Funny how billions spent on Instagram videos, Netflix shows, iPhones, needless electronics, and Taylor Swift concerts never gets accused of causing greenhouse emissions or global warming or climate change....
Actually .. they do. Your quite right. The impact of the internet as a whole is enormous.Funny how billions spent on Instagram videos, Netflix shows, iPhones, needless electronics, and Taylor Swift concerts never gets accused of causing greenhouse emissions or global warming or climate change....
Actually .. they do. Your quite right. The impact of the internet as a whole is enormous.
But probably the most profound impact, IMV, is the relentless spreading of lies which undermine the urgency of tacking global heating.
the relentless spreading of lies which undermine the urgency of tacking global heating.
I see both sides of this one, having been involved with and otherwise following the issue longer than most.The real trouble is the global boiling scare campaign is going to be treated for what it is. The boy who cried wolf.
No. Not fake. Full chart below.Al Gore in his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize speech: "A study by Navy research scientists say The Arctic will be ice-free in as little as 7 years."
I'm sure this chart must be fake.
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No. Not fake. Full chart below.
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I bet Al Gore got it wrong.Thanks. Doesn't quite match the other chart. This is at the lower end of the range compared to the one I posted which is at the top end. But either way, there's still ice there, a decade after it was supposed to be ice free. The scientists making these projections are an absolute joke. Almost as bad as the resource experts predicting a nickel deficit this year.
The more conservative apocalypse takes longer to disprove.I bet Al Gore got it wrong.
The IPCc have always understated it and been too conservative.
They have had to change their statements over time.
"The IPCC report concluded that the Arctic would lose its summer ice in the 2040s in intermediate and high emissions scenarios, but the new research advances that by a decade into the 2030s. -6 June 2023"
You can look up each year on this NASA website. Pretty cool.
Charctic Interactive Sea Ice Graph
How to use CharcticDeveloped at NSIDC with support from NASA, the Charctic Interactive Sea Ice Graph enables users to more easily access and explore the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adnsidc.org
But if it exceeds or equals the prediction it helps prove it!The more conservative apocalypse takes longer to disprove.
Guess we'll have to wait for the apocalypse to seeBut if it exceeds or equals the prediction it helps prove it!
Being able to ship goods over the polar ice caps in summer might actually be good for trade.Guess we'll have to wait for the apocalypse to see
It's a bit like building concentration camps for the China sniffles.Being able to ship goods over the polar ice caps in summer might actually be good for trade.
China call it the polar silk road and have been building ships to use it.
China’s Polar Silk Road: Implications for the Arctic Region
The mounting tensions between the United States and China will pose a challenge to China’s Arctic strategy. At the same time, China’s involvement and behavior related to the South Chinawww.airuniversity.af.edu
Chinese Container Ship Completes First Round Trip Voyage Across Arctic
A Chinese container ship has completed a three-months round trip voyage from the Baltic Sea to China and back. It is the first step in establishing regular, albeit small-scale, container liner service utilizing Russia’s Northern Sea Route.www.highnorthnews.com
Really Smurf ? I can hear some arguments about climate activists but for the life of me I can't recall anyone seriously trying to say big concerts/events shouldn't be held in major stadiums. And if someone did I would be amazed if they weren't laughed down.The climate activists will however take a very different view, complaining about noise, impact on birds, transport logistics, saying it'll ruin the playing surface and prevent the playing of cricket for the next 50 years, it'll cause deafness to the workers, and it might rain. They'll insist they support concerts and live music, it's just "industrial scale" ones they dislike but the arts as such are fine.
I think I made it pretty clear that was an analogy.Really Smurf ? I can hear some arguments about climate activists but for the life of me I can't recall anyone seriously trying to say big concerts/events shouldn't be held in major stadiums.
I think I made it pretty clear that was an analogy.
The climate equivalent would be if anyone opposed, in an overall sense as distinct from a minority of specific projects, the measures required to transition society away from fossil fuels.
The basic problem with activists in my view is on one hand they're quick to identify the problem with fossil fuels and will decry anyone who denies it. On the other hand they themselves are the ultimate deniers of the scale of what's required to actually fix it.
Professional scientists and others doing work related to ecology, conservation, environmental impacts and so on sure, no problem there. Such people tend to stick to the facts and are fully aware that we live in a world of trade offs where no perfect solution will be found. Even if priorities differ, it's easily possible to have rational dialogue with such people and look for solutions or workarounds to problems. For the record I'm actually good friends with one.
Adding to that, I'll readily acknowledge the energy industry itself has undeniably done things that shouldn't have been done. Damming Lagoon of Islands was one, Lake Pedder was another, it was never built but one of the nuclear proposals 50 years ago was in a shockingly bad location too, thank heavens it wasn't built. Not sure how public that one was so I won't identify the location - let's just say it's appropriately named but not smart, oh no it wasn't.
So on occasion activists have had a point, no argument there. The problem however is that the whole thing has run off the rails and we've got a situation where calm, rational evaluation of the options just isn't happening.
We've come to a point now, and I can state this with certainty, that potential developers just won't even take some things through to the point of a serious proposal because they know full well it'll end up with a battle that drags the company's name through the mud, costs a fortune, ties up staff who could instead be applied to other matters and ends up not building it anyway. And so they go for the easy option of gas or diesel, and as of a month ago there were 24 new fossil fuel generating units under active consideration within the NEM not including Kurri Kurri or Tallawarra B.
Even wind farms are facing that problem. Opposition to offshore wind in NSW, Victoria and SA, opposition to onshore wind, uncertainty about transmission and so on is scaring off investors. Hence there's only 8 committed new wind farms in the NEM as of a month ago (counting single projects split into stages as 1 wind farm) and not a single one in Tasmania following the Robbins Island debacle which has sent investors running.
Then there's the issue that we've still got gas being installed into practically every new home built in several states.
Against that backdrop are the real scientists along with the engineers and so on shaking their heads. Politics has turned the whole situation into a fiasco where not enough is being built and the public's confused as to what's true and what's not both with climate science itself and the energy supply responses to it.
What did that? Well it wasn't real science of any sort and it wasn't engineering. Nor was it legitimate management and nor was it trades and construction workers. No, it was politics and game playing and that goes for both sides.
One one hand are the conservatives who seem to think doing nothing at all is the way to run a country. That there's a need to renew energy infrastructure regardless seems to have completely escaped them.
On the other hand are the activists who downplay the scale of what's required and who've convinced the public that it's all far easier than it is. Rather than softening the public up to accept what needs to happen, they've done the opposite and convinced the masses that all we need is a few solar panels and batteries and we're done. Nothing could be further from the truth.
On the climate science well I'm not the right person for that. But if it's anywhere near the truth then Australia's not even remotely on track to do it's part in fixing it and nor are most.
Now if I point that out to those I'll classify as activists, well I know what happens. Outright denial that we're not on track and that it's not all going perfectly to plan. Push the point and here come the personal insults, accusations and so on.
On the other hand, if we take people who aren't political activists of any sort then even among those who don't consider climate change to be a problem, who see no need to shift away from fossil fuels at all, I doubt they'd disagree with the statement that we're not actually moving away from them at any sort of decent pace. They might not agree on the need, but they can see what is and isn't happening.
So overall I don't hate anyone, I'll actually agree with the activists on a few points, but overall the politics needs to stop and that goes for all sides. Regardless of whether your perspective is climate, energy supply or the economy, it's not doing anyone any good to be blunt.
As for fossil fuel use and emissions, well I think the trend's pretty clear:
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The scale of the task is immense. Hence my point that if there's to be any chance of doing it then politics, from all sides, needs to get out of the way and leave the scientists, engineers and construction workers to get on with it. If there's a genuine concern about something then refer that to the environmental scientists to evaluate but there isn't time to spend a decade on each and every project going through objections based on visual amenity, who'll own it, who might or might not have walked there, that there's some pretty rocks lying on the ground or the loss of some generic bushland.
But sure, if there really is an endangered species that lives there or the Flying Doctor really does use the road as an airstrip where the transmission line is planned to cross well that's a real problem yes.
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