption: Amazon and LVMH.   It's sickening.


----------



## Easy Livin’ 3000

Seasoned Oak said:


> Were not only leaving them pollution but 22 Trillion of DEBT.
> I for one would gladly pay more to clean up the mess we have made and craft a better way.  Start at the source and work from there. It can provide a lot of jobs .


Yes, you are so right.  This country is so mixed up right now, that this purposeful running up of the debt is being largely ignored.  There will be massive ugly consequences to this and will be a major contributor to the sad end of this experiment in democracy that started out so beautifully in the late 1700's.

Now let's go gut some more environmental regulations that helped put out the rivers that were literally burning, and clean the air that was literally burning our lungs.


----------



## begreen

Easy Livin’ 3000 said:


> I worked in the investment business before I retired last year.  Part of my job was to present the firm's view on the economy to boards, committees, executives.  One of the constant messages was the importance of GDP growth (even though there is ironically zero correlation with stock market returns in the short term).
> 
> Over time, as I presented the GDP growth number, which is currently driven by consumption, at about 70%, and the law of compounding (another important concept in investing), I eventually realized that we are quickly on a collision course with planetary destruction, mass extinction and, even if we survive it, it's not gonna be someplace anyone wants to live.
> 
> Couple the simple arithmetic of compounding in the context of consumption with the rate of technological change, which is also compounding.  Add in a big dash of human nature, which has a huge greed component,  is overwhelmingly short sighted, and is loaded with ignorance and denial.  Finally, make the issue a social one instead of a math and science one, and the really bad people can now manipulate enough of the population to make it impossible politically to do anything about it.
> 
> Sorry folks, if you look at this as a simple math problem (and you should), the human race is toast, at our own hands.  It's just a matter of time.  If you have young children, you should be very sad for what we have done.


That's exactly right. I posted this in the Ash Can years ago using professor Bartlett's lecture as an example.


----------



## Easy Livin’ 3000

begreen said:


> That's exactly right. I posted this in the Ash Can years ago using professor Bartlett's lecture as an example.


I'm not familiar with Professor Bartlett nor the ash can.  Or maybe I just don't remember them.   Either way, your a sharp one, BG.

What doesn't make any sense to me, is, with this information, why are we still worrying about the inevitable.  We should be partying like it's 2020.  Maybe I'll try to turn over a new leaf this year and join the party.  Actually, it's why I retired from the rat race last year.


----------



## woodnomore

Easy Livin’ 3000 said:


> Yes, you are so right.  This country is so mixed up right now, that this purposeful running up of the debt is being largely ignored.  There will be massive ugly consequences to this and will be a major contributor to the sad end of this experiment in democracy that started out so beautifully in the late 1700's.
> 
> Now let's go gut some more environmental regulations that helped put out the rivers that were literally burning, and clean the air that was literally burning our lungs.



I have worked in the environmental industry since 1987. In the US the environment has never been cleaner than it is now, from groundwater to air. The current president is not making it worse.


----------



## Easy Livin’ 3000

woodnomore said:


> I have worked in the environmental industry since 1987. In the US the environment has never been cleaner than it is now, from groundwater to air. The current president is not making it worse.


Yep, it's like a switch.  

And you are lying.


----------



## woodnomore

Easy Livin’ 3000 said:


> Yep, it's like a switch.
> 
> And you are lying.



Nice mature response. When I started there was gasoline floating on groundwater around most gas stations, that has been remediated. Are you aware that any industrial water discharge monitoring is set by each states gov't, not on the federal level? An inconvenient truth for the pink hat knitters.


----------



## SpaceBus

woodnomore said:


> I have worked in the environmental industry since 1987. In the US the environment has never been cleaner that I have experienced, from groundwater to air. The current president is not making anything better.



My edits in underline


----------



## woodnomore

SpaceBus said:


> My edits in underline



Well perhaps you should inquire about my perspective. in 2019 I was on environmental sites from Prince Rupert BC to Miami Dade County in Florida, Maine to California, throw in Mexico City, Kauai,  and Saipan as well. Yeah My perspective is substantial I am not sitting behind a keyboard dismissing perspectives that do jive with the climate change cult.


----------



## SpaceBus

woodnomore said:


> Well perhaps you should inquire about my perspective. in 2019 I was on environmental sites from Prince Rupert BC to Miami Dade County in Florida, Maine to California, throw in Mexico City, Kauai,  and Saipan as well. Yeah My perspective is substantial I am not sitting behind a keyboard dismissing perspectives that do jive with the climate change cult.


The point being things have been better before now, just not while you or I have been alive. Your perspective is miniscule when compared to the whole earth and the time humans have been on it.


----------



## woodnomore

My response was to what you posted about this country being so screwed up right now, your words.


----------



## begreen

We have made a lot of progress since 1970, but now the clock is being turned backward. I have a neighbor who is a retired from the EPA a few years ago. He is still is close contact with coworkers. What is happening now is devastating morale. You can not roll back the groundwater protections without consequences and squelching science is not the way to progress.

Having a coal lobbyist and defender heading this office has not helped. He is a critic of limits on greenhouse gas emissions and the IPCC. Some notorious acts have relaxing regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas wells, attempts to lower CARP limits, opening public lands to mining at National Monuments like the Grand Staircase -Escalante and Bears Ears, 30% increase in logging on public lands, and on. It is only lawsuits that have slowed down the environmental sell out occurring.  Currently there is an attempt to gut the National Environmental Policy Act. Instead of repairing bridges, building rapid transit, and implementing smart grid programs, building infrastructure means more pipelines and refineries to this administration. This is not helping the enviroment.


----------



## begreen

Easy Livin’ 3000 said:


> I'm not familiar with Professor Bartlett nor the ash can.  Or maybe I just don't remember them.   Either way, your a sharp one, BG.
> 
> What doesn't make any sense to me, is, with this information, why are we still worrying about the inevitable.  We should be partying like it's 2020.  Maybe I'll try to turn over a new leaf this year and join the party.  Actually, it's why I retired from the rat race last year.


It's a great lecture.


----------



## woodnomore

If you believe in man caused climate change and still own a internal combustion engine you are conflicted. As I stated before ground water permitting as well as discharge is permitted at the state level, the EPA often is redundant and overbearing.


----------



## SpaceBus

woodnomore said:


> If you believe in man caused climate change and still own a internal combustion engine you are conflicted. As I stated before ground water permitting as well as discharge is permitted at the state level, the EPA often is redundant and overbearing.


I stated before that I am as well conflicted. In the future I'd like to not own any ICE equipment or vehicles. Unfortunately I only realized how horrible things were as an adult, well entrenched in modern life. I'm doing my best to try and reduce and even go into a negative carbon footprint if possible.


----------



## ABMax24

begreen said:


> How is this the gold standard in environmental protection?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Alberta, Canada's oil sands is the world's most destructive oil operation—and it's growing
> 
> 
> Can Canada develop its climate leadership and its lucrative oil sands too?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.nationalgeographic.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Environmental impact of Alberta tar sands 'horrible,' expert says (PHOTOS)
> 
> 
> Part Two: With government oversight in question and toxins piling up, residents say they are being poisoned and disempowered.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.pri.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 256411



That is an open pit mine, you  strip the land away, mine the resource below then replace and reclaim the land. The difference is we are required to reclaim these sites, returning them to as close to natural as possible. See attached link of reclaimed mines.









						Oil Sands Reclamation: 20+ Photos of Reclaimed Oil Sands
					

What does oil sands reclamation look like in Canada? All oil sands development must be reclaimed, according to law, and tens of thousands of hectares have / are undergoing reclamation in the oil sands. See photos of reclaimed oil sands in Alberta here.




					www.canadaaction.ca
				




I could come up with hundreds of pictures of open pit mining operations in the states as well, or dozens of examples of other contaminated areas, where little to no reclamation has been done. Spreading of radioactive brine on roads come to mind. To the commoner reading such a shock and awe article it looks aweful, but very few understand the process once the mine is exhausted and very few of these journalists care to write about it as doom and gloom sells much better than truth.

In many ways your response makes the point of my post. You will never make everyone happy, nothing will ever be good enough. So I will continue to live in the real world where almost everything runs on oil and gas, and I will continue to make a living doing it.


----------



## woodnomore

At the current price point of crude oil the tar sands are not in operation as are many of the camps from edmonton to calgary. This is in the soil is already contaminated with the tar sands not like pristine groundwater or soil is being contaminated by the process, if anything they are remediating hydrocarbon contamination. Just like fracking in the US the mix is being injected into a formation that has crude oil in it not drinking water.


----------



## ABMax24

woodnomore said:


> At the current price point of crude oil the tar sands are not in operation as are many of the camps from edmonton to calgary. This is in the soil is already contaminated with the tar sands not like pristine groundwater or soil is being contaminated by the process, if anything they are remediating hydrocarbon contamination. Just like fracking in the US the mix is being injected into a formation that has crude oil in it not drinking water.



I agree with that entire statement except the first sentence. The oil sands are still in operation and are still economic at today's oil price, new development has almost come to a stop however.


----------



## woodnomore

Well my rep in Calgary has laid off all but 1 of their sales staff because of conditions in the crude producing portion of Canada, so crude production is a fraction of what it was even 2 years ago. My contact list at energy firms in downtown Calgary is shrinking because of layoffs.


----------



## ABMax24

woodnomore said:


> Well my rep in Calgary has laid off all but 1 of their sales staff because of conditions in the crude producing portion of Canada, so crude production is a fraction of what it was even 2 years ago. My contact list at energy firms in downtown Calgary is shrinking because of layoffs.



Not true. Layoffs have occurred and times are tough, but production has only seen a couple mild decreases due to lack of shipping capacity, which has essentially ended now. See link.





__





						Economic Dashboard - Oil Production
					

Alberta oil production (conventional and non-conventional).




					economicdashboard.alberta.ca


----------



## woodnomore

Do not agree I have traveled up there recently it is dire.


----------



## woodnomore

It is interesting that all the climate change candidates all believe we should burn less fossil fuels until they are running for president. What is the carbon footprint of the primary in Iowa today?


----------



## begreen

Getting far off topic.


----------



## SpaceBus

My wife mentioned to me yesterday that Japan is buying more coal and China might even be cut off from the middle east oil supplies.


----------



## semipro

I found this interesting.








						Jim Cramer: ‘’Fossil Fuels Are Done’’ | OilPrice.com
					

Investment guru Jim Cramer slammed oil major stocks this week, saying that institutional investors want nothing to do with oil and gas because of concerns about climate change




					oilprice.com
				




I'm not sure if this is hype or not but it seems significant when someone mainstream like Jim Cramer says it.
I would add that the smarter FF companies are becoming "energy" companies by investing in renewables.


----------



## semipro

woodnomore said:


> I have worked in the environmental industry since 1987. In the US the environment has never been cleaner than it is now, from groundwater to air.


I disagree.
I also worked in the environmental industry for many years; cleaning up leaking tanks spills, groundwater, etc.
While we may have addressed the very visible problems like petroleum spills, underground tanks leaks, smog,  etc. we have also spread widely much more insidious and less easily/traditionally recognized pollutants like endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals, PFAS, pesticides, GHGs, fracking fluids constituents, heat, plastics, nanomaterials, etc.   Some of these pollutants are much more widely spread, potentially dangerous in very low concentrations, and very difficult to remediate.
Those that pat themselves on the back thinking that we're living without a net negative impact because rivers don't burn anymore are fooling themselves.


----------



## woodnomore

Frack water is injected into a formation that has crude oil in it, Frack water is not destroying ground water usable for drinking.


----------



## SpaceBus

semipro said:


> I disagree.
> I also worked in the environmental industry for many years; cleaning up leaking tanks spills, groundwater, etc.
> While we may have addressed the very visible problems like petroleum spills, underground tanks leaks, smog,  etc. we have also spread widely much more insidious and less easily/traditionally recognized pollutants like endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals, PFAS, pesticides, GHGs, fracking fluids constituents, heat, plastics, nanomaterials, etc.   Some of these pollutants are much more widely spread, potentially dangerous in very low concentrations, and very difficult to remediate.
> Those that pat themselves on the back thinking that we're living without a net negative impact because rivers don't burn anymore are fooling themselves.


I get really upset about all the C8/C6/Flourine/Teflon that is in literally everything now. So far there has yet to be a person that doesn't have it in their blood. It's nice to have cleaner air, but now the water and ground are ruined. (In) Conveniently those are the places where most animals live.


----------



## SpaceBus

woodnomore said:


> Frack water is injected into a formation that has crude oil in it, Frack water is not destroying ground water usable for drinking.


Do you think there is no leeching or movment of that water through the ground? There's a dome fill of radioactive material leeching into the pacific ocean through the bedrock of an island in the Marshal Islands. Just because something is in the ground doesn't mean it doesn't affect a bunch of other stuff. Fracking is probably one of the most disruptive ways to get oil out of the ground, please don't expect us to believe the scientists on retainer for the FF companies.


----------



## woodnomore

SpaceBus said:


> Do you think there is no leeching or movment of that water through the ground? There's a dome fill of radioactive material leeching into the pacific ocean through the bedrock of an island in the Marshal Islands. Just because something is in the ground doesn't mean it doesn't affect a bunch of other stuff. Fracking is probably one of the most disruptive ways to get oil out of the ground, please don't expect us to believe the scientists on retainer for the FF companies.



Again the frack water is going into a formation that has crude oil in it, the movement of the frack water in going to disperse under the formation the crude oil is in. Water is heavier than oil.


----------



## SpaceBus

woodnomore said:


> Again the frack water is going into a formation that has crude oil in it, the movement of the frack water in going to disperse under the formation the crude oil is in. Water is heavier than oil.


Yes, but water frequently moves due to capillary action. You act like that dirty water will just sit there forever. Even if the water stays put  it's just a nasty toxic deposit for our future selves to discover and marvel at the stupidity and lack of foresight. Times are changing and those who work for oil and coal companies should look at retraining. People take this so personally, but this is what happens when technology improves. Many industries have been reduced by technology.


----------



## woodnomore

SpaceBus said:


> Yes, but water frequently moves due to capillary action. You act like that dirty water will just sit there forever. Even if the water stays put  it's just a nasty toxic deposit for our future selves to discover and marvel at the stupidity and lack of foresight. Times are changing and those who work for oil and coal companies should look at retraining. People take this so personally, but this is what happens when technology improves. Many industries have been reduced by technology.



The frack water moves down, drinking water is not coming from those areas. Hydrology read up a little.


----------



## woodnomore

SpaceBus said:


> Yes, but water frequently moves due to capillary action. You act like that dirty water will just sit there forever. Even if the water stays put  it's just a nasty toxic deposit for our future selves to discover and marvel at the stupidity and lack of foresight. Times are changing and those who work for oil and coal companies should look at retraining. People take this so personally, but this is what happens when technology improves. Many industries have been reduced by technology.



SpaceBus, if you feel fracking is damaging to non water bearing formations. Check out Florida deep well injection. Landfills discharge their leachate into the ground thru a 2500 foot deep well.


----------



## SpaceBus

woodnomore said:


> SpaceBus, if you feel fracking is damaging to non water bearing formations. Check out Florida deep well injection. Landfills discharge their leachate into the ground thru a 2500 foot deep well.


That's not a long term or sustainable solution either. Pretty much everything humans do is not sustainable. Plate tectonics, rising sea levels, and many other factors move things back to the surface. How do you think the oil and coal deposits were found in the first place?


----------



## woodnomore

SpaceBus said:


> That's not a long term or sustainable solution either. Pretty much everything humans do is not sustainable. Plate tectonics, rising sea levels, and many other factors move things back to the surface. How do you think the oil and coal deposits were found in the first place?



How does that explain that when ancient structures are found they are buried?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Here something better than the Green New Deal to  help a big chunk of the world become more sustainable. And unlike the GND which is so ludicrous it will never happen, this is very doable.   


$7000 for a house ,ill take 2!


----------



## vinny11950

woodnomore said:


> If you believe in man caused climate change and still own a internal combustion engine you are conflicted. As I stated before ground water permitting as well as discharge is permitted at the state level, the EPA often is redundant and overbearing.



What does "conflicted" mean exactly in your argument?  It reads like you are trying to use guilt to make an argument, which is kind of silly because it doesn't really move your argument forward.  Your argument would be more believable and honest if you just wrote "I don't believe in climate change.  Stop discussing it or thinking about it because you drive cars."


----------



## Seasoned Oak

woodnomore said:


> If you believe in man caused climate change and still own a internal combustion engine you are conflicted.


Id consider myself conflicted if i was zipping
around the country in a private jet giving speeches about climate change. Just driveing a car , no im not conflicted.


----------



## SpaceBus

woodnomore said:


> How does that explain that when ancient structures are found they are buried?


Because structures are not liquid or fluid in movement.

Edit: Also, many structures are brought back to the surface, along with fossils and minerals.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Id consider myself conflicted if i was zipping
> around the country in a private jet giving speeches about climate change. Just driveing a car , no im not conflicted.


I think that will change for you, at least for me it has.  I’m too practical to make the leap to PHEV’s or BEV’s today, given their present inability to meet all of my goals and desires in a vehicle.  But I’ll admit I feel damn bad about it, and hope the technology, price, and infrastructure are all vastly improved before my next vehicle purchase opportunity.

I feel even more conflicted at the voting booth, choosing between a party who has (in my opinion) taken the wrong stance on environmental issues, and another who supports and even preaches redistribution of the wealth I’ve managed to acquire.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> I think that will change for you, at least for me it has.
> I feel even more conflicted at the voting booth, choosing between a party who has (in my opinion) taken the wrong stance on environmental issues, and another who supports and even preaches redistribution of the wealth I’ve managed to acquire.


Its usually the best of 2 evils .  Look at the bright side, if the redistribution party takes over, you will no longer be able to afford all those ICE toys and the air will be cleaner,a win win. (Depending on your point of view)


----------



## woodnomore

Speaking of the tipping point, I do not recall the last time I voted for an individual. I usually cast my ballot against the other person running.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> Here something better than the Green New Deal to  help a big chunk of the world become more sustainable. And unlike the GND which is so ludicrous it will never happen, this is very doable.
> 
> 
> $7000 for a house ,ill take 2!



They are cool, but unfortunately they are made from cement, the production of which is anything but green. The cement industry is responsible for significant emissions. Also, if everyone wanted one we would deplete the world's sands in a heartbeat. Not all sand can be used for cement, just a specific type. We'll need an alternative cement to make this practical.


----------



## begreen

woodnomore said:


> Speaking of the tipping point, I do not recall the last time I voted for an individual. I usually cast my ballot against the other person running.


All: Let's keep politics out of the discussion, ok?


----------



## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> They are cool, but unfortunately they are made from cement, the production of which is anything but green. The cement industry is responsible for significant emissions. Also, if everyone wanted one we would deplete the world's sands in a heartbeat. Not all sand can be used for cement, just a specific type. We'll need an alternative cement to make this practical.


I am trying really hard in the future to use as little concrete as humanly possible. It's just really difficult not to use it in foundations.


----------



## begreen

SpaceBus said:


> I am trying really hard in the future to use as little concrete as humanly possible. It's just really difficult not to use it in foundations.


Indeed. We are approaching civilization tipping points too.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> They are cool, but unfortunately they are made from cement, the production of which is anything but green.


Just about every 3rd world home iv ever been in is already made of concrete. Concrete blocks and joints and floors. But very energy wastful.  Making them energy efficient is certainly a plus for many years to come.


----------



## SpaceBus

All that concrete will make great reefs when coastal areas go under water.


----------



## SpaceBus

There's a lot of abadondoned concrete in the world. I hope someone can find a good mortar replacement that doesn't involve lime.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> I am trying really hard in the future to use as little concrete as humanly possible. It's just really difficult not to use it in foundations.


This is the first time iv heard this. There is no viable replacement for concrete outside the addition of some flyash. Some builders no longer use it for footers changing to compacked  stone but the basement wall sections are still concrete as is the whole basement floor.  Finding better ways to make it will be easier than finding a replacement.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> There's a lot of abadondoned concrete in the world. I hope someone can find a good mortar replacement that doesn't involve lime.


Now its lime?  Farmers put lime on their fields by the truckload to stimulate growth.  How do you sleep at night with all these climate emergencies going on?


----------



## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> This is the first time iv heard this. There is no viable replacement for concrete outside the addition of some flyash. Some builders no longer use it for footers changing to compacked  stone but the basement wall sections are still concrete as is the whole basement floor.  Finding better ways to make it will be easier than finding a replacement.


There just isn't any replacement for lime. Coal ash can be added to concrete, but not as a cement replacement. It's unfortunate that there isn't really an environmentally friendly way to make lime. Even if biomass was used to produce masonry supplies, that's a lot of carbon release even if the fuel is sustainable. Perhaps we can find a way to make the lime from farmed precursors (marine life) rather than breaking it down after everything has been fossilized.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

If the big drivers of climate change are not addressed , the small ones are just window dressing. I wont be cutting back on my use of concrete when needed any time soon.


----------



## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> If the big drivers of climate change are not addressed , the small ones are just window dressing. I wont be cutting back on my use of concrete when needed any time soon.


15% of all carbon production is a massive chunk. Agricultural lime, Portland cement, slacked lime, and lime for mortar is all made in rotary kilns that require huge amounts of energy. The world does indeed revolve around it. If not for the giant Limestone deposits in Massachusetts this country may never have taken off like it did.


----------



## Ashful

... are you suggesting I allow the pH of my lawn to drift?  

I see the amount of lime used in agricultural and turf applications ever-decreasing, better options are available today for soil conditioners and even simple pH correction, than the old traditional lime-based products.

As to masonry, well I just repointed the entire back of my house in lime and sand last summer.  It’s a very large stone house.  I did not ask how much lime was used, but I suspect it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred pounds for a very large area of stonework.  By comparison, it can take a few thousand pounds per acre to bump soil pH a few tenths.

Get the aggies shifted from lime to other calcium vehicles, and I have to believe this impact can be largely controlled.

Lime in concrete?  Where?  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  Lime is mostly reserved for mortar and plaster, isn’t it?  It’s costly stuff, and I don’t think i adds strength in a Portland-based mix, it’s there for workability in most mortar and plaster applications.  Or for historical applications, any building that pre-dates Portland.


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> Lime in concrete? Where? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Lime is mostly reserved for mortar and plaster, isn’t it? It’s costly stuff, and I don’t think i adds strength in a Portland-based mix, it’s there for workability in most mortar and plaster applications. Or for historical applications, any building that pre-dates Portland.


Concrete is 7-15% cement. Cement has lime or calcium carbonate as a key ingredient. 




__





						Composition of cement
					





					www.engr.psu.edu


----------



## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> ... are you suggesting I allow the pH of my lawn to drift?
> 
> I see the amount of lime used in agricultural and turf applications ever-decreasing, better options are available today for soil conditioners and even simple pH correction, than the old traditional lime-based products.
> 
> As to masonry, well I just repointed the entire back of my house in lime and sand last summer.  It’s a very large stone house.  I did not ask how much lime was used, but I suspect it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred pounds for a very large area of stonework.  By comparison, it can take a few thousand pounds per acre to bump soil pH a few tenths.
> 
> Get the aggies shifted from lime to other calcium vehicles, and I have to believe this impact can be largely controlled.
> 
> Lime in concrete?  Where?  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  Lime is mostly reserved for mortar and plaster, isn’t it?  It’s costly stuff, and I don’t think i adds strength in a Portland-based mix, it’s there for workability in most mortar and plaster applications.  Or for historical applications, any building that pre-dates Portland.



As begreen mentioned cement is made from lime. Portland Cement also contains lime. For a few months I have been researching alternative building methods in an attempt to build a cabin or small house on our property without using cement. Unfortunately pretty much everything requires cement, which means lime. Unfortunately lime is procured from burning limestone.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> Concrete is 7-15% cement. Cement has lime or calcium carbonate as a key ingredient.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Composition of cement
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.engr.psu.edu


Interesting.  You learn things, here!  I make mortar out of lime or cement, sometimes a combination of the two.... never realized one contained the other.


----------



## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> Interesting.  You learn things, here!  I make mortar out of lime or cement, sometimes a combination of the two.... never realized one contained the other.


Portland cement usually contains more clay, and that's really the only difference. Mortar usually is just concrete made of fine sand and lime. I'm not a Mason at all, just been reading about it recently. Honestly it's all pretty depressing if you care about the environment. It's like every human process is disruptive in some kind of way. And this is from a person with like six videos of doing burnouts, donuts, and power slides in V8 RWD cars from different angles uploaded to YouTube. The more I learn the more I become sad about my hobbies.


----------



## begreen

Cement is the third largest source of CO2 emissions on the planet. The scale of concrete used by China is gobsmacking. There are now over 200 citied in China with a population greater than 1 million. In Europe there are only 35. Many of these cities are new within the past 30 years. It took billions of tons of concrete to build them. They all are connected by vast roadways and this doesn't include super long roads like the ones to remote areas like Tibet. Between 2000 and 2013 the world added 7.4 million miles of paved roads. In the past decade, China has built 1.3 million miles. With numbers like these one can see why cement has an enormous impact on emissions. And also, why we are running out of sand of the quality necessary for making cement.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Looks like china is in meltdown ,cities look like ghost towns. Hospitals like war zones. Their business model of bringing every farmer into a city to work in factories is backfiring.


----------



## woodnomore

Seasoned Oak said:


> Looks like china is in meltdown ,cities look like ghost towns. Hospitals like war zones. Their business model of bringing every farmer into a city to work in factories is backfiring.



Funny how things work, some believe we are at the tipping point with climate change with temps going up, others believe that solar minimum will bring us colder temps. The CDC says most that get the virus do not die yet the Chinese are locking cities down. Society has tried to eliminate evolution with survival of the fittest, nature always wins.


----------



## vinny11950

woodnomore said:


> nature always wins.



Did you get that from the movie Jurassic Park?


----------



## woodnomore

vinny11950 said:


> Did you get that from the movie Jurassic Park?


Have never seen the movie.


----------



## vinny11950

woodnomore said:


> Have never seen the movie.



You should see it, great fun.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> The scale of concrete used by China is gobsmacking.


All  the more evidence that my tiny little concrete project will make zero difference in the trajectory of climate change. Prepare for it, cuz china and indian and so many other countries are NOT going to stop growing and polluting. And no one can make them stop.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

woodnomore said:


> The CDC says most that get the virus do not die yet the Chinese are locking cities down.


Hyundai has just shut down production in South Korea ,so the panic is spreading.  I guess the next big war will start with Bio weapons ,they spread panic thru the whole country quickly.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> Hyundai has just shut down production in South Korea ,so the panic is spreading.  I guess the next big war will start with Bio weapons ,they spread panic thru the whole country quickly.


This is developing into an unexpected patent war too. 








						Chinese scientists ask for patent on US drug to fight virus
					

BEIJING (AP) — Scientists in the city at the center of China’s virus outbreak have applied to patent a drug made by U...




					apnews.com


----------



## Seasoned Oak

People packed into cites stacked on top of one another like in china may not be a good thing when the contagions are on the loose.








						When will the threat of coronavirus end? It might return every winter
					

Like swine flu, the new coronavirus might become a regular part of a winter mix of respiratory bugs causing common colds and other illnesses.



					www.usatoday.com
				



Would be better to be "off the grid "  for awhile.


----------



## begreen

Packing them in aerial tin cans may be worse for the spread of virus. It's mobility that increases risk. That was the reason for the rapid spread of the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918.


----------



## SpaceBus

woodnomore said:


> Funny how things work, some believe we are at the tipping point with climate change with temps going up, others believe that solar minimum will bring us colder temps. The CDC says most that get the virus do not die yet the Chinese are locking cities down. Society has tried to eliminate evolution with survival of the fittest, nature always wins.


There's probably something else going on with this virus.


----------



## begreen

SpaceBus said:


> There's probably something else going on with this virus.


So far it appears to be about 200% more deadly than the common flue.


----------



## ABMax24

There is some data to suggest that China's population is starting to plateau and will eventually shrink. This will dramatically reduce their need to consume vast amounts of material to build infrastructure for the people. Of course this has been shown in many developed countries, birth rates dramatically decrease. India is the next concern, their population is growing rapidly.









						China’s Looming Crisis: A Shrinking Population (Published 2019)
					

Decades of “one child” policy, a declining birth rate and an increase in life expectancy add up to fewer young workers able to support a huge and aging population.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> So far it appears to be about 200% more deadly than the common flue.


Its said to be 2% fatal ,so i presume the common flu is around 1% fatal.   So cause for concern but not panic.  The victims that succumb are usually very young or old and with compromised immune systems. Any serious illness will be fatal.


----------



## begreen

Sorry, I badly misstated that. Yes, so far it's 2% for the coronavirus, but that is only with one population group so far and it is unknown whether the cases will taper off in March/April like the regular flu does. The common flu is about .05% fatal. So 4000% more fatal.


----------



## SpaceBus

Such a deadly virus, yet only affecting one part of the world that isn't friendly with other parts. This is more than an outbreak, especially since it comes at such a time of high political unrest in China.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> This is developing into an unexpected patent war too.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chinese scientists ask for patent on US drug to fight virus
> 
> 
> BEIJING (AP) — Scientists in the city at the center of China’s virus outbreak have applied to patent a drug made by U...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> apnews.com


The way I read this, a Chinese company is trying to use their government to profit off this outbreak, rather than legally paying for a drug already developed, patented, and manufactured in the USA.  Meanwhile, their own people are suffering and even dying from this disease, while they’re levering the opportunity for profit.  These scum should be strung up, not supported by their government.


Seasoned Oak said:


> Its said to be 2% fatal ,so i presume the common flu is around 1% fatal.   So cause for concern but not panic.  The victims that succumb are usually very young or old and with compromised immune systems. Any serious illness will be fatal.


2% is concern for panic, IMO.  If your kid (or grandkid) goes to a school with 600 other kids, you’re looking at 12 of them dying from this, just based on the 2% average.  More likely double or triple that, given the distribution of fatalities among age groups.  That is terrifying.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> The common flu is about .05% fatal.


 I was surprised its that low. I was almost in that .05%  in my mid 40s.  I never forgot that experience and religiously get the flue shot each year after that.   After getting the flu every year with varying intensity for many yrs before starting to get the shot, i  havnt had a bad experience with it since getting the shot. If i did get the flu .i barely knew it. Unfortunately for many there is no shot for this one yet.


----------



## woodnomore

It is a wake up call when the Dr starts saying At your age you should....


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> 2% is concern for panic, IMO.  If your kid (or grandkid) goes to a school with 600 other kids, you’re looking at 12 of them dying from this, just based on the 2% average.  More likely double or triple that, given the distribution of fatalities among age groups.  That is terrifying.


  I was assuming it was double the normal rate. Whatever that was and all the victims were in a weakened state like nursing home residents. If its killing all age groups and otherwise relatively healthy people,then it is scary indeed. One positive note is only 2 deaths outside china with at least 200 cases .....so far.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Report: #CoronaVirus Deaths are Far Worse than China Admits, in Wuhan and Elsewhere
					

Those of us who follow the CoronaVirus statistics coming out of Mainland China, have always suspected the Chinese are lying about their 650 death toll, in less than 30,000 cases. After all, why bother to quarantine Wuhan, a Los Angeles sized city, unless it were absolutely necessary. And why...



					www.smobserved.com
				




If this a story is true the death rate is actually 16% , truly terrifying! Also if true china may be in the process of accidentally decimating its population with its own Bio weapon.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> ...if true china may be in the process of accidentally decimating its population with its own Bio weapon.


“Oops... sorry about that, folks.”


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Such a deadly virus, yet only affecting one part of the world that isn't friendly with other parts. This is more than an outbreak, especially since it comes at such a time of high political unrest in China.


Some connection to the practice of poaching endangered pangolins reported as an intermediary transmitter. One of the many whacky beliefs the chinese have for certain animal species for supposed
 health benefits like rhino horn, shark fin soup,bear gall bladder ect .


----------



## vinny11950

More bad news.









						Antarctica hits 69 degrees days after record-breaking heat
					

Just days before, Antartica reached 65°F.




					www.axios.com


----------



## begreen

A new report by the IMF goes to the heart of the problem, fossil fuel subsidies. This is where change needs to start.








						United States Spend Ten Times More On Fossil Fuel Subsidies Than Education
					

Amidst reports of a continuing climate crisis, an International Monetary Fund study released last month shows that USD$5.2 trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017. The United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense or education.




					www.forbes.com


----------



## WinterinWI

I wonder if these are the same mistakes the dinosaurs made, not considering things like this, which ultimately led to their demise.


----------



## begreen

The dinosaurs were wiped out by a huge asteroid impact, but you already knew that. That would solve the current issue, by setting humanity back a few hundred thousand years that is.


----------



## Ashful




----------



## semipro

I always found this version funny...on various levels.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Looks like the virus death rate is ticking up over 3%.


----------



## begreen

Still getting warmer in Siberia. Temps in the Arctic will be 36º above normal this week.








						It Hit 80 Degrees in the Arctic This Week
					

This story will provide important context for the headline, and I encourage you to read it—but really, the headline tells you what you need to know: It was 80 degrees Fahrenheit above the Arctic Circle this week.




					earther.gizmodo.com


----------



## Sodbuster

IMHO the earth waxes and wanes, in giant cycles. At some point North America was covered in a giant glacier, then it melted, way before man came along. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think that while we can do some things to slow the pattern, it will continue as it always has.


----------



## begreen

Sodbuster said:


> IMHO the earth waxes and wanes, in giant cycles. At some point North America was covered in a giant glacier, then it melted, way before man came along. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think that while we can do some things to slow the pattern, it will continue as it always has.


This CO2 cycle has not been seen for some millions of years. It is a manmade phenomenon this time around, but agreed, nature will rebalance eventually. The planet may need to get rid of the virus called humanity that is infecting it right now, but eventually it will recover.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

begreen said:


> This CO2 cycle has not been seen for some millions of years. It is a manmade phenomenon this time around, but agreed, nature will rebalance eventually. The planet may need to get rid of the virus called humanity that is infecting it right now, but eventually it will recover.


     George Carlin has a great routine about this. He said “ The planet is fine....The people are fu**ed”. 
   I don’t know how people can’t wrap their heads around global warming. Carbon in the atmosphere acts as an insulator. There is more carbon released in the atmosphere now than in  pre- fossil fuel usage era. C’mon folks- this is not that hard. You don’t have to fall for that bait that says to believe in global climate change makes you anti- American. You can think on your own if you so choose. But please listen to science and don’t be brainwashed by the big corporate machine, which has had you equating following their agenda with being “American”. If that sounds too lefty for you, please consider all the businesses of the past that have been very harmful to people- but concealed the actual danger knowingly at the time. 
        It’s no wonder- Bear in mind, our current president likes to make up his own truth- and we see him completely make stuff up daily. Just today I was hearing that he’s completely rolling back environmental restrictions supposedly to boost the economy in light of COVID 19. This guy will tell you anything to push his agenda of “ I win”. Seriously, how does someone put an ounce of trust into someone who came up with the whole “birther” thing ( as one example)? How we have allowed a con-man like this to fool us is completely embarrassing. It will be a very American  day when he gets voted out of office and then escorted out of the White House when he refuses to leave.


----------



## Sodbuster

Ctwoodtick said:


> George Carlin has a great routine about this. He said “ The planet is fine....The people are fu**ed”.
> I don’t know how people can’t wrap their heads around global warming. Carbon in the atmosphere acts as an insulator. There is more carbon released in the atmosphere now than in  pre- fossil fuel usage era. C’mon folks- this is not that hard. You don’t have to fall for that bait that says to believe in global climate change makes you anti- American. You can think on your own if you so choose. But please listen to science and don’t be brainwashed by the big corporate machine, which has had you equating following their agenda with being “American”. If that sounds too lefty for you, please consider all the businesses of the past that have been very harmful to people- but concealed the actual danger knowingly at the time.
> It’s no wonder- Bear in mind, our current president likes to make up his own truth- and we see him completely make stuff up daily. Just today I was hearing that he’s completely rolling back environmental restrictions supposedly to boost the economy in light of COVID 19. This guy will tell you anything to push his agenda of “ I win”. Seriously, how does someone put an ounce of trust into someone who came up with the whole “birther” thing ( as one example)? How we have allowed a con-man like this to fool us is completely embarrassing. It will be a very American  day when he gets voted out of office and then escorted out of the White House when he refuses to leave.



Well thank you for taking something scientific and making it political.  Our climate is constantly changing but does so very slowly. Scientists are mostly funded by grants or by the universities they work for. If there is no problem, or in the case of the scientists fudging the numbers because the data did not agree with their hypothesis, the funding dries up.









						NOAA Scientists Falsify Data to Dupe World Leaders on Climate Change
					

Scientific sleight-of-hand pushed economy-hobbling Paris Agreement.




					observer.com


----------



## Sodbuster

begreen said:


> This CO2 cycle has not been seen for some millions of years. It is a manmade phenomenon this time around, but agreed, nature will rebalance eventually. The planet may need to get rid of the virus called humanity that is infecting it right now, but eventually it will recover.


Begreen, we'll never agree, but I respect your courtesy and respect. Can you point to those records from millions of years ago? Our meteorologist called for rain all day, today; we had none. But yet they can tell us what the CO2 cycle was millions of years ago. Sorry not buying it.


----------



## SpaceBus

Sodbuster said:


> Begreen, we'll never agree, but I respect your courtesy and respect. Can you point to those records from millions of years ago? Our meteorologist called for rain all day, today; we had none. But yet they can tell us what the CO2 cycle was millions of years ago. Sorry not buying it.


Predicting the future is much harder than reading fossil evidence. The past and future are not the same thing or comparable.


----------



## begreen

Sodbuster said:


> Well thank you for taking something scientific and making it political.  Our climate is constantly changing but does so very slowly. Scientists are mostly funded by grants or by the universities they work for. If there is no problem, or in the case of the scientists fudging the numbers because the data did not agree with their hypothesis, the funding dries up.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> NOAA Scientists Falsify Data to Dupe World Leaders on Climate Change
> 
> 
> Scientific sleight-of-hand pushed economy-hobbling Paris Agreement.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> observer.com


It would be helpful if this was not an opinion piece quoting an article in a British tabloid rag and actual fact. Here is the actual story.




__





						Science | AAAS
					






					www.sciencemag.org


----------



## begreen

Sodbuster said:


> Begreen, we'll never agree, but I respect your courtesy and respect. Can you point to those records from millions of years ago? Our meteorologist called for rain all day, today; we had none. But yet they can tell us what the CO2 cycle was millions of years ago. Sorry not buying it.











						The Last Time CO2 Was This High, Humans Didn't Exist | Climate Central
					

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is approaching a record high for all of human history.




					www.climatecentral.org


----------



## begreen

SpaceBus said:


> Predicting the future is much harder than reading fossil evidence. The past and future are not the same thing or comparable.


Like weather and climate, meteorology and climate science are not the same things.


----------



## vinny11950

Well this keeps happening...


----------



## begreen

vinny11950 said:


> Well this keeps happening...



This has happened repeatedly this year, each time with higher temps. Arctic overheating is one of the predicted concerns for unstoppable global warming. As the permafrost melts, it releases a tremendous amount of methane which is a much more concerning greenhouse gas than CO2. The momentum becomes planetary on a scale that technology can not solve.


----------



## andym

Everyone talks about 'record' temps and ice melt and climate change. Has anyone considered the question of how all the ice got there in the first place? Isn't it true that mammoths, etc are sometimes found frozen in this very ice? Indicating that the ice was not always present, the permafrost was not frozen, etc....This Earth is always changing....I'm much more concerned about the moral and social changes currently being made than all the talk of climate change.


----------



## ABMax24

andym said:


> Everyone talks about 'record' temps and ice melt and climate change. Has anyone considered the question of how all the ice got there in the first place? Isn't it true that mammoths, etc are sometimes found frozen in this very ice? Indicating that the ice was not always present, the permafrost was not frozen, etc....This Earth is always changing....I'm much more concerned about the moral and social changes currently being made than all the talk of climate change.



It's not necessarily the change that is concerning, it's the rate of change. If the earth warms 1 degree over a few thousand years ecosystems at least have a chance to react, and species to adapt or to move to different areas to survive. Warming that same 1 degree in a 100 years doesn't allow nature any chance to cope.


----------



## begreen

We're in a unique circumstance. This is not a gradual change over thousands of years. It's happening over 200 yrs as a direct result of man's discovery and employment of fossil fuels.


----------



## CaptSpiff

begreen said:


> This has happened repeatedly this year, each time with higher temps. Arctic overheating is one of the predicted concerns for unstoppable global warming. As the permafrost melts, it releases a tremendous amount of methane which is a much more concerning greenhouse gas than CO2. *The momentum becomes planetary on a scale that technology can not solve*.


So I think "planetary scale impact" is exactly the motivator that will set loose the "leap in technology" needed for us to survive.

Now whether we all have the same idea or definition about human survival,... that would be an interesting discussion.


----------



## begreen

CaptSpiff said:


> So I think "planetary scale impact" is exactly the motivator that will set loose the "leap in technology" needed for us to survive.
> 
> Now whether we all have the same idea or definition about human survival,... that would be an interesting discussion.


True that in the context that for some, the leap is to Mars.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

What would be great would be if the new tech could be made here and once again have  things made in the US.


----------



## SpaceBus

Ctwoodtick said:


> What would be great would be if the new tech could be made here and once again have  things made in the US.


I'm pretty sure that is happening.


----------



## vinny11950

David Roberts has a good article on Shifting Baseline Syndrome.  Basically, humans will get used to climate change because that is how we are wired.  We forget what we had individually and generationally.  This bodes ill for dealing with global warming because it implies we will just keep accepting hotter temperatures until it is too late.

_"So what are shifting baselines? Consider a species of fish that is fished to extinction in a region over, say, 100 years. A given generation of fishers becomes conscious of the fish at a particular level of abundance. When those fishers retire, the level is lower. To the generation that enters after them, that diminished level is the new normal, the new baseline. They rarely know the baseline used by the previous generation; it holds little emotional salience relative to their personal experience."

"And so it goes, each new generation shifting the baseline downward. By the end, the fishers are operating in a radically degraded ecosystem, but it does not seem that way to them, because their baselines were set at an already low level."

"Over time, the fish goes extinct — an enormous, tragic loss — but no fisher experiences the full transition from abundance to desolation. No generation experiences the totality of the loss. It is doled out in portions, over time, no portion quite large enough to spur preventative action. By the time the fish go extinct, the fishers barely notice, because they no longer valued the fish anyway."_









						The scariest thing about global warming (and Covid-19)
					

"Shifting baselines syndrome" means we could quickly get used to climate chaos.




					www.vox.com


----------



## Ctwoodtick

vinny11950 said:


> David Roberts has a good article on Shifting Baseline Syndrome.  Basically, humans will get used to climate change because that is how we are wired.  We forget what we had individually and generationally.  This bodes ill for dealing with global warming because it implies we will just keep accepting hotter temperatures until it is too late.
> 
> _"So what are shifting baselines? Consider a species of fish that is fished to extinction in a region over, say, 100 years. A given generation of fishers becomes conscious of the fish at a particular level of abundance. When those fishers retire, the level is lower. To the generation that enters after them, that diminished level is the new normal, the new baseline. They rarely know the baseline used by the previous generation; it holds little emotional salience relative to their personal experience."
> 
> "And so it goes, each new generation shifting the baseline downward. By the end, the fishers are operating in a radically degraded ecosystem, but it does not seem that way to them, because their baselines were set at an already low level."
> 
> "Over time, the fish goes extinct — an enormous, tragic loss — but no fisher experiences the full transition from abundance to desolation. No generation experiences the totality of the loss. It is doled out in portions, over time, no portion quite large enough to spur preventative action. By the time the fish go extinct, the fishers barely notice, because they no longer valued the fish anyway."_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The scariest thing about global warming (and Covid-19)
> 
> 
> "Shifting baselines syndrome" means we could quickly get used to climate chaos.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com


  Wow I hadn’t even thought of this concept but it makes sense. 
       IMO, it is crucial to elect officials with a track record of respecting science and conveying that to citizens. There have always been “deniers” but  in this age of the Internet, there is no shortage of climate change naysayers out there who have a rather big platform. I’ve had the experience of people I know and respect very much forward me videos that supposedly debunk climate change outright. If you follow the money, there’s always been money in fossil fuels.
    Any product that’s been found to be harmful has always been claimed to be safe by the business pushing it. Seriously, try to think of a product in which that was not the case.  Why would anyone even consider being an unpaid spokesperson for the fossil fuel industry?


----------



## SpaceBus

I am hopeful that the current rate of change is so drastic that humans will have no choice but notice. On the flip side I'm also pretty sure there's nothing that humans can do to rectify the current situation. Seems like Covid and natural disasters will do that for us. Also, the "It's too late to fix it, so keep on doing the same thing" feedback loop certainly isn't helping things.


----------



## begreen

vinny11950 said:


> David Roberts has a good article on Shifting Baseline Syndrome.  Basically, humans will get used to climate change because that is how we are wired.  We forget what we had individually and generationally.  This bodes ill for dealing with global warming because it implies we will just keep accepting hotter temperatures until it is too late.
> 
> _"So what are shifting baselines? Consider a species of fish that is fished to extinction in a region over, say, 100 years. A given generation of fishers becomes conscious of the fish at a particular level of abundance. When those fishers retire, the level is lower. To the generation that enters after them, that diminished level is the new normal, the new baseline. They rarely know the baseline used by the previous generation; it holds little emotional salience relative to their personal experience."
> 
> "And so it goes, each new generation shifting the baseline downward. By the end, the fishers are operating in a radically degraded ecosystem, but it does not seem that way to them, because their baselines were set at an already low level."
> 
> "Over time, the fish goes extinct — an enormous, tragic loss — but no fisher experiences the full transition from abundance to desolation. No generation experiences the totality of the loss. It is doled out in portions, over time, no portion quite large enough to spur preventative action. By the time the fish go extinct, the fishers barely notice, because they no longer valued the fish anyway."_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The scariest thing about global warming (and Covid-19)
> 
> 
> "Shifting baselines syndrome" means we could quickly get used to climate chaos.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.vox.com


We see this in Puget Sound. Over the weekend I was hearing from a friend about the incredible number of whales that were normally seen in Puget Sound. They have a neighbor, now in her 90s that walked the beach every day at low tide. She said you would see their black backs every day and lots of them. Now, it has become a rare occurrence, especially in summer. An even more dramatic change is at one of our local harbors. There used to be thousands of grebes overwintering there in the 1980s. Now there is just a handful.  Lewis and Clark quipped that the salmon were so thick in the Snake and Columbia rivers, that you could cross walking on their backs. Now we are lucky to see a few thousand in recent seasons. That is from ~130,000 steelhead alone in the Snake during the 1950s.


----------



## vinny11950

We haven't had a really cold winter in about 6 years.  Sure there are a few days that drop into the teens or single digits but that's about it.  10 years ago, I remember having weeks of freezing and subfreezing temps.

But like the article says, we forget and adjust.  Our brains are not wired to be shocked all the time because it is exhausting.  So we get used to it and go on.  Look at Australia right now.  After having all those horrible fires earlier this year, they still have a government that does not care about climate change. 

We keep hoping that if we just get through this rough patch of bad weather, if we just get through this virus, we can go back to the way things were before.  But that place probably does not exist anymore.


----------



## begreen

Record temps, diseases, superstorms, drought, mega-wildfires are all creeping up in regularity and still ignored. Heck, people are already starting to get used to and ignoring Covid-19 protocols. Unless these issues start knocking on our doors we tend to ignore them and move on.  This country and others are not good with long term planning and prevention anymore. Everything is done in crisis management mode, and often poorly at that. This does not seem to bode well for creating technology solutions or leaders in addressing climate change.


----------



## Billy123

Last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. What warmed the earth up as to melt all that ice?


----------



## andym

Billy123 said:


> Last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. What warmed the earth up as to melt all that ice?
> 
> View attachment 261522


The dinosaurs had the thermostat set too high? These kinds of questions are never mentioned by scientists. As I brought up earlier, if mammoths are found frozen in the ice that sorta indicates a period of very rapid cooling not? Most numbers I've seen on climate change are small and are based primarily on the past couple hundred years data. That is not a very large control sample. No one was here 10,000 years ago to tell us what happened.
 'Scientific' study is only as reliable as it is honest. I feel that too much science today begins with some pretty major and debatable assumptions.


----------



## begreen

Billy123 said:


> Last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. What warmed the earth up as to melt all that ice?
> 
> View attachment 261522


The question is more like, what cooled the earth so much that the ice ages happened? They are the anomaly examined and explained eventually as the Milankovitch cycles. Human industrial activity has thrown a monkey wrench into these cycles, but maybe in another 90,000 yrs there will be a cooling cycle.








						Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth's Climate – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet
					

Small cyclical variations in the shape of Earth's orbit, its wobble and the angle its axis is tilted play key roles in influencing Earth's climate over timespans of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years.




					climate.nasa.gov


----------



## begreen

Meanwhile...








						U.N. warns world could hit 1.5-degree warming threshold by 2024
					

The U.N. weather agency says the world could see average global temperatures rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average for the first time in the coming five years. The 1.5-C mark is the level to which countries have agreed to try to limit global warming.




					www.pbs.org


----------



## Ctwoodtick

I think the fossil fuel industry has done a terrific job of convincing people that their product has little negative impact. This just gets further promoted by online info sources that have a stake in the game. Meanwhile, the scientific community has been sending a consistent message for a decades.  Human use of fossil fuels is causing increased temps which throws off the climate that life on the planet has adapted to.
    Let’s talk conspiracy theories- What is more likely to be true? The majority of the science community collectively  lying or Big Oil lying? This should be an easy one.


----------



## andym

Ctwoodtick said:


> I think the fossil fuel industry has done a terrific job of convincing people that their product has little negative impact. This just gets further promoted by online info sources that have a stake in the game. Meanwhile, the scientific community has been sending a consistent message for a decades.  Human use of fossil fuels is causing increased temps which throws off the climate that life on the planet has adapted to.
> Let’s talk conspiracy theories- What is more likely to be true? The majority of the science community collectively  lying or Big Oil lying? This should be an easy one.


You assume it is impossible for the scientific community to lie? No one group of people is above lying to promote their cause. (Republicans, Democrats, and sadly even preachers have all been found guilty at times.) If you want to consider all angles then visit Answers in Genesis website. Either the evolution scientists are lying or the creationists. They can't both be correct. 
A bit off subject perhaps, but when scientists start talking about tens and hundreds of millenia they are now talking about things that cannot and have not been observed. That is no longer pure science, but theory. Some theories are correct. Many are not.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

andym said:


> You assume it is impossible for the scientific community to lie? No one group of people is above lying to promote their cause. (Republicans, Democrats, and sadly even preachers have all been found guilty at times.) If you want to consider all angles then visit Answers in Genesis website. Either the evolution scientists are lying or the creationists. They can't both be correct.
> A bit off subject perhaps, but when scientists start talking about tens and hundreds of millenia they are now talking about things that cannot and have not been observed. That is no longer pure science, but theory. Some theories are correct. Many are not.


    Nope, I believe it’s entirely possible that anyone can lie.
I do, however, suspect much greater chance of lying on the side of this with the biggest profit motive.
      I also reject the idea that science can’t “observe” the past. Info gained from ice cores ( even tree rings) often gives experts in the field a very good amoubt of  information to work with to understand the past. To state that we cannot observe conditions on earth from the past ( even very long ago) that give us a baseline to work from is patently false.


----------



## semipro

andym said:


> ...when scientists start talking about tens and hundreds of millenia they are now talking about things that cannot and have not been observed.


Every time we look to the stars we're "observing" the past.  The absence of real-time observation doesn't make it any less scientifically valid.
Similarly carbon 14 dating, the fossil record, genetic sequencing ancestry, etc.


----------



## semipro

andym said:


> You assume it is impossible for the scientific community to lie? No one group of people is above lying to promote their cause. (Republicans, Democrats, and sadly even preachers have all been found guilty at times.)


IMO scientists collectively "lie" only out of ignorance (e.g. the sun orbits around the earth), whereas most others deceive in willful collusion  (e.g. tobacco is not a health risk).  Individual scientists have no doubt steered their findings to appease a sponsor but there's not enough research funding out there to bias all climate scientists, so siding with the overwhelming majority against those with obvious self-serving motivations seems the most sensible course to me.


----------



## semipro

andym said:


> As I brought up earlier, if mammoths are found frozen in the ice that sorta indicates a period of very rapid cooling not?


Human bodies are found in the snow/ice on mountains like Everest and in other cold regions all the time.  It has nothing to do with rapid climate change.  They fell, they died, and were covered with snow which gradually compresses into ice and protects them from scavengers.  Even if they died due to a winter event that's "weather" not "climate".  
The reason mammoths were wooly in the first place was because it was cold.  Where other than ice would you expect to find their remains?


----------



## gggvan

semipro said:


> Human bodies are found in the snow/ice on mountains like Everest and in other cold regions all the time.  It has nothing to do with rapid climate change.  They fell, they died, and were covered with snow which gradually compresses into ice and protects them from scavengers.  Even if they died due to a winter event that's "weather" not "climate".
> The reason mammoths were wooly in the first place was because it was cold.  Where other than ice would you expect to find their remains?


Our moon is unusually big, it partly the reason why were here.  Since its began orbit around the earth it has caused variations in tilt, just a small difference can cause whole areas of the earth to freeze.


----------



## andym

semipro said:


> Similarly carbon 14 dating, the fossil record.....


I challenge that statement. C-14 is not anywhere close to as accurate as many people would want you to think. Results are biased heavily according to how old the scientists ALREADY believe the rocks to be. Blind tests almost always show thing to be much much younger. I encourage you to visit the website I mentioned and look up carbon 14 dating. 
The fossil record is a similar case. The neat orderly layers shown in text books are not found anywhere on earth. Sometimes a couple layers may be found in the expected order. Just as often they are found with 'young' layers on top of 'old' ones. Better still are the many fossils that are found embedded in several layers. These layers are supposed to represent millions of years, yet repeatedly these fossils are found. There are many such 'anomalies' found that give solid evidence for rapidly formed geological layers. 

By the way...scientists have lost their jobs for honestly reporting and promoting these types of findings. Similar to teachers getting fired for 'being straight'. I've got nothing against anyone here, only tryin to present the other viewpoint. And I'm definitely not as smart as others here.  
What if, what if....the scientists you mention are as dishonest as you accuse Big Oil of being? Something to think about?


----------



## Ctwoodtick

It’s a reasonable question to ask- what if scientists are as dishonest as Big Oil?  No doubt there is some degree of dishonesty among some scientists. No clear headed person would suggest this is an all or nothing thing. However, if posing that hypothetical question, (which presents itself as very unlikely,) causes inaction in regard to looking more seriously into ways that people can reduce their carbon footprint, I believe that is a problem.
     I don’t think its about people being any “smarter”. I am no expert on these topics. What I do see though is reason to believe some problems are on the way and I do not believe the fossil fuel industry that all is well.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

andym said:


> I challenge that statement. C-14 is not anywhere close to as accurate as many people would want you to think. Results are biased heavily according to how old the scientists ALREADY believe the rocks to be. Blind tests almost always show thing to be much much younger. I encourage you to visit the website I mentioned and look up carbon 14 dating.
> The fossil record is a similar case. The neat orderly layers shown in text books are not found anywhere on earth. Sometimes a couple layers may be found in the expected order. Just as often they are found with 'young' layers on top of 'old' ones. Better still are the many fossils that are found embedded in several layers. These layers are supposed to represent millions of years, yet repeatedly these fossils are found. There are many such 'anomalies' found that give solid evidence for rapidly formed geological layers.
> 
> By the way...scientists have lost their jobs for honestly reporting and promoting these types of findings. Similar to teachers getting fired for 'being straight'. I've got nothing against anyone here, only tryin to present the other viewpoint. And I'm definitely not as smart as others here.
> What if, what if....the scientists you mention are as dishonest as you accuse Big Oil of being? Something to think about?


 Can you tell me the carbon dating website you’re referring to? I didn’t see it above. Thanks.


----------



## SpaceBus

I think the nit picking about C-14 and ice cores is really just to prevent any meaningful change from happening. Almost every time you see a person preaching inaction or that "the science isn't in" about climate change the source is a company that profits off doing nothing. The world economy is based on fossil fuels and environmentally damaging practices, which is why there are so many efforts to slow/stop any meaningful change.


----------



## gggvan

I think it's a bit  of a scam to say there are scientists on both sides. Any established profit based industry can hire/fund their preferred scientific outcomes.


----------



## andym

Ctwoodtick said:


> Can you tell me the carbon dating website you’re referring to? I didn’t see it above. Thanks.


Sure: answersingenesis.org.  Its not a scientific website per se. They cover way more than carbon 14. Search for articles on carbon-14 dating, there are several.
I'm not trying to deny all or any evidence of climate change. I'm only saying that the evidence may at times tell a different story when appoached with a different world view.
Earth-friendly is great, but it also needs to be human friendly. Many times it comes across as: 'stop living cause the polar bears are dying.' That doesn't help win followers.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

I agree that the messaging needs to be people friendly. Maybe more importantly, messaging made most direct to people about how climate change is anticipated to affect humans as time goes on. I’ve often thought slogans like “save the planet” are too general. 
I think people can have their cake and eat it too. With the innovation we see in technology overall, I bet we wouldn’t be giving up any luxuries we have now. The polar bears might dig it too.


----------



## woodgeek

Well, @andym, you are entitled to believe anything you like, and in this free country you can release any amount of pollution you like as allowed by law.  Especially if it would be inconvenient for you to do otherwise.

But I just want to say that I find the phrase 'evolution scientists' hysterical, I'm going to be chuckling about that for awhile. 

Scientists started out thinking the world was a few thousand years old, and then figured from literally HUNDREDS of different lines of evidence (not just carbon-14 and evolution) that it had to be far older.  And in fact, those HUNDREDS of different lines of evidence all are consistent with one another, in line with an old earth.  I agree that some of the lines of evidence (like carbon-14) can be off by some percentage, which gets larger as the sample gets older (bc all the carbon-14 has decayed, there's none left to measure).  Which is when they switch to a different, longer lived isotope, of which there are dozens, and which all 'ladder' together back literally billions of years. 

Which, of course, matches perfectly with what when we look out into space at distant galaxies.  Which we can measure by a variety of independent methods to be billions of light years away.  So now we need to suppose that the vast universe was somehow created a few thousand years ago with all that light we are collecting in telescopes in flight 99.9999% of the way to earth.  Or that the speed of light somehow changed by a million fold, without any change in chemistry, nor any detectable change to the 6-th decimal over the last century.

The analogy is that a detective is sent one morning to the scene of a grisly murder.  After looking around, he concludes that the time of death (and thus the murder) was 12 ± 3 hours earlier, the previous evening.  For example, the blood spatters are dry and have turned color (consistent with lab tests on blood), the body is room temperature. Rigor mortis has set in (which takes several hours).   But being a diligent detective, many other lines of evidence are collected.  The pool of blood has soaked into the carpeting to some distance.  The victim is dressed in the clothes he was seen in the previous day.  There is a nightcap poured, but not drunk, and the coffee machine is clean and cold.  The dinner dishes are still in the sink.  Lights are still switched on throughout the house, as if he died when the sun was down.  The victim's cat has eaten all of its food and water, and is acting hungry.  And so on and so forth.

And then somebody walks in, and says the murder occurred literally just a tiny fraction of a second before the detective arrived (in other words, one millionth as long as 12 hours)!  And argues that every single bit of evidence has an alternative explanation.  Some, like the cat or the dishes, sure.  Maybe he woke up and put the same clothes on.  Maybe he likes to have a drink with breakfast.  But others, like the body temp, the dried blood, and rigor mortis?  How can you explain THOSE things?

And then the guy starts saying that HE'S a detective too (and flashes some odd credential), but he's not a 'body-temperature' detective, that has been discredited and can have errors ±50%. And asks the first detective if he was at the scene the night before, and so how can he really be 'sure' and asks how much does he gets paid to do his job?  And then the new guy points out that he is a volunteer supported by donations of like-minded people, and thus completely 'independent'.

And so you see, it's really the word of one detective against another. They can't both be right!


----------



## begreen

I don't think this tangent is going to get very far is someone does not believe in the many measurements, facts, and principles in the fields of physics and chemistry, dating methods including radiometric dating, geology, astronomy, cosmology, and paleontology.


----------



## andym

woodgeek said:


> Well, @andym, you are entitled to believe anything you like, and in this free country you can release any amount of pollution you like as allowed by law.  Especially if it would be inconvenient for you to do otherwise.
> 
> But I just want to say that I find the phrase 'evolution scientists' hysterical, I'm going to be chuckling about that for awhile.
> 
> Scientists started out thinking the world was a few thousand years old, and then figured from literally HUNDREDS of different lines of evidence (not just carbon-14 and evolution) that it had to be far older.  And in fact, those HUNDREDS of different lines of evidence all are consistent with one another, in line with an old earth.  I agree that some of the lines of evidence (like carbon-14) can be off by some percentage, which gets larger as the sample gets older (bc all the carbon-14 has decayed, there's none left to measure).  Which is when they switch to a different, longer lived isotope, of which there are dozens, and which all 'ladder' together back literally billions of years.
> 
> Which, of course, matches perfectly with what when we look out into space at distant galaxies.  Which we can measure by a variety of independent methods to be billions of light years away.  So now we need to suppose that the vast universe was somehow created a few thousand years ago with all that light we are collecting in telescopes in flight 99.9999% of the way to earth.  Or that the speed of light somehow changed by a million fold, without any change in chemistry, nor any detectable change to the 6-th decimal over the last century.
> 
> The analogy is that a detective is sent one morning to the scene of a grisly murder.  After looking around, he concludes that the time of death (and thus the murder) was 12 ± 3 hours earlier, the previous evening.  For example, the blood spatters are dry and have turned color (consistent with lab tests on blood), the body is room temperature. Rigor mortis has set in (which takes several hours).   But being a diligent detective, many other lines of evidence are collected.  The pool of blood has soaked into the carpeting to some distance.  The victim is dressed in the clothes he was seen in the previous day.  There is a nightcap poured, but not drunk, and the coffee machine is clean and cold.  The dinner dishes are still in the sink.  Lights are still switched on throughout the house, as if he died when the sun was down.  The victim's cat has eaten all of its food and water, and is acting hungry.  And so on and so forth.
> 
> And then somebody walks in, and says the murder occurred literally just a tiny fraction of a second before the detective arrived (in other words, one millionth as long as 12 hours)!  And argues that every single bit of evidence has an alternative explanation.  Some, like the cat or the dishes, sure.  Maybe he woke up and put the same clothes on.  Maybe he likes to have a drink with breakfast.  But others, like the body temp, the dried blood, and rigor mortis?  How can you explain THOSE things?
> 
> And then the guy starts saying that HE'S a detective too (and flashes some odd credential), but he's not a 'body-temperature' detective, that has been discredited and can have errors ±50%. And asks the first detective if he was at the scene the night before, and so how can he really be 'sure' and asks how much does he gets paid to do his job?  And then the new guy points out that he is a volunteer supported by donations of like-minded people, and thus completely 'independent'.
> 
> And so you see, it's really the word of one detective against another. They can't both be right!


I've read enough about the millions and billions to be somewhat familiar with it. Have you read any of the research I've refered to at answersingenesis.org? 

I expected a response like this from someone sooner rather than later. I have hijacked the thread a bit. I realize this is not a religious forum so I will take it no further. No hard feelings. (I am open to further discourse via PM.)


----------



## begreen

andym said:


> I've read enough about the millions and billions to be somewhat familiar with it. Have you read any of the research I've refered to at answersingenesis.org?
> 
> I expected a response like this from someone sooner rather than later. I have hijacked the thread a bit. I realize this is not a religious forum so I will take it no further. No hard feelings. (I am open to further discourse via PM.)


It's a rabbit hole based on partial facts, myths, exclusion of important details and corroborating data in order to make an argument. There are other sites like this with similar conjectures.


----------



## woodgeek

I HAVE read the stuff on answers in genesis, and the creation museum, for close to 20 years now.  I have read the published papers about the changing speed of light explaining the appearance of the universe (which is 10^18 times larger in volume than a young universe model allows with a constant speed of light).  And all the stuff about the Flood causing erosion (the measurable rate of current erosion points to many landscape features being at least many tens millions of years old).

And frankly, none of it looks well done at all.  Mostly just cherry picking single lines of evidence and 'what if'ing it as in my story above....and pretending that there aren't hundreds more lines.

Again, you are welcome to believe anything you like.   Peace.

I have started a PM if you want to discuss further.....


----------



## Groo

When you discuss things like changing the world's climate, best to look at the big picture.
1) everything alive today has descended from living organisms that thrive in a much hotter Earth with a much higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
2) when the global temperature was warmer in the past, most of that extra heat was at the poles and not the tropics
3) we have a ridiculous amount of currently unusable amount of land were it's just too cold.
4) polar ice caps are not normal for Earth. Their existence means we are currently in an "Ice Age" now.

Add it all together, and it's not that big a deal. All the land lost to oceans rising will be made up by the greening of the tundra. It's not going to be 10 degrees hotter in Mexico if the Earth's temperature rises 10 degrees. Probably more like 3 to 5 degrees.

Life will go on.
The world is not going to end from Global Warming.

Now for my quack pot religeous theory;
Look how long it took between plants making celulous and for bacteria to developed to utilize that energy source. That many million year gap is what created our fossil fuel deposits.
In a few decades, we have bacteria starting to go after oceanic plastic islands.
Why did evolution take so long to utilize an abundant energy source back then? That doesn't really jive with how evolution has worked for a very long time now.
It almost seems like those fossil fuel deposits were left there on purpose, to be utilized by us to help bring us from the point where we were hairless apes, unfit for survival where we developed,  into a species of thinkers preparing to leave the confines of our birth planet behind. We certainly couldn't do it as a bunch of savages using sticks to plant crops and rocks to hunt bunnies and squirrels.
I think it is all pre-ordained.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

Groo said:


> When you discuss things like changing the world's climate, best to look at the big picture.
> 1) everything alive today has descended from living organisms that thrive in a much hotter Earth with a much higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
> 2) when the global temperature was warmer in the past, most of that extra heat was at the poles and not the tropics
> 3) we have a ridiculous amount of currently unusable amount of land were it's just too cold.
> 4) polar ice caps are not normal for Earth. Their existence means we are currently in an "Ice Age" now.
> 
> Add it all together, and it's not that big a deal. All the land lost to oceans rising will be made up by the greening of the tundra. It's not going to be 10 degrees hotter in Mexico if the Earth's temperature rises 10 degrees. Probably more like 3 to 5 degrees.
> 
> Life will go on.
> The world is not going to end from Global Warming.
> 
> Now for my quack pot religeous theory;
> Look how long it took between plants making celulous and for bacteria to developed to utilize that energy source. That many million year gap is what created our fossil fuel deposits.
> In a few decades, we have bacteria starting to go after oceanic plastic islands.
> Why did evolution take so long to utilize an abundant energy source back then? That doesn't really jive with how evolution has worked for a very long time now.
> It almost seems like those fossil fuel deposits were left there on purpose, to be utilized by us to help bring us from the point where we were hairless apes, unfit for survival where we developed,  into a species of thinkers preparing to leave the confines of our birth planet behind. We certainly couldn't do it as a bunch of savages using sticks to plant crops and rocks to hunt bunnies and squirrels.
> I think it is all pre-ordained.


        As Phil Collins said “THIS is the world we live in”.  And in this world at this time, the trouble is not that we’ll have buy more shorts and tank tops to stay cool in the heat, but the world will change significantly in a negative way. 
Nobody said that the world will end bc of climate change. It will just
However significantly impact life for people/animals. But, unfortunately, will live in a time where   people feel entitled to make up their own reality. The ethno- centrism that leads  humans to keep thinking that they’re special or chosen or whatever, is destructive.  
Pride goeth before a fall.


----------



## begreen

It will be a different world for sure. How different is up to us, right now.  So far the trends are not optimistic.









						Plant and animal species at risk of extinction » Yale Climate Connections
					

The current rate of species extinction is far higher than the average during the past 10 million years.




					yaleclimateconnections.org
				












						Canada's last intact ice shelf just collapsed
					

The area of the Milne Ice Shelf is now reduced by 43%.




					www.space.com


----------



## woodgeek

Groo said:


> When you discuss things like changing the world's climate, best to look at the big picture.
> 1) everything alive today has descended from living organisms that thrive in a much hotter Earth with a much higher CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
> 2) when the global temperature was warmer in the past, most of that extra heat was at the poles and not the tropics
> 3) we have a ridiculous amount of currently unusable amount of land were it's just too cold.
> 4) polar ice caps are not normal for Earth. Their existence means we are currently in an "Ice Age" now.
> 
> Add it all together, and it's not that big a deal. All the land lost to oceans rising will be made up by the greening of the tundra. It's not going to be 10 degrees hotter in Mexico if the Earth's temperature rises 10 degrees. Probably more like 3 to 5 degrees.
> 
> Life will go on.
> The world is not going to end from Global Warming.
> 
> Now for my quack pot religeous theory;
> Look how long it took between plants making celulous and for bacteria to developed to utilize that energy source. That many million year gap is what created our fossil fuel deposits.
> In a few decades, we have bacteria starting to go after oceanic plastic islands.
> Why did evolution take so long to utilize an abundant energy source back then? That doesn't really jive with how evolution has worked for a very long time now.
> It almost seems like those fossil fuel deposits were left there on purpose, to be utilized by us to help bring us from the point where we were hairless apes, unfit for survival where we developed,  into a species of thinkers preparing to leave the confines of our birth planet behind. We certainly couldn't do it as a bunch of savages using sticks to plant crops and rocks to hunt bunnies and squirrels.
> I think it is all pre-ordained.



Cute theory.  Actually, I don't think so.

You ARE right that the earth has, over time, been both much hotter than currently (with no polar ice) AND much colder than currently (with the oceans frozen over all the way to the equator!).  Life didn't like the latter condition very much at all, but it was down with the former hotter state.

The first rub, of course, with greening the tundra, is the lack of SOIL.  If you were planning on making food the way we currently do, you might want to visit the tundra and the soggy peat beds that prevail up there.  The first is kinda rocky, and the second is an acidic swamp (which if you drain it, might catch on fire and burn for a long time).

The second rub is that the previous changes in climate that were really large were also comparatively slow.  And that gave ecosystems time to migrate. A forest can migrate easily, if the rate is a the range a seed can fly in a decade or two.  a thousand miles in 50 years, not so much.  Not to mention that our wonder national park system has fragmented those ecosystems such that they can't migrate between parks. Or over mountain ranges.

Both of these problems have technological solutions, but I find it hard to believe that a benevolent G-d would create global warming so that we would have to find (and fight over) those solutions.

I would love to see pictures of these 'islands of plastic' of which you speak.


----------



## Ctwoodtick

Tom Wessels has some good videos on co-evolution and the relatively slow speed that’s needed for nature to adapt to change.  His more general videos on “forest forensics” are absolutely fascinating.


----------



## begreen

In today's news another milestone that I'd rather we didn't pass.









						Climate Scientists Sound the Alarm: Warming Greenland Ice Sheet Passes Point of No Return
					

Even if the climate cools, study finds, glaciers will continue to shrink. Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking. The finding, published today,



					scitechdaily.com


----------



## Groo

Ctwoodtick said:


> As Phil Collins said “THIS is the world we live in”.  And in this world at this time, the trouble is not that we’ll have buy more shorts and tank tops to stay cool in the heat, but the world will change significantly in a negative way.
> Nobody said that the world will end bc of climate change. It will just
> However significantly impact life for people/animals. But, unfortunately, will live in a time where   people feel entitled to make up their own reality. The ethno- centrism that leads  humans to keep thinking that they’re special or chosen or whatever, is destructive.
> Pride goeth before a fall.


Yes, there are actually plenty of people claiming that global warming will result in an Earth unable to suport life.  Those that k ow better do virtually nothing to correct that misconception.

The biggest problem with the environmental movement is the people pushing it. They are displaced communists looking for a new way to destroy capitalism. Some would no doubt say "great! Capitalism is destroying the planet! " that thinking does not at all jive with the way communism destroys the environment wherever it is implemented. Then the others talk about rising ocean levels while buying oceanfront property and flying in private jets.
I'm certainly not saying "trash the world" I am saying , look at it scientifically and not emotionally.
If you want to stop global warming, let's offer prizes for people that come up with solutions instead of clamoring for "solutions " that are just unrealistic delaying tactics.  How could slowing the increase in the rate of fossil fuel use ever lead to our ice caps regrowing if they are already melting? If we are at 800million ton of CO2 production, or whatever a 5% increase instead of a 7% increase won't do crap. 
All the false environmentalism makes me want to puke. Buy a tesla because its "emission free", well that sure isnt the case, but once you add in how tesla corperate works to make the cars unrepairable, they become ecological disasters. A car that can be fixed and updated is better than one that is rust totaled in a decade with just 5 digits on the odometer. I've purchased 3 new vehicles in my life. The first 2 suffered frame failures from rust while running like a top. I figure I have 5 more year on #3.

The Kyoto protocol was to do next to nothing apart from hamstring the western powers. China wasnt going to cut back. How about instead we implement tariffs based on the environmental impact to produce the item....you know pass laws that make it cheaper to produce something cleanly vs polutingly. If ever tighten regulations keep pushing production to countrys with looser regulations, your environmental laws make morepution,not less.

Remember all those people yelling "Believe Science!"?
Scientifically, global warming won't be near as bad as the doom-cryers predict.
Scientifically,  the development of the Earth's fossil fuel reserves is a very curious event.


Ps. I'd rather my descendant deal with Global Warming,  than the ice age we should be creaping into based on the periodic fluctuations in the Earth's tilt and orbit. An eternally unchanging global environment is not a realistic option. Ice sheets past Ohio would not be a planet conducive to human life without a mass die-off.


----------



## peakbagger

Its interesting to draw some parallels between the response to Global Warming and Covid. The origin is  different but once it was in the wild many of the same climate deniers were Covid deniers. The deniers initially denied the science and thought they could talk there way around it as it inexorbably burned thru the vulnerable and then moved into the other populations. Meanwhile the scientists were pointing out the facts as they learned them and the Covid deniers ignored them. The places that folllowed the science got it under control while the ignorers are now seeing hospitals turn folks away and losing the elderly and vulnerable population. The climate change is just happening over centuries. 

The earth will survive global warming, this is just a blip geologically, but humans may not.  The current approach to climate change is big experiment and humans are the lab rats.  I dont have kids and wont live to see the worst of it but no doubt peoples grand kids will and those grandkids will see a far different world without big changes in carbon production.


----------



## woodgeek

Well, Groo, I think you and I may agree on many facts and long-term solutions, even if we disagree on particulars, and which sources of info might be reliable.

The fact of the matter is that solutions to Global Warming DO exist.  And those solutions are affordable, are currently being deployed at 'scale', will plausibly become 'stupid cheap' in the future as that scaling continues AND are certainly a very good deal when compared to the costs of 'business as usual'.

And future rolling those solutions will be done by all kinds of political systems.  The capitalists will do them, the communists will do them, the oligarchs will do them, all for their own, usual reasons....money, power and politics.  And in fact, they ARE scaling these solutions in China, in the EU, and even in the US of A, right now as we speak!

But there ARE some 'energy incumbents' that are making good money on the old system, and they have bought quite a few politicians in the US for many years, and they have some very good 'Big Tobacco'-type PR firms and lawyers and think tanks, that they have been using to prevent and slow the roll out of those solutions for decades now. So they can make some more money selling carbon at a rich price as long as possible.

So, when you hear that 'Solar panels take more energy to make than they ever produce' or 'There isn't enough lithium to replace gasoline' or 'wind turbines kill birds' or 'wind and solar are super expensive, and just built to get tax subsidies' or 'Teslas are junk that are worthless after a few years' or 'the Chinese are releasing more CO2 than the US, and will for decades' or 'Check out Al Gore's electricity bill...what a hypocrite!' or 'The Paris Accord requires the US to pay India to build a new energy system' or 'AOC want to ban hamburgers and windows in houses', etc, .... well, that is all misinformation created by those incumbents for their political purpose!

Business as usual energy will unambiguously make a pretty bad planet for humans and animals in 100 years.  Much of the Fossil Energy you suggest is our divine inheritance will need to be **left in the ground** to prevent that outcome.  But arguing hypotheticals in 100 years is pointless.  Solutions being rolled out worldwide will avert the biggest disasters, and I happen to think that 'tipping point' language is alarmist and not helpful.

But that said, I think we have a moral duty to our descendants to roll out solutions as quickly and sensibly as we can.  And that is going to look something like the Paris Accord (with the US rejoined), the Green New Deal, the Biden Energy plan and their equivalents in the EU, China and elsewhere.  And we will still get to look at the sky through windows, and enjoy a good hamburger if we want (although I also enjoy a good Impossible Burger these days).


----------



## ABMax24

woodgeek said:


> But there ARE some 'energy incumbents' that are making good money on the old system, and they have bought quite a few politicians in the US for many years, and they have some very good 'Big Tobacco'-type PR firms and lawyers and think tanks, that they have been using to prevent and slow the roll out of those solutions for decades now. So they can make some more money selling carbon at a rich price as long as possible.



One thing I want to point out is the attention this topic gets and how it actually can hinder change.

I work for big oil and gas, I construct the processing plants that help deliver supply natural gas to the main pipelines that criss-cross the continent. The fact is I wouldn't have a job if there wasn't a demand for the product we produce in the first place. There seems to be a very large group of mostly lower and middle class individuals that believe they are winning the climate change war by slandering and protesting against oil and gas companies, and then jump in their gas guzzling  SUV's and drive home to their larger than needed homes and consider the job done. If they had spent half as much effort reducing their own consumption the world would be further ahead.

It's a similar thing to the war on big tobacco. If you want to reduce consumption reduce demand not supply. This was done somewhat successfully with the big anti-smoking campaigns of the last decades.

The world will only stop burning fossil fuels when one of 2 things happen, we burn the last lump of coal and the last drop of oil, or we reduce demand to zero. The first scenario would be catastrophic so we need to find a way to implement the second.

The fact is oil and gas will exist until it is economically unfeasible to continue to use. The best way to solve this is to make renewables cheaper, solar and wind are very much getting there, Tesla is working hard to put a dent in the car market, but we need a ten-fold increase in all three of these to make an appreciable difference.


----------



## begreen

Groo said:


> They are displaced communists looking for a new way to destroy capitalism


That's quite a grand misstatement.  Most of the papers I have read are working on solutions to keep economies going while shifting gears. Done right, it will create a lot of jobs. For example, there is nothing in this article about shutting down economies.





						Decarbonize by 2035, electrify everything
					

Working with currently available tech now instead of waiting for something in the future, Griffith has laid out a detailed plan for transition.   "Griffith begins with a core assumption: We need to make a plan to solve the problem with the tools available. It is unwise, for instance, to bet on a...




					www.hearth.com
				






ABMax24 said:


> The fact is I wouldn't have a job if there wasn't a demand for the product we produce in the first place. There seems to be a very large group of mostly lower and middle class individuals that believe they are winning the climate change war by slandering and protesting against oil and gas companies, and then jump in their gas guzzling SUV's and drive home to their larger than needed homes and consider the job done. If they had spent half as much effort reducing their own consumption the world would be further ahead.


Agreed. One of the fastest and cheapest options we have at present is conservation. Been saying that for 40 yrs now. And in some ways we have made good progress. But the consumption of fossil fuel is not just the SUV owner. In part, because the price of oil and gas is heavily subsidized, transportation and therefore commodity prices are artificially low.  If those subsidies were stopped and those funds redirected toward building better infrastructure, then the change can move quicker. Also, we have to deal with marketing. Right now the fossil fuel industry sees the handwriting on the wall. They know demand is decreasing. To compensate, they are currently building major new refineries to double or triple the production of plastics. This is in spite  of the world being awash in a glut of plastics. Marketing will push consumption of more packaging and more plastics regardless of need. In the least, the fossil fuel industry needs to be held accountable. If they produce these plastics, then they need to be responsible for them, cradle to grave, or preferably cradle to cradle. Another push from the fossil fuel industry is in agriculture for more and more synthetic fertilizer use. This is in spite of the negative effects on the land, increasing costs and carbon positive footprint. Better living through chemistry is just a slogan and as time has shown there have been products that were best not to bring to the mass market. 

Regardless of politics, there is a simple unavoidable fact. Infinite consumption of a finite resources is a dead end. The rest of the world is able to make do and have a good life while consuming much less than the average US, UK and Canadian citizen. Time we went on a diet.


----------



## Groo

woodgeek said:


> Well, Groo, I think you and I may agree on many facts and long-term solutions, even if we disagree on particulars, and which sources of info might be reliable.
> 
> The fact of the matter is that solutions to Global Warming DO exist.  And those solutions are affordable, are currently being deployed at 'scale', will plausibly become 'stupid cheap' in the future as that scaling continues AND are certainly a very good deal when compared to the costs of 'business as usual'.
> 
> And future rolling those solutions will be done by all kinds of political systems.  The capitalists will do them, the communists will do them, the oligarchs will do them, all for their own, usual reasons....money, power and politics.  And in fact, they ARE scaling these solutions in China, in the EU, and even in the US of A, right now as we speak!
> 
> But there ARE some 'energy incumbents' that are making good money on the old system, and they have bought quite a few politicians in the US for many years, and they have some very good 'Big Tobacco'-type PR firms and lawyers and think tanks, that they have been using to prevent and slow the roll out of those solutions for decades now. So they can make some more money selling carbon at a rich price as long as possible.
> 
> So, when you hear that 'Solar panels take more energy to make than they ever produce' or 'There isn't enough lithium to replace gasoline' or 'wind turbines kill birds' or 'wind and solar are super expensive, and just built to get tax subsidies' or 'Teslas are junk that are worthless after a few years' or 'the Chinese are releasing more CO2 than the US, and will for decades' or 'Check out Al Gore's electricity bill...what a hypocrite!' or 'The Paris Accord requires the US to pay India to build a new energy system' or 'AOC want to ban hamburgers and windows in houses', etc, .... well, that is all misinformation created by those incumbents for their political purpose!
> 
> Business as usual energy will unambiguously make a pretty bad planet for humans and animals in 100 years.  Much of the Fossil Energy you suggest is our divine inheritance will need to be **left in the ground** to prevent that outcome.  But arguing hypotheticals in 100 years is pointless.  Solutions being rolled out worldwide will avert the biggest disasters, and I happen to think that 'tipping point' language is alarmist and not helpful.
> 
> But that said, I think we have a moral duty to our descendants to roll out solutions as quickly and sensibly as we can.  And that is going to look something like the Paris Accord (with the US rejoined), the Green New Deal, the Biden Energy plan and their equivalents in the EU, China and elsewhere.  And we will still get to look at the sky through windows, and enjoy a good hamburger if we want (although I also enjoy a good Impossible Burger these days).


I have seen no climate temperature solutions other than minuscule reductions in the growth of fossil fuel use.  That is no solution. It is empty feel-good BS, like the stupid masks being forced on us.


"So, when you hear that 'Solar panels take more energy to make than they ever produce' or 'There isn't enough lithium to replace gasoline' or 'wind turbines kill birds' or 'wind and solar are super expensive, and just built to get tax subsidies' or 'Teslas are junk that are worthless after a few years' or 'the Chinese are releasing more CO2 than the US, and will for decades' or 'Check out Al Gore's electricity bill...what a hypocrite!' or 'The Paris Accord requires the US to pay India to build a new energy system' or 'AOC want to ban hamburgers and windows in houses', etc, .... well, that is all misinformation created by those incumbents for their political purpose!"

Do you deny that major Democrats are major hypocrites WRT environmental policies and their own actions?
Do you deny that Tesla's corporate policies make them drastically harder to repair and therefore much more likely to end up scrapped, than many other auto options?
Do you deny that windmills do in fact kill protected birds that no other business would be permitted to?
Do you deny that a mountain of aged out toxic solar panels will need to be dealt with in the very near future?
Do you deny that the various climate accords are about a whole lot more beyond just the climate?
Do you deny that the "green new deal" would basically outlaw meat and traditional housing? That was an insane proposal that included guaranteeing a living wage for peopleNOT WILLING to work!
Do you deny that renewable energy is not in fact affordable without tax incentives?  

I love electric cars. I have made professional proposals for electric heavy equipment multiple times and the one I am working on now might possibly lead to another patent (but I suspect it is going nowhere). I have researched electric cars a great deal.  I do not hate electric cars. I have always had a fairly short commute, and don't mind the cold, so an electric car would suite me better than a vast majority of the driving public. I live in a state that majorly inhibits electric cars though, so I will not likely buy one until the taxes implications change. I even like electric power enough that I even have an electric chainsaw. None of that makes Tesla a good company.

" I happen to think that 'tipping point' language is alarmist and not helpful." that was my main point. "The sky is falling!" does nothing good. How many time have we been told "X" will happen by year Y if we don't follow this ridiculous list of crap....and it obviously didn't happen. The best climate modeling in existence is pure garbage, yet people demand we conmpletely shift our whole lives based on them. 

Here is another reason I don't fear the future;
Look at the Canadian plains. Think of how much food they will produce when we have higher CO2 levels (there is a reason the Pot-heads use CO2 generators in their grow houses) and a longer growing season. No need for a genocide against humanity. NYC and New Orleans will be screwed if our ice-caps melt, but humanity won't be.
Plants love high temps and high levels of CO2. Global warming might turn our planet truly green.

ps. I never understood the moral superiority of burning recently dead trees inefficiently over burning long dead trees efficiently.
I burn wood because I have wood to burn.


----------



## begreen

Where does 70% of the oxygen in the air come from? How does this process work? Where does that excess CO2 go and get absorbed? Hint - the earth is 70% water.
How sustainable is life as we know it if that oxygen supply starts dwindling?

I  just posted a link on decarbonizing by 2035. Have you read it?








						How to drive fossil fuels out of the US economy, quickly
					

The US has everything it needs to decarbonize by 2035.




					www.vox.com
				




*Wind turbines kill between 214,000 and 368,000 birds annually* — a small fraction compared with the estimated *6.8 million fatalities from collisions with cell and radio towers* and the *1.4 billion to 3.7 billion deaths from cats*, according to the peer-reviewed study by two federal scientists and the environmental consulting firm West Inc."We estimate that on an annual basis, less than 0.1% ... of songbird and other small passerine species populations in North America perish from collisions with turbines," says lead author Wallace Erickson of Wyoming-based West.

So we should eliminate cell and radio tower and cats first, right?








						State of the Birds 2014 Report
					

Download the Report    Download a PDF of the print version of The State of the Birds 2014.    Tap or click to download a print version of the 2014 report.      Some elements of the report were online-only and are not contained in the print version. You can still access PDF archives of the online ver




					archive.stateofthebirds.org
				




Solar panel recycling is already happening in Europe. It will grow in volume here too.








						Solar Panel Recycling: How it Works and Why it's Important | EnergySage
					

As solar panels reach the end of their lifetime, it is important to understand the effects of solar panel waste, and the recycling process.




					news.energysage.com
				




Please leave the political comments at home.


----------



## woodgeek

Groo said:


> Do you deny that major Democrats are major hypocrites WRT environmental policies and their own actions?
> Do you deny that Tesla's corporate policies make them drastically harder to repair and therefore much more likely to end up scrapped, than many other auto options?
> Do you deny that windmills do in fact kill protected birds that no other business would be permitted to?
> Do you deny that a mountain of aged out toxic solar panels will need to be dealt with in the very near future?
> Do you deny that the various climate accords are about a whole lot more beyond just the climate?
> Do you deny that the "green new deal" would basically outlaw meat and traditional housing? That was an insane proposal that included guaranteeing a living wage for peopleNOT WILLING to work!
> Do you deny that renewable energy is not in fact affordable without tax incentives?



Yes Groo.  I DO deny them.  Every one of those 'facts' is either incorrect, or a trivial problem.


----------



## semipro

begreen said:


> So we should eliminate cell and radio tower and cats first, right?


Or buildings?
Just one easily refutable "fact" from the long list of drivel above.


----------



## woodgeek

ABMax24 said:


> It's a similar thing to the war on big tobacco. If you want to reduce consumption reduce demand not supply. This was done somewhat successfully with the big anti-smoking campaigns of the last decades.



I think we agree.  The Big Tobacco analogy is very apt.  In fact, educating children in school about the dangers of smoking, warning labels on packs of cigarettes and a lot of well-done PSAs DID in fact significantly drive down the rate of smoking in the US.  And later on, a lot of municipalities started having smoking bans in restaurants and other public spaces, reducing the effects of second hand smoke on non-smokers, and making smoking a much less social/popular activity.

You can look at that as a purely demand side solution, but I think you are totally missing my point.  This was an example of science driven public policy (education and PSAs) reducing demand, coupled with sensible regulation (i.e restaurants and bars, not making tobacco illegal).

But the history of this story is tragic.  The science re the dangers of tobacco was well settled by the early 1970s, and the educational campaign and PSAs and regulations didn't start until the early 1990s.  Why was there a 20 year delay?  Because the tobacco companies published junk science and junk PSAs and sold BS 'safer' products and yes, bought enough politicians, for 20 years.  Until they couldn't do it any more, and a political sweep in 1992 effectively ended it once and for all.

How many new users took up smoking between 1972 and 1992, who have died (or will die) bc of it?  Preventable.

The tobacco companies saying they were selling a legal product simply to meet demand did not make it right.

And yeah, energy companies sell a product which, unlike tobacco, is necessary!  And not addictive.

But the science of global warming was settled 30+ years ago.  And solutions related to conservation have been increasingly available that whole time.  And major replacements for fossil energy have been cheap and available for close to a decade now.

And yet for that whole period, attempts at education, PSAs and sensible regulations (like EPA regs the car makers wanted) have been blocked by misinformation, fake PSAs, BS lower emission products (like mild hybrid SUVs), and bought politicians.  Just like tobacco.

And so we will get demand reduction and scaled alternative energy solutions a decade or two later than if the energy incumbents hadn't imitated Big Tobacco's immoral tactics (often employing the exact same PR, legal firms AND people).  

And how much ecological damage, extinction and loss of human life will be the consequence of that preventable 10-20 years of delay....we shall see.


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