The Coming Paradigm Shift on Climate

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Warm outside again today, I'm getting worried

I am too. I might have to cut my grass here in 2-3 weeks.

 

[jmiller676]

Warm outside again today, I'm getting worried

12' jon boat for sale, it will be a life saver, get it while it lasts....

$987,754,248.23 TODAY ONLY!

 

[Bunnykid68]

I am too. I might have to cut my grass here in 2-3 weeks.

Mine needs to be cut already

 

[JeremiahJohnson]

Now - take a look at how many wind mills there are, solar panels, etc, look at how much you'll need to replace fossil fuels, and get back to me.

 

[jamil]

While there is disagreement on details of climate change, I just don't see why we shouldn't leave this planet better than how we found it. If the green crowd is wrong then I guess there's nothing to worry about, but if they are right we will eventually come to a point where it's unsustainable. Better safe than sorry if you ask me. I want to know why some people on here don't agree with keeping the planet clean and suitable for people for generations that'll come after us.

First, "better safe than sorry" isn't a good enough reason to price poor old granny out of heating her home. It doesn't consider the cost of "safer" or establish the extent thereof. It also doesn't consider the likelihood, nor attempt to calculate the actual severity of "sorry", nor guarantee us that "safer" won't actually make us "sorrier".

Second, I don't know why you think that people who are skeptical of the impact man has on climate, necessarily want to make the planet dirty for their kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM

If you weren't alive around 1970 you might think the above public service message overstated reality. But yeah, we really threw trash out all over the place without any thought. It was indeed a mindset of indifference. I see commercials like that as beneficial. After seeing it a few times, I stopped throwing trash out the car window. And I scolded my parents when I saw them do it. And not because of the Indian's tears, or because I felt ashamed, but because it showed my behavior from a different perspective, that made me more conscious about what I was actually doing.

That's a positive message, IMO. However, the "green" crowd isn't really like that, at least not anymore. It is manufactured. Artificial. Superficial. Much more like "cool" is manufactured high school society. And there's not such a fine line between changing social behavior through real information, and coercing behavior through fear, intimidation, ridicule, and propaganda. The difference is obvious enough if we care to pay attention.

I hope one day we switch to other means of energy production. We will run out of oil and natural resources one day. I think the issue will be shelved until it's too late. We have the means to do it. Solar and wind energy is our best bet. Clean, reliable, and most important of all it's free. We'll never run out of wind, and solar energy is guaranteed for another few billion years. I can't argue against that. There really is no excuse to not use them.

Wind, solar, hydro are indeed free. The wind blows, water flows, the sun shines whether we harness them or not. So, go ahead. This very afternoon go outside and throw a steak on the grill. No charcoal, no flame. Just wind and solar. I hope you like your steak rare. Converting those "free" energy sources into a usable form costs money.

A gallon of gasoline fluctuates between $3.50 and $4.00 per gallon. That gallon represents 114K BTU. That's the same as 33.41 KWH of electrical power. On average I pay just under $.11 / KWH from the electric coop, so let's call that an even $3.50 for using 33.41 KWH. Pretty comparable to gasoline. The power coop gets its energy from another fossil fuel source, coal burning plants..at least for the time being. If the coal plants were replaced with natural gas, another fossil fuel, I'd pay possibly much less, but anywhere from $.08 per KWH to $.12, depending on several factors other than just the cost of the fuel.

So let's talk about renewable energy costs. Especially when you remove the government subsidies, the total cost per BTU for most "green" sources of energy, is typically much higher.

You think Solar and Wind are the best choices. Solar is not anywhere near ready to replace our current energy needs. It is most expensive. That 33.41 KWH of electricity produced from a solar power plant would cost ~ $8.75. It's just not cost effective enough to create anything more than a niche market. Solar does have its advantages. It's probably the most fit for individual use since it's not as practical for most individuals to build a hydro dam or wind mill in their yard. If solar were less expensive--or maybe I should say--when it is affordable for average people, then average people will use solar.

Wind or hydro are more affordable sources as power plants. Unlike solar, at least they're in the same order of magnitude as fossil fuels. But they have their own costs other than just $, like environmental costs.

I would like to see alternatives to fossil fuels get better, and be more available to individuals without the power company. But they're not there yet. But getting there should be the result of free people seeing a need and filling it through innovation, rather than it being the result of forced economic fascism. Necessity is the mother of invention. But we're trying to artificially create necessity and fuel it with the resources everyone. I don't think that, itself, is sustainable.





BTW, someone once told me they got that saying a bit sideways. It should be "Mother is the necessity of invention". At least that's how it often works in my house.

 

[JeremiahJohnson]

Cost of doing it is a valid argument.

My point is there simply aren't enough places or enough resources to get where we can replace fossil fuels - even if we could afford it.

So, what's the answer? Well mandating what's not affordable or possible certainly isn't the answer. I think the answer is a multiplicity of practical applicable replacements that will take decades to develop and implement as the technology and economy allow. It will happen normally and fluidly as markets and supply/demand dictate. However if you rig the game by mandating something not yet affordable and can't possibly fill the gap no matter how much money you throw at it, you spell failure and economic ruin.

 

[Trooper]

BTW, how do we know what normal temperatures have been in Earth's history? It does appear that it has been, normally, far warmer.

 

[Manatee]

It all depends on how you are raised. The only thing I remember being thrown to the ground in my extended family in the 1950's was unfiltered cigarettes. If my dad ever caught one of us throwing trash out a car window, a beating would occur and punishment (like cleaning up an empty lot).

He had a bunch of kids and not one of them littered. So, it depends on how you were raised.

 

[jamil]

nuclear is the solution to our problems. wind and solar are fads that will go the way of the dodo bird imo.

Nuclear is not the answer. It's more expensive than fossil fuels and carries a much higher risk.

Fossil Fuels because this:

Dammit. Is there a way to cancel rep. I shouldn't have wasted the rep on the other post. This one is much better.

BTW, doesn't "U2hvb3Rlcg==" get you banned? Also, to answer "U2VyaW91c2x5PyAgWW91IHJlYWxseSB0b29rIHRoZSB0aW1lIH RvIHRyYW5zbGF0ZSB0aGlzPw==", yes, I did. I'm feeling a bit under the weather and I have clock cycles to burn.

Germany Breaks Its Own Record For Solar Power Generation | ThinkProgress
yeah.. i'm gonna hafta to go ahead and call BS on ya...

No, you're right. Solar energy is not a fad, even in the US market, Prius leasing trendy liberals notwithstanding. But it's still very expensive, and beyond an average individual's means. Well, unless you have a government willing to take money away from people who earned it, to give to people who didn't.

 

[Trooper]

Nuclear is not the answer. It's more expensive than fossil fuels and carries a much higher risk.



Dammit. Is there a way to cancel rep. I shouldn't have wasted the rep on the other post. This one is much better.

BTW, doesn't "U2hvb3Rlcg==" get you banned? Also, to answer "U2VyaW91c2x5PyAgWW91IHJlYWxseSB0b29rIHRoZSB0aW1lIH RvIHRyYW5zbGF0ZSB0aGlzPw==", yes, I did. I'm feeling a bit under the weather and I have clock cycles to burn.



No, you're right. Solar energy is not a fad, even in the US market, Prius leasing trendy liberals notwithstanding. But it's still very expensive, and beyond an average individual's means. Well, unless you have a government willing to take money away from people who earned it, to give to people who didn't.

Nuclear power using Thorium is not all that dangerous. And the only reason that it is expensive is due to the environmentalists. Get rid of them as a political force and energy prices drop.

We need something far more powerful, in a smaller package, as we are heading towards anti gravity and space travel which will take huge amounts of energy, far more than we produce worldwide over decades.

 

[jamil]

It all depends on how you are raised. The only thing I remember being thrown to the ground in my extended family in the 1950's was unfiltered cigarettes. If my dad ever caught one of us throwing trash out a car window, a beating would occur and punishment (like cleaning up an empty lot).

He had a bunch of kids and not one of them littered. So, it depends on how you were raised.

As does just about every behavior. I remember that by the late 60s, it seemed like most people littered without giving it any thought. Point was, back then, regardless of why people gave it no thought, they just didn't. Trash along the roadside was so prevalent then that you almost didn't notice it. That "keep America beautiful" campaign helped show people that littering does have a negative impact. But today's "green" strategy of trying to scare, shame, and ridicule people into paying much more for energy because "better to be safe than sorry" isn't the same thing.

 

[indyblue]

First, "better safe than sorry" isn't a good enough reason to price poor old granny out of heating her home. It doesn't consider the cost of "safer" or establish the extent thereof. It also doesn't consider the likelihood, nor attempt to calculate the actual severity of "sorry", nor guarantee us that "safer" won't actually make us "sorrier".

Second, I don't know why you think that people who are skeptical of the impact man has on climate, necessarily want to make the planet dirty for their kids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OHG7tHrNM

If you weren't alive around 1970 you might think the above public service message overstated reality. But yeah, we really threw trash out all over the place without any thought. It was indeed a mindset of indifference. I see commercials like that as beneficial. After seeing it a few times, I stopped throwing trash out the car window. And I scolded my parents when I saw them do it. And not because of the Indian's tears, or because I felt ashamed, but because it showed my behavior from a different perspective, that made me more conscious about what I was actually doing.

That's a positive message, IMO. However, the "green" crowd isn't really like that, at least not anymore. It is manufactured. Artificial. Superficial. Much more like "cool" is manufactured high school society. And there's not such a fine line between changing social behavior through real information, and coercing behavior through fear, intimidation, ridicule, and propaganda. The difference is obvious enough if we care to pay attention.



Wind, solar, hydro are indeed free. The wind blows, water flows, the sun shines whether we harness them or not. So, go ahead. This very afternoon go outside and throw a steak on the grill. No charcoal, no flame. Just wind and solar. I hope you like your steak rare. Converting those "free" energy sources into a usable form costs money.

A gallon of gasoline fluctuates between $3.50 and $4.00 per gallon. That gallon represents 114K BTU. That's the same as 33.41 KWH of electrical power. On average I pay just under $.11 / KWH from the electric coop, so let's call that an even $3.50 for using 33.41 KWH. Pretty comparable to gasoline. The power coop gets its energy from another fossil fuel source, coal burning plants..at least for the time being. If the coal plants were replaced with natural gas, another fossil fuel, I'd pay possibly much less, but anywhere from $.08 per KWH to $.12, depending on several factors other than just the cost of the fuel.

So let's talk about renewable energy costs. Especially when you remove the government subsidies, the total cost per BTU for most "green" sources of energy, is typically much higher.

You think Solar and Wind are the best choices. Solar is not anywhere near ready to replace our current energy needs. It is most expensive. That 33.41 KWH of electricity produced from a solar power plant would cost ~ $8.75. It's just not cost effective enough to create anything more than a niche market. Solar does have its advantages. It's probably the most fit for individual use since it's not as practical for most individuals to build a hydro dam or wind mill in their yard. If solar were less expensive--or maybe I should say--when it is affordable for average people, then average people will use solar.

Wind or hydro are more affordable sources as power plants. Unlike solar, at least they're in the same order of magnitude as fossil fuels. But they have their own costs other than just $, like environmental costs.

I would like to see alternatives to fossil fuels get better, and be more available to individuals without the power company. But they're not there yet. But getting there should be the result of free people seeing a need and filling it through innovation, rather than it being the result of forced economic fascism. Necessity is the mother of invention. But we're trying to artificially create necessity and fuel it with the resources everyone. I don't think that, itself, is sustainable.


BTW, someone once told me they got that saying a bit sideways. It should be "Mother is the necessity of invention". At least that's how it often works in my house.

And that "Native American" wasn't even "Indian", he was an Italian!

Those little vent windows were outlawed in 1968 due to the ease of throwing trash out them. You'll notice the only cars that still had them were
68 GTO's (and similar cars) because the law had passed after 1968 model production started. It was also a cost saving due to chrome.

Most folks think that you can just put up solar panels and they work forever without maintenance. Solar panels have a limited lifespan, that currently isn't long enough to recoup all the costs.

The Real Lifespan of Solar Panels - Energy Informative

Solar cell type	Output loss in percent per year
	Pre	Post
Amorphous silicon (a-Si)	0.96	0.87
Cadmium telluride (CdTe)	3.33	0.4
Copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS)	1.44	0.96
Monocrystalline silicon (mono-Si)	0.47	0.36
Polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si)	0.61	0.64

Pre and Post refer to installations prior to and post 2000. Data is taken from Photovoltaic Degradation Rates — An Analytical Review NREL.[SUP][1][/SUP]

 

[churchmouse]

And that "Native American" wasn't even "Indian", he was an Italian!

Those little vent windows were outlawed in 1968 due to the ease of throwing trash out them. You'll notice the only cars that still had them were
68 GTO's (and similar cars) because the law had passed after 1968 model production started. It was also a cost saving due to chrome.

"Astro Ventilation"

 

[Smokepole]

James Lovelock
"We need a more authoritative world. We’ve become a sort of cheeky, egalitarian world where everyone can have their say. It’s all very well, but there are certain circumstances – a war is a typical example – where you can’t do that. You’ve got to have a few people with authority who you trust who are running it. And they should be very accountable too, of course.But it can’t happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lashed out at global warming skeptics in 2007, declaring"This is treason and we need to start treating them as traitors."

UN special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland – said “it’s completely immoral, even, to question” the UN’s scientific consensus on climate.

In 2008, prominent Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki called for government leaders skeptical of global warming to be “thrown into jail.”

British journalism professor Alex Lockwood said that writers questioning global warming should be banned.

In 2009, a writer at Talking Points Memo advocated that global warming “deniers” be executed or jailed.

January 2014 , an assistant philosophy professor at Rochester Institute of Technology said he wants to send people who disagree with him about global warming to jail.

But it is science...for the children...please we need to tax carbon to save humanity.

This is the Left making it PERSONAL. And one undeniable truth in life, is that when zealous advocates of something are losing an argument and have no way back THEY ALWAYS GET PERSONAL AND SEEK TO VILIFY THE OPPOSITION, often in the vilest of terms. Moral of the story, when the opposition get personal they have all but lost and you are winning. Don't let up.

 

[Smokepole]

Like I've said before, most of the information I've seen quoted on climate change science turns out to have come from primarily politically-based sources.

Getting your science information from politically-based sources is like ordering a pizza from a Chinese restaurant. Sure you might get one, just don't be surprised if it has some soy sauce and squid on it.

And the one big glaring, gaping, gnarly hole that I see in the argument whichever side you are on is that I don't think we are even arguing the real important question. You can argue all you want about "prove that the climate is really changing" and/or "prove that humans are causing the change". And that's fine and well, but like I've said before, even if it is true, and even if humans are causing it, who can prove that humans are capable of stopping it. Show me one case where all the developed nations ever got together and cooperated to accomplish ANYTHING.

The movie 2012. All of the nations got together and build the Arks in China to save mankind. Maybe the planet can get together and build environmental Arks.

 

[Smokepole]

In the '70s we were told were facing an imminent ice age. Then it became global warming. Now it's man caused climate change. What is the next manufactured imaginary crisis on the list?

My question to that has been "What did we do. Overcorrect?"

 

[Bunnykid68]

And that "Native American" wasn't even "Indian", he was an Italian!

Those little vent windows were outlawed in 1968 due to the ease of throwing trash out them. You'll notice the only cars that still had them were
68 GTO's (and similar cars) because the law had passed after 1968 model production started. It was also a cost saving due to chrome.

[SUP]1][/SUP]

Somebody better tell GM that then because my 85 GMC has those nice little wing windows

 

[printcraft]

Somebody better tell GM that then because my 85 GMC has those nice little wing windows

Pickup trucks were probably exempt.
Dumb, but there it is.
I know several of my trucks had them... 79 Big 10, 75 4x4, 77 K5 Blazer all had wings.

 

[jamil]

Somebody better tell GM that then because my 85 GMC has those nice little wing windows

Pickup truck were probably exempt.
Dumb, but there it is.
I know several of my trucks had them... 79 Big 10, 75 4x4, 77 K5 Blazer all had wings.

I was going to say I can sure remember some later trucks that had wing windows.

Speaking of wing windows, I had a boss years ago who liked to make fantastic claims. Once he claimed he had his '68 super bee going so fast he could steer it with the wing windows.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

And that "Native American" wasn't even "Indian", he was an Italian!

Those little vent windows were outlawed in 1968 due to the ease of throwing trash out them. You'll notice the only cars that still had them were
68 GTO's (and similar cars) because the law had passed after 1968 model production started. It was also a cost saving due to chrome.

So, we all spent all that effort to clean our sh*t up and stop throwing trash everywhere because of that commercial, and the Indian wasn't even REAL?

I feel so cheated.


And I've owned two 90's model chevy vans that both had wing windows. Auto-makers quit making cars with wing windows because they often leaked, they were easy entry points for thieves, the styles were changing, and it was way cheaper. But they didn't quit because of littering.