Global warming overblown?

I think it is called an RTG = radioactive thermal generator. In any case Cassimi has one with 90 pounds of plutonium 238. The atom bomb uses plutonium 239. Other isotopes could be used, even radioactive waste to build a cheap RTG say $99 at Walmart. it would produce less electricity and more stray radiation, but over decades the electricity value would exceed $99 plus it is completely silent and does not need to be plugged in. Human Radiation exposure would be negligible at a distance of 6 feet, so it would come with a sturdy 6 foot cord to drag it around by, and tap into the perhaps ten watts it would produce = 88 kilowatt hours per year = 88 gigawatt hours per year if a million owners used them continuously. While this is not a huge amount of energy, it exceeds the output of most alternative energy sources at present. It gets the radioactive waste where terrorists would have to spend lots of money and effort to get significant amounts, while depleted fuel rods can be easily stollen by the ton from most nuclear power plants. We could get nearly all of them back by offering a $80 buy back, forever, no questions asked. The box could feature a small compartment where food could be irradiated by the owner, and each unit warms your house significantly over the decades = about as much as continuously operating light bulb. should we do this even if a small loss occurs selling them for $99 retail? Neil

I was researching the Enron scandal today and ran across this article that I thought was interesting. I'll probablypost it in Politics under the Enron thread as well, but I thought it was pertinent to this discussion too.

February 6, 2002

Why Enron Wants Global Warming
by Patrick J. Michaels[/B[/size]]

Patrick J. Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of "The Satanic Gases."

By now, much to the chagrin of my greener friends, it is common knowledge that Enron Corporation was lobbying the Bush administration for highly profitable policies relating to the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. In fact, the tatters of Enron still want the administration to place a cap on carbon dioxide emissions so the company can broker the trading of "permits" to emit carbon dioxide under that cap.

The purpose of those permits is to gradually "dial coal out of the economy," increasing its cost relative to natural gas (which emits slightly less carbon dioxide per unit energy than coal). Enron, of course, would be happy to pass the gas through their pipelines after brokering the permits to burn it. So Enron was very big on Kyoto. Company correspondence asserted it would "do more to promote Enron's business" than any other single regulation.

"Big deal," you say. This is just sleazy Washington at its finest, and Enron looks just like another pig at the trough. The eyes of K Street turn from gimlet to glaze.

But what's not run-of -the-sty is a 1998 letter, signed by Enron's then-CEO Ken Lay (and a few other bigwigs), asking President Clinton, in essence, to harm the reputations and credibility of scientists who argued that global warming was an overblown issue. Apparently they were standing in Enron's way.

The letter, dated Sept. 1, asked the president to shut off the public scientific debate on global warming, which continues to this date. In particular, it requested Clinton to "moderate the political aspects" of this discussion by appointing a bipartisan "Blue Ribbon Commission."

The purpose of this commission was clear: high-level trashing of dissident scientists. Setting up a panel to do this is simple -- just look at the latest issue of Scientific American, where four attack dogs were called out to chew up poor Bjorn Lomborg. He had the audacity to publish a book demonstrating global warming is overblown.

Because of the arcane nature of science, it's easy to trash scientists. Imagine a 1940 congressional hearing to discredit Einstein. "This man actually believes the faster you drive, the slower your watch runs. Mr. Einstein, then why weren't you here yesterday?" The public, listening on radio, immediately concludes this Princeton weirdo is just another academic egghead. End of reputation.

The proposed commission was billed as an "educational effort" that would lead to "subsequent policy actions," which the letter itself recommended. These included a directive to "establish the rules for crediting early, voluntary emissions reductions [of carbon dioxide]." And who was going to sell these credits? Enron, of course.

But what about Kyoto itself, which Enron knew would never be ratified by the required 67 senators? In 1998, Kyoto enjoyed the support of about 12 senators. "We urge the Kyoto Protocol not be submitted to the Senate in the near future, where pre-emptive rejection would remove the U.S. from a political leadership role," said Lay's letter. In other words, Lay wanted to derail the normal democratic process of having our elected officials vote on a treaty, so that Enron could prosper.

While that was happening, Enron commissioned its own internal study of global warming science. It turned out to be largely in agreement with the same scientists Enron was trying to shut up. After considering all of the inconsistencies in climate science, the report concluded: "[T]he very real possibility that the great climate alarm could be a false alarm. The anthropogenic warming could well be less than thought and favorably distributed."

One of Enron's major consultants in that study was NASA scientists James Hansen, who started the whole global warming mess in 1988 with his bombastic congressional testimony. Last month, he published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences predicting exactly the same, inconsequential amount of warming in the next 50 years as the scientists that Enron wanted to gag. They were a decade ahead of NASA.

True to its plan, Enron never made its own findings public, self-censoring them while it pleaded with the new Bush administration for a cap on carbon dioxide emissions that it could broker. That pleading continues today -- the remnant-Enron still views global warming regulation as the straw that will raise it from its corporate oblivion.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-06-02.html

That hypothesis by Patrick J. Michaels is at least semi believable, but it could be fiction. A lot of people think it is ok to lie for a good cause and have little common sence at identifing a good cause. There are other reasons why certain people would exaggerate the threat of global warming.

I tend to discount global warming because I know of no solution that would not be incredibly costly. Can anyone suggest low or medium cost solutions other than reducing individual consumption or murdering a few billion humans? Neil

There is a possible solution I've been pondering. Remember playing with Tinkertoys as a kid? Devote a shuttle flight or two to putting something similar in orbit, only on a larger scale. Build a large sun shade framework (I can't imagine the beams would have to have to be much larger in diameter than pencils are, but steel or aluminum), and drape aluminum foil across it. A few thousand square miles of sunshade just might help.

Sponsored no doubt by Osama bin Laden associates, and distributed worldwide by the al Qaida Corporation.

I do so hope you are wrong about this Neil.

Steve is likely correct. Someone seems to be able to sour almost any conceivable solution. Neil

Hi Jim: Some propulsion units may soon be available to keep giant sunshades between Earth and Sun. The optimum altitude is 10,000 or 15,000 milea and it is called a solar synchonous orbit. An extremely thin foil is deposited on super thin mylar to keep weight to a minimum. Besides extreme cost, the film would block each GEO satellite a minute or two perday at some locations. CNT = carbon nano tubes may soon be available to further reduce the weight, and a space elevator to get the materials to orbit. Neil

My daughter lives in the Monterey Bay area of California where the average daytime temperature is in the 60's now. She envies people living in Phoenix. She's mostly a left wing environmentally conscious activist, but I think she'll balk at shading northern California

Hi Fox: Is Monterey usually that cool in July? Vancouver and Ladysmith, BC, Canada were warmer in the summer of 1963 in July

I think the giant sunshade would only shade the tropics, but someone would surely be unhappy. It would be like a daily eclipse of the sun about noon daily. The shade would need a dimeter of about 130 miles to produce a shaded area as many minutes and as big as the moon makes during a solar eclipse, but this eclipse would circle the Earth continously. Neil

Just read something interesting in today's newspaper. It seems the magnetic pole is shifting, and that will create many problems for animals and satelites. Anybody have any more information on this phenomenon, and the possible effect it has on our weather?

Neil, the coastal Monterey Bay (and San Francisco Bay) areas have been colder than a witch's elbow every time I've been out there, so I would say so. They do get a heat wave every now and then I guess. I think Mark Twain once said the coldest winter he ever spent was in San Francisco in July.

C.I. writes:


I was reading about that yesterday too; something about the magnetic field collapsing? Some scientists stated this was a periodic phenomenon in which the poles actually reverse or move and things get pretty chaotic during the process. I wonder if that could also affect the earth's mean temperatures.

The magnetic field of the planet has shifted many times in the past (all before the advent of technology). The shift usually takes hundreds of years (or more), so it's not something which is going to happen suddenly.

Given the numerous past occurances of this shift, it seems the biology and climate are not greatly affected by it. Technology seems more likely to be affected, but at the rate the change occurs, I'm sure we will compensate (all our aircraft technology has occurred in the last hundred years, so if the shift takes that long or longer, we could re-build the technology from scratch in less time).

So we shouldn't expect to go hurtling off into space at that moment when the entire magnetic field is neutralized then Ros?

(Aren't you guys impressed by my magnificent grasp of scientific principles?)

Fox, What they're not telling us is that democrats are gonna become republicans, and republicans are gonna become democrats. It's a highly kept secret that no scientist is willing to share for fear of reprisal.

Unfortunately no. No such fun

Teachers in the year 2243 may have to explain to their students about the antique concept of a compass and how they used to be used to guide ships and aircraft, back in the olden days of 2004 when the Earth had a polarized magnetic field.

It's strange to think that several generations may come and go without experiencing a polarized magnetic field. The old debate over whether birds navigate by magnetism will be moot, and Auroras may be an unknown phenomena, only seen in antique web pictures. Kind of like us looking at pictures of Dodo birds and American Chestnut Trees; mere rumors and heresay from a time nobody will remember. But unlike the Dodo's and Chestnuts, the magnetic field will return again, and then the time without it will become a bygone age.

Chestnuts might return; there are efforts to create a blight-resistant strain.

Elms are back, aren't they?

Apparently so

Liberty Elms

The news on American Chestnuts has been hopeful. There is a virus which attacks the blight, and there are Chestnuts which seem to resist. But the virus is not as agressive as the blight, so it's not easy to spread. And the resistant trees are using all their energy to overcome the blight, which means that other trees can out compete them in the forrest, forever blocking them from regaining their place as the regal monarchs of the American Forrest.

American Chestnut Foundation