I want to thank you again Harald. I might just take your advice and just use this thread to stimulate my own research. Hey Roger Caffin, enjoy your friend here.

Edited by wildlife on 02/24/2012 13:54:12 MST.

"It took a long time for the 'truth' that the world is flat and at the center of the universe to finally bend, then break."

I think a better analogy is it took a long time to acknowledge that smoking tobacco causes cancer.

The longer they can put off doing anything about global warming, the more money the oil companies, and coal companies, and... can make.

I just hate for phony global warming denial to go unchallenged, in which case someone might read it and, for example, vote for people that will delay doing anything about global warming.

"The longer they can put off doing anything about global warming, the more money the oil companies, and coal companies, and... can make."

So what is the solution?

"So what is the solution?"

Increase tax on oil and coal and reduce income tax to make it revenue neutral

Eliminate all subsidies and tax loopholes for oil and coal

Government programs to improve efficiency of cars and heating/air conditioning

The government could gradually switch their vehicles to natural gas, which would provide the critical mass to get private people to do the same

Government programs to promote development of LED lighting. Like they could contract with U.S. companies to make a bunch that are then put into government buildings.

This is mostly inconsitent with your libertarian leanings, but it would be helpful.

"Increase tax on oil and coal and reduce income tax to make it revenue neutral"
Then the poor could not afford to get to work or heat their homes.

"Eliminate all subsidies and tax loopholes for oil and coal"
Agree for purposes other than clean air too. We need to eliminate all subsidies and loopholes for everything.

"Government programs to improve efficiency of cars and heating/air conditioning"
Government programs never work, just encourages companies to influence government with political pull resulting in subsidies, tax loopholes and special franchises. The government has already given/loaned huge amounts of money to the car companies for alternative fuels. Seen anything that works yet? Companies are working hard to improve efficiency right now, because they will gain market share and make more profit, they don't need government money or programs.

"The government could gradually switch their vehicles to natural gas, which would provide the critical mass to get private people to do the same"
Government is already one of the major adopters of NG. We need to eliminate more government agencies and thus have no need for their vehicles. NG is a good solution at the present, only where are we going to drill? On government owned land? Who gets the special franchise, loopholes and subsidies to do this? Also the ramp up for the infrastructure is going to be huge to provide NG to fueling stations. However, right now one can purchase home equipment to fuel a vehicle from home. Honda has an extremely efficient NG Civic and the cost to operate it from home generated NG is pennies per gallon. But people won't buy them. They don't like the big heavy NG tank that takes up all the room in the trunk.

"Government programs to promote development of LED lighting. Like they could contract with U.S. companies to make a bunch that are then put into government buildings."
Contract with private companies causes political pull, subsidies and tax loopholes, which we both are against. BTW, government is phasing out incandescent bulbs and now near 100% of our lights are going to be made in China. LED lighting is best for task lighting and very expensive. I have experimented with a lot of them in my solar camper. Private companies are already spending a lot investment in this area and are coming up short.

Wind power is limited to where there is enough wind. Solar panels cover vast amounts of acreage, reduces the amount of CO2 absorbed by plant life and might reflect more heat into the atmosphere. Nuclear is clean, spent fuel a big problem.

"Nuclear is clean, spent fuel a big problem."

Nuclear _can_ be clean, but it depends. Uranium enrichment is a very energy-intensive process, no matter which method is used, and you have to get the uranium enriched up to around 4% to do any good. That is OK if you have an abundance of clean energy in one spot, so you do the enrichment there. Once you have your fuel rods, then you can ship them to where the nuclear plant is for electric generation. Yes, spent fuel is a problem.

The classic case was that the Tennessee Valley Authority had plenty of cheap and clean hydro power, so the original enrichment plants were right there. Back in the mid-1950's, one specific plant used more electricity than the entire state of Texas did at that time. Think about it.

--B.G.--

Waving red cape in front of Nick, he responded

But he did it to me first : )

"Government programs never work, just encourages companies to influence government with political pull resulting in subsidies, tax loopholes and special franchises."

CAFE standards have worked. Cars have better mileage today because of it. It would be better to raise tax though.

The GI bill after WWII paid for my dad's college education. I got government scholarships in 1970s. I think those government programs worked. It is responsible for a lot of the high tech revolution of late last century.

Government built interstate highway system, Hoover dam, Grand Coulee dam, defeated the enemy in WWII, many government programs work.

"Government programs never work" is just a propoganda argument to end programs that help regular people.

And if a party is in control of the government that says "government never works" then you get self-fullfilling prophecy, sure enough the government quits working

And we have an abundance of natural gas right now, and they're discovering new sources, like in North Dakota. The T. Boone Pickens plan - get trucks to use natural gas.

And wait a few years, LED lights will become more common and cheap, it's just a matter of scaling up production. I've seen them in the hardware store that screw into regular light sockets, but they're $60 or something. That'll change, and if the government helps, it will be faster, and while we're add it, they could help domestic production. Otherwise, the Chinese (or whoever) are helping their domestic LED production so they will take over the market like compact flourescent.

"Nuclear is clean"

Fukushima tells us that once you "turn on" the nuclear fuel, you have to keep actively cooling it for many years. If the electricity goes out for even just a few hours so the cooling pumps turn off, then the fuel heats up, melts, and burns through the containment structure.

That doesn't seem very clean.

Why do alarmists always use the word denialist?
I'm a 'don't know'. I accept that the climate is changing, but are we responsible, or is this current cycle natural?

My doubts about us being responsible come from following the money.
I can only speak from my experience in the UK, but i can see folk making huge amounts of money from the 'global warming' business. It simply feels like a scam to me.
Take wind power stations here in Scotland. None would be built if it wasn't for the huge government subsidies. Land owners are receiving vast amounts of cash for allowing them to be built on their land.
'Green' folk seem to love them, yet they are built on the last of what wild land we have. Although peat bog is a valuable carbon sink, miles of it get dug up for maintenance tracks and concrete foundations. They don't work if the wind is too strong (common in Scotland), or during very cold high pressure systems when there is no wind.

There is too much money making going on for the truth to be obvious.

>There is too much money making going on for the truth to be obvious.

Mike, you make a painful point, and that is how regular citizens know little, if not nothing about how the world is really run. Governments? News? Watchdog groups? Pfff. The forces that really run the world stay well behind the curtain, and any venture that can turn a good profit or manipulate political power is orchestrated by a very select few. Our squabbling is exactly what "they" want.

"Why do alarmists always use the word denialist?
I'm a 'don't know'. I accept that the climate is changing, but are we responsible, or is this current cycle natural?"

Mike, if you're using the word "alarmist" then you're well past being agnostic in the debate.

It's nice that you accept that the climate is changing, but as I said to Rog T many times it's still an academic point in the UK - on the other hand it's a real issue in Australia, as we've just come off a 10+ year drought in the South-East which did all sorts of environmental damage. We've had two wet years but the big question now is what the "normal" is that we're going to re-set to.

"I can only speak from my experience in the UK, but i can see folk making huge amounts of money from the 'global warming' business. It simply feels like a scam to me."

As against making lots of money - in Scotland, particularly - from oil and nuclear?

About the only "scams" I saw in the UK were the carbon offset things, where people would pay money to third parties to offset the carbon they created, for example, by flying to Spain. Only problem is there was a real lack of detail about exactly how those third parties were actually off-setting carbon. I think that I may have seen a PWC report that said that the trees etc that were supposed to be planted often weren't but were planned to be in the future, which I suspect isn't what the well-meaning people who paid their money thought was going to happen

"Why do alarmists always use the word denialist?
I'm a 'don't know'. I accept that the climate is changing, but are we responsible, or is this current cycle natural?"

Mike, if you're using the word "alarmist" then you're well past being agnostic in the debate."

I used the word 'alarmist' deliberately, to show how annoying it is to be called a 'denialist' because i question things.





"It's nice that you accept that the climate is changing, but as I said to Rog T many times it's still an academic point in the UK - on the other hand it's a real issue in Australia, as we've just come off a 10+ year drought in the South-East which did all sorts of environmental damage. We've had two wet years but the big question now is what the "normal" is that we're going to re-set to."

But how do you know that isn't part of a natural weather cycle?






"I can only speak from my experience in the UK, but i can see folk making huge amounts of money from the 'global warming' business. It simply feels like a scam to me."

As against making lots of money - in Scotland, particularly - from oil and nuclear? "

Oil and nuclear are real things i can hold and see, and they work, wether you agree with their use, or not. Scotland has banned nuclear power. I'm not attacking making money per se, but money talks.

Arapiles says:
it's a real issue in Australia, as we've just come off a 10+ year drought in the South-East which did all sorts of environmental damage. We've had two wet years but the big question now is what the "normal" is that we're going to re-set to."


Mike responds:
But how do you know that isn't part of a natural weather cycle?

He doesn't. But you'll find that all warmies have a convenient historical amnesia. Australia has always had a history of long term droughts in some areas while others were fine.

Just like the Arctic has always had 60 year (actually a beat of 45 years and 75 years) cycle of melting and freezing. But because we've only has satellites capable of measuring the overall ice area during the last 30 year melting phase, the warmies get all hot under the collar and forget/ignore the cyclic patterns. It doesn't fit their narrative.

"My doubts about us being responsible come from following the money."

Way more money is made off oil, coal, etc.

That's the money to follow

"I accept that the climate is changing, but are we responsible, or is this current cycle natural?"

What's clear is there's more CO2 in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels.

You can only tell this from scientific instruments and the logic of seeing all the smokestacks and cars driving around.

Any changes you and I see in weather could be natural or slightly effected by CO2.

100 or 1000 years from now is when our grandchildren will see effect of CO2. They will be cursing us for not doing something sooner.

@ Jerry.
If you can make money from a non-existent 'problem', then isn't that capitilism at its best?

Buy your pink ectoplasm guns here, they are the only thing that can save you!!!!

Had to look up ectoplasm : )

Are you equating global warming with seances and mediums and ghosts?

Former based on science - you and Rog may not agree

Seances and mediums and ghosts are based on con men trying to get money from suckers and disproved by science

I don't need a pink ectoplasm gun (I didn't know they made them in pink) to protect me but our grandchildren will have more hurricanes and tornados to contend with and I don't know where the Bangledesh people are going to move to but who cares, this won't be a problem until we're dead and mostly just for "undeveloped" people...

On this side of the pond, folk are starting to realise that 'global warming' is a business.

Denial is a business.

Fixed that for you.

"Denial is a business.

Fixed that for you."

If you think that is a business plan I have some ocean front property in Arizona.

Cheers.

2500! Post two. thousand. and. five. hundred.