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Given the rising number of extreme weather events, . In an investigation recently published in Nature Climate Change, scientists looked into how quickly benefits of climate mitigation strategies—meaning dropping CO2 emissions—reduce the risk of heat waves.
The researchers answered these questions using climate-model simulations. These models can be run with different levels of emissions, some assuming a very aggressive mitigation scenario with lowered emissions, others assuming emissions that are unchecked, producing significant increases in emissions over time. By comparing model runs with different levels of emissions, the researchers were able to develop an understanding of the time required for effects of mitigation plans to be noticeable.
In particular, the team focused on extreme events that occurred on average once every 10 years when emissions continue to rise unchecked. They then introduced different levels of emissions mitigation until the probability of such an event is half as likely, occurring only once every 20 years. Using this method, the scientists determined that for many regions, it takes less than 20 years of emissions reductions to drop the probability of extreme hot weather by more than 50 percent after mitigation has begun.
Climate change is god's will, isn't it?
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday April 08 2017, @03:35PM (42 children)
Second, the wealth from fossil fuel use buys a lot of capability to deal with extreme weather. The developed world has very little trouble with extreme weather and other disasters. Sure, there's a lot of property damage, particularly in the US, but that's because valuable property is built in harm's way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @04:26PM (10 children)
Once again, fairly alarming predictions have been made, based on models not reality.
You know why? If/when those predictions become reality, it's a bit too late.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:12PM (9 children)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:05PM (8 children)
Pascal's wager is a poor argument in general.
Khallow, you're sounding like an uneducated idiotic brainwashed Republican refugee. Pascal's wager is about dealing with exorbitant outcomes, even ones with low probability, and is a very good argument for such possibilities. What is wrong with you? Are you suddenly made into a unmathematical maroon by the mere mention of Anthropogenic Global Warming? Well, punk, are ya?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:15PM
Are you suddenly made into a unmathematical maroon by the mere mention of Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Of course he is. So are a lot of people on both "sides." It's a partisan issue now and has nothing to do with the science.
How to tell if you're on one side or another: do you view Captain Planet as anything other than a kids' sentai show?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09 2017, @02:01AM (6 children)
Pascal's wager is about dealing with exorbitant outcomes, even ones with low probability, and is a very good argument for such possibilities.
Show the exorbitant outcome exists first and that you aren't ignoring other exorbitant outcomes in the process.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @03:26AM (1 child)
Show the exorbitant outcome exists first
Truly, you do not understand Pascal's Wager. And here we have all these people referencing the existence of God, right here in this thread! We will pray for your soul, khallow, even though you have sold it to Exxon and BP.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09 2017, @06:00AM
Show the exorbitant outcome exists first
Truly, you do not understand Pascal's Wager.
To the contrary, my quote above shows that I do. I merely treat it as another fallacy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09 2017, @05:48AM (3 children)
Show the exorbitant outcome exists first and that you aren't ignoring other exorbitant outcomes in the process.
To illuminate this further, consider the original Pascal's wager [wordpress.com]:
But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite. It is all divided; wherever the infinite is and there is not an infinity of chances of loss against that of gain, there is no time to hesitate, you must give all. And thus, when one is forced to play, he must renounce reason to preserve his life, rather than risk it for infinite gain, as likely to happen as the loss of nothingness.
So Pascal says here that risking finite pain against the promise of infinite gain (going to Heaven) is the only choice possible. In particular, he right away "renounces" reason. But he ignores several critical things. First, there are number of alleged routes to Heaven and some of these are mutually exclusive. Which finite cost is the right bet? In particular, why appease God rather than Satan? Perhaps your time in Hell will be made more comfortable, if you do the Dark Lord's will on Earth, right?
Second, in the situation where a zero change of infinite gain means you have no expected gain. So in the case where there is no Heaven or equivalent infinite gain afterlife, then no amount of Earthly sacrifice will change that. For allegedly large but finite gain, one would have to weight the benefit/costs not assume that one particular choice is the best.
Third, one isn't using reason with this approach as Pascal noted.
Finally, he ignores that Pascal's wager is a lousy argument for getting into Heaven. "I was playing the odds, so could you please let me in?" Yea, right.
The climate change problem is the same deal. There is an unwarranted assumption that any mitigation makes the world a better place. But we already have a number of examples where that is unlikely (US corn ethanol subsidies, German and Danish renewable energy policy, and carbon cap and trade markets with a long history of sloppy problems).
And there are other problems which also deserve our attention and which are often sacrificed by the climate change people, such as overpopulation, poverty, resource mismanagement, and habitat destruction.
Second, what's the basis of the huge gain or costs? It strikes me as an argument from ignorance which is the basis of the Pascal's wager argument. Scientists haven't been able to show that catastrophic global warming from our current modest input is impossible so we must engage in dramatic and costly mitigation efforts? This isn't the supernatural. We can observe the climate rather than merely climate models, if we choose. How about showing climate change is that much of a problem first?
Third, there's the abandonment of reason which Pascal admits as part of his argument. Sorry, I don't buy that we're in that much of a hurry that we can't do the science and economics parts of the job right.
Finally, we need to keep in mind motives (which is one of the larger ignored factors in Pascal's wager). There's a fair number of people who have an ax to grind. I am frequently reminded by others of the interests of fossil fuel companies, as if those were the only beings in the world with relevant interests. But quite a few other parties have interests going the other way. Climate researchers are one of those parties. Their funding is in large part predicated on climate change being urgent enough to justify that. Here, I've noticed several inflammatory research pieces in the last few weeks (here [slashdot.org] and here [soylentnews.org], for example). Perhaps it's a prelude to organizing [unfccc.int] the next IPCC report, which is coming up next month. Or perhaps it's a slow news day, though you'd think scientists would be a little more circumspect without actual evidence to back their assertions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @08:15AM (2 children)
So, khallow, you're going to hell? You still don't understand the Wager. It is not fallacious. Perhaps you should consider Rawls' MinMax principle instead? And quit poo-pooing the science, the possible catastrophe is proven possible enough for all non-right-wing nut-job persons of science!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09 2017, @12:38PM (1 child)
You still don't understand the Wager. It is not fallacious.
Sorry, but what gave you that idea? I think my reasoning is more than ample counterevidence.
Perhaps you should consider Rawls' MinMax principle instead?
What makes you think that my approach is worse than yours? We've done mitigation already. It hasn't been a boon for the worst off. There's a history here of bad ideas with negligible impact on global warming, but making food and energy more expensive for the worst off.
And optimizing for the worst off doesn't help those who aren't. I don't buy that this principle is at all useful, particularly when used by top-down people who don't have a clue what they're doing.
And quit poo-pooing the science, the possible catastrophe is proven possible enough for all non-right-wing nut-job persons of science!
You do realize you are wrong here? The actual studies indicate that while a very high percentage (at least 90%) "researchers" by whatever criteria the research uses, do indeed agree that there is human-generated global warming, but only a minority think that it could be catastrophic. For example, from Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] (referring to this study [oup.com]):
When asked "What do you think is the % probability of human-induced global warming raising global average temperatures by two degrees Celsius or more during the next 50 to 100 years?’’: 19% of respondents answered less than 50% probability, 56% said over 50%, and 26% didn't know.
When asked what they regard as "the likely effects of global climate change in the next 50 to 100 years," on a scale of 1 to 10, from Trivial to Catastrophic: 13% of respondents replied 1 to 3 (trivial/mild), 44% replied 4 to 7 (moderate), 41% replied 8 to 10 (severe/catastrophic), and 2% didn't know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @07:11PM
I think my reasoning is more than ample counterevidence.
Obvious, but that does not a rebuttal make! Truly you have a dizzying intellect! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1n5CQe1krI [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Saturday April 08 2017, @04:51PM (25 children)
Fine, let those who are getting all the wealth from fossil fuels pay for the damage. I can just hear your sweet screams of agony as you're forced to help poor people install air conditioning now.
You may not have noticed, but on the basis of the several unusually severe storm fronts that swept across the south east U.S. this year so far, everywhere is in harm's way. Perhaps you'd enjoy paying for more repairs everywhere.
Where's your TANSTAFL now?
(Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday April 08 2017, @05:15PM (24 children)
Fine, let those who are getting all the wealth from fossil fuels pay for the damage. I can just hear your sweet screams of agony as you're forced to help poor people install air conditioning now.
I assume you'll contribute as well due to the terrible quality of your arguments in defense?
You may not have noticed, but on the basis of the several unusually severe storm fronts that swept across the south east U.S. this year so far, everywhere is in harm's way. Perhaps you'd enjoy paying for more repairs everywhere.
Confirmation bias is not evidence.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:21PM (23 children)
In other words, as usual when you casually mention a "small" sum of money, you assume someone else will pay it. Subsidies are A-OK with you as long as you are the one getting subsidized. The market is great as long as we don't internalize the "wrong" externalities.
The IRS will have to put in overtime picking your pocket to help relocate flooded out islanders and baking Indians.
As for "confirmation bias", don't be stupid. If something has been harmed, it is by definition in harms way unless it somehow moves. Where do you propose we move the entire southeast? Certainly not to the midwest, given the history of tornadoes there.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09 2017, @02:04AM (22 children)
In other words, as usual when you casually mention a "small" sum of money
Link please. I haven't mentioned a "small" anything in this discussion and I would like to know what I supposedly said.
As for "confirmation bias", don't be stupid. If something has been harmed, it is by definition in harms way unless it somehow moves. Where do you propose we move the entire southeast? Certainly not to the midwest, given the history of tornadoes there.
What does that have to do with confirmation bias? I didn't say extreme weather wasn't happening, but that in itself it is not evidence that global warming contributed. Weird shit would happen anyway.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 09 2017, @04:57AM (21 children)
Look up. I would presume "little trouble" would include not breaking the bank.
Then re-read my posts. You might understand if you actually read rather than cherry picking key words to troll.
You claimed that the costs were due to building things where the weather could destroy them., I pointed out that everywhere is where severe weather may cause destruction.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09 2017, @05:56AM (20 children)
Look up. I would presume "little trouble" would include not breaking the bank.
Oh that. It's a simple matter that a wealthy society can afford to throw a bunch of expensive property on a flood plain or in the path of a cyclone. A glaring example, which is probably by itself responsible for most flooding and cyclone property damage costs in the world, is subsidized flood insurance in the US. The moral hazard from that, which is commonly blamed on climate change, has resulted in a huge build out in the areas where flooding is prevalent.
You claimed that the costs were due to building things where the weather could destroy them., I pointed out that everywhere is where severe weather may cause destruction.
I still claim that. You don't have the same risks of flooding everywhere. Like Yellowstone National Park, which is mostly above 2000 meters, just isn't going to be submerged by sea level rise ever.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 09 2017, @01:32PM (19 children)
Flooding is hardly the only danger of pumping a bunch of extra energy into our weather systems.
But talk about other effects, As I type this, there's a report on that Goldman Sachs claims that job creation is off because of unseasonable weather.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09 2017, @10:39PM (18 children)
Flooding is hardly the only danger of pumping a bunch of extra energy into our weather systems.
But it is the one causing most of the property damage. For example, we have this FEMA (Federal Emergency ) chart [ecowatch.com] which shows more than two thirds of all FEMA disaster assistance went to hurricanes which are primarily flooding damage. Similarly, the insurer Munich Re found that insurance payouts from extreme weather and such were mostly due to "socio-economic factors":
Our data shows that economic and insured losses from weather-related natural catastrophes are increasing dramatically. An analysis of our loss statistics provides indications that climate change is partly to blame. But the trend is being principally driven by increasing values and the settlement of exposed regions (in other words, by socio-economic factors).
I'll note here the phrase "pumping a bunch of extra energy into our weather systems". Rather CO2 hinders leakage of energy out of our weather systems. And extreme weather is a two-edged sword for all sides in the climate debate. While it tends to cause damage, it also tends to increase radiation of heat into space, an effect which is notably poorly modeled by current climate models.
Moving on, you wrote:
But talk about other effects, As I type this, there's a report on that Goldman Sachs claims that job creation is off because of unseasonable weather.
And they said [cnbc.com] February's numbers were off too - in the opposite direction.
Goldman Sachs economists forecast 170,000 jobs were created in March, but they say that number could have been 30,000 to 60,000 higher were it not for the weather. March's employment report is released Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET.
There were 235,000 jobs added in February, and Goldman economists say that unseasonably warm weather in that month could have been responsible for boosting payroll growth by 30,000 to 50,000 jobs.
But once again, weather is not climate.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday April 10 2017, @04:14AM (17 children)
Humorously, it seems you have tacitly accepted that climate change is a thing. It seems Munich Re agrees even if they consider other factors more significant to their business this year.
of course, when new construction is knowingly done in a high risk area both builder and insurer get an opportunity to evaluate the risk and the insurance cost of that risk. It's somewhat less pleasant if you find your low to moderate risk construction "upgraded" to high risk after the fact.
It is true that weather is not climate (remember that next time one of your fellow deniers claims that a snow flurry means no global warming), but long term trends in weather are climate.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 10 2017, @01:37PM (16 children)
Humorously, it seems you have tacitly accepted that climate change is a thing.
I explicitly accepted [soylentnews.org] that global warming induced by humans is a thing years ago. The source of my objections is that claims of harm from global warming are very tenuous and there has been consistent exaggerations of these claims from all involved parties (researchers, politicians, media, general public, etc) for at least the last two decades.
This world is not almost perfect where the only problem is climate change from fossil fuel use and the only needed solution is to stop doing that. We have many other problems and many other opportunities. We need to have solutions that take that into account via cost/benefits analysis (with accurate estimates of costs and benefits rather than the rigged game that is currently being played as in the article) rather than merely assume global warming is the worst problem ever.
of course, when new construction is knowingly done in a high risk area both builder and insurer get an opportunity to evaluate the risk and the insurance cost of that risk. It's somewhat less pleasant if you find your low to moderate risk construction "upgraded" to high risk after the fact.
Which is considerably in favor of the insurer, let us note. This is a large conflict of interest for insurers.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday April 13 2017, @03:12PM (15 children)
Yes, you have finally accepted that it is real. But you're still determined that we do nothing to replace our divot.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 14 2017, @12:33PM (14 children)
But you're still determined that we do nothing to replace our divot.
Yes, because I believe in evidence-based science, not touchie feelie-based science. Once again, the world is not an almost perfect teeing ground where the only problem is that a divot has been made and thus, simply fixed through replacement - a simple problem with a simple fix. There are a number of bigger problems than global warming such as overpopulation, poverty, government/societal corruption, habitat and arable land destruction, and misuse of natural resources. Climate mitigation attempts of the past couple of decades tend to roundly ignore these other problems and a fair number of people conflate these other problems with climate change issues.
The key problem with climate change mitigation is that it makes the worse problems worse. So even if global warming results in tremendous harm, burning fossil fuels (and other actions which make global warming worse) can still be a better strategy than not, simply because the world would be even worse off.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday April 14 2017, @01:14PM (13 children)
So unless it will also fix your roids, you refuse to splint your broken finger?
De-funding crazy people in the Middle East seems like a decent enough outcome. Reduced dependence on monopoly power companies seems to be a positive outcome as well. As for the poor, in many places, they're far more likely to get electricity from solar panels and wind locally than they are to benefit from a mass buildout of a power grid within their lifetime.
An important step towards fighting government and social corruption is establishing communication from the outside world. Locally available electricity facillitates that.
Reduced poverty seems to cause a shift towards smaller families. It's certainly more effective than demanding that the poor treat children as a luxury reserved to the wealthy.
In other words, mitigating global warming also attacks the other problems on your list. Spending a pile of money to jack up buildings and build sea walls to band-aid global warming does not.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 15 2017, @04:24AM (12 children)
So unless it will also fix your roids, you refuse to splint your broken finger?
You still don't get it. You aren't speaking of independent problems. You're speaking of breaking fingers in order to cure headaches.
De-funding crazy people in the Middle East seems like a decent enough outcome.
You're also defunding sane, productive people in the Middle East.
As for the poor, in many places, they're far more likely to get electricity from solar panels and wind locally than they are to benefit from a mass buildout of a power grid within their lifetime.
The opposite is true for the developed world and a considerable portion of the developing world.
In other words, mitigating global warming also attacks the other problems on your list. Spending a pile of money to jack up buildings and build sea walls to band-aid global warming does not.
Except, as I observed, when it has the opposite effect.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 15 2017, @02:52PM (11 children)
So you actually think remote villages are more likely to have affordable electricity brought to them via long distance transmission wires than by solar panels made cheaper by economies of scale?
Meanwhile, have you seen the crap going on with electricity in Australia? It's been a long time since the TVA in the U.S. these days (yes, it still exists but it is no longer doing mass buildouts) if you don't already have electricity from the grid, you'd better strike it rich if you expect to ever have it. Or install PV panels, small scale hydro, and/or wind turbines.
You think the sane productive people in the Middle East see a penny's profit from the oil fields? Most of the profits from oil fields go to the few powerful families so they can build amazingly impractical high rises and buy up mass quantities of modern military hardware to suppress the poor.
Finally, if you're referring to the few construction workers who get work jacking up buildings and building sea walls, they also benefit from getting work to retrofit solar and wind power.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:45AM (10 children)
So you actually think remote villages are more likely to have affordable electricity brought to them via long distance transmission wires than by solar panels made cheaper by economies of scale?
Well, yes. Solar panels at other than a token, status signaling scale won't magically appear without paying customers either. The difference is that a big customer like a mining company or agricultural business can anchor a grid for a whole neighborhood. And it's a lot cheaper just to send electricity via wire than build up a local generating infrastructure far from any modern society. Who will pay for, install, or maintain the solar panels? Wires can be maintained by people with repair trucks. It's a much lower threshold.
And I think we already see this over the past century. We don't see establishment of widespread, distributed power generation in the developing world. Instead we see the usual spread of the grid.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:04PM (9 children)
Did you consider we didn't see a lot of it over the last century because solar panels didn't even exist for most of it? The tech has improved a lot in recent years.
A lot of people in remote places are getting solar panels now, and so for the first time don't have to travel for miles to charge up their smart phones. Where were those anchors for the last 100 years? Same place they are today, non-existent. In Australia, if anything the grid is contracting, not expanding. It's to the point that some people find running a diesel generator is cheaper than buying power from the grid.Many of them are going to wind and solar because it's cheaper still. It seems that people with trucks need to be paid and the people that hire the people with trucks want to be paid a lot more. It is likely a better deal to hire the people with trucks directly to install solar.
You need to update your knowledge. Renewables have gotten a lot cheaper in the last few years. To the point that in places where the grid hasn't already been built out, they make a hell of a lot more sense financially. Even in places where there is a grid, they're becoming competitive. Add in power companies that expect their once captive customers to pay for their malinvestments and you have a good case for local generation through wind, small scale hydro, and solar.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:03PM (8 children)
Did you consider we didn't see a lot of it over the last century because solar panels didn't even exist for most of it? The tech has improved a lot in recent years.
No, I don't buy it. Distributed generation has been around for the last century too.
A lot of people in remote places are getting solar panels now, and so for the first time don't have to travel for miles to charge up their smart phones.
So? There's a huge gap between the power needs of smart phones and the current developed world standards of about 0.5-1kW of generating capacity per household.
In Australia, if anything the grid is contracting, not expanding.
And Australia has a massive green energy initiative increasing the cost and harming the reliability of its grid. It's quite the coincidence.
You need to update your knowledge. Renewables have gotten a lot cheaper in the last few years. To the point that in places where the grid hasn't already been built out, they make a hell of a lot more sense financially. Even in places where there is a grid, they're becoming competitive. Add in power companies that expect their once captive customers to pay for their malinvestments and you have a good case for local generation through wind, small scale hydro, and solar.
And destroying the viability of the Australian grid in exchange for distributed solar was a foolish trade. The technology won't advance fast enough to protect us from continued really bad decisions at the societal scale.
Going back to my original point, I'm concerned, sjames, that you won't be able to pay your share of the mess from feed-in tariffs in Australia and Germany; corn ethanol subsidies in the US; poorly designed carbon markets in Europe; and the many other amazingly bad ideas worldwide with the tenuous justification of mitigating climate change. Or the harm you've done to the pro-climate mitigation side with your terrible arguments such as in this thread. Perhaps you should post a large bond, say in the $100k to $1 million range before you post further? At present, I just don't feel comfortable with your ability to financially compensate humanity for the harm from the programs and arguments on your side.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:59PM (7 children)
So? There's a huge gap between the power needs of smart phones and the current developed world standards of about 0.5-1kW of generating capacity per household.
So what, you were supposedly concerned for the poor and those with no power. For them, enough power to fire up a smart phone and/or a laptop is the difference between living in the 19th or 21st century..
As for Australia, have you been drinking furniture polish? The grid costs went up first, that's what spurred everyone to go solar with the power company fighting them tooth and nail. And by grid costs, I mean the amount the power company charges it's customers for use of the grid. A separate line item from the cost of the electricity actually drawn from the grid. The solar move was driven by that market thingy you're so enamored of.
Finally, are you claiming the solar panel was invented prior to 1917? That modern highly efficient computer designed wind turbines came out of WWI tech?
I can only guess you have some bizarre fetish for (other) people losing given your hatred of win-win situations.
As for the rest, please point out ANYWHERE I have advocated for the corn ethanol program in the U.S. or the European carbon market? (Hint: you can't). But note that as a telecommuter, I'm probably using a lot less of the subsidized corn ethanol than you are.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:22PM (6 children)
So what, you were supposedly concerned for the poor and those with no power. For them, enough power to fire up a smart phone and/or a laptop is the difference between living in the 19th or 21st century..
No, it's not. But thanks for playing.
As for Australia, have you been drinking furniture polish? The grid costs went up first, that's what spurred everyone to go solar with the power company fighting them tooth and nail. And by grid costs, I mean the amount the power company charges it's customers for use of the grid. A separate line item from the cost of the electricity actually drawn from the grid. The solar move was driven by that market thingy you're so enamored of.
The obvious rebuttal is "feed-in tariffs".
Finally, are you claiming the solar panel was invented prior to 1917? That modern highly efficient computer designed wind turbines came out of WWI tech?
The photovoltaic effect has been around since 1839. Modern wind turbines did evolve from WWI tech like airplane blades and wings. And solar/wind is not the only way to have distributed power. Portable diesel generators are a very common form of distributed power that has been around for a long time.
As for the rest, please point out ANYWHERE I have advocated for the corn ethanol program in the U.S. or the European carbon market? (Hint: you can't). But note that as a telecommuter, I'm probably using a lot less of the subsidized corn ethanol than you are.
So what? Your argument applies just as well to that as anything else. When you don't care about other priorities as you have repeatedly demonstrated, then these sort of things result.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:59PM (5 children)
The feed-in tarriffs are a plane where you provide power to the grid for less than it will cost you to buy it back (at least in Australia). But you still pay the full grid price which keeps going up due to well acknowledged malinvestments.
As for the rest, you're becoming increasingly desperate to salvage a lose out of a win-win. Amazing.
You DO know that an observed weak photovoltaic effect is a far cry from a practical or even vaguely usable solar cell. Or are you going to claim we started using hydrogen fusion power in the late 60s because the Farnsworth fusor exists?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 19 2017, @05:45AM (4 children)
The feed-in tarriffs are a plane where you provide power to the grid for less than it will cost you to buy it back (at least in Australia). But you still pay the full grid price which keeps going up due to well acknowledged malinvestments.
I'll note two things here. First, those feed-in tariffs are fine, if you're the one selling power to the grid. They're not fine for everyone else who gets to pay for those tariffs. That's causing the grid price to go up. Second, feed-in tariffs and high reliance on intermittent power generation sources is apparently here an unacknowledged malinvestment. I'll note also that the current problems with the grid coincide with the introduction of state-level feed-in tariffs around 2008.
Sure, I too have read stories which indicate that some excess blame has been placed on renewable power generation in southern Australia, but I've also read that these policies are a significant contributor to the instability and malinvestment issues that the grid in this region faces.
As for the rest, you're becoming increasingly desperate to salvage a lose out of a win-win. Amazing.
Let's review. You started with a ridiculous demand that people who disagree with you pony up for imaginary climate change damage. You then made the silly claim that I'm somehow massively benefiting from subsidies (I guess no one would ever disagree with you without getting paid to do so?). And show complete ignorance of confirmation bias.
Then there's the primitive "pumping a bunch of extra energy into our weather systems" which shows ignorance of the actual mechanism of global warming as well as ignorance of degree. If I scratch my nose, that pumps a bunch of extra energy into our weather systems too. You don't get away with such a lazy, nebulous assertion without opening the door to more lazy, nebulous assertions. Consider instead how much does this affect things? I'll note that the people making predictions on this, rely on models not reality, to make their predictions. And for extreme weather, there simply isn't that significant an increase in either frequency or severity to justify the current level of hysteria.
Then we have a topic deflection to a Goldman Sachs report where extreme weather supposedly caused economic harm. A trivial Google search then revealed that similar "extreme weather" caused the opposite effect a month earlier.
Then you make a big deal of my implicit acknowledgement of global warming. Well, it turns out I've explicitly acknowledged global warming for years. Another non sequitur that misses the mark in more than one way. Then there's this:
Yes, you have finally accepted that it is real. But you're still determined that we do nothing to replace our divot.
and
So unless it will also fix your roids, you refuse to splint your broken finger?
Once again, only considering one side of cost-benefit analysis. We don't burn fossil fuels because we hate Mother Nature. So a choice to reduce fossil fuel use should consider the costs, not just the alleged benefits, of doing so. And the key benefit is that we burn fossil fuels to drive much of our societies.
And then yet more lame excuses: "De-funding crazy people in the Middle East " or claiming poor people will somehow get and maintain expensive solar panels for general use (rather than a token bit to charge a few cell phones or light a few bulbs).
I don't buy that you somehow have been thinking of the poor people all this time (particularly with your slam of the Middle East) when you trotted out the pathetic claim that poor people, who can barely feed and shelter themselves, are suddenly going to get distributed power systems. You need a lot of infrastructure before that'll be a thing. And by the time, such infrastructure does come, then the grid will be viable as well.
And you claimed that cell phones were the only thing necessary to bring people in isolated rural communities into the 21st Century. Sorry, they need a lot more than that.
And read again my answer to your question "Finally, are you claiming the solar panel was invented prior to 1917? That modern highly efficient computer designed wind turbines came out of WWI tech?"
The photovoltaic effect has been around since 1839. Modern wind turbines did evolve from WWI tech like airplane blades and wings. And solar/wind is not the only way to have distributed power. Portable diesel generators are a very common form of distributed power that has been around for a long time.
This technology didn't spring up out of the Earth overnight. This stuff is considerably older than you think it is.
More importantly and relevantly, the choice between centralization and distributed power generation has been around as long as power generation has. There is a reason the grid exists. There are large economies of scale. Solar panels may weaken those advantages, but the economies of scale don't disappear just because you feel like they ought to. That's why the entire developed world has grids in the first place. Poor people in particular have benefited from those economies of scale.
Further, solar panels don't become more effective because climate change exists. This seems quite the non sequitur to speak of solar panels when we're supposedly discussing the harm of climate change instead.
So after your numerous postings with errors, ignorance, irrelevance, and bad ideas, you want to trash talk me about digging the hole deeper? You go ahead. But I think you can find better things to do with your time.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 19 2017, @01:14PM (3 children)
I see you've pushed the mind wipe button prematurely this time round. I am not going to re-type the whole damned thread here, so just go back and re-read it.
It's quite obvious you simply want to salvage a way to lose out of this and you'll happily re-invent the history of technology to do it. You have also actually taken two opposed stances on AGW just in the one thread. Pick one.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 19 2017, @01:45PM (2 children)
I am not going to re-type the whole damned thread here, so just go back and re-read it.
You don't have to. People can read this thread for themselves. They don't need a reinterpretation from you.
It's quite obvious you simply want to salvage a way to lose out of this and you'll happily re-invent the history of technology to do it. You have also actually taken two opposed stances on AGW just in the one thread. Pick one.
A considerable portion of my efforts in this thread have been to correct your errors and false assertions. It's time to step up your game rather than project via trash talk. In my previous post, I noted numerous such situations. I think a good start would be to review that list and learn why your statements are in error.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 19 2017, @02:00PM (1 child)
Better, you should learn that discussions aren't things to be won by saying whatever it takes. Try taking a principled and reasoned stance and if it loses it loses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 19 2017, @02:42PM
Better, you should learn that discussions aren't things to be won by saying whatever it takes.
Like claiming poor people are going to be helped by distributed solar because that's what it takes to hold your ground against an argument that poor people are harmed by current renewable energy policies? Or asserting without evidence that recent weather and certain Goldman Sachs reports are indications of the harm of global warming because one needs a rebuttal to the observation that global warming hasn't caused a lot of current harm? Or acceptance of a part of your argument implies acceptance of your entire argument (when I agreed that human-caused global warming exists, and you then declare I should agree to help "replace our divot")? Or ignoring the harm that climate change mitigation has caused because that's inconvenient to your argument?
Why I agree. "I" should learn, but when will "I" do so?
(Score: 2) by http on Saturday April 08 2017, @08:12PM (3 children)
Climate models say bugger all about weather, and even if they did, NO MODEL IS ACCURATE ABOUT EXTREME SITUATIONS. Bridges, aircraft, economics, electronics, don't matter.
Still, fairly sturdy bridges are built based on models, not reality.
You know how the ozone layer hole is gonna kill us all next year? No? That's because atmospheric scientists (using models) showed us there was a great big problem, almost everybody did something about it, and it stopped getting worse.
You want to die of heat exhaustion, fine. I won't stop you. But don't drag everyone else into your masochist fantasy.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 09 2017, @02:07AM (2 children)
You know how the ozone layer hole is gonna kill us all next year? No? That's because atmospheric scientists (using models) showed us there was a great big problem, almost everybody did something about it, and it stopped getting worse.
That's another good example. We don't actually know there was a problem in the first place. The ozone hole may come and go naturally for hundreds of thousands of years, but we just happened to notice it now since we were looking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @04:06PM (1 child)
You should leave this site, you are not fit to discuss here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 14 2017, @12:35PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 09 2017, @03:53PM
The problem with your posts is that you start with a finished idea and then cram some half-assed logic to try and make it work.