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

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Until you answer my question about whether or not you've stopped beating your wife, I'm afraid I can't answer any more of yours. But I will talk about 'central planning' for a minute.
Cycloptichorn

Okay, one thing at a time.

I explained to you that my question did not imply anything. Your question does; it implies that I do beat my wife.

My question is simple, "Is recycling always more efficient than producing something from scratch?" A similar question would be "Is gasoline always the most efficient fuel?" The answer would obviously be "no," as it depends upon its application.

If you want to play silly games, cyclops, I see no hope here. I have enjoyed debating you, but I ask you to be intellectually honest and defend your positions with logic. I decided to go to square one, and see if you would admit to the most basic points of logic. If you can't get past that, or admit that, you are hopeless.

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okie wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Until you answer my question about whether or not you've stopped beating your wife, I'm afraid I can't answer any more of yours. But I will talk about 'central planning' for a minute.
Cycloptichorn

Okay, one thing at a time.

I explained to you that my question did not imply anything. Your question does; it implies that I do beat my wife.

My question is simple, "Is recycling always more efficient than producing something from scratch?" A similar question would be "Is gasoline always the most efficient fuel?" The answer would obviously be "no," as it depends upon its application.

If you want to play silly games, cyclops, I see no hope here. I have enjoyed debating you, but I ask you to be intellectually honest and defend your positions with logic. I decided to go to square one, and see if you would admit to the most basic points of logic. If you can't get past that, or admit that, you are hopeless.

I already did answer your question:

Quote:

It's a simple question, but it's an unfair one and a strawman, as nothing is ever 'always,' as I said earlier. It isn't always more efficient to recycle then it is to grab new stuff out of the ground. But in the overwhelming number of cases it is more efficient to do so for exactly the reasons I have outlined earlier.

I assure you that I have in fact used logic in defending my positions. Now, I would like to see you use logic instead of emotional arguments to discuss the second half of my last post.

Cycloptichorn

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Gah, embarrassing - of course lots of scrap iron gets reprocessed. I blame lack of sleep. ;p

There's a difference between making businesses accountable for environmental emissions and micromanaging economic activity through government intervention. The first is tough, but doable through a market format; the second has a lot of nasty side-effects, especially because the officials who will be managing the programs are eminently corruptible. What you DON'T want is a scenario where environmental controls aren't enforced on current operations, but are used as a barrier to entry for new corporations. (Or worse yet, where the environmental standards effectively ban domestic production...)

Keep in mind, though, that landfills are actually pretty effective at containing environmental effects for the cost. Reprocessing everything that would go into a landfill would be -really friggin' expensive-, and landfill space is relatively cheap - we have plenty of empty land for it. Sure, it's not pleasant to go to one and inhale deeply, but it's not like we're threatening to cover Kansas with them or anything...

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Quote:

Keep in mind, though, that landfills are actually pretty effective at containing environmental effects for the cost. Reprocessing everything that would go into a landfill would be -really friggin' expensive-, and landfill space is relatively cheap - we have plenty of empty land for it. Sure, it's not pleasant to go to one and inhale deeply, but it's not like we're threatening to cover Kansas with them or anything...

Given the rise in population and the increasing need for resources per unit of population, it is inevitable that the amount of material placed in such 'landfills' will skyrocket.

What more, said landfills are universally toxic places that in many cases leak undesirable elements into the groundwater which is around them.

Truly, burying stuff in the ground and then pretending that 'solves the problem' is not the most intelligent way to go about doing things.

Cycloptichorn

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I am enclosing in quotes what apparently is the second half of your argument.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Our society and gov't rely upon 'central planning' in order to function. We have a great deal of central planning as it is, and I don't see you complaining that it's failing left and right. What I am discussing is just applying this same level of planning to judging the environmental impacts of production.

Now, I know that you conservatives think that any sort of regulation or interference with business is the Devil, but it isn't. You use the word 'politburo' to invoke Communist ideas, but there's no more reason to do that then there is to invoke Hitler in discussions of Bush. It's an emotional argument that you've posed, not a logical one.

There is little doubt that the profits for businesses will be curtailed by taking environmental concerns into account, and forcing them to be accounted for. But Humanity as a whole will profit greatly from having a world that is capable of sustaining our ever-increasing population. As the amount of humans on the planet grows, our efforts at environmental control will have to grow as well, just to keep up.

Cycloptichorn

I recognize that government places regulations on business to satisfy health standards and recognized environmental hazards. I am reminding you here, however, that simply mandating recycling for the sake of recycling is an emotional decision, not based on a complete analysis. Recycling not only carrys with it an economic impact, but also environmental impacts. There is a reason something might cost more, and if the cost of recycling is because of more fuel consumption, more transportation, and other impacts, those impacts have environmental and economic effects, which are hard to quantify because so many things are affected. For example, more transportation requires more fuel, which requires more feedstocks to make the fuel, more metal to make the vehicles that transport, more mines to mine the material to make the vehicles and oil well equipment, more metal to make the equipment, etc. etc. etc. The roots of the tree are innumerable and endless, and that is one of the reasons that central planning fails in making policy from the top down. Simply let the market enumerate this complex system from the bottom up.

Anytime you make an arbitrary decision to abandon free market forces to emplement a "feel good" policy, you often end up doing things that have many unintended consequences.

You seem to be very focused in on the dangers of burying something in the ground, as if eliminating landfills is the only factor we are dealing with here. You need to consider all of the factors involved in producing a commodity. Government can mandate certain health and environmental standards, but beyond that I think government should generally keep their nose out of things in terms of what is done. For example, if a paper company can meet all standards and produce paper more cheaply from original timber pulp than making it from recycled paper, then the government should not force them to recycle it. I am not aware of the current economics of recycling paper vs growing timber to make pulp, perhaps the costs are similar I don't know.

If something costs more, it often means it costs more in the form of energy, materials, and other things. Cost does not appear arbitrarily out of thin air. The costs occur because of the resources, materials, labor, energy, and all the components that are contributed in order to make the product, and all of those factors have impacts.

Lastly, I am not opposed to recycling. What I am opposed to are having you and the government mandate things based on emotional feelings rather than on an honest analysis or the free market. Avatar makes very good common sense points, and I agree with everything he said.

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Quote:

There is a reason something might cost more, and if the cost of recycling is because of more fuel consumption, more transportation, and other impacts,

I haven't seen you, or anyone else, present any information that it requires more fuel consumption and more transportation to recycle then it does to create new products from raw materials. I specifically challenge you to present evidence of your theory.

One of the problems with this model of thinking (and production) is that the companies who are involved with different steps don't give a damn what the other steps are. For example, company XX creates paper products. They are only concerned with getting the paper cheaply and making a product. They don't deal with the recycling, they don't deal with the trash created, they don't deal with the pollution created from burning the trash OR with the deforestation created when the trees are cut down; just the paper products themselves. So from an economic point of view, it probably is cheaper for them to buy new resources then renewed ones.

But that doesn't make it better for the environment, or society as a whole. In fact, the economic incentive as highest principle is a concept which is inimical to the environment; it provides negative encouragement to act in a clean fashion, as this invariably costs more money.

This is where the concept of environmental product planning comes in. You're fond of pointing out that Hybrids aren't necessarily cheaper or more environmentally friendly then other cars if you look at the whole course of their cycle; we need people looking at the whole course of the cycle for every product, and laws to match.

You've posited a bunch of 'mights' and maybes' to justify the idea that recycling isn't the boon that we make it out to be; I posit 'definites.' Creating new products out of new materials while trashing the old ones is immensely wasteful, even if it is economically cheaper. That's a definite, as the resources in question are finite. Newer technologies are coming online which can recycle damn near anything down to integral components; that's a definite advantage as well. If we don't have stricter environmental regulations in the future, we definitely will have bigger environmental problems, in the face of an ever-increasing population in terms of both numbers and the amount of materials necessary per unit of population.

Think of the future for a second! I don't know for sure how old you are, but based on my best guesses, the population of the Earth during your lifetime has pretty much doubled. During my lifespan, the population will double again and likely triple. Our environmental problems because of this aren't just going to double or triple, but expand exponentially. If we don't start implementing solutions NOW, we are going to experience some big problems later.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
There is a reason something might cost more, and if the cost of recycling is because of more fuel consumption, more transportation, and other impacts,

I haven't seen you, or anyone else, present any information that it requires more fuel consumption and more transportation to recycle then it does to create new products from raw materials. I specifically challenge you to present evidence of your theory.
Cycloptichorn

It is not up to me to prove anything. It is your responsibility to prove something is necessary if you advocate interference by the government. If the government decides to interfere for environmental or health reasons, then they should prove their theory is justified. I need not prove anything, cyclops. And then, you have no right to arbitrarily pick on my business without passing health or environmental laws, duly considered by legislative bodies, and hopefully supported by sound science.

You talk about hybrids, and how you want "environmental product planners" figuring this out. I would suggest you keep your nose out of it, cyclops, I am capable of doing my own planning based on cost, duty life of the vehicle and so forth. If you wish to do it as a private citizen and publish your findings, be my guest. If you and your planners can verify that the disposal of batteries is dangerous to the environment, based on sound scientific evidence, then have at it, but for the government to try to tell me what every product does to the environment, good grief, you are crazier than I thought.

Can you imagine how much a bureaucracy filled with "environmental product planners" would cost? What an idiotic suggestion. This would be a case of tree huggers taking the next step in attempting to tell everybody what to do, in the name of "saving the earth." I have known this all along where this whole issue is headed.

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Quote:

I would suggest you keep your nose out of it, cyclops, I am capable of doing my own planning based on cost, duty life of the vehicle and so forth.

No, you're not.

I mean, maybe you are personally. But environmental policy cannot be set on an individual basis, because it effects more then that individual person. It's the same as national security; an issue which transcends individual desires.

Let's say that joe sixpack next to you is perfectly fine with draining oil and arsenic-laden chemicals into your groundwater. You cool with that? I doubt it.

Cycloptichorn

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There are regulations against that for established scientific reasons, cyclops. I am talking about policy decisions based on emotion rather than on regulatory issues based on sound reasons.

Quote:

I haven't seen you, or anyone else, present any information that it requires more fuel consumption and more transportation to recycle then it does to create new products from raw materials. I specifically challenge you to present evidence of your theory.

Again, it depends upon which commodity you are recycling. You keep repeating the same thing and lumping all recycling as all the same, regardless of what it is. It depends on what you recycle. Got that?

I am trying to convince you to look at issues, based on logic instead of emotion. Recycling always sound wonderful, but you have to look at each commondity and balance all the issues, and price always means something important in terms of energy, equipment, and other things necessary to produce the commodity, and much of this relates to resources and environmental impact.

Recycling is only one issue that needs to be evaluated beyond the emotional component.

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okie wrote:

There are regulations against that for established scientific reasons, cyclops. I am talking about policy decisions based on emotion rather than on regulatory issues based on sound reasons.

Quote:
I haven't seen you, or anyone else, present any information that it requires more fuel consumption and more transportation to recycle then it does to create new products from raw materials. I specifically challenge you to present evidence of your theory.

Again, it depends upon which commodity you are recycling. You keep repeating the same thing and lumping all recycling as all the same, regardless of what it is. It depends on what you recycle. Got that?

I got it long ago. I'm asking you to show an example of a product, specifically, which is economically and environmentally more efficient to bury in the ground then it is to recycle and create a new product out of.

I'm not making decisions based on emotion, nor am I advocating doing so. I'm not sure why you keep accusing me of this, when I haven't displayed any discernable emotion throughout this discussion. In fact, the greatest emotions displayed have been your anti-socialist ideal emotions - you got all huffy and faux-patriotic without providing any sort of factual or logical argument as to why centralized planning from an environmental viewpoint wouldn't be a good idea in the face of an ever-expanding population and their material needs.

We need people to make rules for companies in the same way as we have rules against your neighbor polluting the ground water, Okie. That's centralized planning.

Cycloptichorn

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Well, since you ask, televisions. ;p

Cathode ray tube devices don't recycle well. It's hell pulling apart all the various bits. The glass is worthless. The electronics are difficult to render down into their component materials, the process of doing so is usually highly toxic. The cost of shipping the damn things around is really high. It's just not financially viable.

Same is true for computer equipment, except that it becomes economically viable if (and only if) you're not worried about the environmental effects of the recycling process, which is why it's done in China or India and creates huge amounts of health problems THERE. Ironically, it's an example of recycling which is only efficient if you ignore the environmental aspects...

All that said, part of the problem here is that a clean environment is an economic good just like everything else. It does NOT have unlimited value. Yes, yes, tragedy of the commons and all that, but it's also entirely true that putting pollution into the environment can be a net benefit for the entire population as well as the individual. The chemical plant puts out smog, okay, but it also represents jobs. Too much smog is bad, but too few jobs is also bad.

At some point there's an equilibrium - the community interest in the pollution-causing activity is in balance with the community interest in a clean environment.

Keep in mind, though, stories about toxic runoff and Bhopal aside, we actually have a pretty high tolerance for pollution. Dude, you grew up in Houston, you -know- this already. Even in our lifetime, the pollution situation has improved remarkably - it's hard to argue that we must, must, must have a 10% reduction in emissions when ten years ago we had twice as many emissions.

Finally, if you have a general environmental issue to raise, can you kick it into another thread? Global warming is not an ordinary environmental issue and the arguments for and against are completely different, but you can hardly blame people for talking about global warming in the global warming thread.

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Solar activity is 'not' linked to global warming according to a new study:

Quote:

New analysis counters claims that solar activity is linked to global warming

· Study undermines climate sceptics' arguments
· Correlations 'inconsistent' with temperature rise

James Randerson, science correspondent
Wednesday July 11, 2007
The Guardian

It has been one of the central claims of those who challenge the idea that human activities are to blame for global warming. The planet's climate has long fluctuated, say the climate sceptics, and current warming is just part of that natural cycle - the result of variation in the sun's output and not carbon dioxide emissions.
But a new analysis of data on the sun's output in the last 25 years of the 20th century has firmly put the notion to rest. The data shows that even though the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985, global temperatures have continued to rise at an accelerating rate.

Full report

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Let us be absolutely clear about this.

Mike Lockwood original's research showed that in the past the sun's activity level has influenced climate.

But the point that the climate change deniers refuse to take on board is that the change from solar activity is swamped by man made green house gas emissions.

Lockwood himself never disputed this and was outraged when his data was deliberately misused in order to present a misleading picture of the science to the general public.

The programme The Great Global Warming Swindle cut off graphs[/b] showing sunspot activity and temperature rise in the 1980s when the two trends started to go in the opposite[/b] direction.

Dr Mike Lockwood Rutherford Appleton Laboratory wrote:

The trouble is that the theory of solar activity and climate change was being misappropriated to apply to modern day warming. The sceptics were taking perfectly good science and bringing it into disrespect[/b]

The Royal Society is the oldest and most respected scientific body in the world.

this is what they say

The Royal Society wrote:

There is a small minority which is seeking to confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day[/b]

In other words the sceptics are not being honest.

Studies now show conclusively that global warming continues despite solar activity pushing in the opposite i.e. cooling[/b] direction.

The sceptics are frauds and cheats and motivated by concerns other than science. Lets hear no more from them about the sun causing the global warming phenomenum that we observe.

apologies for the italics and bolded type but sometimes you have to shout to make some people listen.

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Nothing to be sorry abot, Steve: our good lady from New Mexico and her French friend in spirit don't post very much recently/haven't been online since weeks; so there won't be a great turmoil now :wink:

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Nothing to be sorry abot, Steve: our good lady from New Mexico and her French friend in spirit don't post very much recently/haven't been online since weeks; so there won't be a great turmoil now :wink:

yeah having the good grace to say sorry I was wrong on that...is obviously too much for them.

I would acknowledge when I get something wrong...so would you...why dont they?

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old europe wrote:

High Seas wrote:
old europe wrote:
High Seas wrote:
Walter Hinteler wrote:
The favourite resource of many here, the highly paid consultant for the energy industry, MIT-professor of atmospheric science, Richard Lindzen is [
"[......................]
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

Nonsense - at best.
Checking a source more reliable than the foregoing:

Quote:
Lindzen is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research has always been funded exclusively by the U.S. government. He receives no funding from any energy companies.

© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17997788/site/newsweek/

So? You realize that he can be a highly paid consultant for the energy industry, while never receiving any research funding from energy companies?

Old Europe - are you at liberty to disclose the jurisdiction which awarded your LL.D.?

Not a single one in "Old Europe" will fail to construe the deliberate insertion of words in a text which is subsequently presented as a verbatim quote from the original as fraud.

No clue what you're talking about here, HS. Is this a somewhat twisted way of asserting that I changed a quote? Or that I misquoted your your post here? Well, that didn't happen.

Anyways, as you probably didn't pay a lot of attention when you read what I had written the first time, let me explain it to you again. I do not doubt that Lindzen has not received any money for his research from anybody but the government.

For example, here's a quote from Ross Gelbspan:

Quote:
Dr Lindzen himself, his research is publicly funded, but Dr Lindzen makes, as he told me, $2,500 a day consulting with fossil fuel interests, and that includes his consulting with OPEC, his consulting with the Australian coal industry, his consulting with the US coal industry and so forth.

You see, what has been said was that Lindzen received money for his services as a consultant from fossil fuel interests. And that's essentially just what Walter has said earlier. It obviously doesn't mean that his research has been financed by fossil fuel interests.

It seems to be a wee bit silly that you would get all excited about that and act as if those two things (getting money as a consultant - not getting money for his research) were mutually exclusive.

What's truly silly around here, Old Europe, is this appalling attitude by so many here to consider the United States as some modern version of Harfleur and go around warbling the old song "Once more unto the breach, dear friends!"

With due deference to anyone here deserving any - hardly a populous posters' subset, but hope springs eternal - this is the wrong play Smile

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High Seas wrote:

What's truly silly around here, Old Europe, is this appalling attitude by so many here to consider the United States as some modern version of Harfleur and go around warbling the old song "Once more unto the breach, dear friends!"

With due deference to anyone here deserving any - hardly a populous posters' subset, but hope springs eternal - this is the wrong play

Please excuse my appalling attitude. I also assure you that in correcting your mistake, I certainly didn't mean to attack the besieged United States, represented here in your person.

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Steve 41oo wrote:

Studies now show conclusively that global warming continues despite solar activity pushing in the opposite i.e. cooling[/b] direction.

I've been watching the graphs each month, and it is not at all clear to me that the trend is upward since 1998, which was a peak. It is hard to tell which way it is distinctly going since then. It seems to be sort of tracking on a plateau since then. Fact is, global average near surface temperature for May 2007 was 0.3 degree C below the peak in 1998. It could continue up, or down, in the future. If you have a crystal ball, how about sharing it? Or if you have a favorite graph that shows "conclusively that global warming continues" since 1998, please post it. That is getting close to 10 years ago now.

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According to the NCDC

Quote:

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for May was the fourth warmest on record, 0.95°F/0.53°C above the 20th century mean. The global surface temperature for the combined January-May period tied with 1998 as the warmest January-May on record.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I haven't seen you, or anyone else, present any information that it requires more fuel consumption and more transportation to recycle then it does to create new products from raw materials. I specifically challenge you to present evidence of your theory.
Cycloptichorn

One of many sites you could find:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_384807.html

Titled:
Municipalities seldom break even on recycling

If you lose money on recycling, cyclops, what does that suggest about its efficiency?

More quotes:

"The curbside recycling program was just a nightmare," Thomas said. "When it first started, (legislators) said, 'You're going to make money out of this.' We were never making money. I don't know any (curbside) recycling program that makes money."

But recycling -- especially curbside recycling -- isn't efficient and costs taxpayers, say some haulers, municipal officials and researchers.

Local haulers say they sometimes have to throw away 10 percent to 60 percent of the materials dumped into recycling bins -- because the materials are not acceptable for recycling or are trash. Items most commonly discarded by recycling centers are wet or soiled paper, broken glass, grocery bags or plastics that are unacceptable for recycling.

"We're definitely not making any type of profit from recycling," said Joel Palaschak, grants and community coordinator for Monroeville, which has a fleet of recycling trucks and collected 989 tons of residential recyclables that it sold to a recycling processor.

I wonder if that fleet of recycling trucks might be using energy, cyclops. Energy to run, energy to build, energy to hire drivers to drive to work so they can drive the fleet of trucks, and so on, and so on. Just a suspicion, but I think there is a possibility of it.

From my reading on the subject, plastic is not one of the more successful commodities for recycling, because of the bulk, the contamination, difficulty to gather and sort, damage to equipment that recycles the material vs ease of producing virgin plastic, and so forth. Also, paper is about the same efficiency as producing virgin paper, but all recycled paper needs to be mixed with some virgin wood pulp so that the paper retains enough strength. So recycled paper by itself is not totally self sufficient, and cannot be repeated without mixture from virgin wood. There is also a question of the efficiency of recycling glass. It depends upon location, concentration, and proximity to sources of glass sands vs recycled material.

Obviously, anything recycled depends upon the proximity or ease of collecting the materials. If located in concentrated areas, collection can be more efficient, but if collected from far flung and scattered locations, the transportation costs become prohibitive, and therefore the programs are inefficient.

I am in favor of efficient and cost effective recycling, but we should not waste gobs of energy and money on inefficient programs just because a bureaucrat said, do it.

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

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