Alternative Energy Storage for Global Warming Agnostics 53 comments
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I’m a global warming agnostic. I’m perfectly willing to accept man made global warming as fact if the science is ever proven and equally willing to accept the possibility that global warming is a tempest in a teapot like the Y2K bug that drove billions in IT spending in the late ‘90s and had me stockpiling toilet paper and buying gold coins. It seems silly in 20/20 hindsight, but the fear was real at the time. It also taught me an important lesson: Investment advisors and politicians are not the only ones who spurn the vulgar exigencies of objective truth in an effort to enhance their reputations and fortunes. Evangelical environmentalists do it too!
I’m a believer when it comes to economics. I’ve been to Brazil and Africa and spent months in Southeast Asia. In the process I’ve met hundreds of intelligent, well-educated and incredibly hard-working people who are striving to build a better life. So I get the notion that 6 billion people around the world are working overtime to earn their piece of the lifestyle that 500 million of us already enjoy.
I’m also a believer when it comes to peak cheap oil. I used the following price chart from the Energy Information Administration a couple weeks ago but it bears repeating because it shows that oil prices were essentially flat from ’86 until they reached an inflection point in the late ‘90s and then began a steady upward climb.
click to enlarge images
We are currently enjoying a sharp fall in oil prices amplified by a global recession. I have no doubt, however, that once the global economy emerges from the recession, oil prices will revert to trend and $70 to $80 oil is a certainty.
We’ve all seen the carefully formatted, highlighted and annotated graphs that analysts use to illustrate various theories about future oil production and prices. The following graph was built from global oil production statistics published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It presents a bare bones summary that highlights only one thing; the incredible disconnect between oil prices and oil production rates.
If the world had plentiful oil resources as some claim, production volumes would have skyrocketed during the early part of this decade. Since production only increased by 14.1% from 1997 through 2006 while market prices climbed by 260%, I’m convinced we can’t drill our way out of this mess. If peak oil advocates are right, and I suspect they are, double-digit gas prices are simply a matter of time. I paid 24.9¢ per gallon for my first tank of gas and forty years later prices peaked at about $4.40; so I fully expect to pay $10 or even $20 a gallon before I die.
Even if you believe global warming is hogwash, the immutable laws of supply and demand remain as fundamental drivers for cleantech, the sixth industrial revolution. In a free global market, the 500 million who need 20 gallons to fill their gas tanks cannot possibly outbid the 6 billion who need 2 gallons to fill a scooter. So unless we’re willing to rely on divine intervention, our only choices are maximizing energy production, reducing dependence on liquid fuels and minimizing waste. The only existing technology that can possibly get us there is energy storage; the beating heart of the cleantech revolution.
In early September, I published an article called Energy Storage Stocks; Performance, Cost and Bell Shaped Curves; an early effort to explain that a statistical analysis of energy storage needs in most applications would yield a normal bell shaped curve. In early October, I published an article called Alternative Energy, Regular Guy Stuff and Rainbow Stew; an effort to explain the common man’s response to alternative energy in general and energy storage in particular. The core message in both articles was that growth in energy storage would be driven by the choices of individual consumers and the market could be statistically described by a normal bell shaped curve where a small minority have modest needs, a large majority have average needs and a small minority have extreme needs. My basic premise was that every energy storage decision will boil down to a cost-benefit analysis where the value of the energy delivered to an application must exceed the cost of the original energy inputs plus the fully loaded cost of the energy storage system. My conclusion was that while companies at the performance extremes will enjoy an undue share of the publicity and glory, the companies that offer a cost-effective solution for the average user will book the lion’s share of the future revenues and profits.
There are tremendous opportunities in the energy storage sector, but not on the bleeding edge of storage technology. Companies like Exide (XIDE), Enersys (ENS), C&D Technologies (CHP) and Axion Power (AXPW.OB) that make energy storage products for regular guys with average needs are sure to prosper and appreciate substantially as they shed an old-tech image. Companies like Ener1 (HEV), Valence (VLNC) and Altair Nanotechnologies (ALTI) may survive by selling expensive products to an extreme performance niche, but they’ve already had their 15 minutes of fame and 300% gains. Apple has always been the leader in PC performance while Microsoft and Intel focused on cheaper solutions for regular guys. Do I need to remind anyone who won the first 20 years of the PC wars?
Disclosure: Author holds a large long position in Axion Power (AXPW.OB), recently bought small long positions in Exide (XIDE) and Enersys (ENS) and will likely make additional energy storage sector investments in the future.
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This article has 53 comments:
What will that scenario do to your $70 oil and prospects for your stocks?
Obama opposed adding oil to the Reserve, he might like to keep prices low as an aid to the Middle class.
Just a query, no particular reason for it.
www.thestar.com/Busine...
But, for a few years, industry and government will invest in the electric economy, even though it will fail. Alternative energies depend on oil and will fail without cheap oil.
Independent studies conclude that Peak Oil production will occur (or has occurred) between 2005 to 2010 (projected year for peak in parentheses), as follows:
* Association for the Study of Peak Oil (2007)
* Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of “Oil Watch Monthly” (2008)
* Tony Eriksen, Oil stock analyst (2008)
* Matthew Simmons, Energy investment banker, (2007)
* T. Boone Pickens, Oil and gas investor (2007)
* U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2005)
* Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton professor and retired shell Geologist (2005)
* Sam Sam Bakhtiari, Retired Iranian National Oil Company geologist (2005)
* Chris Skrebowski, Editor of “Petroleum Review” (2010)
* Sadad Al Husseini, former head of production and exploration, Saudi Aramco (2008)
* Energy Watch Group in Germany (2006)
Independent studies indicate that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.
Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”
"By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame."
www.energywatchgroup.o...
With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.
This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: www.peakoilassociates....
I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a more sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. survivingpeakoil.blogs.../
Dr. Wirth, the painful scenario you paint is within the realm of possibility if people don't recognize the peak oil problem and begin working on real solutions. But I'm an optimist when it comes to human ingenuity; our ability to adapt to change and our long history of emerging stronger from each painful revolution. Society will change and evolve, but I don't think we'll revert to barbarism.
True, but it also might have something to do with Microsoft being guilty of criminal monopoly - illegal and thuggish elimination and control of competition with the innovation of its forceful strategies and practices begun at its very inception in the late 70s).*
*There are tens of thousands of validated source documents, sworn testimony, trial findings and settlements, and 'I was there memoirs' to support this view of Microsoft's ascendance to monopolistic corrupt power.
1) Enact a Windfall Profits Tax to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families.
>>> This will cause oil companies to spend even less money on exploration & production and cause oil prices to rise even higher in the long run.
2) Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices.
>>>All the oil in the SPR could supply the USA for 40 days at most.
3) Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
>>> How does having heavy energy users in the USA paying carbon tax credits to other countries that have less strict carbon emission standards than the USA solve anything ? In fact, it will cause them to reduce production and aggravate the economic downturn further. Encouraging alternative energy usage via tax credits would be a much better strategy.
quality of much of the stuff in SPR is not up to snuff, it has to be blended with better grades of crude for many of the existing refineries to handle it without upchucking.
we've been buying too much of that venezuelan garbage (high sulfur, high resid).
> jack
- the output of said model showed a "hockey-stick" increase in global temperatures, without any additonal CO2 ( labeled a greenhouse gas ), and the propoents took these results and created a hysteria with projections of the dire consequences, sea level rises and all the rest
- CO2 is a trace gas, and anyone with at 5th grade math level can do the math- CO2 as a pollutant, a greenhouse gas is laughable.
- most importantly, of course, is the fact none of the predictions occured. Temps have been flat since '98, until '07 and then markedly this year, colling has occured with record colds, snow events, etc. Seas have not risen, etc.
- the movement switched from man-made global warming to climate change, a nice catch-all umbrella term, but even the sheep media have trouble reporting anything with a stright face anymore.
- the movement is not dead yet, but close- most people see it for the political garbage it was. there are still plenty of people who's reputations are chained to it, and will brazenly make furhter idiotic claims, but it seems the hysteria press is gone.
Conservation, alternative energy, and not polluting locally are all reasonable ideas, but they should never have been folded into yet another government, UN included, BIG LIE.
I carefully researched all possibilities in scientific and government studies, and there are no alternatives available for avoiding this catastrophe.
www.peakoilassociates....
Human ingenuity is great, but the Laws of Thermodynamics tell us that we cannot invent energy. There are not even plans of how to use the sun's energy to get the liquid fuels we need. Even if we had some answers (and we don't), it is far too late to develop a trillion dollar make over of the energy economy. This is why I focus on preparing for Peak Oil impacts: survivingpeakoil.blogs.../ and suggest that people come live here in a sustainable location. Come visit clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com.
On Dec 29 06:15 AM John Petersen wrote:
> aitvras, I'm not up early. We just have a 6 hour time zone advantage.
> Over the last few weeks we've seen that OPEC production cuts of a
> couple million barrels have done little to moderate the price declines,
> so while the U.S. government might be able to influence the market
> for several months by drawing down the strategic oil reserve, any
> impact would likely be temporary. In the long-term the market will
> have its way.
>
> Dr. Wirth, the painful scenario you paint is within the realm of
> possibility if people don't recognize the peak oil problem and begin
> working on real solutions. But I'm an optimist when it comes to human
> ingenuity; our ability to adapt to change and our long history of
> emerging stronger from each painful revolution. Society will change
> and evolve, but I don't think we'll revert to barbarism.
longoil and john, let's hope that Mr. Obama surrounds himself with competent people and gives them the flexibility to do their jobs without too much interference. We need a real energy policy and a strategic reserve filled with a better class of crude. So I'll hope for the best.
the phenomena of greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere is undisputable- its just a measurement, and the link with the release of CO2 from fossil fuel burning in the past 1-200 years is obvious.
There is a possibilty that we will not see warming because of bigger trends in the atmosphere that we do not understand, but the likelihood of that is very, very small and we would be fools to bank on that.
By the time we have global warming to the degree that the average person opens their eyes wide enough to notice, it will have reached catastrophic proportions for perhaps a billion people, and close to that for another 3 billion. I know its easier to ignore scientists, and think that the globe is flat, that bacteria don't cause disease, and that the whole world revolves around yourselves, but those things just arn't so.
Respectfully.
I'm an alternative energy booster because I believe economics require a new paradigm. You're apparently a booster because of a climate imperative. As long as we get to the same point does it matter who's right or why?
I totally agree with your statement: "Conservation, alternative energy, and not polluting locally are all reasonable ideas,..."
That said, the rest of your comments show as much understanding of scientific fact as those you criticize for the "human life will end because of global warming" proclaimations. As a scientific person with good training (Ph.D. in chemistry), I have to modify your stated opinions with facts.
A list of facts (admittedly not complete) and examples of scientific reasoning:
1. Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases average earth temperature.
2. Over geologic time, carbon dioxide has varied from less than we have today to as much as 20 times current amounts. Earth temperature has risen or fallen with carbon dioxide changes. There have been times in earth's history when there was no winter ice (snow) throughout the year anywhere because of elevated temperatures.
3. Carbon dioxide production is generally considered to be divide between two sources: geologic and biologic (including all human activities). Although, over geologic time there have been periods where massive volcanic eruptions have affected the earth's atmosphere, over the past several thousand years (at least), geologic variation has been small compared to human impacts of the past 100-200 years.
4. Climate variations from year to year can mask longer term climate trends. More snow and colder temperatures in one year does not disprove global warming, just as less snow and warmer temperatures in the previous year does not prove it.
5. Climate trends are measured over decades and centuries and can, but not always persist for many millenia.
6. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 30-35% over the past 100-150 years. This is a more rapid change than for similar periods of time over the time of human existence.
7. There are very few scientific publications that provide any experimental evidence contradicting the volume of experimental results regarding increases in carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) and changes in global climate. All these scientific publications are public knowledge and subject to the examination of scientists around the world. The highest form of achievement for a scientist is to discover something that is new, and especially when the discovery disproves a conclusion drawn from previous data. This is a powerful force that has driven scientific progress. I am unaware of any scientific publication refuting carbon dioxide measurements and climate change measurements that has withstood this critical scrutiny.
8. Global warming does not impose insurmountable difficulties for human existence. If it persists, such things as habits, location of human habitat, food sources, etc will probably change significantly, but I know of no credible research that projects human extinction from this source.
9. Various climate change models have projected average sea levels to rise by a few feet over the next century. If sea level were to rise 2 feet over 100 years, would you notice the average annual change of less than 1/4 inch?
10. There is no debate that I know of about the relevant data collected for what has happened up to now. The debate is forward looking. Most responsible scientists use models (which you criticize) to project possible outcomes for established data trends. The projections these scientists make are than usually expressed as a range of outcomes with various probabilities of occurrence. One problem the non-scientist has with this is difficulty in conceptualizing the significance of probabilities. A news reporter may write and article on a paper (or talk) by Dr. X, who made a statement like: "Based on data trends over the past 159 years, and estimated carbon dioxide production if fossil fuel combustion continues at its current rate, we estimate the average temperature of the earth will increase between 1.2 and 5.4 degrees celsius (one standard deviation limits) over the next 100 years." The news article may state "Dr. X predicts temperature rise as much as 5.4 degrees over the next century."
By the way, the numbers are not real. I made them up for the purpose of this discussion.
The news reporter would be wrong if he inferred in his article that the temperature was "sure to rise by at least 1.2 degrees over the next century". The scientist actually said (by inference, not directly) that there was approximately one chance in three that temperature rise would be less than 1.2 degrees. There is nothing in the statement the scientist made to indicate whether or not his model shows some probability that temperature could even fall over 100 years.
patio, you may not have wanted a science lecture, but I offer it anyway.
I would just say one thing in conclusion: the past is fixed and the future is variable.
Oil, coal, gas and nuclear are the only fuels that provide this assurance.
The length of time that fossill fuels will be available to generate electricity is finite. How long they will last is unknown, but they will eventually go.
The calculations of how many windmills,solar panels and acres of bio-fuels that we will need to make up the shortfall, on CURRENT needs, makes the debate on how many angels you can get on a pin, rationale.
France provides 60+% of it's electricity from nuclear quite safely, why not the rest of the world?
As for scientists supporting the argument that CO2 from human activity is putting us all in peril, go to oism.org/pproject.
It,s got the signatures of 31000 US scientists that refute the notion.
The total includes 9000 with PH D's.
- CO2 is a trace gas, even at the increased levels now seen- any effects it might contribute are swamped out by water vapor, etc.
- CO2 has only three narrow absorption bands for IR- it is a poor collector of heat. So even if the atmosphere was pure CO2, it could only collect around 8% of the IR heat radiating from Earth.
But forget the physics lecture- the whole man-made global warming theory has been debunked, with data, the measured temps of the Earth's from NASA satellites. The recorded temps over the last 11 years show zero correlation with the model's predicted behavior, in fact very much the opposite. But don't let data get in the way of a pet theory.
On Dec 29 12:42 PM John Lounsbury wrote:
> patio - - -
>
> I totally agree with your statement: "Conservation, alternative energy,
> and not polluting locally are all reasonable ideas,..."
>
> That said, the rest of your comments show as much understanding of
> scientific fact as those you criticize for the "human life will end
> because of global warming" proclaimations. As a scientific person
> with good training (Ph.D. in chemistry), I have to modify your stated
> opinions with facts.
>
> A list of facts (admittedly not complete) and examples of scientific
> reasoning:
>
> 1. Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases average earth
> temperature.
>
> 2. Over geologic time, carbon dioxide has varied from less than we
> have today to as much as 20 times current amounts. Earth temperature
> has risen or fallen with carbon dioxide changes. There have been
> times in earth's history when there was no winter ice (snow) throughout
> the year anywhere because of elevated temperatures.
>
> 3. Carbon dioxide production is generally considered to be divide
> between two sources: geologic and biologic (including all human activities).
> Although, over geologic time there have been periods where massive
> volcanic eruptions have affected the earth's atmosphere, over the
> past several thousand years (at least), geologic variation has been
> small compared to human impacts of the past 100-200 years.
>
> 4. Climate variations from year to year can mask longer term climate
> trends. More snow and colder temperatures in one year does not disprove
> global warming, just as less snow and warmer temperatures in the
> previous year does not prove it.
>
> 5. Climate trends are measured over decades and centuries and can,
> but not always persist for many millenia.
>
> 6. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 30-35% over
> the past 100-150 years. This is a more rapid change than for similar
> periods of time over the time of human existence.
>
> 7. There are very few scientific publications that provide any experimental
> evidence contradicting the volume of experimental results regarding
> increases in carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) and changes
> in global climate. All these scientific publications are public knowledge
> and subject to the examination of scientists around the world. The
> highest form of achievement for a scientist is to discover something
> that is new, and especially when the discovery disproves a conclusion
> drawn from previous data. This is a powerful force that has driven
> scientific progress. I am unaware of any scientific publication refuting
> carbon dioxide measurements and climate change measurements that
> has withstood this critical scrutiny.
>
> 8. Global warming does not impose insurmountable difficulties for
> human existence. If it persists, such things as habits, location
> of human habitat, food sources, etc will probably change significantly,
> but I know of no credible research that projects human extinction
> from this source.
>
> 9. Various climate change models have projected average sea levels
> to rise by a few feet over the next century. If sea level were to
> rise 2 feet over 100 years, would you notice the average annual change
> of less than 1/4 inch?
>
> 10. There is no debate that I know of about the relevant data collected
> for what has happened up to now. The debate is forward looking. Most
> responsible scientists use models (which you criticize) to project
> possible outcomes for established data trends. The projections these
> scientists make are than usually expressed as a range of outcomes
> with various probabilities of occurrence. One problem the non-scientist
> has with this is difficulty in conceptualizing the significance of
> probabilities. A news reporter may write and article on a paper (or
> talk) by Dr. X, who made a statement like: "Based on data trends
> over the past 159 years, and estimated carbon dioxide production
> if fossil fuel combustion continues at its current rate, we estimate
> the average temperature of the earth will increase between 1.2 and
> 5.4 degrees celsius (one standard deviation limits) over the next
> 100 years." The news article may state "Dr. X predicts temperature
> rise as much as 5.4 degrees over the next century."
>
> By the way, the numbers are not real. I made them up for the purpose
> of this discussion.
>
> The news reporter would be wrong if he inferred in his article that
> the temperature was "sure to rise by at least 1.2 degrees over the
> next century". The scientist actually said (by inference, not directly)
> that there was approximately one chance in three that temperature
> rise would be less than 1.2 degrees. There is nothing in the statement
> the scientist made to indicate whether or not his model shows some
> probability that temperature could even fall over 100 years.
>
> patio, you may not have wanted a science lecture, but I offer it
> anyway.
> I would just say one thing in conclusion: the past is fixed and the
> future is variable.
John, I always appreciate your commentary and understand that there's lots of documentation on the entire issue. I just seem to get stuck on the question of whether the real culprit is simply variability in solar output.
Digger, storage can help level out some of the variability of wind and solar, but I suspect you're right on base load power facilities. I just double checked - the actual number in France is closer to 85%. Here in Switzerland, it's 40% Hydro, 55% nuclear and 5% imports.
MK, about the only truly clean business I know of is making mortgage backed securities and collateralized debt obligations, and we all know how well that one turned out. People are just messy and the best we can do is require the folks who make the messes to clean them up.
Patio, you're debate with John Lounsbury is a great example of why I'm agnostic. Two reasonable but diametrically opposed points of view that I don't understand deeply enough to critique with confidence.
Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.
The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.
First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.
Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.
Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).
Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.
www.telegraph.co.uk/co...
You wrote:
"I carefully researched all possibilities in scientific and government studies, and there are no alternatives available for avoiding this catastrophe.
peakoilassociates....
Human ingenuity is great, but the Laws of Thermodynamics tell us that we cannot invent energy. There are not even plans of how to use the sun's energy to get the liquid fuels we need. Even if we had some answers (and we don't), it is far too late to develop a trillion dollar make over of the energy economy. This is why I focus on preparing for Peak Oil impacts: survivingpeakoil.blogs... and suggest that people come live here in a sustainable location. Come visit clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com."
I have to debate your contention that there are "no alternatives available" to address the decline in the availability of cheap oil. I believe you are selling short the potential of mankind. I'll conclude my argument with the observation that more than 100 years ago legislation was introduced in congress to abolish the U.S. Patent Office because everything of value had been invented. My point is that I believe the unknown is greater (infinitely greater, until proven otherwise) than the known.
My second point of debate regards your statement "...the Laws of Thermodynamics tell us that we cannot invent energy." I believe you are referring to the first law of thermodynamics, which has two parts:
1. a. Energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only change form.
b. The energy of the universe is a constant.
I would contest your "invent energy" argument on several counts:
1. While man can not invent energy (or not invent more energy), I contend that man can discover forms of energy not previously recognized. This does nothing to change the total energy of the universe.
2. The size of the universe is beyond our current comprehension. This implies a toal amount of energy beyond our current comprehension. It is true that we are currently concerned with the energy accessible to the planet we know, but that does include such things as electromagnetic energy (which we don't use for anything but compass needles) and the forces of nature in such things as weather. There is tremendous energy available in weather patterns that there is no credible attempt to capture that I know of at the present time, other than wind mills and wave/tidal flow turbines.
I maintain there is no realistic limit to energy as far a human needs are concerned. We are limited only by the limits of discovery. I prefer to embrace the search for discovery. You prefer to be restricted by what is known at the current instant in time.
I haven't even mentioned the infant technology of harnessing the gargantuan energy of our sun, through thermal processes or photovoltaic effects. You correctly criticize the lack of a technology plan to harness this energy for human use. However, the same arguments could have been made 125 years ago about the limited capability of petroleum to become a significant energy source.
Dr. Wirth, this is a debate that could go on for many exchanges, but I would like to summarize. I believe I understand your position to be:
The entrenched economy is too dependent on oil to react to the increasing costs to come and we must make necessary adjustments to live with increasing costs for a long time into the future.
I am trying to paraphrase your position.
My position:
It is the creative nature of mankind to seek better and more efficient ways to meet the needs of commerce and humanity. The process has been called "Creative Destruction". I am not sure who originated that (Peter Drucker?), but Tom Friedman has used the quote. The scope of human knowledge is infinitely small compared to the unknown. Couple human ingenuity with the emensity of the unkown and I foresee a different future in the coming decades than you do.
I may have totally misunderstood the meaning behind your words. If I have misrepresented you, please reply in another comment. It won't be the first time I have been disabused of a misconception.
- the solar collector folks are getting their efficiences closer to truly economic feasibility ever day, we shall get there.
- the rub has always been storage ( for sun off hours ), transmission, connections to the grid, or better yet conversion to some transportable form
- per John L., we don't as we sit here no what the future holds, but we do know a lot of really smart people are working this issue
- MIT reported this year a huge potential breakthrough in storage/conversion, using solar power to split water into H2 and O2. H2 can be used in fuel cells to power vehicles, heat homes, etc.
- answers are out there
If "The Laws of Thermdynamics tell us that we cannot invent energy" what did Oppenheimer do exactly?
Is "Creative Destruction" a love child of "The Intelligent Creator"
All the best for the New Year
love DiggerUK.
You said "But don't let data get in the way of a pet theory."
I would like you to give a reference that I could review to evaluate your contentions.
I would refer you (and anyone elso who wants to see some data) to en.wikipedia.org/Tempe...
You will find a discussion of the difficulties in making global temperature estimates and measurments, along with graphs of published data. One of the graphs shows the wide range of published estimates and indirect measurement of temperatures that occurred over the past thousand years.
A second graph shows the reported direct temperature measurements over the past 150 years. It will be seen that year-to-year temperature fluctuations have, at times, been dramatic. For example, the highest temperature in the past 10 years occurred in 1997 and the lowest (nearly 0.3 degrees C less) occurred in 1999. From the graph it is clear that nothing in the measured temperature record disproves global warming. The moving average trend is still up.
Now, for the counter argument. The trend of the past 100 years supports the concept of global warming. IT DOES NOT PROVE IT!
(Sorry for shouting, but I have to be heard - I don't think you (Patio) have really understood what I have been trying to say.)
In summary, I have been saying that using year-to-year comparisons of weather behavior is irrelevant to supporting or rejecting global warming. The temperature trend of the past 100 years does not prove global warming. The relative sources of contribution are still under debate. The increase in carbon dioxide over the past 150 years (about a 35% increase) has provided a few percent increase in solar energy absorbtion by our atmosphere. About 70% of the energy is absorbed by water vapor and that has been shown to be quite constant over this time period. Yes, patio, as the temperature has risen carbon dioxide (and other gases) trapped in melting glaciers, the oceans and other terrestial sources have been released into the atmosphere. But the amount of carbon dioxide released by the dramatic increase in combustion over that time has been calculated and it is larger than the other sources.
Is global warming going to continue and if so, how will it affect living on this planet? The fact that no one can give a definitive answer on the subject until after the future has unfolded does not mean that we should not hope for the best (your position) and plan for the worst (my position).
The bottom line is that I don't know the future, but (respectfully, please) neither do you.
Hi and love right back at you.
The statement you refer to was a quote from Dr. Wirth which I was debating.
Oppenheimer (and his co-workers) discovered how to tap a previously unexploited source of energy, the release of energy when an atomic nucleus is split. He invented a process (splitting the atom). He did not invent the energy, it was always there.
This is a good example of how a new discovery can radically change the spectrum of useful energy sources available to mankind.
Happy New Year to you, as well.
I think from past comments that we agree on many more things than we disagree. I do enjoy a good debate, though, so I have continued our exchange above on that basis.
Happy New Year
Most collapses begin by not understanding the limitations of the resources your civilization requires to continue. By the time people realize the perilous state they are in it is often too late to reverse and the society dies off or is vastly reduced in size, knowledge and technological advancement.
Where did the mighty Incas, Mayans and Aztecs go? They're still there, in much diminished numbers, but now we call them "Indians" and they're no longer mighty. In some cases they couldn't compete with Spanish guns, germs and steel, but in other failures they simply overtaxed the resources available to them through combinations of excessive population growth and excessive consumption. Diamond's chapter on the prospects for present day Montana bring this close to home.
Sometimes political factors prevent measures being taken that might have averted the collapse. One such factor is denial of realities that should have been, in retrospect, obvious.
I just read Clifford Wirth's 48 page survey of the state of the world's energy economy and it sounds like the kinds of warning signs that previous collapsed civilizations either refused to heed or were unable to do anything about.
Our civilization is built on abundant, increasing and cheap energy. Shut off our oil and nothing moves. Shut off our electricity and nothing works. High oil prices trigger recessions. Permanently higher energy prices in the face of unreversable supply shortages would require wholesale restructuring of our economy and way of life.
Optimists believe that human ingenuity will allow our way of life to go on indefinitely by developing new energy sources to replace the dwindling resources we currently depend on. Mr. Wirth surveys the current state of all these alternate energies and they come up woefully short of replacing cheap oil.
Maybe a war or plague will wipe out much of humanity and halt the growth of energy demand so there will be lots left for the survivors. Maybe someone will invent a breakthough energy technology that solves our foreseeable shortages. Or maybe we are headed toward a collapse and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.
All 3 of these are realistic possibilities. I'm pretty optimistic about the technology solution scenario, but that's more hope than prediction.
In the immediate future I think we'll see breakthroughs in the kinds of energy storage systems Mr. Peterson wrote this article about, and plug-in electric vehicles would take off from there. Sooner or later it will be politically recognized that increased CO2 is beneficial to plant growth and increased atmospheric CO2 is an effect, not a cause, of planetary warming. Then our large stocks of coal will be recognized as our energy lifeline between oil and whatever ends up replacing it.
Of course politics more often contributes to collapse than preventing it, so maybe the prospect of taxing carbon or controlling a trillion dollar carbon trading market will keep the global warming bandwagon rolling all the way over the edge of the cliff.
- the algores, the hysteriatti, claimed that man's addition to the naturally occuring trace gas CO2 ( up to >300 part per million), became a tripping point of disaster, based on Michael Mann's computer model. The model was loaded with assumptions, and poor statistical controls, and has been dissected and discredited by many many scientists.
- the current global warming trend started after the last "Little Ice Age', and of course goes way back, well before any possible man-made influences
- the Mann model stated that even if man quit contributing more CO2, it was too late, and to expect a "hockey-stick" temperature increase, and concurrent catastrophic affects. None of which has occured in the timeframes predicted, and as I stated the reverse has begun.
- my point has always been, the model used to make the predictions was poorly constructed, the assumptions flawed, and the predicted results did not occur. CASE CLOSED- my turn to "shout" :)
- forgetting for the moment the scientific disussion, it has always been clear to me this was a political movement, and to follow the money. The media was in the bag until the data was sel-evident even to the most jaded observer; algore and his ilk are still the biggest abusers of consumption; the not-in-the-least clever switch from man-made global warming, to "climate-change", geez, is that a catch-all or what?
- do reasonable men plan for the worst, after the preponderence of evidence shows the threat was never there? Especially when we entrust governments to make the decisions? I think not.
On Dec 29 05:13 PM John Lounsbury wrote:
> Patio - - -
>
> You said "But don't let data get in the way of a pet theory." <br/>
>
> I would like you to give a reference that I could review to evaluate
> your contentions.
>
> I would refer you (and anyone elso who wants to see some data) to
> en.wikipedia.org/Tempe...
>
> You will find a discussion of the difficulties in making global temperature
> estimates and measurments, along with graphs of published data. One
> of the graphs shows the wide range of published estimates and indirect
> measurement of temperatures that occurred over the past thousand
> years.
>
> A second graph shows the reported direct temperature measurements
> over the past 150 years. It will be seen that year-to-year temperature
> fluctuations have, at times, been dramatic. For example, the highest
> temperature in the past 10 years occurred in 1997 and the lowest
> (nearly 0.3 degrees C less) occurred in 1999. From the graph it is
> clear that nothing in the measured temperature record disproves global
> warming. The moving average trend is still up.
>
> Now, for the counter argument. The trend of the past 100 years supports
> the concept of global warming. IT DOES NOT PROVE IT!
> (Sorry for shouting, but I have to be heard - I don't think you (Patio)
> have really understood what I have been trying to say.)
>
> In summary, I have been saying that using year-to-year comparisons
> of weather behavior is irrelevant to supporting or rejecting global
> warming. The temperature trend of the past 100 years does not prove
> global warming. The relative sources of contribution are still under
> debate. The increase in carbon dioxide over the past 150 years (about
> a 35% increase) has provided a few percent increase in solar energy
> absorbtion by our atmosphere. About 70% of the energy is absorbed
> by water vapor and that has been shown to be quite constant over
> this time period. Yes, patio, as the temperature has risen carbon
> dioxide (and other gases) trapped in melting glaciers, the oceans
> and other terrestial sources have been released into the atmosphere.
> But the amount of carbon dioxide released by the dramatic increase
> in combustion over that time has been calculated and it is larger
> than the other sources.
>
> Is global warming going to continue and if so, how will it affect
> living on this planet? The fact that no one can give a definitive
> answer on the subject until after the future has unfolded does not
> mean that we should not hope for the best (your position) and plan
> for the worst (my position).
>
> The bottom line is that I don't know the future, but (respectfully,
> please) neither do you.
I am satisfied that we all got relevant facts, as well as our individual opinion, on the table. We may have used too many words along the way, but anyone who has the patience to read all the way through the comment stream should get a pretty good idea of where a good deal of thought is coming from on climate change, causes, effects and changes that may (or may not) have an effect.
I love a good deebate. Thanks to you all.
But both of your positions are informative within their own scopes. So I cannot help but agree with John: It looks like you all have been having since I was last here.
Please continue, I need ammo.
Btw, has anyone seen Al Snore lately? He seems to disappear every time there's a snowflake in the air, somewhat like a reverse groundhog. He'll pop back out the first warm day, though.
The problem with global warming (now called "climate change" after two brutally cold winters around the world) is the Warmers blast you with, The science is in; there's no debate.
Well, tell that to the thousands of scientists around the world who're trying to stop governments from attempting to smash stars into sand.
The anti-global warming petition signed by over 30,000 professionals in the fields of science reads as follows:
"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
See here: www.oism.org/pproject/
Now Aitvaras, you are right about certain people when they take a death-grip position: no amount of truth, reasoning, or proof will change their minds.
But there are many, many more who can be moved that need honest two-sided debate on subjects as important as the claim that the planet is heating up to the point that it's going to turn all of us to cinders before it stops, if we don't tear down trillions of dollars in energy infrastructure and rebuild it with God-knows-what (and He may not know what).
I’m passing this along for their benefit.
See here too for another article regarding the IPCC report that Snore and the Warmers always summon as their proof for Warming: www.firecongress.org/a...
However, given their position as an already well-established, global player in the conservative utility-supplier market, I would like to hear your opinions relative to some of the other energy storage companies you mention.
> jack
Though I've lost more $ on CBAK than any other battery stock--by far--I find today's $1.70 price irresistable. Taking the plunge again!
Happy New Years!
P.S. This article surely stirred up some passion. Certainly do like to see someone else here mention the ancient Maya. I could go into an in-depth speech about the rising ocean levels. In short, proven by Heather Mckillop, Phd., in her excellent book titled "Salt: White Gold Of The Ancient Maya," she states that ocean levels have risen about a meter since 1000 AD. This was determined in numerous inundated digs off of the Belizean coastline where she found pottery fragments and charred wood buried in the muck a meter deep.
(In my forthcoming novel "Maya: Sprits Of The Jaguar" I have a salt trader complaining about the breaking of clay pots. That in times past, the pottery was of better quality in which to transport brine salt--because the rising seas have tainted the quality of clay from which the pots were made. Knowing Heather as I do, she seemed delighted that I put the results of her work into mine!)
I really enjoy your articles! I have been following renewable and alternative energy companies for 15 years or more, and investing in them for 8 years or so. Your articles have a depth of content that I just don't find anywhere else. And we have many of the same holdings! Great minds must think alike...
Thanks for your great articles - I read every one I can find, and will go back and read your archives.
Neil
- wind, solar and other intermittent sources become significantly more valuable, as they can be delivered when demand is highest.
- transmission lines from wind farms can be sized more reasonably, rather than for the peak output when the wind is blowing the hardest. Otherwise, wind output needs to be curtailed just when its generating the most!
- storage of electricity further advances plug-in hybrids, and eventually electric vehicles, reducing use of liquid fuels.
- fleets of delivery vehicles and what not that are back in the barn by 5 pm can provide some peak power back to the grid with what is left in their onboard storage.
- grid stabilization from energy storage devices instead of "spinning reserves" which often burn fossil fuels even when idle.
- energy storage leads to lower electricity prices
- desalinization of water becomes more practical
I'm sure there are many more...
Neil
Ultimately we must leave the combustion age behind. Charcoal to the soil is a bridging first step as other energy conversion technologies bloom from Nano and bio reasearch. Thankfully we can do TP now.
Oil interest must come to see the overwhelming value of their carbon as the feedstock for the manufacture ( via carbon nanotubes, fullerines, DNA programed nano self assembly, etc.) of virtually all things in the near future.
This convergences of different technologies will end the Combustion age.
Terra Preta starts as a soil nano technology with increased CEC, than a micro tech with our wee- beasties / fungus, and macro with bugs and worms.
Biotic Carbon, the carbon transformed by life, should never be combusted, oxidized and destroyed. It deserves more respect, reverence even, and understanding to use it back to the soil where 2/3 of excess atmospheric carbon originally came from.
We all know we are carbon-centered life, we seldom think about the complex web of recycled bio-carbon which is the true center of life. A cradle to cradle, mutually co-evolved biosphere reaching into every crack and crevice on Earth.
It's hard for most to revere microbes and fungus, but from our toes to our gums (onward), their balanced ecology is our health. The greater earth and soils are just as dependent, at much longer time scales. Our farming for over 10,000 years has been responsible for 2/3rds of our excess greenhouse gases. This soil carbon, converted to carbon dioxide, Methane & Nitrous oxide began a slow stable warming that now accelerates with burning of fossil fuel.
Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,
Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living soil biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.
The recent EU permits granted 3RAgroCarbon www.3ragrocarbon.com , after 4 years of testing show Biochar's massive increase in yields of more than 100%
"Doses: 400 kg / ha – 1000 kg / ha at different horticultural cultivars
Plant height Increase 141 % versus control
Picking yield Increase 630 % versus control
Picking fruit Increase 650 % versus control
Total yield Increase 202 % versus control
Total piece of fruit Increase 171 % versus control
Fruit weight Increase 118 % versus control"
Indeed, Dr. James Hansen, NASA's top Atmospheric authority, is now placing it in the center stage of pro-active solutions for the climate crisis.
arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/pa...
As Dr. Lehmann at Cornell points out, "Closed-Loop Pyrolysis systems are the only way to make a fuel that is actually carbon negative". and that " a strategy combining biochar with biofuels could ultimately offset 9.5 billion tons of carbon per year-an amount equal to the total current fossil fuel emissions! "
Terra Preta Soils Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration, 10X Lower CH4 & N2O soil emissions, and 3X FertilityToo
This some what orphaned new soil technology speaks to so many different interests and disciplines that it has not been embraced fully by any. I'm sure you will see both the potential of this system and the convergence needed for it's implementation.
The integrated energy strategy offered by Charcoal based Terra Preta Soil technology may
provide the only path to sustain our agricultural and fossil fueled power
structure without climate degradation, other than nuclear power.
Senator / Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has done the most to nurse this biofuels system in his Biochar provisions in the 07 & 08 farm bill,
www.biochar-internatio...
POZNAN, Poland, December 10, 2008 - The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) announces that the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has submitted a proposal to include biochar as a mitigation and adaptation technology to be considered in the post-2012-Copenhagen agenda of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A copy of the proposal is posted on the IBI website at
The International Biochar Initiative (IBI).
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
In a recent National Public Radio interview, Michael Pollan talks about how he was approached by a Democratic party staffer about his New York Times article, The"Farmer & an open letter to the next president concerning U.S. agriculture/energy policy. The staffer wanted Pollan to summarize the article into a page or two to get it into the hands of Barack Obama. Pollan declined, saying that if he could have said everything that needed to be said in two pages, he wouldn't have written 8000 words.
Michael Pollan is well briefed about Biochar technology, but did not include it in his "Farmer & Chief" article to President Obama, (Which he did read & cited in a speech) but I'm sure Biochar will be his 8001th word to him.
Erich
540 289 9750
"I’m perfectly willing to accept man made global warming as fact if the science is ever proven "
Proven? like the theory of gravity? As many have said before and I will repeat here, if you want proof, you need to look to mathematics, not science. Absolute proof in science is a myth. What determines if a scientific theory is valid is if there is a preponderence of evidence to support the theory. I would say there is more than enough evidence to support the theory AGW, as would 99% of the worlds climate scientists.
Patio
Nothing you said is accurate.
the name Climate Change is a switch? Ever heard of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? It was founded and named in 1988 - twenty years ago.
This is just another of the hogwash claims of the deniers that has absolutely no merit. The name Climate Change is used more now because it more accurately reflects what most people will experience, rapid climate change, from even a few degrees of warming.
You better get better informed because you are repeating what amounts to the most ignorant of denier arguments.
You are not smarter than a fifth grader if you take what the propaganda campaign says, and which the oil industry pays for, as the truth, while disregarding the opinion of practically the entire world scientific community.
Everything you said is pure rubbish.
All of the prediction of the IPCC were too conservative and have been exceeded by current scientific observation. What you are saying is nonsense, complete and utter nonsense.
The idea the global warming has stopped since 1988 is absolutely not true. The upward trendline has never been broken. The 8 warmest years on record are since 1998 and the 14 warmest since 1990.
scienceblogs.com/delto...
climateprogress.org/20.../
climateprogress.org/20.../
You would be better informed if you got your information from actual climate scientists, like the above sources.
That is obviously not the case now.
You are repeating arguments long disproven by science, as is the norm with global warming deniers. Deniers continue to repeat long refuted arguments and accept anything said by anyone with an opinion that goes against the vast majority of climate scientists, without question, yet deny the overwhelming scientific evidence for AGW. This is NOT honest skepticism, it is ideologically driven denial.
If it were honest skepticsm, you would be skeptical of the skeptics as well. Especially since they are almost all funded by the oil and coal companies.
In short, you are just plain wrong on the biggest issue man has ever faced.
All the lists of skeptic scientists have been debunked. They are all phony lists, everyone of them.
The Oregon Petition? a hoax, perpetrated by a guy who thinks the industrial revolution has made the earth greener.
Completely discredited in the scientific community. The Petition basically forged NAS stationary to fool some scientists into signing what they thought was an official document from the National Academy of Science.
"This group OISM is run off of a farm in Oregon and contains no climate scientists at all. ...The petition is from the 90s and was passed around with a fake article that fooled some scientists into thinking it was from the National Academy of Science.
"Arthur Robinson's paper claimed to show that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is actually a good thing
As a result, Robinson concluded, industrial activities can be counted on to encourage greater species biodiversity and a greener planet."
If you believe that you are not smarter than a fifth grader.
www.sourcewatch.org/in...
Sen Inhofe's list of 413 "prominent" scientists who disagree with AGW theory?
Another joke.
Senator Inhofe's list of 413 skeptics included:
20 economists
44 television weathermen
70 scientists with no expertise in climate study
84 scientists who are either connected with the oil industry or are paid by it.
Scientists who were included against their will, and who agree with the IPCC
Here's the denier propaganda mill, Heartland Institute's, list of "experts" from Texas.
A joke!
Robert Bradley, energy expert.
H.Sterling Burnett, policy analyst
Dr. John Dale Dunn, emergency physician
Michael Economides, petroleum engineer
Not one climate scientist! Not one!
And there are dozens if not hundreds of climate scientists in Texas.
We have the VP or GM declaring that he knows of 32,000 "leading scientists" who disagree with AGW.
Really?
That's about how many climate scientists there are in the world. 99% of them agree with AGW.
So where is he getting the 32,000? The Oregon Petition for one thing. The rest he must be pulling out of his as.....
If you still believe there is no scientific consensus, go to the next AGU meeting or EGU meeting and see how many skeptics there are.
Very very few, and the number is shrinking, not getting bigger.
This link will give you an idea of how much consensus there really is.
www.logicalscience.com.../
As Obama's new Nobel Prize winning Presidential Science Advisor says:
"The few climate-change “skeptics” with any sort of scientific credentials continue to receive attention in the media out of all proportion to their numbers, their qualifications, or the merit of their arguments."
"Members of the public who are tempted to be swayed by this vocal fringe should ask themselves how it could be, if human-caused climate change is just a hoax, that the leaderships of the national academies of sciences of every country in the world that has one are repeatedly on record saying that global climate change is real, dangerous, caused mainly by humans, and reason for early and concerted action to reduce those causes; that this is also the overwhelming consensus view among the faculty members of the earth sciences departments at every major university in the world; and that all three of holders of the one Nobel prize in science that has been awarded for environmental science (Crutzen, Rowland, and Molina, in 1995, for figuring out what was happening to stratospheric ozone) are all leaders in the climate-change scientific mainstream."
"The fact is that anybody who could believe that the cream of the part of the world scientific community that has actually studied this phenomenon could be co-opted by hoaxers or suffering from mass hysteria is just not thinking clearly."
"We should really call them “deniers” rather than “skeptics”, because they are giving the venerable tradition of skepticism a bad name."
"As my original reference to “the venerable tradition of skepticism” indicates, I am in fact well aware of its valuable and indeed fundamental role in the practice of science. Skeptical views, clearly stated and soundly based, tend to promote healthy re-examination of premises, additional ways to test hypotheses and theories, and refinement of explanations and arguments. And it does happen from time to time — although less often than most casual observers suppose — that views initially held only by skeptics end up overturning and replacing what had been the “mainstream” view."
"Appreciation for this positive role of scientific skepticism, however, should not lead to uncritical embrace of the deplorable practices characterizing much of what has been masquerading as appropriate skepticism in the climate-science domain."
"The purveying of propositions like these by a few scientists who do or should know better –and their parroting by amateur skeptics who lack the scientific background or the motivation to figure out what’s wrong with them — are what I was inveighing against in the op-ed and will continue to inveigh against. The activities of these folks, whether witting in the case of the scientists or unwitting in the case of their gullible adherents, have nothing to do with respectable scientific skepticism."
That's a breath of fresh air after eight years of the Bush administration censoring scientists at NASA, the EPA etc. They even had their lawyers censor the report from the Climate Change study authorized by Bush, and written by scientists at the National Academy of Science.
Finally, some truth in the Whitehouse. Scientists will once again be free to speak without fear of officially sanctioned censoring and denigration.
I strongly suggest reading "The Heat Is On"
to get an idea of the scope of the disinformation campaign that is fooling many like you.
Their cries really sped up in the 1970s when the Dumborats took over the government—big time—with Peanut Head, the Old Socialist Leprechaun, and a Freedom-Suppressing Court in charge.
At that time every eco-maniac and pseudo-scientist claimed the earth was running out of oil and all other natural resources and we were on the brink of a “global freeze”—the old now-forgotten “nuclear winter” tarradiddle.
Indeed, the same eco-maniacs who were around then (the young ones have no idea about their savants’ history) and are today adamant about “global warming” were also adamant about other predicted catastrophes that never came about, and about which they do not bring up today, such as the Y2K-con, the over-population bomb, global freezing, nuclear winters, acid rain poisoning, vanishing wildlife, killer bee onslaughts, tree shortages, water shortages, oil depletions, energy shortages, worldwide poverty, C02 poisonings, flooding of whole land masses, famines on a worldwide scale, earthquakes causing huge pieces of land to fall into the ocean, nuclear war, nuclear power plant meltdowns killing billions and envenoming whole continents, ozone depletion brought about by a “greenhouse effect,” dying coral reefs causing the death of all ocean life, disappearance of most oceanic fish caused by too many humans having to eat to survive, oil pipelines causing animal extinction, and every other prophesied calamity that has never come about.
Anyone who disagrees with their catastrophic scare-mongering is an unscientific fool—a boob who could only live in a small-minded, small town. It’s much the same as anyone who disagrees with their gods (now Obama, but previously Al Snore and Skinflinton).
Their jump to “global warming” is fairly recent, but the same catastrophic, world-ending, doomsday tales come with it as it did all of the above canards.
The man I believe to be the heating-hoax inventor, Stephen Schneider, the author of the “Genesis Strategy” (1976), was sure in the 1970s that in the 1980s the world was going into an ice age. When that didn’t occur, he came with, what else, the book “Global Warming.”
When promoting his new view, Schneider said the following in an October 1989 interview recorded in “Discover Magazine”: “To capture the public’s imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts one might have about global warming. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest.”
They were just as sure then as they are now that the earth was going to implode and humans were the cause of it.
And what should really tip off any reasoning person to the phoniness of their nightmarish claims is that their cure for each one is the same: more government, more regulation, higher taxation, and less freedom for the average person.
Yep, you better believe them. Your fat butt is going to be roasting over the next few years; or will it be freezing? Oh well, who knows? But it's for darn sure going to be bad, whatever occurs. Just ask any skizziod, quivering Damorat. They'll tell you and quickly too: Hell can thrust forth no fury like a "Warming Planet." Or, is it a “Freezing Planet?”
And none of them can ever answer the question about one of their gods: Why is it that Snore only pops his head out when the sun’s shining?
The fact is there's not enough OIL to keep living the way we have, so we have to change our evil wasteful ways. The iron fist of limited resources will prevail in any event and the green fist of global warming is only serving to make the problem urgent today instead of a few years from now.
Over the longer term we will have to start building base load plants with either coal or nuclear technology. Ignoring carbon for a moment, there are a lot of sound economic reasons to favor the nuclear option.
Piling on the wind and solar alternatives like we are right now will delay the reckoning day when a decision has to be made, but that day will come if we don't want to freeze in the dark. When it comes, my sense is that the public perception will favor nuclear as the best bad choice.
If there are two competing religions and they both impose the same strict moral code, does it really matter which is right?
I think most of them are mostly control freaks rather than being worried about the environment. Have you ever met a leftist who was not a control freak?
But at this point the Great GDP Nation of the World has elected someone who has promised to save the planet from heat. So in that sense it doesn't matter, because what we must do from here is to see where he's going to toss money and then how we can benefit from where it's going.
I don't agree with you about our running out of oil. I come from the camp that oil does not form from fossils, but forms from heat and certain chemical mixes, as do the Russians and the Chinese.
There's plenty of oil and no sign we're running out.
Good work otherwise. Keep it up. And have a great New Year --- this one being your best yet, I hope.
Respectfully, Artful
I'll "come clean" and say I'm in the global warming or environmental
destruction camp. I also agree the earth has cycles of cooler, warmer,
wetter weather.
Damage is all around us, we just ignore it or forget over the course of a lifetime.
Those bumble bees and butterflies were kind of cute and those snappers
and groupers, those tasty dinners, I'll miss them. Glacier Park, Polar bears look nice in photos to. Hey, it's good news for the real estate developers.
Of course those boys in Arizona and California are gonna start getting
grumpy once the water rationing starts. Some areas have it "figured out"
by recycling "waste water", technology at work keeping up with humans.
I forgot about those "brookies" I'm fond of in the Adirondacks, oh...
acid rain..what a shame those Ohio Boys wouldn't cap their emissions.
It's just a "small" fish anyway. While I'm on the Dacks, let's not
forget those nasty old "pine beetles" and Eastern Hemlock disease.
That Park Agency sure is strict, won't let us developers come in and
build a couple hundred estates...we might better start a lawsuit..
we did get approved in Moosehead Lake in Maine...done deal there
PS- sorry about the big fine, Shania Twain, but you weren't supposed
to cut those trees along the shoreline...didn't they didn't tell you?
I never did get see the primates in Madagascar..to late.
The Amazon...turned out to be a great place for biofuels...
Those pretty little exotic fish in Asia...oh they are still around..
we rounded them up to put in salt water aquariums in high
end homes..don't tell anybody.
Florida has those dam turtles protected...can't turn my lights on
at night..might confuse the bastards. And those damn manatees
are holding up building "new marinas", call my lobby group..
I heard China is taking massive amounts of soft shell turtles from central
Florida...don't tell. Deep sea fishing was pretty down there...but that
was a long time ago...yea, the coral is dead to...gotta keep those
local governments growing..lets change some more zoning codes..
sandpipers..I haven't seen those things around...flamingos, yea
they disappeared during the hurricane...iguanas and pigeons and
African geckos are everywhere, so it's not so bad...
Right whales...those big old things..to big anyway.
And stop bothering Japan for taking a few tasty whales every year..
same with those seal hunts in Canada..
Sharks...hey they taste great in soup...couldn't be helped..
Gorillas...I remember them from the movies..King Kong?
Slaughtering animals for religion? isn't that divine...
By the way..those mounted animals on my wall sure make me more
manly...had to wait a few hours before he found the bait.
Those damn wolves need to go in Idaho and Alaska..we're
good to go..we've got Sarah Palin on our side..this'll be fun boys..
"shootem" from the helicopters..like sittin ducks
By the way...what was a dodo bird..tasmanian tiger? long time ago..
who cares anyway.
As a poster said, technology will save the world?...mmm
I was thinking technology is expediting our demise..our
biodiversity..our planets gifts..Humans are crafty little devils..
they've got it all "figured out"...one day they'll solve cancer to..
of course those ancient tribes don't get cancer and they don't
have technologies..what's up with that?
Hey, at least I didn't put my baby or dog in the oven or garbage pail..
Democrats ...Republicans...heads... someone say lobbyist?
Maybe the system is broke...late in the game anyway..I got to enjoy it..
no complaints..kinda fun growing up before cable tv..faxes..internet..
iphones..cell phones..ipod...in those days we used an antenna and rotary phone...wasn't that bad guys..we had record players, sugar maples,
fresh water.
Now the good news...that fertilizer makes the lawn look really good...
Those builders did a heck of a job squeezing 8000 ft homes on a quarter
acre..made a lot of money...good for the economy to..yea, just
two people live there...by the way the home is "green" and very
efficient..5 zone cooling and insulated glass...these people are very energy
conscious...that 65 ft yacht....well, we won't go there..
yeh...humans got it "all" figured out
here in reston, virginia in 1968 we had box turtles wandering around all over the place. you had to dodge them on the roads (some of which were dirt).
of course everybody had to put toxic chemicals on their nice green grass to control the bug pests plus all the fertilizers (N, P, etc.).
then people started to notice that chesapeake bay was dying. wonder where all that excess fertilizer went?
then we noticed there were no more box turtles. they had eaten all the bugs that had been dining on the toxic chemicals. being @ the top of the food chain, the turtles bioaccumulated and either died or couldn't reproduce any more.
after all the humans are gone from planet earth the cockroaches will write books explaining how the humans bioaccumulated and did themselves in.
> jack
the real problem with "global warming."