Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

It's really sometimes peculiar funny how people want maximum security for one issue but take less care about another.

That's human nature, I suppose.

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The problem of Bangladesh is that it is a flat, lowlying plain, situayed at the top of a large, but narrowing oceanic "bay" -- the perfect amplifier for tidal and other oceanic disturbances of all kinds. The natural disasters attendant to this have long been a fact of life there: a marginal worsening is not relatively significant, compared with the permanent condition.

Much of the damage from supposedly more violent hurricanes in the USA is instead the result of our recent massive commercial development of bveach front property that previous generations were wise enough to leave in their natural state. The New Orleans disaster was the result of the long-term, breathtaking incompetence and venality of the state and local government there. One would hardly know based on media reporting , for example, that the levees protecting New Orleans were and are the property of, and are managed by, the State of Louisiana, not the Federal Government.

I agree with McTag's basic point though - global warming should be taken more seriously than it is. We need more rational thought and comparative analysis, particularly emphasizing the real hazards presented by the competing issues we face, and far less speculation, hype and hysteria.

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george, You're right about "beach front property." When we were on a bay cruise in Miami last December, the captain of the boat told us that during the hurricane season, many of the buildings lose their glass windows.

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Foxfyre wrote:

Don't you think there is an element of political expediency and/or political correctness and/or personal advantage that factors into it? Maybe a large element?

By illustration, the WIPP site near Carlsbad NM was designed and constructed as a long term reposititory of low level nuclear waste such as exposed clothing worn by medical personnel, etc. Probably somebody could roll around in the stuff at least briefly without incurring any long term or significant harm. Work Comp rates for WIPP personnel are no higher than for any truckers or warehouse workers. The containers transporting the waste were designed to be impervious to tornadoes, dynamite, or damage from being dropped from heights of many hundreds of feet.

The danger these transports posed to any community they passed through was absolutely no more than any truck passing through. But some communities like Santa Fe would not permit it so the govenrment was forced to incur millions of dollars of additional expense to build a wide bypass around the city. (Of course people and businesses are now rapidly devleoping the area along that bypass.)

All WIPP trucks are required to use it which is fine as it is a very nice bypass and less hassle than negotiating heavy traffic going through the city. But fuel trucks, trucks carrying paint thinners, isopropyl alcohol, explosives, and other hazardous cargo have never been banned from passing through the city and are not required to use the bypass now.

Even when we agree on the science, people do get these notions in their heads and won't let go.

New Mexico, like South Carolina, Tennissee, Nevada, and Washington State and other places that host Federal Government nuclear facilities, have all become expert at milking the Federal Government (and its flaccid DOE bureaucracy) for all the money they can get - often under the pretext of public safety - from the situation. In my experience, New Mexico, host of the Los Alamos & Sandia Laboritories and WIPP, is the most proficient of the lot. As you likely know the economy of northern New Mexico is largely dependant on the two laboratories, one near Albuquerque and the other just 35 miles northeast of Santa Fe.

At the local government level I suspect the chief motivation was to maximize the Federal compensation funds for new highway construction (and the attendant economic development) along the bypass route. Public outrage over "deadly nuclear waste" is rather easy to excite, and who would oppose stoking this fire?

Perhaps Nevada is really the chief offender. There were no objections during the 15 years of massive local spending for the development nof the Yucca Mountain facility, but now that it is ready for operation, the local pols have suddenly discovered the imagined hazards -- never mind that they are demonstrably orders of magnitude less likely than general ahniallation due to a meterorite impact.

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Quote:

Much of the damage from supposedly more violent hurricanes in the USA is instead the result of our recent massive commercial development of bveach front property that previous generations were wise enough to leave in their natural state. The New Orleans disaster was the result of the long-term, breathtaking incompetence and venality of the state and local government there. One would hardly know based on media reporting , for example, that the levees protecting New Orleans were and are the property of, and are managed by, the State of Louisiana, not the Federal Government.

Maybe you missed this one george..

Army Corp of Engineers accepts responsibility
A 6000 page report that cites problems with the levies.

I believe by Federal law all projects on navigable waterways are controlled by the Army Corp of Engineers. Local governments may pay for the projects. The Corp of engineers oversees them.

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GeorgeOb1 writes

Quote:

New Mexico, like South Carolina, Tennissee, Nevada, and Washington State and other places that host Federal Government nuclear facilities, have all become expert at milking the Federal Government (and its flaccid DOE bureaucracy) for all the money they can get - often under the pretext of public safety - from the situation. In my experience, New Mexico, host of the Los Alamos & Sandia Laboritories and WIPP, is the most proficient of the lot. As you likely know the economy of northern New Mexico is largely dependant on the two laboratories, one near Albuquerque and the other just 35 miles northeast of Santa Fe.

I am fairly frequently in and/or around both facilities or dealing with a lot of their private contractors. It isn't just northern New Mexico but also Southern New Mexico with Hollomon AFB and the White Sands Missile Range dependent on government funding. And if our elected representatives had not had sufficient clout to stop the closure of Cannon AFB at Clovis NM in Eastern NM in the last round of base closures, that little city would have lost half its population and more than half of its economic base. And you are right that New Mexico definitely gets more than a proportional share of federal monies. (Sandia Labs is located on Kirtland AFB within the Albuquerque city limits and Los Alamos National Labs is within the Los Alamos NM city limits and occupies essentially the same site as the Mahattan Project.

Knowing this perhaps makes it easier for me to believe that a whole lot of that 'scientific consensus' supporting the AGW theory is motivated by protecting their funding.

I don't know a single skeptic who thinks we shouldn't continue to research climate change and help humankind know how to plan and adapt to it in constructive ways. As to whether humankind has any ability to seriously alter natural climate change, however, I am less convinced that we have any conclusive proof of that.

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One of the groups warning about Gobal warming is the Congressional Black Caucus.

Now,they are claiming that global warming is purely racial,aimed at the black population.

Its very hard to take global warming seriously when this is whats being advocated.

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Let's hear from "a contributing author and reviewer of the United Nations IPCC:

Quote:

Patrick J. Michaels
Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies

Pat Michaels is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. According to Nature magazine, Michaels is one of the most popular lecturers in the nation on the subject of global warming. He is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society. Michaels is a contributing author and reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He was an author of the 2003 climate science "Paper of the Year" awarded by the Association of American Geographers, for the demonstration that urban heat-related mortality declined significantly as cities became warmer. His writing has been published in the major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and Science; and his articles have appeared also in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, and the Journal of Commerce. He has appeared on ABC, NPR's All Things Considered, PBS, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC and Voice of America. He holds A.B. and S.M. degrees in biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of Chicago, and he received his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1979.

February 23, 2007 6:30 AM

Inconvenient Truths
Novel science fiction on global warming.SOURCE

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georgeob1 wrote:

It is a well-known fact that measures of human or public outrage over perceived dangers bear very little relation to the actual hazard presented. ...-- it is very difficult to understand the contemporary obsession with "global warming", except in terms of these oddities of human behavior.

May I suggest a more analytical explanation to this kind of behavior ?

1. In industrial risk assessment, we define a simple relation
RiSK = Damage x Probability
To reuse your example, the damage caused by road accident at a busy intersection is mild compared to a nuclear plant explosion with a radioactive cloud. But the probability of occurence of a road accident is high whereas it is minuscule with a nuclear plant meltdown with radioactive leaks. All in all, the RISK in term of casualty is statistically much higher with a busy intersection than with a nuclear plant.
But since people tend to focus on Damage and NOT on Probability, they feel that the risk associated with a nuclear plant is much higher.

2. A second factor to help you prioritize things is the notion of cost versus benefits (cost in term of risk or $).
- The risk of hemoragy with aspirin is not negligible. But its benefit is high since it relieves and cures many pains so people use it.
- The risk of emitting carbon and upsetting the climate is not nil but the benefits it brings about are huge: just look around you for every usage of fossil fuel which emits carbon but which improve your standard of living and prolong life.
- Using renewable energy may (or may not) "stabilize" the climate but its cost is high: solar, wind or anything renewable kWh costs 3 to 10 times more than the same amount produced by fossil fuel or nuclear.
- Imposing a global emission restriction, including poor countries may (or may not) "stabilize" the climate but the risk of a world economic recession and the resulting cost in the fight against poverty is HUGE.
- Producing local to reduce carbon footprint may (or may not) "stabilize" the climate in a distant future but it causes enormous immediate costs like this example of African trade hard hit by green measures.

So I think most people who hysterize about GW don't care quantifying things and prioritizing them with simple notions like risks, probability, damage, cost/benefit, least to say unintended consequences, a totally unknown notion to some. They think with their guts, not with their mind. But that's just a theory, not a fact :wink:

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For instance, in Michael's biography in my previous post, we see this:

Quote:

He was an author of the 2003 climate science "Paper of the Year" awarded by the Association of American Geographers, for the demonstration that urban heat-related mortality declined significantly as cities became warmer.

Now I don't know anything about that paper. But why do you think urban heat-related mortality would decline significantly as cities became warmer? Shouldn't that be factored into an analysis of probability, cause, danger, risk etc. etc. etc in the overall debate?

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Unfortunately Bush's record with risk analysis is pretty poor. The first and foremost requirement to do it properly is to include all the evidence and weight that evidence based on its relevence and accuracy.

Where the hell do you get your argument that solar and wind are 3 to 10 times more expensive than fossil fuel? The markets in the US have determined that wind power electric is only about 5-10% more. The current technology produces power from wind turbines at about 5 cents per kwh. Not a whole lot more than fossil fuels.

Then there is this..
Debating the true cost of wind power

Quote:

The independent study, commissioned from international energy consultants PBPower, puts all energy sources on a level playing field by comparing the costs of generating electricity from new plants using a range of different technologies and energy sources.
The cheapest electricity will come from gas turbines and nuclear stations, costing just 2.3p/kWh, compared with 3.7p/kWh for onshore wind and 5.5p/kWh for offshore wind farms.

If you want to argue the cost versus benefits then stop making up numbers Minitax. There is no 3 to 8 times more expensive.

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parados, We just need to ask Minitax to produce the "evidence" she has for her numbers, then see if her links has any credibility. As we know, we can find sources out there in netland that would support all manners of positions - both right and wrong.

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If solar and wind power are so cheap and available, why are there not more production facilities? Why does it require government subsidies both here and in Europe? Why, given those subsidies, has the application of these sources so consistently fallen behind the projections of their advocates? Is the profit motive dead?

It is more than a bit interesting to note that global warming zealots are generally strongly anti-nuclear power. I have a very hard time figuring out how one who claims to be persuaded by the supposed "scientific evidence of looming global catastrophe" could also logically oppose the only available method for quickly reducing CO2 emissions from energy production enough to make a substantial difference.

My bullshite detector is ringing.

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solar produces a whopping 0.2% of electrical power in the U.S. Wind is a little better, at 3.9%. These can be increased, but only to minor levels because both only work fairly well in certain areas, and they are not totally consistent, so they either need to be used as a supplementary supply, or some kind of gigantic batteries would need to be employed to produce consistent and dependable electricity.

I think I see more potential for de-centralizing power generation on a per home basis or smaller groups of homes, somewhat like we saw the main frame computer outdated by the pc. Maybe solar shingles and other similar ideas will be further perfected and developed. It is price that will do this for us. As oil and gas becomes no longer a cheap and convenient commodity as it has been, will other things become more feasible. No need to panic and demand the government waste trillions on this. The free market will do it for us.

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georgeob1 wrote:

If solar and wind power are so cheap and available, why are there not more production facilities? Why does it require government subsidies both here and in Europe? Why, given those subsidies, has the application of these sources so consistently fallen behind the projections of their advocates? Is the profit motive dead?

It isn't. What do you think of raising the gasoline tax by 15 cents -- about the amount Nordhaus suggests for 2010 -- and see what happens? It stimulates the supply of alternatives to oil, investments in saving oil, driving less, and everything else that helps evade the higher tax. Politicians don't have to decide how to save oil that way. (And realistically, since current budget deficits aren't sustainable in the long run, there will probably have to be some tax increase. This would be a face-saving way for Republicans to impose one. Karl Rove could call it the "9/11 memorial, national security, energy independence tax".)

georgeob1 wrote:

It is more than a bit interesting to note that global warming zealots are generally strongly anti-nuclear power. I have a very hard time figuring out how one who claims to be persuaded by the supposed "scientific evidence of looming global catastrophe" could also logically oppose the only available method for quickly reducing CO2 emissions from energy production enough to make a substantial difference.

To be fair though, this seems to be true only for policy activists. It isn't even true for all policy activist, and definitely not for the scientists. Hansen, one of the loudest whistle blowers on global warming and Bush's interference with the research, is very clear on the point of being proon having his publications censored by political Bush appointees at NASA, is clearly pro-nuclear energy. So is Al Gore. Your observation may be true for Sierra Club types, but the movement for curbing greenhouse gases is much broader than this.

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When I spoke earlier of the changes and disruptions in ecosystems which will happen in unknown ways and to unknown degrees, I didn't even mention micro-organisms.

Quote:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-disease25feb25,0,2681529.story?coll=la-home-nation

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georgeob1 wrote:

If solar and wind power are so cheap and available, why are there not more production facilities? Why does it require government subsidies both here and in Europe? Why, given those subsidies, has the application of these sources so consistently fallen behind the projections of their advocates? Is the profit motive dead?

What Thomas said.

Besides that, all major electricity suppliers have joined this business ... and are trying to overtake smaller groups by "green investors" now (Vattenfall and E.ON Energy for instance).

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Thomas wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
It is more than a bit interesting to note that global warming zealots are generally strongly anti-nuclear power. I have a very hard time figuring out how one who claims to be persuaded by the supposed "scientific evidence of looming global catastrophe" could also logically oppose the only available method for quickly reducing CO2 emissions from energy production enough to make a substantial difference.

To be fair though, this seems to be true only for policy activists. It isn't even true for all policy activist, and definitely not for the scientists. Hansen, one of the loudest whistle blowers on global warming and Bush's interference with the research, is very clear on the point of being proon having his publications censored by political Bush appointees at NASA, is clearly pro-nuclear energy. So is Al Gore. Your observation may be true for Sierra Club types, but the movement for curbing greenhouse gases is much broader than this.

Gore has consistently supported the environmentalist whacko movement, the very same movement that killed nuclear power growth in the U.S., and perhaps worldwide. And Gore is one of theirs, their hero. And now he is singing the praises of nuclear? Give me a break. The guy is a naive nutcase.

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blatham wrote:

When I spoke earlier of the changes and disruptions in ecosystems which will happen in unknown ways and to unknown degrees, I didn't even mention micro-organisms.

I am glad you are alerting everyone to this, blatham. It is probably causing nearly everything that we can't figure out. I never thought of it, but I wondered why our cat disappeared and the dog was acting funny too. I don't know how to repay you, blatham, for getting us onto this now.

P.S. sorry to label Gore a nutcase, but I think he is bordering on it.

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parados wrote:

Where the hell do you get your argument that solar and wind are 3 to 10 times more expensive than fossil fuel? The markets in the US have determined that wind power electric is only about 5-10% more. The current technology produces power from wind turbines at about 5 cents per kwh. Not a whole lot more than fossil fuels.

Then there is this..
Debating the true cost of wind power

Quote:
The independent study, commissioned from international energy consultants PBPower, puts all energy sources on a level playing field by comparing the costs of generating electricity from new plants using a range of different technologies and energy sources.
The cheapest electricity will come from gas turbines and nuclear stations, costing just 2.3p/kWh, compared with 3.7p/kWh for onshore wind and 5.5p/kWh for offshore wind farms.

If you want to argue the cost versus benefits then stop making up numbers Minitax. There is no 3 to 8 times more expensive.

No, I don't make up numbers. Even with your example, the price of wind is 2x that of fossil fuel. Solar cost is at least 2x that of wind, even in sunny places. But compared to what price of the barrel (gaz price is indexed on the Brent and the WTI)? The price of the barrel has been multiplied by 3 in just 4 years for no geological reason, just by geopolitics. Last summer, it peaked at 75$/barrel, last month, it was around 55$. Oil out of the rigs is so dirt cheap that OPEC just need to open wide their tap to shatter all the alternative energy plans, as they did in the 70s (remember all those who heavily invested in the wonderland of wind generation, a 5 century old technology, and have lost their underpants by then). Wind and solar are "alternatives" in rich countries only because there is plenty of money, subsidies, governement interference and credulous investors. But it wouldn't survive a second in a true competitive market otherwise you'll see plenty of them in third world countries where more than 50% people don't have electricity.

There is another solution to make alternative energy cheap and cheaper relative to nuclear or fossil fuels. Make the life of the latter impossible with centralized regulations, litigation, and various bureaucratic unfair treatment. That's what the European bureaucrats are doing. Self-fullfilling prophecy is so easy to make.

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Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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