I cannot bring up alternatives to CO2 without being mobbed.

[Skogsgurra]

PC has now taken over all discussions on climate and reasons for climate changes.

I try to keep an open mind, but Sweden has always been a consensus society and consensus is now total. Any other possible mechanism than CO2 is now banned and not allowed to be brought up in discussions.

What do you think about such a society?

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.

 

[Ron]

BigInch...the question is not whether to repair your house after a lightning strike, but whether we can prevent lightning.....which we cannot.

 

[IRstuff]

Sure, you can, lightning rods prevent lightning damage, and they work wonders.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[IRstuff]

At the very minimum, if there is truly nothing that we can do to prevent it, then we can and should do something to minimize the damage and disruption.

I find this attitude really surprising, particularly coming from engineers, who, when presented with other seemingly impossible problems, work to try and come up with solutions.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[zdas04]

There are inevetible things in the world. For example trying to prevent a sunrise is pointless. One of the ineveitable things is that the climate is going to change. Rational behaviour would be to mitigate the effects of the change. Political behaviour is to find a way to blame people for the inevitable and extort money from them to "prevent" the man-made effect. I've never heard anyone say that the climate is not changing. I've seen good arguemnts the describe a warming trend and good arguments that suggest a cooling trend (that is why the Greenies have changed the buzz phrase from "global warming" to "abrupt climate change"). These can be interesting discussions and we should each do a risk/reward analysis on our personal situation to see what actions we should take.

On the other hand, the AGW and GHG discussion is simply a wealth redistribution scheme. If all of the manipulated climate data and horribly flawed computer models happened to be "right" in the near term, "fixing" the problem would be followed shortly by a comet hitting the earth and wiping out civilization such as it is.

David

 

[hokie66]

IRstuff, as to climate change (not including conservation of resources and responsible environmental management):

"Do something" seems to be the motto of most politicians and environment activists, and it fits in quite nicely with those whose normal proclivity is to redistribute wealth. When questions are asked about the basis for action, the reaction is to create an "impartial" committee to produce a report supporting targeted taxation.

The reason we engineers don't try to solve this problem is that we can't define it, or believe the definition by others is incorrect. The best solution may be to "Do nothing".

 

[Skogsgurra]

Ooops, IR!

I hope that was a temporary slip of mind.

The lightning parallel wasn't very good. And - what do the lightning rods to be used against global warming look like?

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.

 

[IRstuff]

Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.

Admittedly, the cure might be slightly worse than the disease, but there would be fewer people left to squabble about it. There are supposedly about 22,000 nuclear "warheads" available in the world at this instance. If each one is no larger than a Hiroshima bomb, then there's still plenty of nuclear winter capability left in the world. We just have to make sure we blow up the "right" places.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[csd72]

RE: 'Do what? Why? How effective is it? Who shall do it? Are we (yes, WE) prepared to do that? And, again, why?'

These were the types of questions that this radio host was tring to ask and even though she repeatedly said 'lets take climate change as a given' she was completely shot down by the Coalition against climate change mantra.

The basis of the radio station were some comments from one of the lords regarding whether doing something about it was actually going to kill more people than just ignoring it.

In my opinion:
Scientists come up with (and hopefully prove) the problem
Engineers come up with the solutions
Politicians come up with the implementation strategy based on the advice from the scientists and engineers.
All of the above needs open debate.

 

[LionelHutz]

Anyone have data on how much the oceans have risen? After all, the ice caps and glaciers have been "melting at an alarming rate" for many years now - we've been hearing about htis for at least 15 or 20 years by now - and this melting should have caused a significant rise in the oceans.

I believe exactly what hokie66 posted. The engineering community looks at the proposed problem and does not see any theory or proof on what will happen regarding the future due to possible climate change. So, I also believe we should wait for an actual problem that needs to be solved.

IRstuff - proposing we play thermonuclear war as a solution is so extreme it is laughable. I actually find it very hard to believe you are being serious posting solutions like that.

Now, I do believe that we as humans should change certain things we do. But not because it's the solution to a some vague possible global warming crisis that just might destroy the earth. But rather because there are already valid proven reasons to do so.

 

[IRstuff]

No less extreme than burying one's head in the sand because it's all some sort of "conspiracy."

As for "valid, proven reasons," that's all well and fine, but as most engineers know, the proof is often seen after the fact, so when the oceans have risen by 20 ft, or whatever, you can start looking at the solutions, and then thermonuclear blasts might be the least extreme of the available solutions at the time.

Culturally, it's highly amusing and depressing that a society that used to have a saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," is willing to ignore what used to sage advice.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[TGS4]

Anyone have data on how much the oceans have risen? After all, the ice caps and glaciers have been "melting at an alarming rate" for many years now - we've been hearing about htis for at least 15 or 20 years by now - and this melting should have caused a significant rise in the oceans.

Here you go. This first link is the sea level history from the last 542 Million Years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Sea_Level.png.

This second link is the sea level history from 24 thousands years ago to present

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png.

This last link is 1880 until today

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png.

The current rate of sea level change is ~2mm/year. In this most recent interglacial, the rate has been as high as 30mm/year.

I completely agree with Gunnar that we need to have adult conversations about these questions, and not be slammed for discussing them.

BigInch, what you are discussing is called the Precautionary Principle - do something, anything, just in case... Directly to your example of the lightning rod. What if, however, the cost of an effective lightning rod were 4 times the cost to rebuild your house? Then would it be appropriate to install a lightning rod?

I recently posted a calculation on a political blog where I calculated the "cost" of mitigating warming. Based on the "Carbon Tax" rate that some political parties in Canada were bandying about, and the effectiveness of said taxes, the cost of mitigation of temperature rise was calculated to be $122.876 TRILLION per degrees Celsius (Canadian dollars, of course), assuming that the sensitivity that has been reported is correct, and that the only factor effecting warming is CO2 emissions, and that the price elasticity of carbon dioxide emissions are appropriate. To put that dollar value into perspective, that is $17,745 for EVERY person on the planet. I don't know about you, but that can buy a LOT of adaptation.

 

[LionelHutz]

IRstuff - arguing that the people burying their heads in the sand must be wrong because they are ignoring the issue makes it seem you believe they support some kind of "conspiracy". Saying the people not willing to do anything believe it is a conspiracy theory could be directed back at you by saying you must believe the people who say do nothing are behind a conspiracy theory. M

Many humans may feel that doing something, such as blowing up a bunch of nuclear weapons "as a preventative measure", just because we can is just as dumb as not doing anything and waiting for a better defined problem to solve.

The climate and the face of the planet will change - this will happen for one of many possible reasons and we as humans will not be able to do a damn thing about it. There might be population centers that end up under water one day. The people living there will either have to move or learn how to live in the flooded area.

I just know I won't be the one screaming out that the populations of N.Y. or L.A. or large portions of Australia or the Middle East or any of the other population centers in possible peril that they should all move "just in case".

 

[cswilson]

Gunnar:

Back to your original question on the high level of conformity in Swedish society, and your recent question about its relationship to the welfare state. First off, I'll wager that most of the non-conformists (like my family) left for America in the mass exodus of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, leaving behind the core "conformist" population.

I think this high level of conformity may be a pre-requisite for a generous welfare state (and not so much a result), both for being able to apply social pressure to deter abuse, and for the feeling that benefits are going to "us", not "them".

This weekend, I came across a blog post on the subject, explicitly comparing Sweden and the US. It focuses more on ethnic diversity than cultural conformity, but I think the two are related.

http://volokh.com/2011/06/12/immigration-and-the-welfare-state/

 

[cswilson]

IRstuff: You say, 'Culturally, it's highly amusing and depressing that a society that used to have a saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," is willing to ignore what used to sage advice." '

But what if it's a ton of prevention needed for that pound of cure? (And I believe it is.) I think one of the reasons so many engineers are skeptical, especially on the policy front, is that they are used to weighing the "costs" (whether monetary or otherwise) of proposed solutions to problems against expected benefits.

To get CO2 levels back to where the alarmists tell us they need to be, we would need to get our per-capita emissions down to where they were in the late 19th century. To do this we would need to raise fossil fuel prices by a factor of 10 to 20 (1000% to 2000%) or so. The recent price increases of 30%-50% have barely altered emissions levels, while causing a great deal of economic pain. Do you really think this is going to happen?

 

[IRstuff]

I'm just getting ready to relocate and start up my beachfront real estate office in Needles.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
Chinese prisoner wins Nobel Peace Prize

 

[Ron]

Back to the lightning....yes you can use lightning rods to mitigate damage, but that still doesn't prevent the lightning from occurring.

 

[hokie66]

The graphs posted by TGS4 are interesting, especially the one since the last glacial maximum, some 22000 years ago. Assuming that graph is correct, it looks to me like the sea level rise has been leveling off for about 7000 years, and we may be at about the crest. Of course, this would make the scientists right who in the 1970's were warning against the coming era of global cooling...come to think of it, some of those guys are now in the global warming camp. Whatever, the thing I think it shows best is the insignificance of man's contribution to falling and rising seas. Maybe it is the folks who say the science is settled who have their heads in the sand...or somewhere.

 

[Skogsgurra]

We have had quite a few alarms over the years. The nuclear winter, the ozone hole are two of them. The nuclear winter would be man-made, no doubt. The ozone hole was /is also clearly an effect of using CFC in cooling machinery.

Before CO2, the concern with the ozone hole was dominant. Is that threat gone? Or are we more afraid of CO2 now? The thing that we understand a lot less than the ozone?

BTW, I happened to visit the little French village 'Ozon' this spring. Picture attached.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.

 

[Ron]

Gunnar...looks like the photo went to the ozone.

 

[hokie66]

It's a hole.