Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Well, the supply actually isn't exactly *finite* because it's renewable (Changing World Technologies still has their plant in Carthage, Missouri making oil from turkey guts, although it's had business problems and public-image problems and may not be profitable). Although obviously in order to make more fossil fuels you'd need energy input, and fusion power (which locally or in the sun) is one of the only ways to supply that energy long-term. And at that point, fossil fuels are only a distribution mechanism useful mainly for off-grid components (automobiles), and you might consider another energy distribution medium like fuel cells.

-Max

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Even many of the people who believe that AGW is unsound would agree with that. Although personally I would like to see a more quantitative proposal, I approve of the idea of being a responsible steward of Earth's resources.

-Max

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Some people even dispute that. Some say that fossil fuels are created by some strange process in the earth crust.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

I agree there. But people are always a bit bad at very large scale, long time stuff.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

It would seem that for the most part, this should not be an enormous issue, though wind is not one of my favorite prospects anyway. But we have to bear in mind that capturing energy is not a one way trip. The great majority of that energy will be dispersed shortly after collection, in the form of heat. The thermal radiation from factories, and engines and such will help to maintain turbulence in the atmosphere due to convection. I still think that geothermal and solar are our best bets.


Well, if they believe that the Earth is only 7000 years old, then the creation of oil must necessarily be rather quick.




And Licker, we were all having a somewhat rousing, but engaging and (mostly) polite discussion of this subject. It really seems that the only one not worth discussing it with is you, so I wonder why you decided that you had to begin to try to sabotage this thread by trolling and making personal attacks?

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

The various Biofuel processes have their issues, but some are promising. They are not, in any sense of the term, "fossil fuels".

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

It could create more powerful storms. As I live in a country that once had around 1/12 of it destroyed by a storm, and which also is around 50% under the sea level. I would rather not have more dangerous storms. I kinda like it here, no dangerous animals. Mostly liberal laws. Good healthcare, good job opportunities. (I do like geothermal and solar energy. That is heat that is otherwise wasted. We could also use other forms waste heat more efficiently. Some Russian cities have used waste energy from electricity plants to great effect for example).

Yeah, but I believed it wasn't religious nuts. More fuel industry nuts. There is more on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin

Note, that I don't believe it. But I also don't have any knowledge about it. They could be right. I just don't know.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by Soyweiser View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Radioheart View Post
We are gonna have to stop using fossil fuels eventually. Finite supply after all.
Some people even dispute that. Some say that fossil fuels are created by some strange process in the earth crust.

Yes but it takes thousands and thousands of years for fossil fuels to be created naturaly, and the world just keeps moving faster and more demanding.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Well, they are petrochemicals. Is this a semantic quibble about the fact that they don't come from fossils, or are you claiming that the oil produced from thermal depolymerization (or whatever CWT is calling it nowadays) is chemically different from regular light crude? If so, can you substantiate that claim?

-Max

Edit: P.S. Soyweiser, you may be about to see something you thought was impossible. If thejeff says something like, 'Yes, fossil fuel light crude is 30-50 carbons in length and TDP only produces short-chain hydrocarbons about 18 carbons long,' I will say, 'Oh. I didn't know that. My understanding was that it was the same as oil from oil wells, after refinement.' Or perhaps thejeff will say, 'Oh. I didn't know that was possible.'

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Max, the point is that burning fossil fuels causes a net increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. With biofuels and all their derivatives, by contrast, the carbon came from the atmosphere very recently, when it was made, so burning it only puts you back where you started.

The two are basically interchangeable, _except_ for the fact that there's no way you're going to synthesis fuel and pump it underground. So, the more we replace fossil fuel usage with biofuel usage, the less the atmospheric CO2 will increase.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Windmills will affect wind in the same way as buildings. i.e. not importantly. Think about it, it's not like the wind knows that the thing stopping it is turning it into electricity rather than just wasting it (a building turns the energy of wind that hits it into heat).

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Actually thejeff will say he doesn't have a clue how or if the chemical composition of oil and TDP fuel differs.

He will also say that it's more than a semantic quibble though, since both the environmental and geopolitical consequences of the two are so different. (Not to mention the whole "fossil" part of fossil fuels.) I've never heard any refer to any kind of biofuel as a "fossil fuel" before.

Geopolitically the problem changes from paying vast sums of money to potentially unfriendly countries and propping up their dictators with oil wealth and guns to try to buy stability to just using cropland to grow fuel crops (or turkeys, but turkeys are far too inefficient to work on a large scale) instead of food.

Environmentally it's a lot better. Energy input comes from the sun to grow the crops. Any carbon released in burning the fuel is only the carbon that was absorbed in growing. In theory, especially if they can get switchgrass or something similar working, little fertilizer should be needed and land can be used that's not very good for food crops.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

So far, the entire biofuel push has been more or less a sham anyways. The amount of energy used to create biodiesel from corn, for example, is greater than the amount of energy released by the resultant fuel.

The economic justifications hold little water, for all intents and purposes. Pushing very hard on the development of renewable energy sources, should yield at least satisfactory results, once a minimum threshhold of funding is introduced.

And to clarify, even if it took solar panels 20 years to recoup their investment in energy costs, compared to the current cost of oil, it is beyond a win-win situation from day 1 (more American jobs in PV-cell fab plants, less reliance on foreign fuel, less reliance on fossil fuel altogether, reduced environmental impact, etc), but it's also a hell of a lot better expenditure of even say $1trillion, than propping up banks whose greed and avarice did nothing for America but highlight how egregiously abusable our free market is, and how abused it has been.

Even if the expense came out to $1trillion every year for the next 5 years, that sort of outlay would create such a stupendous energy surplus as to justify and allow us to rapidly pay off the debt so incurred by the project.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

@llamabeast, about non-increasing carbon content from "biofuels" (which I assume includes TDP),

I agree, and that's one of the interesting side-benefits to TDP. Radioheart's statement, though, was not about about carbon ("We are gonna have to stop using fossil fuels eventually. Finite supply after all. Might as well get a headstart.") and neither was thejeff's ("They are not, in any sense of the term, 'fossil fuels'."), so I would still like to understand thejeff's claim.

-Max

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environ...Climate_change

"One study reports simulations that show detectable changes in global climate for very high wind farm usage, on the order of 10% of the world's land area[8]. In a similar way, there are concerns of micro-climate change, in particular for urban areas nearby, due to changed airflow and reduced wind power."

Sure it is only one study, and a very large amount of landmass. But there is still some effect. (this was a study from 2004, there was also a more recent one, but apparently this one has not reached wikipedia yet :D)

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

That I agree with. Blowing a trillion dollars on solar power panels (or nuclear plants, or hydroelectric dams, or almost *anything* except Tokamaks) would likely have been more cost-effective than blowing a trillion on trying to stabilize the Middle-East politically so we could keep buying oil from them.

I've got my fingers crossed for the Navy's polywell fusion experiments.

-Max

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Okay, thanks for explaining.

-Max

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

roflmao...

Sure whatever, maybe you were late to the thread or maybe you have your blinders on, but me thinks thou doth protest too much. Seriously, what personal attacks are you referring to? The ones where I called someone who was being rude, rude? The ones where I used the same rhetoric 'your side' was using on me on you?

I dunno, I'm not complaining about anything anyone has said to me, and it was likely much more personal than anything I've said to you. Jeez, lets see, you make a post calling me a)an idiot, or b)an idiot... wowsers Jim, you sure got your internet etiquette down.

Did you look at the last link I provided? Do you care to actually look at research which doesn't fit with your view of GW? Do you actively seek it out on your own?

Like I said, you want a real discussion on this topic take it to PM, this thread isn't going to get it done anymore.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Oh man, I can't believe I've missed out on this discussion for the last few weeks. All this time I kept seeing it on the front page, and thinking "Wow, how long can they talk about a little snow?"

Ok, time for my data point. I work for an oil company, and while I'm not exactly management material, I have managed to attend two conferences for company big-wigs. Both have had talks on global warming, and the position presented is that man-made GW is real, and if unchecked, runs a significant risk of an OMG-BBQ-Apocalypse scenario. I'm not sure what the marketing and PR departments are saying/promoting with their share of the revenue, but at least internally to the company it is considered a real danger. Fortunately, there is a solution to global warming. By using carbon capture technology, liquefied C02 can be pumped back into underground reservoirs, preventing it from afflicting our atmosphere. Essentially, after paying oil companies for 100 years to pump the carbon out of the earth, people would pay oil companies for the next 100 years to pump the carbon back into the earth. I encourage you all to write your senators in support of this technology, since A) it will do wonders for my job security, and B) I would find this scenario hilarious.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

No its not Jim. Data has scatter - with up years and down years.
This year, the temperature will be down.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Jim,
you really need to educate yourself on fundamental physics.

Look up, for example, energy density per square meter in new hampshire - and you will find that voltaic cells will *never* be relevent in northern climes.

Which for example, is what field studies confirmed.

Just like ethanol - (unless you are talk cellulosic ethanol which has some real promising developments) solar cells simply *cannot* satisfy our energy demands.

It isn't only a problem of energy density, toxicity in manufacture, limited life, and cost. But the combination is nuts.

Now, I do think we can use tidal, wave, and wind as renewable energy sources. But the costs of these will ALWAYS be higher than nuclear. (Again, energy density).

At least nuclear absent ridiculous political costs. We can game the system anyway we want.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

or we could make a lifestyle change.

but as i mentioned before that seems to be a non-option for a certain sector of the crowd in here.

http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/6585/1zwjjtjdw9.jpg

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Solar can be made quite relevant in Northern climates if corresponding investments are made to the transmission technology and the power grid.

I remember hearing something along the lines of a 50 mile by 50 mile patch of Nevada desert has the energy output with present photo-voltaic technology to power the entire country.

Of course, the Eisenhower era power grid couldn't transmit a fraction of that to anywhere relevant. Given some investment in both transmission technology and the power grid, its not so hard to imagine a solar farm in Nevada supplying power to the Pacific Northwest, for example. Washington State, hardly a candidate for solar installations, could realistically be powered entirely by solar energy.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Hmmm. Interesting assertion. I can't find any numbers for Nevada insolation, but here's a San Francisco table: http://www.sfog.us/solar/sfsolar.htm

At 6.47E9 square meters (2500 square miles), that gives about 10^13 Kilowatt-hours per year (10 trillion). Wikipedia claims that U.S. energy consumption is 29000 TWh per year (2.9E13 kWhs). So I'd say Radiohead's figure looks like it's in the right ballpark.

-Max

Edit: sorry, Radioheart. Wrong name, my bad.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Thank you for beating me to it, I've been following the development of large scale PV technology applications for over a decade now.

Obviously, since daylight is only half the day (at equator, more or less otherwise depending on season), transmission is not exactly the primary hurdle. Consistency is. Which is simple to address, however, through the utilization of some of this energy to perform hydrolosis, and create liquid hydrogen. This can then be burned at night, and/or shipped to other locations for use off the grid, and for eventual vehicular use. The technology for all of that is a few years behind where I'd like it, but only because the funding has always dragged at a minimum.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

You are all talking about alternative power sources now, but those aren't going to happen on a larger scale until most oil reserves and alike forms of power sources are spent.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

They'd better happen before then. Or at least be well on the way.

Even ignoring the climate effects, it's going to take time and energy to develop and ramp up alternate power sources. If we wait until we run out of fossil fuels, we won't have the resources left to switch.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

I am not so good at Economics, but I presume that the switch should be made step by step since fossil fuels have a great influence on Global Economy.

As to when it will happen, probably when the Big Oil Companies allow it. :)

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Oil as other uses, such as making plastic, so it would be best to switch ealy, no ?

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Parabolic Space Mirrors
 

Since we're talking about global warming *and* solar power... let's take it to the next level. Parabolic Space Mirrors. Too cold for you in New Hampshire? *sizzle* Just bake the whole state using a 100-mile wide orbiting mirror. Instant weather control too, fry those clouds as they come in. You might not want to aim one at the eye of a hurricane, though.

Getting back to reality... the most readily available alternative energy source is CONSERVATION. It's a whole lot easier to cut our energy use by 20% (just stop buying SUVs!) than it is to increase the supply by 20%.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

I've for some time liked to think the relation between real world and economics as a relation between chaotic system and an attempt to model it through linearization. Basically, you take the local (current) trend, and assume it is going to last for a while, optimize on that assumption, and after a short while look where you are and repeat. The problem with this is that you might end up staying in the locally highest hill and miss the mountain range just a short way away.

What has that to do with anything? Basically, using fossil fuels is the current local optimum, despite the fact that it might do bad stuff to environment and won't last anyway. Getting rid of even a portion of fossil fuels won't happen with anyone who is looking on quarterly profits at helm. Because for accountants the trinity of coal, oil and natural gas is the way to go for now.

Can't say, though, that the proposed options would sound workable.

For instance, centralized/distributed sun and wind. It's never clear which the PV/wind advocates advocate. Either it's distributed and everywhere, with everyone making their own electricity and backed up by huge transmission grid getting juice from somewhere else, or then it's large plants in uninhabited lands supplying electricity to far away places. The problem with large grids isn't just losses to resistance in wires (which you could theoretically avoid by using fictional room-temperature superconductors), but also the fact that if you build huge network, you start getting issues with inductance and general network stability. There's a very good reason for my country having a DC connection only to our eastern neighbour, even if that connection transmits GW-class power.

Solar/wind might get really nice and cheap given time, but I still haven't seen any solution to the problem that when such an intermittent power sources start to contribute more than 10% of total annual electricity, the whole grid will have to start to operate on their terms. Basically after that point there might be times when 100% of current power needs will be supplied by wind... or 0%. And the rest of production must follow.

Big industry's quite keen on this carbon capture and storage. But much of what I've seen has been little but glorified greenwash. For one the scale of the projects are still way too small - several MW projects. And this thing scales much? Also even if the capture part would be possible without expending too much extra energy, the storage part is still unresolved. Geological storage is suitable only in selected locations (old oil fields). Mineral storage is absurd (use a ton of Calcium to store two tons of CO2?) at least where I'm looking at. And dumping it to sea bottom and assuming it won't come up doesn't strike me as too good either. Also the fun part is, that every storage option assumes some percentage to be leaking annually. Basically CCS isn't a way to mitigate CO2-emissions, but a way to _delay_ them. Talk about future generations.

Nuclear gets the political opposition from the other competitors across the board. It should be seen as something that compliments other CO2-light options, not as a horror flick waiting to happen. Even waste is a more political problem than technical one (hint: US is not nearly most advanced nation in resolving the waste issue). Problem are also the advocates bashing regulations: the regulation in such a high-risk/low probability field are important and everyone's friend. At least when done correctly, and followed also.

Anyway, no silver bullet for providing energy, your stance towards climate change non-withstanding. Diversifying energy base won't give profits next year, but anyone who figures the stuff out and has muscle to pull it through will probably remembered as a visionaire.

My few eurocent rant.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

agree and am responding to everything you've said atul, i just don't want to quote it because it is so long :p

there is a sociologist here at my university studying the history of oil use. others have done the same, such as Timothy Mitchell from your side of the pond.

the most interesting thing is the degree to which early oil and automobile companies had to _create_ an oil economy, it was by no means the natural or even the best choice, it was simply the most profitable one. Electric automobiles and cars were actually the norm as the auto was being invented in the late 19th century. it was only due to collaborative efforts between oil and auto that killed the electric car and created the gas powered ones.

it gets deeper than that even. some historians recount the degree to which oil and auto then had a strong influence on the creation of our modern period's infrastructure in america; the creation of streets and suburbs over rail and public transportation. all moves designed to create a dependency on oil and the auto.

in the late 20th century, further efforts to create electric cars were then, literally, shredded by oil and auto.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Huh, where did they get their energy from?
Even now batteries can't compete with gas. And a battery that is recharged often will get worse.
Back then they didn't even have electric light everywhere afaik.

I think it's mostly due to practical reason that oil was adapted. Slow cars with very limited range vs. fast cars with good range.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Originally petroleum was just a toxic waste by-product from extracting "better" oil qualities from the stuff you pump out of ground. So there was a lot of incentive to turn it into something useful.

But the electric cars used to outperform petrol cars. Basically, who would be mad enough to hop onto an experimental device using highly flammable fuel that you could easily crash? Madness, I tell you. I've heard the version that it was the mass production that finally settled the fight between petrol and alternatives, but I could be wrong. Anyway electric network was in operation way before gas station networks were built.

I'm not too keen on all the conspiracy stuff with big oil vs public transportation, but it has happened that perfectly viable public transportation has been trashed in favour of cars, giving rise to claims that public transportation isn't viable in smaller communities. Resident Finns on the forum might want to check out Rovaniemi's history, I can't speak for other countries. But, thread carefully on the conspiracy front, it's easy to classify people a bit strange in the head if they go lone gunmen a lot.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

this is what the oil and auto want you to believe. although, it is actually very humanly natural to think in terms of technological determinism.

simply google "early electric cars" or better yet, if you have a university proxy to journal archives like JSTOR, you can read about the history of the car. further, if you have a university library with archived magazines from the late 19th century, you can see the trajectory of development of the car in the magazines and see the kind of propaganda adds ran by oil and auto. if you want to look up the work of Dan Lord, he is compiling and writing on all these things.

there is no practical reason to adopt oil, it was done simply for capitalistic motives. I'm not even so sure speed and range were practical benefits of oil at the time. they are today only due to the amount of investment put in this techonology. But even if it was, that may be why there was so much influence to create sprawling cities with suburbs and no mass trans or rail; this was needed to justify the rational for using oil.

also, if you read on the history of the car, you will see that suitable batteries for it had been developed a century earlier. if we had stuck with battery technology, rather than switching to internal combustion, then battery and electric engine technology would far surpass the alternatives now.

electricity and most of its production methods are too liquid. oil is something that can be easily controlled.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

No easy solutions and none that involve a painless outcome.
As far as the global warming discussion itself goes, here is something I think many people participating in this thread would benefit from reading:

Link

It addresses numerous issues regarding global warming, including a discussion of the science and pseudoscience related to it and many other things. It's written by a professor of geology from the University of Wisconsin and his resume can be found here. So we can trust this guy to know what he is talking about regarding this issue, as it pertains to his field of expertise in several ways, as climate is a big factor in many geological areas.

Whether you agree with him is immaterial, but for those who are interested, it could be educational. His other science/pseudoscience pages are also good reading. Often for laughs as much as for anything else.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Done, but what propaganda are you talking about? Or is any advertising propaganda?

In any case, there were electric cars competing with their gasoline based cousins, but ultimately the technological pace of the internal combustion engine left battery technology behind (as well as steam technology), and as Ford started his mass production lines there was only one vehicle type customers were interested in.

Moving ahead a century there are clearly reasons to prefer electric (or other alternative) vehicles over their ICE counterparts, and few would disagree that the auto manufacturers have done all that they can to keep from having to actually innovate until the last decade.

It should be noted as well that battery powered vehicles have been largely 'inferior' (in terms of power, distance, and price) to ICE. This is not particularly surprising as there was more research and development being done for the ICE chassis' rather than a systematic drive to create 'better' electric cars. We are fortunately in a different mind set today, and there is more interest (which means more funding) to explore alternatives.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

all advertising is scandalous, of course. :p

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Interesting link, Edi. I'm disappointed that he spends so much time arguing with a straw man: people who think carbon dioxide has zero effect on the climate. He doesn't actually spend any time (in the first third, which is where I stopped) actually defending climatology predictions in any quantitative way, and of course that's where all the real disagreements lie.

"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense."

In other words, Dutch appears to be arguing with the kooks (who think that "global warming" doesn't exist and carbon dioxide doesn't affect climate at all--do such people even exist?) and not with the people who feel that climatology, particularly the popularized version which includes famines, mass migrations and disappearing continents by 2050, is unsound. What would it take to disprove my skepticism? It would help if AGW advocates would actually honestly answer critiques instead of dodging or condescending, but my doubts would be irrefutably laid to rest if the other system inputs (solar energy) could be kept constant or decreased while CO2 rose, and temperature continued to rise as climate models predict[1]. Do that for, say, ten years, and show a consistent temperature rise, and I'll call the climate models validated. What we have so far looks more like over-fitting the data, to use the machine-learning term.

-Max

Edit: [1] Specifically, if I get to choose the solar inputs and other inputs, you get to choose the CO2 levels, at any level which makes the model still predict a temperature rise. In this case, "I" is obviously not MaxWilson but a generic, skeptic "red force." "You" is also a generic, theory-defending "blue force."

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

http://www.tcsdaily.com/Article.aspx?id=010405M

I'll post it again as I would be interested to see peoples responses to it.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Since we are talking about technologies of the future and alternative power sources, some of you might find this interesting.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...CzAtx43I2m5Y1Q

Helium 3, rare on Earth but an abundance of it on Moon. It is estimated that this potential power source could be available by year 2050. It's potencial is supposed to be enormous.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Helium-3's use as a fusion fuel faces several difficulties. First of all, the reaction coefficients of He3-He3 -fusion require a lot higher temperature than for example Deuterium-Tritium fusion that's currently attempted in international fusion projects. Secondly, how are you planning on removing heat from plasma? With neutrons, 4/5 of the fusion energy is deposited at the walls by neutrons, but aneutronic fusion has nothing that's neutral in electric charge. And charged particles, like the proton advertised in wikipedia article, are trapped inside the plasma.

I'd get D-T fusion to work first. The activation by neutrons is a minor hurdle compared to the problems you have when none appear.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Ok, here's another one I remember reading somewhere.
Moon solar panels, there are some places on the moon that are exposed to Sun 90% of time, since the temperature of the moon is ? about 100C in the sun I believe, the usage of solar panel has greater potential there.
Energy gathered by solar panels could be transformed into microwaves and sent back to Earth to be transformed into electricity.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Riddle me this Max: How the goddamn hell are you in any way competent to dismiss Mr. Dutch if you didn't bother to read his argument in its entirety?

He uses roughly the first third to smack down the idiot brigade (yes, it does exist, I've run into its representatives several times) precisely so that they can be told to bugger off the moment they try to bleat something.

The substantive arguments are further down. Yes, they focus on CO2 mostly, but that's something that impacts all climate models. His argument is based on the known properties of atmospheric CO2 and its effects. He also tackles many of the inconsistencies in the AGW position and the arguments include the documented impact of solar input of energy per surface area vs human caused input and various other things.

The statistical analysis of sources for various scientific arguments is also revealing in many places on just how things are often portrayed in the general media.

It's long, it's sometimes boring and it's not necessarily easy to understand, but I have enough working knowledge of math, physics and chemistry to understand his numbers and enough grasp of logic to understand his arguments, where they come from and how they follow.

If that kind of detailed arguments gets nothing better than a TLDR response, the person so responding can be dismissed as being full of crap and unqualified to comment meaningfully on the subject.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

All I can say is, weird.

"Well, the big problem until recently with a solar forcing scenario for climate change has been that the sun's energy output through an 11-year sunspot cycle varies only by around 0.1 percent. This energy output variability is insufficient on it's own, to cause the 0.6 degree Celsius increase in global temperature observed through the 20th century."

In other words, it happens, but we can't explain why.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'" -Isaac Asimov

-Max

P.S. And yes, I've heard the theories about cosmic rays and cloud formation. I have no way to evaluate whether they're accurate.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

If you want to be technical about it, I was dismissing *you* as having recommended an irrelevant article. Now that you've explained that the real value is further in, I've gone back to see if he has anything to say after all. The section "Running the Numbers", about 65% of the way through, starts to be relevant and interesting. "A Step In the Right Direction" briefly refutes a statement by Richard Lindzen about sea temperatures (I haven't read Lindzen's paper here but Dutch is persuasive). And... that's it. Maybe six paragraphs in the whole thing not dealing with kooks and fools.

(Not that those kooks don't thoroughly deserve smacking-down. But I don't care about them and you're wasting my time by trying to make me read refutations of their arguments.)

-Max

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Why so hostile Edi?

It's true that a large portion of that link deals with strawman arguments. And while even if he is correct it doesn't shed much light on where the real debate lies.

He also seems to have some kind of fascination with Crichton and Boortz, and last I checked, no one was taking them seriously (RIP to Crichton anyway...).

The case for AGW rests on proving the link between CO2 and rising temperatures. This I think, everyone here agrees on. So far this link has been found wanting in the data, and no matter how much it seems that the link should be undeniable, the facts do not actually support it (historically as well as currently).

It could be correct, and it's certainly an hypothesis worth continuing to investigate. Further, it's also worth spending time and resources to mitigate and adapt to climate changes no matter the driver. It's also a good idea to continue to investigate and develop alternate energy sources (and clean or green can have a priority).

However, all of that is completely beside the point of what the evidence actually shows, AS FAR AS A DIRECT LINK BETWEEN CO2 AND TEMPERATURE IS CONCERNED.

Sorry to shout, but that's the fact, and I don't want it to get lost in the silly name calling or strawman rhetoric some people have been throwing around in this thread.

Everyone seems to admit that global climate is a hideously complex beast and there is not an abundance of historical data to use (in terms of the kind of data we have started to collect over the past decade or so). My contention has never been against the fact that there has been warming, or that we should be looking at ways to mitigate the damages caused by climate change (since clearly climate change is inevitable anyway, no matter the perceived causes). My contention has been with the seeming willingness of many people, scientists with whom I work included, to jump off this cliff without the normal scrutiny applied.

Look at cold fusion, look at the anthrax scare, look at various epidemics from history, look at WMDs in Iraq. When the scientific method (or just raw data) is misapplied (or taken out of context by governments) the results are usually an embarrassment to all involved.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Let me put it this way, Edi: it bothers me a lot that all the criticism of AGW seems to come from skeptics. Normally you would expect someone to say, "This is my theory, here are my assumptions. Initially we were concerned because it seemed like A, B, C, but examining the data from experiment X it turns out that Y. We are currently still trying to explain Z but we don't think it's really a problem."

It bothers me a lot that people like you and Dutch address only the quacks instead of real questions (like the ones raised in the article licker cited a few posts earlier, or the ones like "Why is GISS so careless with its data? Why should we trust them?"). This may be because the issue is so politicized that you get better mileage out of criticizing the quacks, I don't know. In theory, AGW advocates should be *raising* the questions as well as answering them. In practice it doesn't seem to work that way.

-Max

Edit: typo fixes, added GISS question.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

I'll get back to licker's article tomorrow. It is a good one. G'night...