I'll just leave this one here: Yet another renewable energy boondoggle
Energy - Fossil, Renewable, Nuclear
- Thread starter Eriol
- Start date
Because remember, only read what you agree with. Then you'll never need to think about WHY you agree with it, supporting evidence, etc.
A climate change denial blog? Not going to bother.
I'll just leave these graphs here from this article on the "denial blog" as you call it:
You can read the rest of the article if you wish. You can believe that everything there is 100% manufactured to confuse you.
Or you can think about what it says, and keep reading. Up to you.
I'm not going to say it's all made up - I don't have the time or the energy to devote to it.
However, I will point out that pretty much all climate scientists agree that going over the 2°C threshhold will cause a runaway effect where the heating up will self-propagate and self-reinforce. Due to, amongst others, melting ice caps, changing ocean currents, and so on. If we reach the 2° point, it's proably nearly impossible to keep it from going over 3° and permanently altering the planet.
Already you can see climate change in action - and anyone who's claiming four once-every-500-years storms in one year is normal just doesn't want to listen.
I don't know how far human action has caused and/or can stop or slow climate change. I do know CO2 is a ridiculous measurement. I don't know whether or not "clean power" is the solution.
But claiming we should just go on as we're going because all is fine and the climate isn't chaning at an accelerated rate, is plain madness.
However, I will point out that pretty much all climate scientists agree that going over the 2°C threshhold will cause a runaway effect where the heating up will self-propagate and self-reinforce. Due to, amongst others, melting ice caps, changing ocean currents, and so on. If we reach the 2° point, it's proably nearly impossible to keep it from going over 3° and permanently altering the planet.
Already you can see climate change in action - and anyone who's claiming four once-every-500-years storms in one year is normal just doesn't want to listen.
I don't know how far human action has caused and/or can stop or slow climate change. I do know CO2 is a ridiculous measurement. I don't know whether or not "clean power" is the solution.
But claiming we should just go on as we're going because all is fine and the climate isn't chaning at an accelerated rate, is plain madness.
This is a HUGE "citation needed" section here. Is it from the same people who said 97% of climate scientists agree on the general issue? If so, read this (or this, showing it's more like 0.3%, from the SAME DATA) and the links in there too.
Media hyperbole on every new storm does not mean it's 100, 500, or whatever year storm.
It's NOT "changing at an accelerated rate" it's just changing, all the time, and we have LITTLE to do with it.
You want environmental problems? How about the "island" of plastic in the pacific? Or 1000s of other big issues that are being sacrificed on the altar of "carbon" and awareness of such. That's completely to the side of the increased prices on energy that all this is causing, which is driving people into energy poverty as well.
Yeah I'm going to call bullshit on your 2 links here. For your first link here is a statement dated eight days later by the authors of the study quoted showing how the attempt to read their paper as a denial of the consesus on climate change is misleading.
As for your second link that's a dishonest way you've framed it - although since that's the same way the author of your link framed it I'll put the blame on him rather than you. The reason it's dishonest is that it is treating the 97% and the 0.3% as referring to the same thing. They're not. The 97% is the number of climate scientists that accept human caused climate change & the 0.3% is the number of papers that explicity state that climate change is real, man-made and dangerous. You'll note that under this definition a paper that says that man-made climate change is real & another paper that says that climate change is real & dangerous could both be thrown into the 99.7% pile because they do not hit all 3 of his requirements 1) real, 2) man-made & 3) dangerous - when the reason it doesn't specifically hit the requirement it's missing is because that's something the paper wasn't specifically looking at (a paper that is asking if man-made climate change is real does not need to ask if it is dangerous, and one asking if is dangerous does not need to ask what the cause is). You'll note also that in his link he flat out says that he added 8000 papers to the sample that were not initially included because they did not give an opinion on the subject - perhaps because that is not a subject they were asking themselves?
Interesting that despite all his sleight of hand to try and push papers into the climate change isn't a thing bracket he still won't tell you how many of these papers actually agree with him. Maybe because that would be even less than 0.3% hmm?
I rarely hear an argument that, at its heart, doesn't sound like, "we really should've started doing something about this fifty/seventy-five/a hundred years ago."
Well, we can't.
--Patrick
I assume you're talking to @Eriol.
Personally, I'm for doing what we can now, yes even if it hurts, and have already gone on record as such. Even if it IS physically impossible to prevent the cascade, we might still slow it enough to give us the time to make a technology breakthrough that WILL allow us to avert disaster.
--Patrick
Yeah. the flashing neon sign gets bigger every post.
I want coal to die. Preferably quickly in order to lessen the pain, but it has to die if this state has any future left. They've put all the eggs, and all the bacon and sausage, too, in the coal basket. To speak of a future without coal is blasphemy in Charleston. So cold, dead hands it is.
Mike, I'll give you lots of credit for this reply. You went and read the articles, and came up with something else to rebut with rather than just saying "A climate change denial blog? Not going to bother." You took the time. I applaud that. I'd rather have a discussion than people just shouting at each other, nobody listening
Addressing your argument directly now, what's being said by the link you gave, and what I linked, are not mutually exclusive. The charts I posted above show a human contribution to Climate Change. It's a fraction of a degree, but it's there. I'll acknowledge that. What I am trying to show that "acknowledgement of ANY effect" and "agreement with catastrophic results" are two VASTLY different things. Read extremely carefully through what you linked and you'll see that any qualitative standard is not stated by the author. Under his stated criteria, I would qualify for agreeing with the statement. I'm obviously saying something quite different than the "consensus" but it shows how "weasel-like" you can be with picking your questions and stating statistics off of them.
Coal has enough reasons to die IMO without the hysteria of Climate Catastrophe added in. The mercury emissions ALONE into our atmosphere from burning most of it is enough reason to say "ya... no" to using it IMO. If there were low-mercury forms, with sufficient filters for the particulate matter (that second part exists) then I don't have a particular problem with it. But even then it can still have some of the horrific worker practices you've reported DarkAudit (and I've seen elsewhere), which again makes it undesirable for those other reasons. But that is far different than saying the FUEL itself is bad because it's burned. I say it's bad because of the mercury content. In any particular mining project you can say it's bad because of the effect it has on workers. Unfiltered and/or low-tech coal power plants can release a lot of OTHER stuff into the environment that is bad too.
But I don't say Coal is bad because it releases CO2, because CO2's impact on the climate is near-negligible. That's my point with the graphs above.
You keep dismissing the rest of us with "bias! Invalid!" when we post links to support our position, and then proceed to nitpick the articles to death. But it's okay for YOU to post a simple "wind kills birds" cartoon? Nope. You're carrying the fossil fuel industry's water, and I'm not going for it.
??? I don't think I mentioned bias at ALL in my post above, but hey, whatever.
As for linked articles... ya, you're supposed to tear apart what people link with either logical argument, or other publications that contradict the assertions as presented. That's kind of what debate IS. So am I "dismissing" you with accusations of "bias" or am I logically tearing apart (apparently that's "nitpicking" now) articles? Pick one. I guess it's possible to do both, but given the lack of accusations of bias from me above... what's up DA?
Ya, the fossil fuel industry fuels our LIVES. It's NOT a demon killing the planet. Are some practices bad? Hell yes they are, just like any other industry, but it is not by definition bad. And the "alternatives" are having massive unintended consequences, from bird destruction, to skyrocketing energy prices, to mining in "interesting" countries causing BAD environmental destruction (or other bad things from a humanitarian perspective too).
And as long as you (and others) keep posting about how there's an impending CATASTROPHE unless we all change radically RIGHT NOW (and remember, don't question giving all your money to the government to fund all of this), I don't need to link on all of those (though they are easy enough to google), nor on every little thing I post, just like anybody else. I'll link some things, state others, just like everybody else.
Gah, that last paragraph is way more extreme than usual, but I'll give you this DA, you know how to push my buttons. Apparently I'm pushing yours too today, so maybe I don't feel bad about it.
On the issue of unintended consequences: Concern that wind turbines are polluting ground water
This last part is echoing other things: (emphasis mine)
Would the author call for such a moratorium for the quarry, mine, or pipeline or are they just feigning concern themselves in order to point out a possible, although as yet unfounded, hypocrisy?
I'm implying that the Precautionary Principal is RARELY even mentioned to begin with, usually only against oil & gas (endless Environmental Reviews with few set rules beforehand), and NEVER against so-called "green" technologies.
So just pointing out possibly hypocrisy. Got it.
Yes. Obviously what we need next is some nice, investigative environmental impact studies...studies funded by the wind turbine people, of course, because they're the ones who best understand how to measure what impact wind turbines will have on the environment. And any studies funded by any fossil fuel-related company will automatically be discounted because what can THEY possibly know about "green" energy?
--Patrick
--Patrick
Last edited:
I mean I know it's happening in Canada while my example happened in America.
But with Fraking we had people's water being lit on fire and it took ages for anybody in power to really check on that.
I was so sure this was going to be a deliberately minimized headline, but it wasn't: CN train derails in Alberta, spills small amount of crude. What I mean is that so often reporting is done with litres or gallons if it's a pipeline, but barrels if it's trains or something else that isn't vilified (yet). In this case, the headline is completely accurate, and litres in this case is also correct IMO:
Quite frankly I'm surprised this is more than a local story with THAT small amount spilled. I'm glad it's basically nothing. For reference, 1 standard oil barrel is about 159 litres.
The winds that caused those accidents were bananas. We had semis being blown off highways, trains getting derailed. Hurricane Alberta was nuts. The only thing that kept the trees from being blown to pieces is they'd already been decimated by the winds earlier this summer and most of the leaves were gone.
Interesting case going to the Supreme Court: Supreme Court to decide whether companies can walk away from abandoned wells in Alberta
I support development (and industrial development) of virtually every kind, but STRONG and enforceable laws need to be in place that cleanup is also done. If it's not economically viable to do the activity if you need to clean up as well, then it shouldn't happen at all. Similar to how you'd never buy a house if you couldn't afford fire insurance, the same principal applies here. Hence why I'm 100% OK with open pit mining (or other "destructive" activities), as long as all environmental stuff is done to reclaim it at the end, and it happens too. But too often mechanisms to pass off liability mean the government (aka the people) are left holding the bag, which is wrong IMO.
This affects everywhere in the country, and is IMO a good thing if the Supreme Court reverses the lower court ruling. Basically, the lower court said that in bankruptcy the creditors (banks often) and shareholders get their cut, and THEN any money left goes to environmental cleanup (I have no idea where employee salary might be in the mix, not covered by the article). IMO bankruptcy order for corporations should be employee salary & severance, environmental cleanup, THEN everything else. This feels like small companies that can go bankrupt are basically liability dodging mechanisms for the big players that are producing. So I hope this goes a different direction and those that constructed things (or the beneficiaries of such) are forced to pay for cleanup.
I support development (and industrial development) of virtually every kind, but STRONG and enforceable laws need to be in place that cleanup is also done. If it's not economically viable to do the activity if you need to clean up as well, then it shouldn't happen at all. Similar to how you'd never buy a house if you couldn't afford fire insurance, the same principal applies here. Hence why I'm 100% OK with open pit mining (or other "destructive" activities), as long as all environmental stuff is done to reclaim it at the end, and it happens too. But too often mechanisms to pass off liability mean the government (aka the people) are left holding the bag, which is wrong IMO.
When the official position of the state government is coal is all you've got, period, the end, is it really a good idea to brag about a huge natural gas deal with China that will likely kill coal for good?
It's all going to come to nothing, because WV is just that stupid. If not stupider.
It's all going to come to nothing, because WV is just that stupid. If not stupider.
One bitcoin transaction uses as much energy as your house does in a week.
So why aren't states promoting this as a way to shore up their energy sectors. Looking at YOU, WV. Mining for cryptocurrency would burn through a lot of coal.
So why aren't states promoting this as a way to shore up their energy sectors. Looking at YOU, WV. Mining for cryptocurrency would burn through a lot of coal.
I'm quoting from above Bubble because pretty much all of your arguments are addressed in this article from Australia: Core of climate science is in the real-world data
Warning, that article is NOT short.
Google now 100% solar and wind powered.
Closer to home, the gas deal WV had with China looks to be in trouble already.
Closer to home, the gas deal WV had with China looks to be in trouble already.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, I mean, good for them investing in renewable energy and all, but that's not how that works. Wind Farms in South Dakota, Iowa, and Oklahoma don't provide the power in Mountain View, CA (where Google is HQ'd), or where their innumerable data centers are (which is all over the map from Oregon to South Carolina). Generating it is only half the battle - transmission to where it needs to be used is the other, and that's a very imperfect process. It's why we don't just carpet the Sahara in solar panels and call it solved.
So, yeah, putting X megawatts of wind power into the grid in Oklahoma doesn't mean their data centers in other places aren't running on coal.
When they've literally disconnected from the mains, I'll believe it. Until then, they're still relying on conventional backup, and just "buying" more energy when they're not actually using it.
And here's a good article about the UK as to WHY this doesn't work: http://euanmearns.com/grid-scale-storage-of-renewable-energy-the-impossible-dream/
NASA doing interesting stuff: Mars and beyond: Modular nuclear reactors set to power next wave of deep space exploration
Too bad there wasn't development towards smaller-scale nuclear on EARTH that was well-funded. You "probably" wouldn't want it at home-scale, because people are idiots (and/or fissile material being everywhere is also bad for reasons of BOOM), but more development into safer widespread nuclear would be great. If this technology can transition to this way, great, though something tells me this is more like a long-term nuclear battery, since there's no mention of how to GET the waste out, let alone anything after that.
Still, better power for space is great too.
Too bad there wasn't development towards smaller-scale nuclear on EARTH that was well-funded. You "probably" wouldn't want it at home-scale, because people are idiots (and/or fissile material being everywhere is also bad for reasons of BOOM), but more development into safer widespread nuclear would be great. If this technology can transition to this way, great, though something tells me this is more like a long-term nuclear battery, since there's no mention of how to GET the waste out, let alone anything after that.
Still, better power for space is great too.
How are a few flying samples more representative than what the companies say they're actually burning through things like fuel, which they have to buy and thus they know exactly how much they've bought, and therefore burned. And the taxes on such (which the government will know), and such? Calculating such isn't mysterious.
Basically, the original article is just anti-oilsands FUD. It's from the CBC, what do you expect?
Not that CO2 is dangerous at all of course (and you've been lied to about its effect - hint: logarithmic), but do you want to bring that into here? Don't we have another thread for that?
Yes, CO2 isn't dangerous at all... there's realy no reaosn to open that garage door while your car is running...
Last edited: