Soren wrote on Nov 24^th, 2009 at 2:48pm:


Soren,

I can't believe that you have not had at least had a glimmer of an insight from the details that I have posted.

Maybe what you rebel against is the stereotype greenie. To be quite honest, I have a deep mistrust of the feral non-toilet trained deep greenie myself.

Maybe you think that this is all just a plot to redistribute wealth.

Well maybe some people have hijacked the issue and they want to use it as an excuse to redress the injustices of the world. That would not surprise me. The environmental movement has more than a few motley characters. THey need to be kept under control.

All I'm asking for is a move (as quickly as possible) towards renewable energy so that we can phase out fossil fuel reliant technology in a similar way to how we phased out steam powered railway engines in the mid 20th century. We need the renewable energy mainly because our carbon based economies are untenable, and because we need to maintain and build on global wealth in order to survive.  

Unless we make some very deliberate moves towards that end, the current civilisation is in for a very hard ride this century. That's not a belief based on faith. It's a forecast based on the best facts at my disposal.

The build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and its consequences of ocean acidification and global warming needs to be tackled on all fronts, and if that means selling more nuclear fuel or even building nuclear power stations, that will win hands down over procrastinating until we can build solar power stations.

Above all, our Western civilisation has to survive, and we need to start looking at other challenges to maintain the spark. Such challenges may ultimately include the colonisation of the Moon and Mars.

There will always be poor people, but unless we can continue to advance our world economy and civilisation, as a species, we'll suffer a worse kind of poverty - a poverty of spirit.

I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet and say "It's all too hard"

I sometimes wonder if humanity is worth saving, but in the end, what else do we have?

Do not rule out the nuclear option!

4th Generation plants generate new fuel while burning the fuel they are given. Minimal waste (bury in inactive Broken Hill mines) and generate new fuel.

bit later there is the nuclear fusion option!

Soren wrote on Nov 24^th, 2009 at 10:56pm:


I think you need to brush up on your classics. What Sisyphus was specifically punished for was chaining up Thanatos (death) so that no person could pass the gates of Hades. He dared to interfere with fate. Any trickery was to prevent his own demise.  

- I prefer Albert Camus' 'Le Mythe de Sisyphe' where he likens it to the struggle of human endeavour, absurd as it may be.

The only thing I'm trying to convey is something that is so obvious that I can't understand why it hasn't clicked yet.  I believe that I've explained enough of the science to make the point many times over.  The only thing that stands in the way is your faith in the denialists.  That's what transforms the communication of basic High-School physics into a sisyphean task.

You are the one with the faith that a few eccentrics might have a point (actually they are all different points- I must post a matrix some day). I take nothing on faith. I have worked hard to understand the atmospheric physics that enables reasonably accurate predictions of global climate, but the basic science that enables us to understand the process is elementary.

Do I have any doubt? Since we're dealing with basic science that is easily understood, I have as much doubt in this as I have with the theory that the Earth orbits the Sun once a year, or to deprive you of the pleasure of being picky, around a common centre of gravity.

Yadda,

You bring up some interesting points which probably deserve a new thread.

Soren,

Ok, I talked to God, and he explained to me that climate change is real. 


Quote:

muso wrote on Nov 25^th, 2009 at 11:15am:


Did he say it was a punishment for your sins, though? And for using fire too much in order to cook your sacrificial offering (and for your vanity for producing too much tooth paste and loo paper, notorious trapping of Judeao-Christian civilisation)?

OK, At last I've found a description of the basic physics of climate change on the web, and it's detailed enough to show that it's rigorous.

Here is the link:

http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/hafemeister.cfm

So that saves me from transcribing from a textbook.

Which denialist said this?

"Well, the thing is we deal with an incomplete understanding of the way the earth's system works, we know enough to say as the IPCC said that greenhouse gases cause warming. They are 90 per cent sure, 90 per cent plus sure that it's caused by humans, we can go that far. In the last few years, were there hasn't been a continuation of that warming trend, we don't understand all of the factors that create earth's climate, so there are some things we don't understand, that's what the scientists were email about, you know, we don't understand the way the whole system works, and we have to find out."



Tim Flannery.





Do you have to be an evil denialist to spot the awkward contradiction? We are pretty sure it's us even though we don't understand how the system works.

Soren,

The main emphasis is on that 2 degrees C guardrail, however the latest research suggests that even if there was a global cut in emissions by 60% by 2020, the best we could achieve would be a plateau at 2.5 degrees.

That is based on a climate sensitivity of 3 degrees.

As far as Tim Flannery is concerned, I really think he has the wrong end of the stick.  The recent levelling off in global temperature is due to natural variation. These short term variations have a magnitude similar to that of the warming trend, which means when solar output reduces due to solar cycle, there will be a temporary dip in the trend.

Of course when we go up the other side of the solar cycle, that's when the warming trend and the solar trend reinforce, causing a bump. The net forcing for solar variation is around 2 Watts per square metre, so allowing for water vapour feedbacks, you could multiply that by 2 or 3, which is not much in the scheme of things.

At this stage, we're looking for the peak of cycle 24 around 2013. So things should start to heat up in the next few years.

I really don't know why you have such a problem understanding this.