Blueprints For Taming the Climate Crisis 389
mdsolar sends this story from the NY Times:
Here's what your future will look like if we are to have a shot at preventing devastating climate change. Within about 15 years every new car sold in the United States will be electric. ... Up to 60 percent of power might come from nuclear sources. And coal's footprint will shrink drastically, perhaps even disappear from the power supply. This course, created by a team of energy experts, was unveiled on Tuesday in a report for the United Nations (PDF) that explores the technological paths available for the world's 15 main economies to both maintain reasonable rates of growth and cut their carbon emissions enough by 2050 to prevent climatic havoc. It offers a sobering conclusion: We might be able to pull it off. But it will take an overhaul of the way we use energy, and a huge investment in the development and deployment of new energy technologies. Significantly, it calls for an entirely different approach to international diplomacy on the issue of how to combat climate change.
Or (Score:4, Insightful)
How about we just use nuclear power for most cases because it's more efficient, safer, etc.?
How about we just use electric cars for most cases because they're simpler, more efficient, etc.?
How about we just stop using coal because it's fucking terrible all around?
Why do we need a climate change bullshit bogey man to get politicians to stop blocking natural progress?
Need to make SIMPLE changes. (Score:4, Insightful)
We would be better off stopping subsidies on solar, and allow wind to expire in 2 years. Instead, we should now focus those subsidies on nuclear power (our own), along with electricity storage.
Then require that all new construction below 5-6 stories will have on-site AE that will equal or exceed its HVAC usage.
In addition, we need to put a tax on all consumed goods (including those shipped from overseas), based on the MAX CO2 that went into make it. The tax should start low and raise every 6-12 months. This will give time to all nations and states to make long-term choices.
Basically, the tax is applied to all goods, unless you register where it and its parts come from. Then if you get the parts from nations/states where the CO2 is lowest, you get lower taxes.
To make sure of the CO2, rather than the wild estimates that we have, we use the OCO2 which will show emissions production, along with movement, around the world.
Finally, to normalize it, we use $ GDP / tonne of CO2. The higher the $GDP, the better.
The above is all that is needed to force us to change, and give us time. Not just America, but all nations since America is the world's largest importer.
Re:Climate Change on Slashdot? Bring on the fun! (Score:3, Insightful)
A reasonable debate between groups of airheads who have not the slightest idea what they are talking about? That'll be interesting.
Consider that on the one side we have a revealed religion that depends on global climate models that embody all they think they know about climate. The GCMs really do not seem to work. They clearly run way too hot. So that causes a frantic effort to identify what is wrong with the models and fix it? Of course not. The response is to make stuff up, throw excrement, and yell insults at anyone who suggests that maybe there is a need to put a foundation under the "climate science" superstructure.
And there are skeptics who really don't have a theory of their own other than the obvious, and perhaps trivial contention that climate alarmists are ignorant, ill behaved, whack jobs. Never mind that their own behavior frequently is less than exemplary.
And neither side seems to have any conception of the problems entailed in delivering an adequate supply of essentials and luxuries to 10 billion human beings later in this century. Much less any willingness to work at developing realistic solutions to the numerous problems that will be encountered. On the one hand we have a bunch of "green" deus ex machina solutions that probably are going to work poorly when they work at all. On the other there is a belief in the improbable theory that God and an unregulated free market will provide abundance for all without any effort or planning.
Anybody seen any signs of adult behavior in this circus?
What the future will NOT look like. (Score:2, Insightful)
Now that "Experts" have predicted this future you can now reliably bet it won't happen. The history of future predicting is that "Experts" get it wrong. They all have their biases and conflicts of interest that cause them to predict what they want the future to be like but the future is never the way they predict it.
So... If you want a safe bet, bet against this report.
Re:Climate Change on Slashdot? Bring on the fun! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Climate Change on Slashdot? Bring on the fun! (Score:2, Insightful)
" The GCMs really do not seem to work."
why do you think that? they work very well. They have even lead us to make new discoveries about the climate.
" They clearly run way too hot. "
no, they doi not. Another baseless statement I suspect you have no clue how models work. in general, much less in any specific field.
"The response is to make stuff up, "
In every case I am aware of. people accuse of that have been vindicted.
I'm going to ask you a question. If you can not answer it, then you need to STFU and learn some science.
What is the science of AGW?
Cue: it's solid science that could easily be disproved if it wasn't correct.
AGW is NOT GCC, no matter how many time Fox says otherwsie.
If you happen to know that sceinve is, please explain how adding more energy into the climate doesn't impact it.
wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
the longer we wait, the more expensive it becomes.
If energy complains and religious fundies where pushing a false debate with lies, we would have been making small changes for 20 years.
Switching to cleaner technologies will not bankrupt America, don't be stupid.
China and India are also putting money into clean energies.
IF America would stop listening to denier and start a big project, it would BOOST our economy, and drive new technologies developed by american companies.
Remember, big project do not literally burn money. Changing the grid to something 21st century? Yeah, that would cost a lot/. which goes to American workers, who then buy things and everyone pays taxes. The circle continues.
Spending money to develop small Solar furnace project, say 5MW, on farms mean workers making money cheaper at cleaner energy.
spending the billions on have a 10K sqr miles solar farm moves money through the economy, provides cleaner energy.
The idea the moving to cleaner energy will bankrupt America is complete nonsense.
If 8 years ago people actually starting being rational about the science and started actining, the burst bubble would have had a much SMALLER impact.
It's funny., developing a pipeline the will provide a 100 jobs for a short time is good for the economy, but switching to a clean energy that will create many thousands of long term jobs is some how bad for the economy.
And this doesn't even get into the fact that it means less dependence on other countries.
Re:DGW Dinsaurogenic Global Warming - crisis of ti (Score:3, Insightful)
What it will take is these deniers finally realizing that in spite of setting new heat records every year and many months for the last decade, it really is getting hotter. It's going to take more major floods, more tornado swarms, more hurricanes, more droughts, and more weather disasters of scales never seen before these folks finally figure out they have been duped and used to enrich the few living out their last hurrahs.
But really, it's been to late for a decade. There is also too much infrastructure, too many IC cars, too much totally dependent on fossil fuels to roll things back in just 15 years. A lot of newly-installed infrastructure is designed to last 30 years and is amortized out over those time periods. These people make fun of him, but the time we should have really been working hard to fix this was when Al Gore popularized the alarm.
The term "dead man walking" comes to mind here. We're now just along for the ride. I am glad I am the age I am and have had a chance to live my life and won't be seeing when the real climate issues hit. When people can't feed themselves is when things will get really nasty and it's sad that kids today will likely get to see it. The earth is quickly headed to a time when it can't support anywhere near the life on it now. That means die offs. Big ones. Humans won't take that laying down though. They start wars. They steal. They kill. They basically go insane.
It will take a while but it's coming. These unthinking drones can deny it all they want. Make Al Gore jokes. Hockey stick jokes. Whatever. It's all simple physics and chemistry. Anyone with an undergraduate degree and any knowledge of infrared spectroscopy can understand the concept of greenhouse gases, trapping heat, and temperature increases. Throw in a bit of decaying formerly-frozen peat bogs, methane clathrates melting on the ocean floors, and the atmosphere's ability to hold more water vapor as it heats up, and we are making a mighty fine thermal blanket for this planet.
We just can't get out of this kitchen. We're stuck here.
Re:Climate Change on Slashdot? Bring on the fun! (Score:3, Insightful)
Global warming is not hard science. It's based on model predictions which have failed. It has not warmed in 17 years. While CO2 very likely has a heating effect, the models assumed an outrageous climate sensitivity of 3-4 degrees. They are saying that for every degree added by CO2, the earth warms an additional 3-4 degrees because it is hyper-sensitive to CO2. That's complete nonsense, it's unproven, and the latest climate sensitivity estimates are much lower.
Here I am supporting a solution that you support as well, yet you personally attack me simply because my opinion is different from yours. Such rude behaviour will only diminish your credibility.
Re:Climate Change on Slashdot? Bring on the fun! (Score:3, Insightful)
Anybody who says it hasn't warmed in 17 years is (a) wrong, and (b) obviously trying to cherrypick. Neither inspires confidence.
Re:Climate Change on Slashdot? Bring on the fun! (Score:4, Insightful)
At the end of the day there aren't too many cows or pigs on the planet, there are too many people. However according to said vested interests uttering the simple fact that overpopulation is the root cause of the current environmental collapse somehow means that I want to start exterminating humans en-mass? - Not at all, I just happen to be concerned that collectively we appear to be behaving with all the forethought of a jar of fermenting yeast and as a consequence my three grand kids may suffer the same fate if we fail to reverse that trend.
Re:Or (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean 'falsifiable': when a scientist publishes a hypothesis, the standard procedure is to describe what observations might support that hypothesis and which could call it into question.
Climate deniers claim: I can't prove it's false, so it's not falsifiable. Ergo it's not science.