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The science is as settled as science ever is- there's a broad consensus with some pushing an alternate view. They've got to prove the consensus wrong, and when they do they'll be world famous. I don't believe they've done so yet.

For what it's worth, a transfer to Nuclear as a stop gap for a few decades while we research other sources is my preferred solution, but there are no free lunches with energy and all of the renewables have downsides that make them impractical at present.

What gets my goat is the implication of a massive conspiracy amongst scientists. It just doesn't make sense that such a thing would exist- scientists are all in competition with each other, proving each other wrong is beneficial for them and raises their profile. There's no motivation for them to engage in a conspiracy beyond huge amounts of hush money, and I don't see much evidence of that knocking around.

 Da Boss wrote:
The science is as settled as science ever is- there's a broad consensus with some pushing an alternate view. They've got to prove the consensus wrong, and when they do they'll be world famous. I don't believe they've done so yet.

The debate isn't so much if anthropogenic factors as causing recent warming trends... but, by how much.

For what it's worth, a transfer to Nuclear as a stop gap for a few decades while we research other sources is my preferred solution, but there are no free lunches with energy and all of the renewables have downsides that make them impractical at present.

This... so much this. We should be throwing the kitchen sink at this.

What gets my goat is the implication of a massive conspiracy amongst scientists. It just doesn't make sense that such a thing would exist- scientists are all in competition with each other, proving each other wrong is beneficial for them and raises their profile. There's no motivation for them to engage in a conspiracy beyond huge amounts of hush money, and I don't see much evidence of that knocking around.

I get where you're coming from and I agree with you.

It's the Policy Makers and Media is driving this whole "We MUCH DO SOMETHING!" without having any meaninful discussions on the why. Any changes attributing to reduce greenhouse gases would have a huge impact to the poor/middle class. If it's any group who needs convincing... it's this one, because they'll bear the burden of the costs.

Case in point: When Obama campaigned that energy prices "will necessarily skyrocket" or threaten to "bankrupt" any companies attempting to build new coal plants.... without any sort of meaningful justifications.

Let's have this talk... but as an adult and not as an elitist vs. laymen.

 whembly wrote:

Let's have this talk... but as an adult and not as an elitist vs. laymen.

That is, quite frankly, impossible. The fact of the matter is that most people know virtually nothing about climatology (or general "science") so the beginning of the conversation would involve educating those people; framing the entire matter as one of "elitists vs. laymen". Indeed, this is already happening and you're already objecting to it.

 Da Boss wrote:

For what it's worth, a transfer to Nuclear as a stop gap for a few decades while we research other sources is my preferred solution, but there are no free lunches with energy and all of the renewables have downsides that make them impractical at present.
.

this... x 1000million bajillion...


heck, if we actually used it enough, people might refine the nuclear power tech enough that it produces an insignificant amount of waste, or we learn to deal with it effectively...

either way, it hurts the enviroment much less then buring fossil feuls as we are now... less radiation from nuke plants then burning coal as well... literally a no lose scenario.

 easysauce wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

For what it's worth, a transfer to Nuclear as a stop gap for a few decades while we research other sources is my preferred solution, but there are no free lunches with energy and all of the renewables have downsides that make them impractical at present.
.

this... x 1000million bajillion...


heck, if we actually used it enough, people might refine the nuclear power tech enough that it produces an insignificant amount of waste, or we learn to deal with it effectively...

either way, it hurts the enviroment much less then buring fossil feuls as we are now... less radiation from nuke plants then burning coal as well... literally a no lose scenario.

And in the mean time, some evil mastermind billionaire should kidnap all the top nuclear fusion scientists so they can work together in a secret underground volcano base to get Fusion power going. Then, just to show how evil they are, they secretly construct reactors all over the world and start selling energy to the world at cheap prices, just enough to break even! Mwahahahahahahaha!

I mean, there are downsides to nuclear too (obviously, the waste), and I think you've got to think carefully about where you put the plants and really cross check your assumptions (Fukushima essentially happened because the seismologists who were giving advice about the location of the plant assumed no earthquake of that magnitude could occur in that region because one had never been observed. The disaster was avoidable if that assumption had not been made).

But it's the least bad solution available to most countries.

 Da Boss wrote:
I mean, there are downsides to nuclear too (obviously, the waste), and I think you've got to think carefully about where you put the plants and really cross check your assumptions (Fukushima essentially happened because the seismologists who were giving advice about the location of the plant assumed no earthquake of that magnitude could occur in that region because one had never been observed. The disaster was avoidable if that assumption had not been made).

But it's the least bad solution available to most countries.

Absolutely... we'd need to be smart about it.

If it were to be massed produced, pebble bed reactors may be the most viable. Just gotta ensure there's a plan to store the spent materials before we start mass producing this.

 whembly wrote:
The debate isn't so much if anthropogenic factors as causing recent warming trends... but, by how much.

Which is utterly meaningless in this context.

 Palindrome wrote:

Its inaccurate certainly.

I may be channelling stupid here, but I cannot see what is so special about the period of 1960-1990 that it is held as important enough to base that graph on. Why base it on those years?

*edit. It's too early in the morning for graphs and as I have said before graphs are evil.

 whembly wrote:
If you're in a global market, it'll put you in a severe disadvantage. The only way something like this would work, is if, somehow EVERY nation is under some sort of "carbon tax" mechanism.

Really depends on the country you're living in.

The carbon tax can be a strong incentive for energy savings.

Most european countries have very strong petrol taxes. In France, gasoline costs about $8-9 per gallon. That could be painful, but we just adapted. V6 and V8 are basically unheard of, we learnt to squeeze 150 bhp from less than 2 litres 4 cylinder engines. Even in the 90's, a car with a fuel consumption of 15-20 mpg would be seen as a gas-guzzler.

Moreover, most of this cost is made of taxes. They can be adjusted by the state to keep some price stability. Being taxes, most of this money stays at home, and is used to build roads, railways, schools... instead of being used by some crazy saudis to buy their latest luxury yacht.

 whembly wrote:
Woah... and I think US' politics is such a disfunctional mess.

The US system is a disfunctional mess. Just for different reasons.

Note, for instance, that despite the massive unpopularity of the current budget bits and pieces of it are slowly being passed. Whether it's better to have unpopular legislation still able to be passed, or to give a minority party the power to block anything is a very good question.

Maybe I need to revisit the merits of the Parlimentry system vs ours. o.O

Honestly, the differences that cause the major problems in each system aren't in the formal processes of government. For instance, there's nothing in each system that dictates how each major party selects its candidates, just that in the US over time you guys have come to have primary elections with pretty much anyone free to run, while over here the branch elections are highly controlled by the parties (with candidates just selected in many cases with no consideration of the preferences of locals).

In the US that means you get a lot of nutters running (and given that hardliners are way over-represented in primary voting, you get a lot of hardline nutters actually winning primaries). In Australia it means that successful people who want to try their hand at politics are frequently kept out of the process by idiots who've done nothing more than spend a long time within the political machine.

I'm going to some readings on what's going on down under... might startup a different thread.

Cool


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
If you're in a global market, it'll put you in a severe disadvantage. The only way something like this would work, is if, somehow EVERY nation is under some sort of "carbon tax" mechanism.

Well, see that's the interesting thing about the Australian example - industry wasn't meaningfully impacted at all. Outside of certain heavily energy intensive industries (like aluminium production, and they were exempted from the cost increases) the impact on business was pretty minor.

Let me put it this way - if there's enough scope for variations in local talent bases and capital and infrastructure for industry to continue despite having labour costs that can be as much as 100 times greater and industry still competitive, then moving production costs up by a few percent won't demolish industry.