Kyoto and Spin 35

[zdas04]

Recently I was talking to a group of engineers in Indonesia and someone said "we can't do that because, unlike the U.S., we have obligations to protect the environment".

That rocked me, and I asked what the heck he was talking about (we were in Jakarta and the air is so nasty that you can't see the next sky scraper). His response was that since the U.S. didn't sign the Kyoto protocols we must just be raping and pillaging the environment.

A Canadian collegue pointed out that the U.S. has been a leader in controlling air emissions for decades and that our air-quality restrictions are far more stringent than the Indonesian restrictions. This shocked the Indonesians.

What I'm wondering is how the international media has gotten to the point where its agenda is just taken on faith with no regard to facts?

David

 

[zdas04]

Moltenmetal,
I don't get where I said that conservation would wreck economies. I beleive very strongly (and have said several times in this thread) that both conservation and reducing pollution are good things. My concern is that a knee jerk reaction to the threat of global warming will push us into stupid and wasteful decisions (like banning R-12 refrigerant) that don't conserve anything and hurt economies.

The worldwide response to Kyoto has been replete with stupid behavior that has increased polution in one place while reducing it a lesser amount in another. I saw one example of a company in the UK that claimed a huge CO2 reduction by closing a plant in the UK and shifting the pollution to a country with much lower Kyoto goals. The emmissions in the third-world country were hidden through corporate-entity management.

I don't agree with you that as engineers we build things every day with the kind of data that global warming decisions are based on. While we never know everything we always know something. In this discussion people are demanding action when the data is clearly inadequate. For every study claiming that glaciers are shrinking there is another study saying they're advancing. For every voice crying that the oceans are rising there is another saying they're falling.

Any position that anyone takes on global warming is supported by quality sceintific data. The opposing view has similar quality data.

David

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

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[moltenmetal]

Quoting zdas04:

"None of us would build a bridge or a cog or a pipeline or a computer based on the quality of data that exists on this subject, but we are quite willing to wreck economies."

zdas04: You are quite right: you do not explicitly say that measures to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions will wreck our economies. And you have stated clearly that you favour conservation in principle.

You do not favour "knee jerk" reactions to what you consider to be flaky data on the greenhouse gas ===> global warming connection. You consider Kyoto to be a knee-jerk reaction.

You never state what you DO believe we should do on this file, from what I've read and re-read in your posts. You make only one statement: "Doing nothing is better than doing something stupid." Perhaps you believe we should do something to curb wasteful consumption, but you don't state what that is so I can't discuss it with you.

You claim that there is data of equal quality on both sides of this debate. I dispute that, but there's absolutely no point in arguing this with you, as you will believe what you will. I believe that you, like many others here, falsely equate the consensus of the scientific community actually studying these issues with a considerably smaller number of dissenting voices. I don't claim to know for certain whether the dissenters in this case are like Count Rumsford and the scientific establishment are clinging to the caloric theory of heat, or vice versa- but I DO trust the scientific community to have a far better ability to sort that out than I do as a lone engineer with no education in climatology. And as I've repeatedly said, I don't need to know for certain that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases lead with certainty to global warming. The mere probability that this is the case is sufficient to justify taking action- serious action- against something which we already KNOW to have countless other harmful effects on human health, the global political and economic sphere, and innumerable ecological systems on our shared planet.

Unless you're going to suggest some other sensible course of action on this issue, I'm done arguing with you.

 

[dcasto]

Why is it that the liberals are pushing the Kyoto treaty because its a conservation measure to stop something we don't know for certain.

Syntroleum to reduce CO2, come on, carbon is carbon. Hydrogen economy, get real. Hybrid cars, only in hilly cities,not teaming electric motors with V6's to get more horsepower to feed an ego and get a tax break too.

WE should standing up as engineers and support using energy resources in the most effiecient ways.

Liquid fuels should be for transportation only.
Methane is for domestic use only, not electricity.
Electrity should come from coal and nuclear.
ALL the energy facilities should be located in the back yard of the end user.

 

[jmw]

DCASTO,
you introduce a very valid point as regards local energy production.
Significant steps in this direction were taken with the debundling and de-nationalisation of the electricity supplier services and the introduction of third party access agreements.

It is increasingly the case that significant users of energy are able to auto-generate and become third party access suppliers to the grid. This introduces significant efficiecncies.

Examples include paper mills, textile factories, refineries, chemical plants and so on.
They can now generate their own electricity more efficiently and are able to utilise the heat energy produced for steam generation. Surplus electricity is then available to the community.

CHP schemes raise the energy efficiency significantly. I forget the exact figures but it raises the eficieny of large diesel engines, for example, to something like 83% (some one will surely supply the right figures and I appologise if I am seriously in error).

Such power plants often now combine gas turbine and large diesel engines and can utilise gas or Heavy fuel oil as appropriate based on prevailing costs.

It is unfortunate that in countries like the UK where the privatisation of the electricity industry took place early on under the Thatcher government, that such schemes seem far less well exploited than seems to be the case in other countries who may have been later to debundle but more agressive in adopting CHP schemes, or so it seems to me adn I could be very wrong here.

E F SChumacher made the point in his book "Small is Beautiful" that there are often significant efficiencies in designing for small scale local production than large scale centralised production and some have criticised the Fusion reactor program for having design objectives based on large scale poower plant rather than small scale local energy production. I am sure there are many other benefits of local energy production but perhaps they are not all realised if excess energy is still provided to a national grid rather than a local gris. This is a point that some other members may care to comment on.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[SomptingGuy]

It is unfortunate that in countries like the UK where the privatisation of the electricity industry took place early on under the Thatcher government, that such schemes seem far less well exploited than seems to be the case in other countries who may have been later to debundle but more agressive in adopting CHP schemes, or so it seems to me adn I could be very wrong here.

I seem to remember there was some kind of rule in the UK that electricity providers were required to generate electricity in the most efficient means possible. This meant big power stations, effectively preventing CHP.

 

[Dinosaur]

There are some facts that are overlooked in this debate that indicate the comparative consequences of changing the rules regarding power production and usage. Large power plants, using fossil fuels, etc. are the choices the market has made to serve a need. The one exception I see is the lack of nuclear power (overall) in the US. This is an entirely artificial constraint on the power generation market.

For my part, I look forward to the day when solar power or geothermal power can be utilized to serve our needs. However, if we had unlimited power, there would be much less need for engineers.

 

[josephv]

zdas04 said

"What I'm wondering is how the international media has gotten to the point where its agenda is just taken on faith with no regard to facts?"

"It looks to me like the worldwide propaganda has proven to be amazingly successful and technical people have become very emotional about something with minimal and conflicting data. "

What makes you think this?

In fact, I see many international journals, tv stations, and newspapers simply not supporting Kyoto.

Also, propaganda is "the activity of spreading particular ideas, opinions etc according to an organized plan". I frankly, don't see an organized world wide plan at work here.

 

[LCruiser]

josephv -

If you don't think there's an organized plan to blame it all on CO2, check these out. First, there is a blog called desmogblog. It's one of the most ad hominemistic (is that a word?) alarmist blogs around. It is financed to the tune of $300k (how they're spending $300k on a blog is beyond me) by a guy named John Lefebvre, who founded NETeller. NETeller is into carbon trading:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,748-2184360,00.html

Then, Al Gore stands to make a lot - check out

http://www.generationim.com

- a company advising on carbon trading etc. No problem, no paycheck.

Then, the granddaddy of them all, the IPCC, which was founded by the UN - of Oil for Food fame. They skimmed millions off just one country's trading. Just think how much they could skim on a worldwide plan.

 

[josephv]

LCruiser

The sites you mentioned don’t exactly constitute "worldwide" propaganda. To say that these groups influence world policy and opinion would be quite an exaggeration. The reality is that the international media is not focused on environmental issues.

Many governments and companies all over the world were involved in the corruption that we saw in the oil for food program. I don’t think it’s fair to just blame the UN and to forget about the other parties involved. The IPCC is involved in a very different political situation and environment, to say that they will be involved in skimming is quite an assumption and has nothing to do with the facts.

 

[LCruiser]

josephv -

I'm not saying a bunch of people got together and said "hey, let's create a potential climate catastrophe" but that individuals have seen ways to capitalize on the fear of that possibility, and pseudoscientists lining up at the global warming feedwagon are competing for the head of the research money line. No crisis, no funding.

 

[SomptingGuy]

pseudoscientists lining up at the global warming feedwagon

What a great expression. A star.

 

[jmw]

Somptinguy,
was that before or after privatisation?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[SomptingGuy]

I can't remember. It was an anecdote from one of my thermo lecturers at Imperial College, so it must have been late 80's if that helps.

 

[josephv]

LCruiser

Climatology, the study of climate belongs to the atmospheric sciences and it uses the scientific method.

Pseudoscience is quite different since it refers to practices that do not use the scientific method.

Now, calling members of the scientific community pseudo scientists, just because you may not agree with them is simply going to far. What makes you think that they aren’t using the scientific method? What facts could you use to back up these comments?

 

[Zapster]

Interesting link

Hot & Cold Media Spin Cycle:
A Challenge to Journalists who Cover Global Warming

http://epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/6341044 Hot & Cold Media.pdf

 

[zdas04]

Zapster,
That is exactly the information I was looking for. Notice the specific references to peer-reviewed papers that say, "temperature is changing, just like it always has".

I also like the references to the four conflicting climate scares in the media during the 20th century.

Thanks for finding that.

David

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

The harder I work, the luckier I seem

 

[josephv]

Here is the other side of the story...

http://www.charlesmontgomery.ca/mrcool.html

Nurturing Doubt about Climate Change is big business

 

[zdas04]

“The other side of the story”????????????

The article linked by Zapster provided a white paper prepared by Senator Jim Inhoff of Oklahoma, chairman of the Senate Environment Committee and every one of Senator Inhoff’s points was backed by a link to a peer reviewed article.

Charles Montgomery’s “Mr. Cool” article was simply an ad homenum attack on

a coalition of oil-patch geologists, Tory insiders, anonymous donors and oil-industry PR professionals

Every point in the tirade was simply that anyone who took money from industry in general or the Oil industry in particular must be disregarded out of hand. Mr. Montgomery doesn’t say who is funding the people who say that anthropogenic gases are sending us headlong toward a global catastrophe, but they couldn't possibly have an agenda.


What Tripe.

David

 

[josephv]

Sorry to break the news to you, but Governor Schwarzenegger did not like Senator Inhofe's comments. Notice how careful the Senator is in his reply.

The California governor likens Inhofe's stance to 'Stone Age thinking'; Inhofe is careful in his reply.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=061128_Ne_A1_Inhof28271

 

[zdas04]

Again, so what. There is simply nothing in the popular press that can be counted on as scientific data. Inhofe doesn't slam the Governor of California for a personal attack. Sounds like diplomacy meets politics--who cares?

David