What if it isn't the CO2?

[klapse]

Around 90% of the "greenhouse gas" in the Earth's atmosphere is water vapor. This vapor normally reflects heat back to the surface but under certain conditions it forms clouds, which reflect solar energy back into space, cooling the planet. This effect dwarfs that of CO2.

Please watch this documentary about this history-changing discovery, and how it has been supressed by the climate consensus.

If this piqued your interest, this more recent lecture extends the presentation with quantification of the effect:

Thoughts? Minds blown?

 

[Caine]

What if it isn't the CO2

Then fossil fuels are still finite and incapable of scaling up to our future energy needs.
The transition to solar energy needs to happen regardless.

There is a growing amount of reports claiming that solar energy is already cheaper.
While I do not have the numbers to prove if this is real or not (/not yet), it at least
seems that we are reaching the turning point where the argument for transitioning
is of an economic nature instead of an ecological one.

It may however impact our decisions with regards to regulation of our livestock.

 

[PCXT]

I just can't see a fully-profitable renewable energy source in the age of planned obsolescence . Let's try with batteries. How many prototypes of better, more environment-friendly cells were there? Silicon, organics, hydrocarbons... And they never left prototype stage. With photovoltaic, solar heaters or wind turbines you have to steal some part of funds to make it return at all. Doesn't matter which methods used in stealing, these can be government refunds, UE "financial aids" or just underpricing. Manufacturing of these gadgets involves industrial-grade emission of gasses too, yet in another country what is totally meaningless for situation in atmosphere as the air circulates without visas.
We won't reduce these gasses. We'll do it for some countries to look well in propaganda (covering means of production export), but global reducing would require switching to different primary energy source - source for industry. Multiplication nuclear reactors are still too risky to operate.
Alternatively... we can hypothetically go back to pre-industrial era. One country tried and got sh..tload of Agent Orange on their heads.

 

[FBnil]

loved the correlation between seawaterlevel versus sun-intake. It is fantastic that such levels can be measured on a waterlevel that is constantly moving. Still watching the first one (a bit long) before properly commenting.

 

[tigerroast]

Even if what we know about climate change is wrong, even if the climate consensus is wrong about the earth warming up, it literally nothing changes in regards to the direction we're headed by doing what we're doing.

Pollution remains a major problem. The geopolitics of oil are far too volatile. We can't run on fossil fuels forever, much less have generational career paths in fields pertaining to fossil fuels, and reliance on dino juices only holds us back from jumping into a world run by renewable energy (fingers crossed for nuclear fusion). Speaking of career paths, gas in my state has been ~$2/gal for a long while, and thousands of jobs have been lost becasue of it[1]. Outside of pollution, the oil industry on this part of the Gulf created another reason why the LA shoreline is sinking (ironically, it hurts the oil industry)[2]. And let's not even talk about the Disaster.

I've been done caring about whether or not climate change is a thing for a long time. I just want this fuel-powered ticking time bomb to be deactivated. Maybe if Lapalco goes bye-bye and Valero stations start disappearing from up north, then they'll be replaced by recharging stations.

[1]:http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2016/04/a_bust_hits_louisianas_oil_pat.html
[2]:https://www.scientificamerican.com/...-southeast-louisiana-is-disappearing-quickly/

 

[rohezal]

How much more energy does earth atmosphere absorbs due to carbon dioxide?


A scientist (doctor in chemistry) explains how carbon dioxide works and why it is dangerous. No bullshit, just facts.

 

[levi]

In terms of wishy washy believers that almost everything people have done more recently must be bad, which I feel those pointing out the effects of pollution tend towards (building wind turbines will do nothing to curb pollution from mining, refining and manufacturing), I'd point out that we've basically rewritten the nitrogen cycle and it hasn't automatically led to destitution and destruction - though it still boggles my mind how we've done it without really realising it.

Before the haber-bosch process, Nitrites in the soil were made by symbiotic fungi in roots or by lightning in the main IIRC. These were taken up by plants and once the plans dies or drops foliage, bacteria converts those nitrites back into elemental fungi as part of their respiratory process (that may be the wrong term; I'm not sure the fungi actually respire, but it's how they get energy anyway). Since industrial processes like the haber-bosch process and later versions, we've been able to take nitrogen from the air and convert it into nitrites for fertiliser (at a massive energy cost while we're at it). The only downside I've been aware of if the run-off of these fertilisers causing algal blooms that wouldn't naturally occur in the great lakes and so on down.

I watched a programme by Robert Llewellyn the other night about his attempts to make his village neutral in terms of electrical power used (at least for buildings - cars would probably be a step too far to start with). After he'd surveyed the sites and identified the types of power generation that could be sited where, with help from experts, he came to a road block when it came to talking to his electricity provider. Problem was, most forms of renewable energy tend to be quite peaky, and if you pump too much power back through the substation you can blow it up. After a lot of to and froing he decided that lithium ion batteries were the way to go, after advice from a national grid feller.

Sure these will degrade year on year, but they're now cheap enough to buy in large quantities, in containers designed to sit outdoors that with the money saved and a little money eared through trickling surplus quantity back to the national grid, it's afforable to buy a new one every few years and decommission the most creaky old one. That does push a problem back down of how to recycle this dangerous metal from old batteries, but I suspect that's actually less of a problem than driving oil around the world and burning that.

It's the cheapness of these parts that has largely stopped development in alternative battery technologies, but once we factor in the cost of recycling, maybe interest in developing these cleaner parts will recover.

Edit: Here, for those in the UK or using a suitable VPN: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08rnzrb

 

[elw3]

Even if what we know about climate change is wrong, even if the climate consensus is wrong about the earth warming up, it literally nothing changes in regards to the direction we're headed by doing what we're doing.
Pollution remains a major problem.

Exactly. It does not matter at all whether it is a bullshit hoarx that scientist made up just to keep their own jobs or if there is a glimpse of truth in that.
It IS right to care about the enviroment and to invest in new technologies. There is nothing wrong with it to make up a wannabe amargeddon just to raise science funds.

 

[klapse]

Then fossil fuels are still finite and incapable of scaling up to our future energy needs.
The transition to solar energy needs to happen regardless.

There is a growing amount of reports claiming that solar energy is already cheaper.

"Needs to happen?" Why?

.....

What kind of solar energy (photovoltaic, solar water heater, concentrating solar power) ? In what country/climate? What about winter when little sun energy can be collected? What about when it's dark?

Photovoltaics in Germany have been a huge - YUGE waste of money and energy. We wasted energy and harmed the environment by subsizing them with tax money and a tidal wave of propaganda.

Things like the molten salt PS10 plant in Spain however can make sense as part of an energy mix. It cannot, however, be the sole source of electricity in ANY country.

Civilization needs reliable eneregy, not unreliable solar which can at best provide an adjunct supply for air conditioning in hot areas - as is being done in Spain.

Beware your feelings - they have been programmed.

 

[kuru]

It would all be easier if people weren't so fond of procreation.

 

[ible]

perhaps relevant:

i'm looking forward to the innovation, both in energy storage and energy absorption .

 

[erico]

Have heard it about 20 years ago from an antartica scientist with some hard numbers. Of course innovation should always go forward it doesn´t matter what.

 

[klapse]

perhaps relevant:

i'm looking forward to the innovation, both in energy storage and energy absorption .

The comic tries to imply a link between the CO2 thermageddon hoax and other environmental policies which actually have benefits. So it's just more misdirection and very not-funny.

This is what I'm watching now - a Canadian Senate Hearing on Climate Change from 2011.
[doublepost=1497301322,1497300732][/doublepost]
What sounded so simple when you watched Al Gore's hoaxumentary, 'An Inconvenient Truth' is really not.

Did any of you see it? He literally claimed - with ominous music and pictures of flooded cities - that the Arctic sea ice would melt and raise ocean levels 22 FEET, flooding Florida and New York City.

Now all of the audiences watched and nodded their heads and said to each other "This is TERRIBLE! It MUST BE STOPPED"

Very few of them stopped to remember the Archimedes principle discovered 2200 years ago, which at least *I* learned in middle-school. Namely: A floating object displaces as much liquid as its own mass. So floating ice in a glass, when melted, does not raise the water level. And neither do icebergs in the arctic!

So there's just one major lie. Just one. I can post a few a week until the Pyra ships.

 

[levi]

"
What kind of solar energy (photovoltaic, solar water heater, concentrating solar power) ? In what country/climate? What about winter when little sun energy can be collected? What about when it's dark?

I assumed by solar he meant basically everything, given the sun is pretty much the only thing sending power to our planet. But thinking it through, wind is affected by solar heating of the earth, but it would still be quite windy in the dark - differential bands of rotating air are generated by the spin of the planet, and fronts are created by interactions between those bands - or at least that's my probably hopeless simplistic understanding. Tidal power is mainly down to the moon's gravity pulling on the oceans as it rotates around them. Water power is probably more down to the sun than wind power is, as it needs the sun to warm the rivers, lakes and oceans and cause moist air to rise forming clouds. Hyrdothermal is another power source that doesn't rely on the sun in almost any way, unless you consider how the earth and solar system was formed from a hot gas cloud, and that's probably a subject for another day.

And fossil fuels being down to the growth of carbon rich plants in the main, are probably mostly down to the power of the daytime sun and the behaviour of bees. So I'd count that as a solar source of power too.

 

[FBnil]

Minds blown?

Yes... mindblown. feels like somebody that lived his whole life on the dependable ground, then suddenly quakes and sinkholes make the ground unstable and not dependable anymore. Pretty glad the sun is so stable right now.

 

[LineOf7s]

I can post a few a week until the Pyra ships.

Please don't. There are plenty of other places on the internet where we can go to get "the truth".

 

[WizardStan]

And neither do icebergs in the arctic!

You realize that not all ice is free-floating, yeah? A substantially amount of it is resting on solid ground. Like, I don't know who explained the issue about the icecaps melting to you but they obviously did a poor job of it because icebergs melting has never been considered a problem in the scientific community, it's the glacier ice melting that's cause of flood fears.

 

[ible]

The comic tries to imply a link between the CO2 thermageddon hoax and other environmental policies which actually have benefits. So it's just more misdirection and very not-funny.

I think less funny (and worse misdirection) are situations where people realize that the benefits of getting away from fossil fuels are numerous, yet argue against the climate scientists' consensus on the dangers of fossil fuels...

(but you are welcome to study and become a climate scientist and create the correct hypothesis/world model...)

 

[levi]

You realize that not all ice is free-floating, yeah? A substantially amount of it is resting on solid ground. Like, I don't know who explained the issue about the icecaps melting to you but they obviously did a poor job of it because icebergs melting has never been considered a problem in the scientific community, it's the glacier ice melting that's cause of flood fears.

As far as I know, their is no land in the arctic, so all of the arctic is floating (unless it's cold enough to freeze all the way down to the sea floor at the pole, I dunno).

But bergs in the arctic are a real issue, I've been led to believe. I understand it's evidence of the warming oceans undercutting the ice (which would suggest it's ice all the way down otherwise, thinking on it) and causing it to break off. Also when those melt they'll raise the sea levels bit by bit. If I remember my archimedes principle correcly, icebergs will settle in the water such that the weight of water displaced is equal to the weight of the ice (and ice being less dense than water means it does float), so they will raise the water level ever so slightly when they drop, but I suspect the main input of freshwater into the sea from the arctic comes from the undercut that produces the shelves, but we can't really see that from a satellite until it breaks off (which it our main way of monitoring the whole arctic).

 

[ElPoco]

For the melting icecaps, there are some glaciers that are on solid ground in Greenland. The ice in Antarctica also rests on ground.
However, the rising sea level is not just caused by the ice falling into it. It's also caused by thermal expansion.