"This is cart before horse. We need to develop the alternatives while we are using the fossil fuel. That way, there will still be an economy to stimulate."

Not that it makes any difference that we agree, but

Yeah, we need to develop alternatives

Wind power is here today, but what happens when the wind quits blowing?

You could burn natural gas

You could develop an infrastructure to use on-demand power, like the electric company could control the bottom heating element of your water heater, or you could have heating/cooling systems that heat/cool a medium like water when the power is available

You could put in more power lines but people don't like that, maybe there's some compromise possible. If you increase the voltage then you have to make taller towers but then the losses over long distances become minimal so if the wind is blowing one place you could ship the power to where the wind isn't blowing.

No need to wait for super-conducting power lines, hydrogen fuel cells, or fusion that may never be possible and will take a long time to make feasible - these are just delay tactics to get us to do nothing...

We just need the government to quit arguing and do it...

I said I would post some of the research we've been doing over on my website. The plots below show the reconstruction of the Total Solar Irradiance curve arrived at by NASA physicist Judith Lean back in 2000 in in blue in the upper panel. We think she got 'leaned on' by some other people in the solar science and climate mainstream since and her more recent efforts downplay the magnitude of solar variation somewhat, allthough the shape of the curve doesn't change much at all so for our purposes this isn't too important.

The closely matching line in red in the upper panel is our result from combining the cyclic sinusoidal curves in the lower panel. As you can see, the fit is excellent. This enabled us to run a projection forward. We chose to show the result out to around 2055. As you can see, we are predicting a steep decline in solar activity levels here. The frequency and phasing of the cycles and their amplitudes was derived automatically by some software we wrote, and the frequencies and phasing matches reasonably closely to periodicities found in solar and climate records.

.

Now, if you believe the IPCC, then this is of little concern, because they say solar variation has little effect on global temperature variability. I think there are very many reasons to doubt that they are right, which I'll go into if anyone shows any interest. As a primer, this might help: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/the-sun-climate-link-brief-synopsis/

The full article we wrote is can be found at this link:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/tallbloke-and-tim-channon-a-cycles-analysis-approach-to-predicting-solar-activity/

Where you can see the graph and the numbers on the axes etc a lot better. It runs from 1600 to 2100 on the x axis, and shows that the Sun's activity peaked around 2002. Further research has found that the global temperature lags behind by around one solar cycle (11 years), so we can expect temperatures to start declining more sharply around now (2012-2015) if we are right.

Edited by tallbloke on 02/14/2012 03:00:28 MST.

In another analysis, a similar result has been arrived at by looking at changes in the number of sunshine hours over the UK compared to temperature change. Sunshine hours are found to be linked to the major oceanic oscillations globally and a forward projection for worldwide average temperature based on a reconstruction gives the following picture:



So via a different method there is agreement that temperatures have already started to fall and the rate of decline will pick up from around now. the nadir in this study is around 2040 with a recovery thereafter to the end of the forecast in 2080.
The full article is here:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/doug-proctor-climate-change-is-caused-by-clouds-and-sunshine/

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10847.html

and

"Alaska glaciers losing 46 billion tons of ice each year"
"world's annual glacier shrinkage of 526 billion tons"

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/alaska-glaciers-losing-46-billion-tons-ice-each-year

>"Alaska glaciers losing 46 billion tons of ice each year"

I can vouch for this one personally. Exit Glacier, Portage Glacier, etc, etc. And in two dimensions - most are receeding and are also thinning. (A few have become more plastic, thinner and better lubricated so have lengthed but total mass is way down).

More exposed land means more willow and browse for moose and bunnies, but I hate to think about the diminished cold water input into salmon streams (more true with diminishing snow fields). Salmonids, eggs and fry need cold water for high oxygen content.

It's also going to make air quality worse for us on multiple fronts. The exposed fine sediments are a major source of PM10 pollution and there are heavy metals in that dust such as Arsenic.

For Rog and others; My earlier comment regarding 'all climate being local' was not meant to define the differences between climate and weather but was a reference to doing someting about Climate Change at a local level.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=all-climate-is-local

But also, my use of local meant Climate is primarily limited to direct effects of what happens at this planet, rather than Rogs contention that our climate is being heavily influenced by outside cosmic events, like alignment of our other planets or the influx of cosmic rays.

Edited by wildlife on 02/15/2012 20:28:52 MST.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/15/climate-sceptics-pai-heartland-institute?CMP=twt_fd

That's a big surprise - but not really of course. :>) Thanks Jason. I just mentioned Heartland back on 2/6/12;

" All of your heros Rog are affiliates of The Heartland Institute." Rog did a nice step around and now he's praising Watts at the Tallbloke talkshop. Of course, Rog had not heard of Heartland before this.

Here is a good story about the heart of The Heartland Institute;

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/02/15/breaking-news-a-look-behind-the-curtain-of-the-heartland-institutes-climate-change-spin/

From the story; " It was the Heartland Institute themselves who played up Climategate quite a bit. "

Who else do we know that was just playing up Climategate in this thread?

Edited by wildlife on 02/15/2012 22:13:10 MST.

From
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/02/heartlandgate_anti-science_ins.php


"Development of our "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms" project.
Principals and teachers are heavily biased toward the alarmist perspective. To counter this we are
considering launching an effort to develop alternative materials for K-12 classrooms. We are
pursuing a proposal from Dr. David Wojick to produce a global warming curriculum for K-12
schools. Dr. Wojick is a consultant with the Office of Scientific and Technical Information at the
U.S. Department of Energy in the area of information and communication science. His effort will
focus on providing curriculum that shows that the topic of climate change is controversial and
uncertain - two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science. We
tentatively plan to pay Dr. Wojick $100,000 for 20 modules in 2012, with funding pledged by
the Anonymous Donor."

Nothing wrong with letting students know that there is very good evidence that CAGW has another view. That is what the scientific method is all about..
Now about the Heartland Institute leak:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/16/the-anatomy-of-a-global-warming-smear/#more-56771

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/notes-on-the-fake-heartland-document/#more-56736

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/some-notes-on-the-heartland-leak/#more-56697

And last but not least. lol

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/16/not-quite-friday-funny-fakegate/#more-56788

'Free Speech' is not Science. The equivalent would be letting students know that creationism exists and that it should be taught in classrooms.

This from fakegate at the Watts site and Mr.Watts;

"Two problems, the funding turns out to be rather small beer, especially in comparison to the vast sums of money paid to promote Climate Change Alarmism."

It is just like Mr. Watts to make a fake/false equivalency in funding. The amounts actually being spent by all concerned and not just Heartland are enormous and include political contributions. Mr. Watts will do the same thing when he gets his hands on NOAA data. THIS is what Watts does. And it would not surprise me if this leak at Heartland was intentional in order to create this false equivalency story.....oh, the innocence of Heartland - the poor children! I think the funding for the CO2 Science guy in Idaho was already public record going back a few years. This stuff really is small potatoes compared to putting like minded Governors in office..... guys like Governor Walker in Wisconson and now his defense fund. Heartland is just another talking point factory heavily associated with the Tobacco lies of another generation. Heartland is into education alright, it's into the dumbing-down kind of education.

The most important link on that fakegate page is just below the stupid cartoon and placed by The Physicist;

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Breaking_News_earth_still_warming.html

Edited by wildlife on 02/16/2012 23:33:49 MST.

"Nothing wrong with letting students know that there is very good evidence that CAGW has another view."

You are saying this is the same as


"two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science"

Edited by oware on 02/17/2012 13:49:09 MST.

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/32612/tiny+swiss+town+builds+the+worlds+first+solar-powered+ski+lift/

" http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/blog/32612/tiny+swiss+town+builds+the+worlds+first+solar-powered+ski+lift/

"

The numbers do not add up. I think somebody slipped a few decimal places. It might be more interesting to see how many kilowatts it generates, not kilowatt hours per year.

--B.G.--

Edited by --B.G.-- on 02/17/2012 13:57:59 MST.

Dan, a little more on fakegate.

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2012/02/reality-is-not-good-enough.html

Neat little lift. Looks like a 450m long Tbar. Interesting to see some comparison numbers as to lifespan, cost to payout etc compared to a regularly built Tbar. The only problem I see is a short Tbar takes far less power to run than a detachable quad chair that is the current lift of choice. I think it would work for a small community ski hill or a beginners area at a larger resort. I like the idea though. I wonder if and how much of a subsidy the town received to build the lift.

Trudges slowly down basement steps, dinosaur action figures in hand, but sans smudgepot, which local constabulary took away during semi-warranted smudgepot-search. Faint sounds of hushed weeping are heard.

Sean, it's usually pretty easy to debunk what the skeptics have to say. Over at the Watts site there is a chart showing how Heartland is SO outnumbered by environmental money and how efficient Heartland is at countering the 'warmists' with the implication they are doing it ona tiny budget of 7 million and the poor guys are battling the warmists all by themselves; Then I show below farther below what just Exxon funds. Heartland is hardly alone in their efforts. The list from Watts;

Entity USD
Greenpeace $300m 2010 Annual Report
WWF $700m ” ($524m Euro)
Pew Charitable Trust $360m 2010 Annual Report
Sierra Club $56m 2010 Annual Report
NSW climate change fund (just one random govt example) $750m NSW Gov (A$700m)
UK university climate fund (just another random govt example) $360m UK Gov (£234 m)
Heartland Institute $7m (actually $6.4m)
US government funding for climate science and technology $7,000m “Climate Money” 2009
US government funding for “climate related appropriations” $1,300m USAID 2010
Annual turnover in global carbon markets $120,000m
2010 Point Carbon
Annual investment in renewable energy $243,000m
2010 BNEF
US government funding for skeptical scientists $ 0




Here is a link showing only what Exxon itself funds:

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/listorganizations.php

Of course Heartland is in the list. Read up on our friends at Heartland. A person could not have a creepier player on their side, but they probably do come even creepier;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heartland_Institute

...........................................................................

"US government funding for skeptical scientists $ 0 "

This funding claim is a laugh when you look at the deep pockets people like Senator Inhofe have for Exxon. There are many many like him. They are not representatives of the people.

Edited by wildlife on 02/18/2012 20:57:47 MST.

I really do not care where anyone's funding comes from. All I care is if their science holds up to scrutiny through the scientific method, not just scrutiny of the media and those in political power. Both my parents were research scientists and just shake their heads at what is passing as peer review, and how data is kept away from scientists who ask for it to see if they can replicate the results. I remember my dad sending thick packets of research and data all over the world at the request of others who wanted to add to their research or try to find errors. Now all it takes is a few clicks of a mouse and the whining over the effort of it all is ridiculous. That is how science is supposed to work, not the cloak and dagger of the IPCC, University of East Anglia, James Hansen, Micheal Mann, etc. I used to believe what I read in the press about CAGW, but too many red flags started sprouting up all over the place. Starting with the total discredit of Mann's Hockey stick, the removal of the little ice age and medieval warm period from the temperature record, failure of the sea level to accelerate in its increase, not being able to show that any warming periods of the present are any different from warming periods in the past, etc etc. And then when the politicians, the United Nations, government and university researchers started singing the same tune and came up with carbon credits and other "solutions" that do nothing for real pollution problems such as NOx, SO2, particulates, fertilizer runoff, over fishing etc etc. it became a problem for me. This will likely be my last post on the subject as what we discuss in little forums such as this do little to find out the truth. That will only come with time and likely not in our life times. I am encouraged to see that more and more people are seeing the CAGW concept for what it is. Notice on polls of ranking concerns, global warming is now way down the list. What concerns me the most is the damage that the "scientists" and politicians and media have done to the publics perception of science and environmentalism. It will take a long time to recover to the point where people will trust the scientists and media again. They need to start dealing with real problems not made up alarmist problems. Time effort and money is being wasted on something that will likely have little effect. Effort needs to really be put into real pollution. CO2 is not a pollutant. I could go on and on, but I am running out of breath. lol

Cheers,
S

Edited by mtnrat on 02/18/2012 15:51:58 MST.

Hi Sean

> All I care is if their science holds up to scrutiny through the scientific method, not
> just scrutiny of the media and those in political power.
YES!
But time has a way of sorting it out - eventually.

> It will take a long time to recover to the point where people will trust those two
> groups again.
?? trust 'politicians and media' ??
Trust?? When did that idea ever even start???

Suppression of genuine research data is the one thing which really gets me annoyed, and very suspicious. They tried it for Galileo - and for many others. Have 'they' learnt yet? Probably never will.

Cheers