Climate Change & Global Warming

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Theres a very good article in this weeks NEWSCIENTIST mag on carbon capture, should stir up some debate!

[Njugle]

Channel 4 News[/url]"]The world's first commercial tidal turbine, expected to generate enough electricity to power a thousand homes, is unveiled in Northern Ireland.

 

The turbine, at Strangford Lough, will generate energy sustainably, with no noise and zero emissions.

 

The turbine will be fixed to the sea bed in the mouth of the lough, one of the fastest tidal flows in the world.

Great News. Good luck to them.

[Njugle]

More by way of a continuation of good news about future prospects, here ae a couple of links to information about advances in coal fired power station technology. I'm not claiming it is clean, i just think that coal fired generation will be around for quite a while yet, regardless of EU energy production directives. Notably China and India will most likely be burning coal long after the UK is 100% 'green', if that ever happens.

 

Nottingham University report great increases in coal fired production will be possible, claiming efficiency of up to 55%, and increase of 50%

http://research.nottingham.ac.uk/NewsReviews/newsDisplay.aspx?id=158

 

SSE have enlisted Matsui Babcock to refit a power station at Ferrybridge with technology that will save 500,000 tons of CO2 per annum.

 

The technology has the positive and title of "Carbon capture-ready clean coal power"

http://www.theengineer.co.uk/Articles/294699/Carbon%20capture-ready%20clean%20coal%20power.htm

[ArabiaTerra]

... meaning much greater efficiency per tonne of coal and up to 33% less carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution from the power station.

So that's 2 tons of CO2 from each ton of coal rather than 3. My God, that's almost as efficient as burning oil! ... but not quite.

The project involves the retrofit installation of a 500MW supercritical boiler and turbine unit on the site. This will be the first application of its kind in the UK, delivering a thermal efficiency of over 45 per cent, compared to a thermal efficiency of around 36 per cent associated with the current UK coal fired fleet. The new plant will be designed with a ‘capture ready’ capability to facilitate the subsequent deployment of post-combustion carbon dioxide capture equipment.

"capture ready"?... What that means is they will have a flange at the bottom of the smoke stack ready to be connected to some hypothetical carbon capture plant which no-one has actually designed yet. I'm sorry, but this is all pie in the sky rubbish. Coal is carbon, when you burn it you combine each atom of carbon with two atoms of oxygen to make one molecule of CO2. That's the bottom line. You can play about with the technology to increase the efficiency a little bit here and there, but you cannot make it clean.

[Carlos]

Just read the NS article on Carbon Capture and Storage.... and did not realise it was quite so bad...... industry wants $20 billion for R&D and 25 years to make a commercial CCS power plant..... it would use between 10 and 40% of the power station's output to remove up to (maybe) 85% of the CO2.... and add 75 to 100% to the energy production costs...

 

Seems to be some debate starting on how much coal we have left too.

http://www.moneyweek.com/file/40638/are-we-heading-for-peak-coal.html

[ArabiaTerra]

It just gets worse and worse...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080402131140.htm

[Carlos]

Assuming it will all happen by changes in people's behaviour is optimistic to say the least, but I would guess there will be quite a bit of peer pressure starting to act as taxes for CO2 removal / offsetting / damage limitation research and projects start to bite.

 

The main problem is just how bad things would be before we got to that stage.

[ArabiaTerra]

A glimmer of hope....

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410153658.htm

 

This has to be the first piece of good news I've come accross on this matter that I can remember.

[ArabiaTerra]

From the windfarm debate:

The climate is not changing. Every day, week, month, year, decade and maybe even century is different. Different parts of the world see different weather systems and patterns. There is as much information countering the global warming and carbon footprint bunch, as supporting it.

Many people posting on the windfarm thread and on this one have made statements like that above, yet not one piece of credible evidence has been presented by any of the sceptics, not one!

 

So lets hear it. Lets here this "as much information countering the global warming and carbon footprint". Come on, I challenge you. Find me some scientific evidence that contradicts the theory of man-made climate change.

 

Put up, or shut up.

[north]

Many people posting on the windfarm thread and on this one have made statements like that above, yet not one piece of credible evidence has been presented by any of the sceptics, not one!

 

Try Googling yourself, and save us the bother. You only want to read and believe what you want. The vast majority of people aren't interested in getting involved in a never ending Internet argument.

 

The Windfarm proposed for Shetland is the single worst idea I have ever seen or heard of. It is an environmental scam - and would turn Shetland into one of the ugliest places in the UK.

 

Global Warming is the greatest excuse for taxation that has rolled around since VAT. Is sustainability good - you bet! Is moderation of consumption good - you bet. Is the science proven - absolutely not - it is a theory. Just like chemistry, or electricity.

 

I doubt if you ever took the time to read the Skeptical Environmentalist - that debunks most of these interpretations as to what is going on - but then look what happened to the author after he DARED to speak out against the scientific establishment.

 

You guys don't want to hear anything other than your own words.

 

Just one interesting little link you may have missed from Al Bore's science fiction work - http://globalwarminghoax.wordpress.com/2007/04/14/australian-tv-exposes-stranded-polar-bear-global-warming-hoax/

 

You are a cut and paste global warming expert. You are free to believe anything you wish, just like me. Just because one group believes it, doesn't make it so!

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Find me some scientific evidence that contradicts the theory of man-made climate change.

 

 

Global warming has been deemed a fact. However, the inconvenient truth is that humans are not causing it.

The really inconvenient truth is that we cannot control Nature. Clearly, reducing air pollution is an admirable goal in itself. But we must not be deluded into thinking it will affect climate significantly. The connection between warming and atmospheric pollution is more asserted than demonstrated, while the connection with variations in the Sun has been demonstrated.

 

The Sun is undergoing a power surge.

Since the late 1970s, three Sun-watching satellites recorded surprising changes in heat, ultraviolet radiation, and solar wind. Dr. Sami Solanski, director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, said, "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures." "The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was...." Dr. Solanski admitted to not knowing what is causing the Sun to burn brighter. A leading authority, Eugene N. Parker, adds, "...we really do not properly understand the physics of the varying luminosity of the Sun." This highlights the fundamental problem with the global warming verdict from climate experts. It is based on profound ignorance about how the Sun really "ticks" and what forms of energy are input to a planet's climate. For this they can blame astrophysicists.

 

As for warming caused by mankind's production of so-called "greenhouse gases," Professor Nils-Axel Mörner wrote in a submission to the UK parliament on global warming, "The driving idea is that there is a linear relationship between CO2 increase in the atmosphere and global temperature. The fact, however, is that temperature has constantly gone up and down. From 1850 to 1970, we see an almost linear relationship with Solar variability; not CO2. For the last 30 years, our data sets are so contaminated by personal interpretations and personal choices that it is almost impossible to sort up the mess in reliable and unreliable data."

 

Stars are elements in galactic circuits. They trace the power lines like electric streetlights along the arms of the Milky Way. The solar magnetic and sunspot cycle is due to the quasi-periodic DC power input to the Sun. This variability of power input to the Sun can be clearly seen in X-rays and UV light.

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=aapprbh6

[Ghostrider]

Enviornmentalism is simply a new religion, and like any other religion there's an immense amount put about to both support it and rubbish it, and also like any other religion 99.9+% of the so-called proof from both sides is at best guesswork. The remainder is gleaned from data/information that is either outwith the understanding of anyone other than an expert in that field, and/or isn't readily available in its original context and entirity to the public to be scrutinized.

 

Conventional religion as we know it relies on manipulating the inherent fear which exists in some folk of the unknown that is after this life, and in particular offering the illusion you may have some control over it. Enviornmentalism goes one better, by apparently presenting an "inevitable" dooms/judgement day in this world, rather than in the next one conventional religion alleges esists, and also goes one better with the offered illusion that humanity can control it, by seeming to offer the means to prevent it's occurance. The formula and tactics are very familiar, it is only the rhetoric which has changed.

 

Perhaps I am neither sane nor have any common sense, but in my version of sanity and common sense, when dealing with things for which there is no conclusive and/or demonstratable proof of their existence, of which Jesus and Global Warming must top the list, is to simply leave well alone and wait and until I can see who's right, or wrong, for myself.

 

I leave conventional religion well alone to do as it will, as I have never encountered anything in 40+ years to suggest what's preached from every pulpit has any grounds in reality, and by the same token I'm ignoring the Global Warming crusaders as in the same 40+ years I've noted no change in sea levels, or significant changes in weather patterns around here. "Global Warming is coming, it's just round the corner, it's here!" has been the battle cry of the converted now for years, yet it's not yet to be found. Are we supposed to believe it'll appear and dump itself on us suddenly like a thundery lump? Come on, I don't think so, if there's any truth in this at all it'll be a slow evolution, and until it starts there is no proof it ever will.

 

Wake me up again when Bain's beach no longer comes asight wi a grund ebb, and the temperatures never go below zero in winter and reaches 25+ in summer, and I'll start believing you're on to something. Until then I fully intend to continue emitting the full range and capacity of "noxious" gasses I've enjoyed for the last 40+ and see no harm in it.

[Malachy]

Whether environmentalism appears to have similar traits to religion or not has absolutely no bearing on whether the claims of environmentalists are correct.

 

The fact is that the people currently shouting loudest about global warming are not just environmentalists, they are scientists - people who have studied the climate, collected data, analysed data, and come to an unwelcome but unavoidable conclusion: that global warming is happening, and that there is very strong evidence to suggest that rising levels of Co2 are the main cause.

 

in the same 40+ years I've noted no change in sea levels, or significant changes in weather patterns around here.

Wake me up again when Bain's beach no longer comes asight wi a grund ebb, and the temperatures never go below zero in winter and reaches 25+ in summer

 

Well, clearly sea levels tend to rise slowly, and the change will not be noticed by just looking out your window every day, but if there is an increase in ice melting in the Arctic or of the Greenland ice cap, as is currently underway, then quite obviously sea levels will rise.

 

As for Shetland, even an unscientific glance back will tell you that we have far fewer extremes of low temperature now than, say, in the 70s, when snows tended to be heavier, more frequent and lasted longer. Ice also froze harder on the lochs. Just as elsewhere in the UK, the last decade has seen temperatures in Shetland far higher than the average for previous decades.

 

The effects of these changes here are not necessarily subtle either. Rising sea temperatures have brought new southern fish species into Shetland waters, and has also seen other fish moving north, away from us, most likely because of changes in plankton availability. This is currently having a devastating impact on Shetland's seabirds. This year, once again, looks to being yet another complete disaster in breeding terms for some species, simply because of the lack of suitable food.

 

It is no use standing outside your front door and saying "it doesn't feel very warm to me". Scientists have shown and continue to show that average temperatures are rising, and that these rises are having a serious impact on certain species and ecosystems. As these changes continue, the impact will certainly increase, and human beings will be more and more directly affected.

 

The attitude "wake me up when it's too late" seems to me rather pointless. I would rather try and do something now, while there is still a chance of improving the outlook.

[KOYAANISQATSI]

Know your enemy:

 

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."

 

- The First Global Revolution, Club of Rome (1991)

 

http://cuttingthroughthematrix.net/transcripts/Alan_Watt_Blurb_CrisisCreationClubOfRome_May302007.html

http://www.clubofrome.org/

"We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years." He went on to explain: "It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries."

http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/bilderberg.html

 

The truth may be out there but the lies are inside your head.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070312_solarsys_warming.html

[Malachy]

http://cuttingthroughthematrix.net/transcripts/Alan_Watt_Blurb_CrisisCreationClubOfRome_May302007.html

That one is brilliant. I hadn't realised the conspiracy of global warming and environmentalism was so deep and widespread. Not only does Mr Watt convincingly show that an environmentalist think tank were responsible for starting the Vietnam war and destroying the Challenger shuttle, he also shows that they are playing havoc with our grammar. Capitalising the word nature (Nature) is one of their most subtle but destructive tricks.

Alan: Capital N, very important.

"…that any vacuum will be filled and therefore eliminated unless this is physically prevented. Nature, [Again, Capital N] as the saying goes, abhors a vacuum; and people as children of nature…"

Even a capital N at the beginning of a sentence is dangerous!

I'm presuming this wasn't a serious contribution to the debate, KOYAANISQATSI?