This is a mobile optimized page that loads fast, if you want to load the real page, click this text.

Global Warming - How Valid and Serious?

What do you think of global warming?

  • There is no reliable evidence that indicates global warming (GW)

    Votes: 8 5.2%

  • There is GW, but the manmade contribution is UNPROVEN (brd),- and we should ignore it

    Votes: 12 7.8%

  • Ditto - but we should act to reduce greenhouse gas effects anyway

    Votes: 46 30.1%

  • There is GW, the manmade contribution is PROVEN (brd), and the matter is not urgent

    Votes: 6 3.9%

  • Ditto but corrective global action is a matter of urgency

    Votes: 79 51.6%

  • Other (plus reasons)

    Votes: 7 4.6%
  • Total voters
    153
Jump to new
Incidentally, one of those articles is just about hurricanes (but assumes global warming) ...
http://www.dailytech.com/2007+Hurricane+Season+Wheres+the+Beef/article8253.htm

Similarly, as I mentioned, it's a mild summer in Sydney this year as well - trouble is it's a string of scorchers in Melb & Adelaide. and the trend worldwide is increasing.

.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11641

There is a link there an example of a forcing function (a wedge) imposed on a chaotic system (weather). They point out (the obvious) - as I'm sure we're all aware, that "one swallow does not a summer make".

http://www.clivar.org/science/magnets.php

On the definition of climate :-
Climate defined as average of last 30 years (WMA) - although there is obviously statistical conclusions and probabilities if , for instance, in any decade, you get a string of hot years for instance.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11641

But in the end, IPCC talk high probabilities, etc (including 90 and 95% confidence). We have to take the alarming melting of polar cap seriously, (imo) and try to steer things back. It's not as if the world has ever seen this much CO2 before. We are heading into unchartered waters - and the planet is not the place to conduct unprecedented experiments.

And as you have pointed out to me many times, pollution of all types is capable of being reduced with anthropogenic effort.

(PS as for one year being "mild" compared to "the trend" the solar cycle (11 year, Galileo) is at a low at the moment - let's check out the predictions in 2012 when it peaks again shall we)
 

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23053212-11949,00.html
 

http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/12442121.html

There is much cherrypicking of weather events as the above link shows.

My view that concentration on AGW is aiming for a 1 pointer instead of a six pointer (in AFL parlance). Folks ignore 99% of the problem by focusing on so called greenhouse gases (incorrectly in view... I am now more convinced than ever). This is largely a function of "social proof"; it is now cool to fret over GW... while doing zip about it.

Meanwhile, global pollution continues unabated.
 
wayneL said:
it is now cool to fret over GW... while doing zip about it.

Meanwhile, global pollution continues unabated.
Click to expand...
The only people (among the first world) doing zip about it are the yanks (with exception of the governator of CA) - at least the other countries are admitting there's a problem looming.

ok 95% chance of a problem ( same thing if you think about it - as a responsible manager)
 
IF AGW is real, the so called "measures" the rest of the world are employing is "fiddling while Rome burns", allegorically penny wise and pound foolish... futile.
 
wayneL said:
IF AGW is real, the so called "measures" the rest of the world are employing is "fiddling while Rome burns", allegorically penny wise and pound foolish... futile.
Click to expand...
Bit hard to put Rome's fire out (need for action against any and ALL pollution) when people (eg Johnny Howard , who took 10 years to come around to the need for action against GW) keep sabotaging the fire engine, burying it with red herrings. (imo)

Where there's bureaucratic smokescreens, there's fire.
 



Electric cars are most likely going to run on two commodities and they aren't zinc, copper, gold for the fuel anyway.

They are lithium and platinum. I personally think battery tech has overtaken fuel cells with A123, Toshiba and others inventing things such as the battery that can charge at 5 minutes, and that can put out enough power to make a supercar.

Electric cars that can go the distance are possible. Hydrogen has its pitfalls.

So while I think Lithium is the commodity of the future for batteries i have placed my bets on platinum as well. In effect I have invested companies such as (ADY) for lithium and a platinum one (PLA) to get exposure to both these sectors.
 
I think we are right on the cusp of Electric cars going mainstream, just a few short years.

Ever checked out Tesla Motors - backed by some of the co-founders of Google, you can buy their electric sports cars now (sold out of all 2008s they made) for about 100k - does 0 to 100klm in under 4secs , 2cents per mile running costs.

Alot more companies really close to production.


Everyone is so bullish on Oil prices, in the medium term I think theyll come under pressure, and certainly not the gains weve seen of the past.
 
electric cars will do didly squat if the electricity is generated by coal c'mon fella's... we're clever than this... the problem can be fixed only by a whole scale change in the way we produce electricity...

that pretty much means geothermal, wave motion, hydro, plus solar / wind for those who have it... and maybe nuclear for those who don't have access to renewable sources.

this problem is two fold
1. Technological capability
2. overcoming vested interests.

We can also overcome this by a global recession / depression... but thats another story.
 
FYI

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...WAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2008/01/15/do1501.xml
 
Hit the nail on the head there. Geothermal, wave, solar and wind to provide most of the actual energy. Hydro for the storage, firm generating capacity it provides and ability to rapidly alter output to match the supply from all sources with demand.

Once you have clean electricity, then you have a very easy means of shifting most things to clean energy.

A modest size factory (for example, a bakery or milk processing plant) isn't likely to invest in their own energy production. But if all they have to do is switch everything over to grid electricity and let the utility take care of the rest then it's easy and they're far more likely to do it.

I won't name who for confidentiality reasons, but I'll give an example. There's a nationally known name that operates a factory in Tas with 3 boilers. The electric one was the original source of process heat. Then came the 1967 power crisis so the oil-fired one was built. Then came the rain and oil price rises in the 70's so they went back to electric. Then with the second oil price spike and the end of dam construction in sight they built the coal-fired one in the 1980's.

Now here's the point. It makes NO difference whatsoever to the production process which boiler is running. Most of the workers wouldn't even realise when they switched over. It's steam whether it's from coal, oil or electricity. If we got back to 100% renewable electricity then it would be absolutely simple to get rid of the coal and oil in that factory. Same with anyone else using process heat in most applications.

Another one I know of is in the food manufacturing business. Their ovens were diesel fired until the recent emergence of a modest gas industry in Tas over the past 5 years. Now they're cooking with gas instead of diesel. And their customers wouldn't know anything changed. Another food processor made a change from imported (Vic) brown coal to gas and again there's no difference in the end product.

If you go to a hotel and take a shower, you generally wouldn't know if the water was heated by electricity, gas, oil or whatever. It's hot water. Just as you don't know how the shopping centre of public swimming pool is heated. Odds are you don't know whether your bread was baked in an electric or gas oven either. Anything involving heat, which is the dominant non-tranport energy use, is very easy to shift to another fuel.

Hence my being keen on getting to a 100% clean electricity supply. Do that and then we can get rid of a lot of other emissions too - basically everything except a few industrial processes and non-rail transport. But even with transport we can shift some of it to electricity. Electric car technology is reaching the point of being a "here and now" thing. And of course we ran electric buses 50 years ago in urban areas - we can do it if we have to.
 
wayneL said:
FYI

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/...WAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/opinion/2008/01/15/do1501.xml
Click to expand...
wayne - hell, that is one brilliant article - thanks.


For some reason, there is no pride any longer in making do. Those who object to needless waste are considered tree-huggers, when, in fact, they are simply trying to be ethical in a way that comes naturally to people in other countries.
Click to expand...

another example of waste (although not about food) .. of which I am guilty - and felt so at the time.
you buy a calendar it costs $5.
So when the Sun-Herald offered "free 2008 calendar" with each paper - $1.80 whatever - I bought three of them. (including copy for the mother-in-law, lol)

I mean I NEVER buy newspapers because of the bludy ridiculous amount of waste paper - (and why bother when you can get it on the internet anyway) - and here I am stuck with 3 useless papers - sheesh.
 
GM have recently gone into a deal to produce biofuel ethanol from household and Industrial waste and reckon it could halve the cost of fuel .... big step in the right direction!


http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iH9YAIzz62utMFZLeHaG_Fn9PuEg
 
Now being proposed to ban plastic shopping bags. So instead people will buy heavier plastic bags to line kitchen bins.
What about all the plastic bottles as a result of the current fad where no one can walk around without clutching a bottle of water. Did everyone die of dehydration before we had the privilege of paying for bottles of ordinary water?
Then there's all the other plastic packaging. Seems like a disproportionate amount of attention to the shopping bags.
 
They have to start somewhere plastic shopping bags is a valid target.

I think they really need to "popularise" doing the right thing, get all the famous folks on board, movie stars etc, once they go green the sheeples follow!
 
numbercruncher said:
They have to start somewhere plastic shopping bags is a valid target.

I think they really need to "popularise" doing the right thing, get all the famous folks on board, movie stars etc, once they go green the sheeples follow!
Click to expand...


I think "they" is half the problem.
 
Found next door at RC:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164002

Don't fight, adapt

We should give up futile attempts to combat climate change

Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007
More On This Story


Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Dec. 13, 2007

His Excellency Ban Ki-Moon

Secretary-General, United Nations

New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

Re: UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction

It is not possible to stop climate change, a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages. Geological, archaeological, oral and written histories all attest to the dramatic challenges posed to past societies from unanticipated changes in temperature, precipitation, winds and other climatic variables. We therefore need to equip nations to become resilient to the full range of these natural phenomena by promoting economic growth and wealth generation.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued increasingly alarming conclusions about the climatic influences of human-produced carbon dioxide (CO2), a non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis. While we understand the evidence that has led them to view CO2 emissions as harmful, the IPCC's conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions. On top of which, because attempts to cut emissions will slow development, the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it.

The IPCC Summaries for Policy Makers are the most widely read IPCC reports amongst politicians and non-scientists and are the basis for most climate change policy formulation. Yet these Summaries are prepared by a relatively small core writing team with the final drafts approved line-by-line

by *government *representatives. The great *majority of IPCC contributors and *reviewers, and the tens of thousands of other scientists who are qualified to comment on these matters, are not involved in the preparation of these documents. The summaries therefore cannot properly be represented as a consensus view among experts.

Contrary to the impression left by the IPCC Summary reports:

z Recent observations of phenomena such as glacial retreats, sea-level rise and the migration of temperature-sensitive species are not evidence for abnormal climate change, for none of these changes has been shown to lie outside the bounds of known natural variability.

z The average rate of warming of 0.1 to 0. 2 degrees Celsius per decade recorded by satellites during the late 20th century falls within known natural rates of warming and cooling over the last 10,000 years.

z Leading scientists, including some senior IPCC representatives, acknowledge that today's computer models cannot predict climate. Consistent with this, and despite computer projections of temperature rises, there has been no net global warming since 1998. That the current temperature plateau follows a late 20th-century period of warming is consistent with the continuation today of natural multi-decadal or millennial climate cycling.

In stark contrast to the often repeated assertion that the science of climate change is "settled," significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming. But because IPCC working groups were generally instructed (see http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_timetable_2006-08-14.pdf) to consider work published only through May, 2005, these important findings are not included in their reports; i.e., the IPCC assessment reports are already materially outdated.

The UN climate conference in Bali has been planned to take the world along a path of severe CO2 restrictions, ignoring the lessons apparent from the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, the chaotic nature of the European CO2 trading market, and the ineffectiveness of other costly initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Balanced cost/benefit analyses provide no support for the introduction of global measures to cap and reduce energy consumption for the purpose of restricting CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is irrational to apply the "precautionary principle" because many scientists recognize that both climatic coolings and warmings are realistic possibilities over the medium-term future.

The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems.

Yours faithfully,
 
(cont.)

List of signatories http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164004

Signatories of an open letter on the UN climate conference

Published: Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The following are signatories to the Dec. 13th letter to the Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations on the UN Climate conference in Bali:

Don Aitkin, PhD, Professor, social scientist, retired vice-chancellor and president, University of Canberra, Australia

William J.R. Alexander, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil and Biosystems Engineering, University of Pretoria, South Africa; Member, UN Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters, 1994-2000

Bjarne Andresen, PhD, physicist, Professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Geoff L. Austin, PhD, FNZIP, FRSNZ, Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Timothy F. Ball, PhD, environmental consultant, former climatology professor, University of Winnipeg

Ernst-Georg Beck, Dipl. Biol., Biologist, Merian-Schule Freiburg, Germany

Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen, PhD, Reader, Dept. of Geography, Hull University, U.K.; Editor, Energy & Environment journal

Chris C. Borel, PhD, remote sensing scientist, U.S.

Reid A. Bryson, PhD, DSc, DEngr, UNE P. Global 500 Laureate; Senior Scientist, Center for Climatic Research; Emeritus Professor of Meteorology, of Geography, and of Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin

Dan Carruthers, M.Sc., wildlife biology consultant specializing in animal ecology in Arctic and Subarctic regions, Alberta

R.M. Carter, PhD, Professor, Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

Ian D. Clark, PhD, Professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Richard S. Courtney, PhD, climate and atmospheric science consultant, IPCC expert reviewer, U.K.

Willem de Lange, PhD, Dept. of Earth and Ocean Sciences, School of Science and Engineering, Waikato University, New Zealand

David Deming, PhD (Geophysics), Associate Professor, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Oklahoma

Freeman J. Dyson, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, N.J.

Don J. Easterbrook, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Geology, Western Washington University

Lance Endersbee, Emeritus Professor, former dean of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor of Monasy University, Australia

Hans Erren, Doctorandus, geophysicist and climate specialist, Sittard, The Netherlands

Robert H. Essenhigh, PhD, E.G. Bailey Professor of Energy Conversion, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University

Christopher Essex, PhD, Professor of Applied Mathematics and Associate Director of the Program in Theoretical Physics, University of Western Ontario

David Evans, PhD, mathematician, carbon accountant, computer and electrical engineer and head of 'Science Speak,' Australia

William Evans, PhD, editor, American Midland Naturalist; Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame

Stewart Franks, PhD, Professor, Hydroclimatologist, University of Newcastle, Australia

R. W. Gauldie, PhD, Research Professor, Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, School of Ocean Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Lee C. Gerhard, PhD, Senior Scientist Emeritus, University of Kansas; former director and state geologist, Kansas Geological Survey

Gerhard Gerlich, Professor for Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, Institut für Mathematische Physik der TU Braunschweig, Germany

Albrecht Glatzle, PhD, sc.agr., Agro-Biologist and Gerente ejecutivo, INTTAS, Paraguay

Fred Goldberg, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Royal Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Stockholm, Sweden

Vincent Gray, PhD, expert reviewer for the IPCC and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of 'Climate Change 2001, Wellington, New Zealand

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University and Head of the Tropical Meteorology Project

Howard Hayden, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Connecticut

Louis Hissink MSc, M.A.I.G., editor, AIG News, and consulting geologist, Perth, Western Australia

Craig D. Idso, PhD, Chairman, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, Arizona

Sherwood B. Idso, PhD, President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, AZ, USA

Andrei Illarionov, PhD, Senior Fellow, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity; founder and director of the Institute of Economic Analysis

Zbigniew Jaworowski, PhD, physicist, Chairman - Scientific Council of Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection, Warsaw, Poland

Jon Jenkins, PhD, MD, computer modelling - virology, NSW, Australia

Wibjorn Karlen, PhD, Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology, Stockholm University, Sweden

Olavi Kärner, Ph.D., Research Associate, Dept. of Atmospheric Physics, Institute of Astrophysics and Atmospheric Physics, Toravere, Estonia

Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia

David Kear, PhD, FRSNZ, CMG, geologist, former Director-General of NZ Dept. of Scientific & Industrial Research, New Zealand

Madhav Khandekar, PhD, former research scientist, Environment Canada; editor, Climate Research (2003-05); editorial board member, Natural Hazards; IPCC expert reviewer 2007

William Kininmonth M.Sc., M.Admin., former head of Australia's National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological organization's Commission for Climatology Jan J.H. Kop, MSc Ceng FICE (Civil Engineer Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers), Emeritus Prof. of Public Health Engineering, Technical University Delft, The Netherlands

Prof. R.W.J. Kouffeld, Emeritus Professor, Energy Conversion, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Salomon Kroonenberg, PhD, Professor, Dept. of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

Hans H.J. Labohm, PhD, economist, former advisor to the executive board, Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands Institute of International Relations), The Netherlands

The Rt. Hon. Lord Lawson of Blaby, economist; Chairman of the Central Europe Trust; former Chancellor of the Exchequer, U.K.

Douglas Leahey, PhD, meteorologist and air-quality consultant, Calgary

David R. Legates, PhD, Director, Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware

Marcel Leroux, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Climatology, University of Lyon, France; former director of Laboratory of Climatology, Risks and Environment, CNRS

Bryan Leyland, International Climate Science Coalition, consultant and power engineer, Auckland, New Zealand

William Lindqvist, PhD, independent consulting geologist, Calif.

Richard S. Lindzen, PhD, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

  • Poll
Poll on Action on Global Warming
2 3 4
Replies
60
Views
12K
2020hindsight
  • Poll
Terminal Triangle: Peak Oil, climate change and global economic meltdown
Replies
7
Views
6K
Smurf1976
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more...