Obama and Lisa Jackson seize control of CO2 production

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Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
16,829
3
0
Yes, yes, we've all seen that case of blatant data manipulation in a vain attempt to explain history that conflicts with dogma. It doesn't fly.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/...d-warming-or-unprecedented-data-manipulation/

BUNK

http://www.newscientist.com/article...edieval-period-with-vineyards-in-england.html

There are a dozen or so temperature reconstructions for the northern hemisphere that go back beyond 1600, including the so-called "hockey stick" (see Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong). These studies suggest there were periods of unusual warmth from around AD 900 to AD 1300, but details vary widely in each reconstruction.

In the southern hemisphere, the picture is even more mixed, with evidence of both warm and cool periods around this time. The Medieval Warm Period may have been mostly a regional phenomenon, with the extremes reflecting a redistribution of heat around the planet rather than a big overall rise in the average global temperature.
What is clear, both from the temperature reconstructions and from independent evidence - such as the extent of the recent melting of mountain glaciers - is that the planet has been warmer in the past few decades than at any time during the medieval period. In fact, the world may not have been so warm for 6000 or even 125,000 years (see Climate myths: It has been warmer in the past, what's the big deal?).
 

monovillage

Diamond Member
Jul 3, 2008
8,444
1
0
This may be related to Amused's Medieval Warm Period (MWP) link, but 915 scientists, 542 separate research institutions in 43 countries worldwide agree that the MWP was a global phenomena, but read the peer reviewed, scientifically sound articles yourself.
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

And here's a nice article about ice cores, proxies for CO2 and some interesting CO2 satellite data. It's not a peer reviewed article, but does list supporting peer reviewed articles in the references and data sources.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/26/co2-ice-cores-vs-plant-stomata/#more-30247
 
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Hacp

Lifer
Jun 8, 2005
13,923
2
81
I don't think you understand what a model is. A model tries to approximate reality but can't possibly be 100% precise. That's true about not just climate models, but also car accident modeling, weather modeling, every kind of modeling used by engineers. And I bet you trust modern cars to not cause you undue harm in an accident, you watch the weather report, and you follow the towing specifications for your truck.

The basic thermodynamics predicts warming as a result of the 40% increase in CO2, and we have had abnormal warming over the last century.

Read NASA's climate site if you're interested in actual science vs denialism
http://climate.nasa.gov/

Models can be right or wrong. A model like the climate models we currently have can not be empirically tested. We're relying only on assumptions made by scientists that may or may not be wrong, but can't be tested in the real world. Models used by engineers are empirically tested to ensure that they match real world data.

Science is much more complicated than simple physics. For example, we have known the navier stokes equations governing turbulence for a long time, but we have yet to obtain a full solution. Its simple science that can be written down in 3 equations, but no mathmatician has been able to obtain a full solution. In fact, its a millennium prize problem.

The point is, you need to make simplifying assumptions in order to get a solution and if these assumptions and results can not be tested in the real world, they are not good for anything.
 
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destrekor

Lifer
Nov 18, 2005
28,799
359
126
In case anyone wants to actually try to appear intelligent and do a little research, go find various journals describing the comparison of our atmosphere and those of Venus and Mars.

I'm not going to waste time re-explaining what is readily available for anyone who actually might care to demonstrate a yearning to learn something, instead of simply holding onto the preconceived and ill-formed notions they have kept closely guarded.

There are many factors at play when it comes to average global and regional climates and temperatures: variables such as land-mass configuration amongst the seas; greenhouse gas ratios and mass; the rate of positive or negative gas exchange; solar cycles; stability of salt-concentration in the oceans, and the stability of the salt sinks and oceanic undersea currents.

Those variables all play a role in the overall system, you change one you risk changing them all (though not all can be effected by the others, such as land-mass configuration, as the tectonic plates couldn't give a shit about what the rest of the world is doing).
More importantly, that system is only stable when the balances of all life is stable. One must be moronic if one thinks what we humans are doing absolutely nothing to the overall system.
If we simply ate and shit and did what we had to do to eat and shit, in the same way all animals go about the day, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You see, we humans are doing something that no other part of the Earth is doing, and it wouldn't be happening if we weren't doing such. We burn stored carbon, and release carbon that would not get released without the likes of us. If one cannot see how this is the case, then you are indeed ignorant and a fool.

What will the impact be? It all depends on how the overall system absorbs the changes in the one variable. One is correct when stating no climatology model accurately shows what will happen, or what the safe range is for any one variable.

There is a slight problem in certain models: no one is exactly taking into consideration that the "OK" range for each variable has to change, when other parts of the system change. What was High then might be normal now, considering the shape of the oceans and location of land-masses is different at every moment in history; those two key factors play a large role in the overall average climates the world over.

Does that mean we can sit back, relax, and continue to go about our lives, in ways that are very unnatural and have a definitive impact on global system variables?
Due to the fact that we cannot accurately say, one way or the other, just what will happen climate-wise in the future, does that mean we shouldn't try and shape it the best we can?

We cannot say the future will be colder or warmer, because historical cycles are not a perfect source to study since the geographical shape of the Earth's surface is never stable. That one fact means the "stable/preferred" state of the global climate - that is to say the "default" once any corrections are made by the system - cannot be accurately predicted based on historical findings.

Currently it is argued we are still in an ice-age of sorts, considering half of North America was previously marshland or hundreds of feet underwater at one point in time, with minimal or zero ice at the poles. Permanent ice-caps aren't "normal" when looking through history, and that makes many suspect the natural cycle means they have to disappear eventually.

Essentially, we should strive to change the variables as minimal as possible. By not doing anything about our release of carbon (entirely unnatural carbon release), we are taking a higher risk with our future than necessary.
It's kind of comical we so often ignore the future, and put it in the hands of those who will live in the future, instead of trying to act maturely in the present and try and do something for the future, instead of only for us in the present. Kind of selfish, isn't it?

I'm not saying we have to abandon everything we do, because that wouldn't be very human, now would it? We're unnatural beasts, and stubborn little shits, we're going to have our way or die in flames trying to uphold our way, and that's the way it should be. When the alternative is living like the rest of the primates the world over, it's not hard to make such a statement. :p
For the future, we need to find ways of upholding the basic ideas of what we have, but possibly changing them to be less environmentally destructive. Not abandoning cars and power plants, but slowly changing them, making cleaner energy, and/or finding ways to unnaturally sequester the unnatural levels of greenhouse gases.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,874
6,411
126
In case anyone wants to actually try to appear intelligent and do a little research, go find various journals describing the comparison of our atmosphere and those of Venus and Mars.

I'm not going to waste time re-explaining what is readily available for anyone who actually might care to demonstrate a yearning to learn something, instead of simply holding onto the preconceived and ill-formed notions they have kept closely guarded.

There are many factors at play when it comes to average global and regional climates and temperatures: variables such as land-mass configuration amongst the seas; greenhouse gas ratios and mass; the rate of positive or negative gas exchange; solar cycles; stability of salt-concentration in the oceans, and the stability of the salt sinks and oceanic undersea currents.

Those variables all play a role in the overall system, you change one you risk changing them all (though not all can be effected by the others, such as land-mass configuration, as the tectonic plates couldn't give a shit about what the rest of the world is doing).
More importantly, that system is only stable when the balances of all life is stable. One must be moronic if one thinks what we humans are doing absolutely nothing to the overall system.
If we simply ate and shit and did what we had to do to eat and shit, in the same way all animals go about the day, we wouldn't be having this conversation. You see, we humans are doing something that no other part of the Earth is doing, and it wouldn't be happening if we weren't doing such. We burn stored carbon, and release carbon that would not get released without the likes of us. If one cannot see how this is the case, then you are indeed ignorant and a fool.

What will the impact be? It all depends on how the overall system absorbs the changes in the one variable. One is correct when stating no climatology model accurately shows what will happen, or what the safe range is for any one variable.

There is a slight problem in certain models: no one is exactly taking into consideration that the "OK" range for each variable has to change, when other parts of the system change. What was High then might be normal now, considering the shape of the oceans and location of land-masses is different at every moment in history; those two key factors play a large role in the overall average climates the world over.

Does that mean we can sit back, relax, and continue to go about our lives, in ways that are very unnatural and have a definitive impact on global system variables?
Due to the fact that we cannot accurately say, one way or the other, just what will happen climate-wise in the future, does that mean we shouldn't try and shape it the best we can?

We cannot say the future will be colder or warmer, because historical cycles are not a perfect source to study since the geographical shape of the Earth's surface is never stable. That one fact means the "stable/preferred" state of the global climate - that is to say the "default" once any corrections are made by the system - cannot be accurately predicted based on historical findings.

Currently it is argued we are still in an ice-age of sorts, considering half of North America was previously marshland or hundreds of feet underwater at one point in time, with minimal or zero ice at the poles. Permanent ice-caps aren't "normal" when looking through history, and that makes many suspect the natural cycle means they have to disappear eventually.

Essentially, we should strive to change the variables as minimal as possible. By not doing anything about our release of carbon (entirely unnatural carbon release), we are taking a higher risk with our future than necessary.
It's kind of comical we so often ignore the future, and put it in the hands of those who will live in the future, instead of trying to act maturely in the present and try and do something for the future, instead of only for us in the present. Kind of selfish, isn't it?

I'm not saying we have to abandon everything we do, because that wouldn't be very human, now would it? We're unnatural beasts, and stubborn little shits, we're going to have our way or die in flames trying to uphold our way, and that's the way it should be. When the alternative is living like the rest of the primates the world over, it's not hard to make such a statement. :p
For the future, we need to find ways of upholding the basic ideas of what we have, but possibly changing them to be less environmentally destructive. Not abandoning cars and power plants, but slowly changing them, making cleaner energy, and/or finding ways to unnaturally sequester the unnatural levels of greenhouse gases.

Good post and I commend you on the time and effort. Unfortunately they have read/heard this before, yet continue to Deny. Essentially you have merely cast pearls before the swine and like a dog they'll just put it out of their mind and return to their vomit.
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,330
126
"Decades" is a bit of a stretch. A nuke plant will take 6-8 years to construct once breaking ground. Construction on AP1000s and ESBWRs could begin now if the money and need was there. The first ESBWR will be licensed in early 2012 and an AP1000 probably the year after.

The issue is shortsighted utility execs who are going to build combined cycle plants because natural gas is so cheap right now. When the prices shoot back up and they want a nuke plant yesterday, I'll be laughing.

I won't pretend that I know a lot about building nuke plants but from everything I have read it takes a very long time just to get to the "breaking ground" part. The lawsuits alone take forever and is probably one of the reasons the utilities would rather build a cheaper nat. gas plant.

Hell, when was the last time we actually built a new (not expanded an existing) nuclear power plant?
 

Darwin333

Lifer
Dec 11, 2006
19,946
2,330
126
While I agree with nuclear in principle, we simply haven't developed a comprehensive plan to deal with all aspects of it. A safe and sane repository for all the nuclear waste we currently have is vital to that. Hanford is an ecological timebomb due to local geology, and Yucca Mountain has been set aside. We need to start there if the public is to be convinced.

I'm not convinced that enormous reactors are the best answer, either. There are designs for smaller reactors that are walk away safe, reactors that can be mass produced in factories, assembled and fueled on site. Instead of 1 enormous reactor, several smaller ones can be employed.

While far from perfect, the French are the acknowledged leaders in implementation of nuclear power and nuclear waste sequestration- we could learn a lot from them.

Smaller nuke plants are still centralized generation and I don't have a problem with the concept at all. What we need to do is to make a cookie cutter design for whatever we want to build and then build the fuck out of them.

As far as the waste, current dry cask storage onsite is working until we can find longer term storage or ways to better use it.

At the end of the day your choices are coal, nat gas, or nuclear. We simply can't live without the baseline production that renewables like wind and solar do not provide.
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
76
All a Nuclear Power Plant does is boil water and create steam, just like coal or natural gas.

Except it does it without coal trains, and oil rigs.

-John
 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,268
126
We're still supporting grids? Spend some of this wasted stimulus and war money on real research and get the energy problem fixed once and for all. We aren't far from making renewable energy off the grid feasible with the comparatively paltry amounts of money being invested now.

Politicians spend more on shooting off their mouths than supporting real R&D.
 

rcpratt

Lifer
Jul 2, 2009
10,433
110
116
I won't pretend that I know a lot about building nuke plants but from everything I have read it takes a very long time just to get to the "breaking ground" part. The lawsuits alone take forever and is probably one of the reasons the utilities would rather build a cheaper nat. gas plant.

Hell, when was the last time we actually built a new (not expanded an existing) nuclear power plant?
The combined license (COL) process takes about 5-6 years total. Several plants are 4 or so years into this process right now.

The "lawsuits" are really not that at all and are usually referred to as contentions. On our project, none of the contentions had anything to do with the plant being nuclear. The only difference is that the contentions are managed by the NRC.

Other than that, the only lawsuit of importance is the ongoing lawsuit that every nuclear plant operator has with the DOE, regarding the government's failure to create high-level waste repository. Not a big deal.

For utilities, the decision is based on $$$. Lawsuits don't make a big impact on that, when you're talking about an $8bil plant.

Also, if by "expanding an existing" you mean building a new unit at an existing site, that's really no different than building at a new site. A new unit is a new unit.
 
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Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
76
President Obama said he was going to fast-track Nuclear. I guess that was bullshit?

-John
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
This may be related to Amused's Medieval Warm Period (MWP) link, but 915 scientists, 542 separate research institutions in 43 countries worldwide agree that the MWP was a global phenomena, but read the peer reviewed, scientifically sound articles yourself.
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php

And here's a nice article about ice cores, proxies for CO2 and some interesting CO2 satellite data. It's not a peer reviewed article, but does list supporting peer reviewed articles in the references and data sources.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/26/co2-ice-cores-vs-plant-stomata/#more-30247
This is what is most perverted about the religion of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. No one doubted that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were actual, global phenomena until CAGW needed them to go away, to demonstrate a steady state climate until evil white men burned fossil fuels and angered the gods of climate. Yet such lies as these (and the ever popular stronger hurricanes) are repeated ad nauseum by the faithful, to the point that people around the world are losing faith in the integrity of all science. Now the religion has morphed into "climate change", so that whether it gets hotter or colder that "proves" the theory.
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
76
That's a bit out there, werepossum.

The world is coming to realize that burning fossil fuels is wrong.

There are so many other uses for Fossile Fuels, and Rain Forests, Rivers, and Animals, etc. that Nuclear Power, with it's virtually boundless, clean, energy is starting to make sense.

-John
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
76
The only perverted thing is Brazilians burning down the rain-forest for charcoal.

Now that is perverted.

So stop talking about "climate change" and develop cheap, clean, nuclear energy, particularly in areas that have no other recourse, but to rape the land.

-John
 
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werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
That's a bit out there, werepossum.

The world is coming to realize that burning fossil fuels is wrong.

There are so many other uses for Fossile Fuels, and Rain Forests, Rivers, and Animals, etc. that Nuclear Power, with it's virtually boundless, clean, energy is starting to make sense.

-John
I'm all for clean energy. I like nuclear, especially on the Canadian model. I also like solar, both point-of-use and closed cycle evaporative where practical, and I like wind. I'm for reducing CO2 output for the provably bad things excess CO2 causes, notably increased erosion and marine and aquatic acidification. I'm for more efficient transportation, lighting and space conditioning. What I am NOT for is the perversion of science deemed necessary to sell CAGW to the dumb masses.
 

Zorkorist

Diamond Member
Apr 17, 2007
6,861
3
76
I used to beleive that safety in the workplace, was a foolish job, until, my brother took that position and rose to meteroric ranks.

CAGW, catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, will probably only help, in the long term, as it focuses people on energy production, waste, and harm to the environment.

-John
 

PeshakJang

Platinum Member
Mar 17, 2010
2,276
0
0
Right... and the earth was much hotter. You don't want to live in the Cretaceous, when global average temp was 5 degrees hotter than now.

What would be more harmful to our civilization... a warming period or a cooling period?

FYI... temperatures during the little ice age were only about 1C less than today on average, and a LOT of people died because of it.
 

rcpratt

Lifer
Jul 2, 2009
10,433
110
116
I'm all for clean energy. I like nuclear, especially on the Canadian model. I also like solar, both point-of-use and closed cycle evaporative where practical, and I like wind. I'm for reducing CO2 output for the provably bad things excess CO2 causes, notably increased erosion and marine and aquatic acidification. I'm for more efficient transportation, lighting and space conditioning. What I am NOT for is the perversion of science deemed necessary to sell CAGW to the dumb masses.
Just curious, but what exactly is it about the CANDU reactors that you like? Heavy water reactors aren't widely used for a reason.