The Copenhagen climate treaty: Scam of the century?

[actuarial]

I seriously hope Canada doesn't sign this. Other than completely non-industrialized nations, I wonder if anyone pollutes less per square km of land.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: Darwin333
If that article is accurate, no way in hell would Canada or the US sign it. "Climate debt" to be paid to the developing world? Seriously?

You would think so, but the current administration is all about hurting the US. They want to apologize for everything and feel that they should make others "equals" and they don't want to make people equal by bringing up the lower rungs, they want to lower the upper rungs to the level of the lower ones.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Genx87

With a goal of each nation reducing its emissions by 80%

I knew a lot of these people were out to lunch. But a reduction by 80%? They arent even trying to appear to based in reality anymore.

Nah, it's ass backwards to think that we can continue current levels of CO2 Emissions.

The longer the delay, the greater we'll Pay. Swift action should have begun 1991, but everyone was just twiddling their thumbs then. By 2001 some were doing somethings, others were still twiddling. 2011 is close at hand and still there are many who want to twiddle.

It is even ass backwards to believe any indstrialized country will commit economic suicide by reducing Co2 emissions by 80%. European countries who actually signed Kyoto are having a hard time making emissions. Have any of them made it? Now they expect this kidn of reduction while letting emerging economies off the hook?

This is the kind of gun to the head selective climate BS that paints all conservation in a bad light. These people are the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh for their cause.

We made the mess.

That isnt an answer. And I can gurantee you it wont fly when people are out of a job due to destroying the economy. Better think of something a lot more pragmatic.

It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: actuarial
I seriously hope Canada doesn't sign this. Other than completely non-industrialized nations, I wonder if anyone pollutes less per square km of land.

Whether we Sign or not is no biggie to me, but we need to Act and Act Swiftly.

 

[Infohawk]

Asking people to cut down emissions is useless. We need to incentivize it. I think taxing certain types of energy an investing the proceeds in solar or other clean energy is the best bet. Oh and investing in family planning in poor countries (and at home) doesn't hurt either.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Infohawk
Asking people to cut down emissions is useless. We need to incentivize it. I think taxing certain types of energy an investing the proceeds in solar or other clean energy is the best bet. Oh and investing in family planning in poor countries (and at home) doesn't hurt either.

there's also other things that need to be done, such as getting past deed restrictions on things like higher reflectivity roofs (srsly, we use asphalt roofs, is there a worse roofing material in terms of heat absorption and retention?)

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Genx87

With a goal of each nation reducing its emissions by 80%

I knew a lot of these people were out to lunch. But a reduction by 80%? They arent even trying to appear to based in reality anymore.

Nah, it's ass backwards to think that we can continue current levels of CO2 Emissions.

The longer the delay, the greater we'll Pay. Swift action should have begun 1991, but everyone was just twiddling their thumbs then. By 2001 some were doing somethings, others were still twiddling. 2011 is close at hand and still there are many who want to twiddle.

It is even ass backwards to believe any indstrialized country will commit economic suicide by reducing Co2 emissions by 80%. European countries who actually signed Kyoto are having a hard time making emissions. Have any of them made it? Now they expect this kidn of reduction while letting emerging economies off the hook?

This is the kind of gun to the head selective climate BS that paints all conservation in a bad light. These people are the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh for their cause.

We made the mess.

That isnt an answer. And I can gurantee you it wont fly when people are out of a job due to destroying the economy. Better think of something a lot more pragmatic.

It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

Ha, dream on. No one will go for this. Looks like we'll be choosing the "wrong answer." Freakin' hippies.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Infohawk
Asking people to cut down emissions is useless. We need to incentivize it. I think taxing certain types of energy an investing the proceeds in solar or other clean energy is the best bet. Oh and investing in family planning in poor countries (and at home) doesn't hurt either.

there's also other things that need to be done, such as getting past deed restrictions on things like higher reflectivity roofs (srsly, we use asphalt roofs, is there a worse roofing material in terms of heat absorption and retention?)

Molten Lava would be worse. Not really due to Solar energy though...

There are so many things we can do with a Roof. It's time to Mainstream some changes and quit building the occasional Solar/Green Home and all staring in wonder how great it is. As you point out, Ban Black Shingles or other aesthetic roof toppings. I also think Building a Roof to a Spec that makes it Panel Ready(just made that up, may or may not be necessary :laugh is a good step.

Property Tax Breaks for those who achieve a certain % of Energy Independence and other Incentives remains necessary, but eventually should be fazed out as Supply/Cost Reduction makes it possible to just Require Solar Panels or Solar Heating and other such improvements.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: sandorski




It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

Ha, dream on. No one will go for this. Looks like we'll be choosing the "wrong answer." Freakin' hippies.

Then they are Fail. Personal Responsibility is not just a Slogan.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: sandorski

It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

Take it to the masses and watchout how fast your answer is deemed wrong.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

Take it to the masses and watchout how fast your answer is deemed wrong.

Not "Wrong". Perhaps "Rejected", but that's an entirely different thing.

 

[bfdd]

Originally posted by: yllus

- We pay the world for the honour of letting them buy our energy: From the treaty directly, "industrialized countries are to commit 'at least 0.7%' of their annual GDP, above and beyond existing foreign aid commitments, to compensate the developing world for lost dignity and other distress." And what happens if other nations increase their oil consumption? We, the energy source, pay the resultant emissions fees, not the consumer.

WHAT THE FUCK!? What the fuck does that even mean? How did they "lose dignity?" That doesn't even make sense. No sane person would sign something like this.

 

[yllus]

Originally posted by: bfdd

Originally posted by: yllus

- We pay the world for the honour of letting them buy our energy: From the treaty directly, "industrialized countries are to commit 'at least 0.7%' of their annual GDP, above and beyond existing foreign aid commitments, to compensate the developing world for lost dignity and other distress." And what happens if other nations increase their oil consumption? We, the energy source, pay the resultant emissions fees, not the consumer.

WHAT THE FUCK!? What the fuck does that even mean? How did they "lose dignity?" That doesn't even make sense. No sane person would sign something like this.

Directly from a working draft:

17. Developed (and developing) countries shall/should:

(a) Compensate for damage to the [Least Developed Countries]' economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees;

(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: sandorski




It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

Ha, dream on. No one will go for this. Looks like we'll be choosing the "wrong answer." Freakin' hippies.

Then they are Fail. Personal Responsibility is not just a Slogan.

Personal responsibility is not the American way. Screw this, I'm going to go pour some gasoline on the ground.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Good the more it pisses you and your buds off the better :thumbsup:

Amount of cars owned by yllus: 0
Length of commute for yllus to work: 20 minutes by foot, 7 minutes by streetcar
Amount of oil company stock owned by yllus: Roughly 30% of my portfolio

Now, you drive around for the "work" (ha) you do, don't you? With about 65% of Canada's oil is exported to the U.S., I wonder who's going to suffer more from oil prices going up, you or me?

Hehe, McOwned again indeed. Seriously Dave, do you just enjoy making a complete and utter fool out of yourself in nearly every single thread you post in?

 

[bfdd]

Originally posted by: yllus

Originally posted by: bfdd

Originally posted by: yllus

- We pay the world for the honour of letting them buy our energy: From the treaty directly, "industrialized countries are to commit 'at least 0.7%' of their annual GDP, above and beyond existing foreign aid commitments, to compensate the developing world for lost dignity and other distress." And what happens if other nations increase their oil consumption? We, the energy source, pay the resultant emissions fees, not the consumer.

WHAT THE FUCK!? What the fuck does that even mean? How did they "lose dignity?" That doesn't even make sense. No sane person would sign something like this.

Directly from a working draft:

17. Developed (and developing) countries shall/should:

(a) Compensate for damage to the [Least Developed Countries]' economy and also compensate for lost opportunities, resources, lives, land and dignity, as many will become environmental refugees;

(b) Africa, in the context of environmental justice, should be equitably compensated for environmental, social and economic losses arising from the implementation of response measures.

Like I said... WHAT THE FUCK? no sane person would sign something like that.

 

[Darwin333]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Infohawk
Asking people to cut down emissions is useless. We need to incentivize it. I think taxing certain types of energy an investing the proceeds in solar or other clean energy is the best bet. Oh and investing in family planning in poor countries (and at home) doesn't hurt either.

there's also other things that need to be done, such as getting past deed restrictions on things like higher reflectivity roofs (srsly, we use asphalt roofs, is there a worse roofing material in terms of heat absorption and retention?)

Molten Lava would be worse. Not really due to Solar energy though...

There are so many things we can do with a Roof. It's time to Mainstream some changes and quit building the occasional Solar/Green Home and all staring in wonder how great it is. As you point out, Ban Black Shingles or other aesthetic roof toppings. I also think Building a Roof to a Spec that makes it Panel Ready(just made that up, may or may not be necessary :laugh is a good step.

Property Tax Breaks for those who achieve a certain % of Energy Independence and other Incentives remains necessary, but eventually should be fazed out as Supply/Cost Reduction makes it possible to just Require Solar Panels or Solar Heating and other such improvements.

First, we should be concentrating on commercial roofs for a couple of reasons. We have products on the commercial side that have been real world tested for over a decade and all of the manufacturers have at least a few already on the market. Single ply's have been around for a while but are slow to adopt in a lot of markets, partially due to extremely low puncture resistance (maintenance work on roof top units, hail, wind blown debris can cause a ton of damage to most of them). Recently commercial roofing manufacturers have been releasing modified bituminous cap sheets that are cool roof (CR) rated. Derbigum has had a mod bit cap sheet that meets the CR criteria in the field for over a decade. The best part of it is your not really changing the roof system just the coating on the cap sheet so you retain the benefits of modified bituminous roof systems while getting great solar reflectivity (SR) and thermal emissivity (TE). They don't cost much more than traditional cap sheets either. The last few projects I ran the numbers on had ROI's of under 5 years but with the industry the way it is no one wants to spend a penny more than they have to.

I would guestimate that if you mandated cool roof membranes on all new commercial construction and reroofs it would add 2-3% to the upfront cost but it would pay for itself over the lifespan of the roof.

The biggest issue with a commercial roof being "solar ready" is age. Solar electric systems have 25-30 year lifespans. The average commercial roof has a 20 year lifespan so if your roof is 10 years old you will spend a TON of money reroofing it in 10 years because you have to uninstall and reinstall almost the entire solar system.


As far as the residential side, I am not sure I would start mandating anything yet. We are just seeing CR/Energy star rated shingles and they have very little real world testing on them. One manufacturer on the commercial side had some pretty serious problems with the granules/coating on their first CR sheet that caused massive de-granulation (now the SR is at darn near 0 versus low 30s for non CR cap sheets). In the shingle market we have 2 major players with a handful of CR rated shingles. If we mandate them and they fail in a decade we have serious problems and like I said, the commercial market is where the vast majority of the savings can be realized in both energy and reduction of the "urban heat island" effect.

You do have other cool roof options for the residential market such as metal roofing but they are significantly more expensive and have a few issues that shingle roofs don't such as noise. I can reduce that by adding in rigid insulation in between the roof system and roof deck but we are adding even more cost. As far as solar ready, same issue applies, its all about the age of the roof.

Just a little nitpick on ElFenix's post, all asphalt roof systems have outstanding thermal emissivity (high 80s to low 90s on almost all built up/mod bit systems) they just generally suck at reflectivity.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Darwin333

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: Infohawk
Asking people to cut down emissions is useless. We need to incentivize it. I think taxing certain types of energy an investing the proceeds in solar or other clean energy is the best bet. Oh and investing in family planning in poor countries (and at home) doesn't hurt either.

there's also other things that need to be done, such as getting past deed restrictions on things like higher reflectivity roofs (srsly, we use asphalt roofs, is there a worse roofing material in terms of heat absorption and retention?)

Molten Lava would be worse. Not really due to Solar energy though...

There are so many things we can do with a Roof. It's time to Mainstream some changes and quit building the occasional Solar/Green Home and all staring in wonder how great it is. As you point out, Ban Black Shingles or other aesthetic roof toppings. I also think Building a Roof to a Spec that makes it Panel Ready(just made that up, may or may not be necessary :laugh is a good step.

Property Tax Breaks for those who achieve a certain % of Energy Independence and other Incentives remains necessary, but eventually should be fazed out as Supply/Cost Reduction makes it possible to just Require Solar Panels or Solar Heating and other such improvements.

First, we should be concentrating on commercial roofs for a couple of reasons. We have products on the commercial side that have been real world tested for over a decade and all of the manufacturers have at least a few already on the market. Single ply's have been around for a while but are slow to adopt in a lot of markets, partially due to extremely low puncture resistance (maintenance work on roof top units, hail, wind blown debris can cause a ton of damage to most of them). Recently commercial roofing manufacturers have been releasing modified bituminous cap sheets that are cool roof (CR) rated. Derbigum has had a mod bit cap sheet that meets the CR criteria in the field for over a decade. The best part of it is your not really changing the roof system just the coating on the cap sheet so you retain the benefits of modified bituminous roof systems while getting great solar reflectivity (SR) and thermal emissivity (TE). They don't cost much more than traditional cap sheets either. The last few projects I ran the numbers on had ROI's of under 5 years but with the industry the way it is no one wants to spend a penny more than they have to.

I would guestimate that if you mandated cool roof membranes on all new commercial construction and reroofs it would add 2-3% to the upfront cost but it would pay for itself over the lifespan of the roof.

The biggest issue with a commercial roof being "solar ready" is age. Solar electric systems have 25-30 year lifespans. The average commercial roof has a 20 year lifespan so if your roof is 10 years old you will spend a TON of money reroofing it in 10 years because you have to uninstall and reinstall almost the entire solar system.


As far as the residential side, I am not sure I would start mandating anything yet. We are just seeing CR/Energy star rated shingles and they have very little real world testing on them. One manufacturer on the commercial side had some pretty serious problems with the granules/coating on their first CR sheet that caused massive de-granulation (now the SR is at darn near 0 versus low 30s for non CR cap sheets). In the shingle market we have 2 major players with a handful of CR rated shingles. If we mandate them and they fail in a decade we have serious problems and like I said, the commercial market is where the vast majority of the savings can be realized in both energy and reduction of the "urban heat island" effect.

You do have other cool roof options for the residential market such as metal roofing but they are significantly more expensive and have a few issues that shingle roofs don't such as noise. I can reduce that by adding in rigid insulation in between the roof system and roof deck but we are adding even more cost. As far as solar ready, same issue applies, its all about the age of the roof.

Just a little nitpick on ElFenix's post, all asphalt roof systems have outstanding thermal emissivity (high 80s to low 90s on almost all built up/mod bit systems) they just generally suck at reflectivity.

Thanks for the info.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

We made the mess.

That isnt an answer. And I can gurantee you it wont fly when people are out of a job due to destroying the economy. Better think of something a lot more pragmatic.

Okay. How about: "We broke it, so we need to fix it."

Or a more visceral approach: "We ate a big lunch, and overflowed the toilet with shit. We're responsible for unclogging the toilet."

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

We made the mess.

That isnt an answer. And I can gurantee you it wont fly when people are out of a job due to destroying the economy. Better think of something a lot more pragmatic.

Okay. How about: "We broke it, so we need to fix it."

Or a more visceral approach: "We ate a big lunch, and overflowed the toilet with shit. We're responsible for unclogging the toilet."

But we do not have the responsibility to buy new toilets for everyone in the building

 

[Praxis1452]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: sandorski




It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

Ha, dream on. No one will go for this. Looks like we'll be choosing the "wrong answer." Freakin' hippies.

Then they are Fail. Personal Responsibility is not just a Slogan.

Funny how quickly you reject personal responsibility when it comes to healthcare. It needs to be supplied to everyone because not everyone has the ability to afford it. Many times it's the choices that people make that causes to be unable to afford it, but of course they need to have it anyway. lol

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

We made the mess.

That isnt an answer. And I can gurantee you it wont fly when people are out of a job due to destroying the economy. Better think of something a lot more pragmatic.

Okay. How about: "We broke it, so we need to fix it."

Or a more visceral approach: "We ate a big lunch, and overflowed the toilet with shit. We're responsible for unclogging the toilet."

But we do not have the responsibility to buy new toilets for everyone in the building

There's only one toilet, and we live in it.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
But we do not have the responsibility to buy new toilets for everyone in the building

This treaty would have us breaking all their toilets. They want payment for the damages it will cause them.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Praxis1452

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: sandorski




It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

Ha, dream on. No one will go for this. Looks like we'll be choosing the "wrong answer." Freakin' hippies.

Then they are Fail. Personal Responsibility is not just a Slogan.

Funny how quickly you reject personal responsibility when it comes to healthcare. It needs to be supplied to everyone because not everyone has the ability to afford it. Many times it's the choices that people make that causes to be unable to afford it, but of course they need to have it anyway. lol

Utter Fail. Choice is only part of what makes one Healthy. Even people who make all the best Choices will get Sick, get a nasty Disease, and simply require Healthcare.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: Genx87

Originally posted by: sandorski

It is an answer, in fact, it is The Answer. Sorry.

Take it to the masses and watchout how fast your answer is deemed wrong.

Not "Wrong". Perhaps "Rejected", but that's an entirely different thing.

I am afriad when you want industrialized countries to gut their economies over a man made crisis you are in the wrong. How many people will die from losing their air conditioners alone each year so you can let China and India consume the rest of our manufacturing base? I'd also like to know how we are going to feed ourselves with Farms required to cut output by 80%. Farms are very energy intensive.