In b4 "skeptics"

Climates always have and always will change. Whether they will be our fault in the future or not.

Build off-world colonies asap.

>>3810820

Forest fires have always existed and always will. Therefore arson is a myth

In after one "skeptic"

>>3810827

"ASAP" would probably mean a couple of centuries, which is probably be a little too late to be helpful to humanity. Ideally the Earth should remain habitable enough that space colonies are a monument or a luxury rather than a necessity

Drop a giant ice cube into the ocean.

>>3810866

That was in Futurama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2taViFH_6_Y

>>In after one "skeptic"
I don't recall denying anything. Just pointing out that change happens if you cause it or don't.
I don't there are any viable solutions at present outside of implementing policies to reduce global population.

"Green" stuff is nonsense and only creates more consumption.
Rationing won't work since nobody will enforce it and nobody will follow it.
Carbon offsets are just another imaginary marketplace for nonexistent commodity trading.
And there's no currently viable substitute for liquified dinosaurs.

I'm only skeptical of there being anyway to fix something you can't really prove you fixed.

>>3810896

>I don't recall denying anything. Just pointing out that change happens if you cause it or don't.

You will eventually die

Therefore there's no difference between being alive and killing yourself right now.

Do you see why your argument is logically incoherent?

>I don't there are any viable solutions at present outside of implementing policies to reduce global population.

That's just silly.

>"Green" stuff is nonsense and only creates more consumption.

We can agree on that, for the most part. For now, it's mostly just a marketing fad

>Rationing won't work since nobody will enforce it and nobody will follow it.

As far as I know, I've never heard of a climate mitigation strategy that consists solely of "rationing." I'm not sure what you mean by it.

>Carbon offsets are just another imaginary marketplace for nonexistent commodity trading.

Probably. But you you're referring to carbon markets in general, and not just offsets, ETS works in some places. Most notably in the 1980s to present day in reducing emissions resulting in acid rain, and it has met with limited success in the EU and in some American cities (RGGI).

>>3810948

>And there's no currently viable substitute for liquified dinosaurs.

Battery electric cars and expanded public transit and rail for personal transportation, renewables and nuclear for energy production. Lithium-air batteries are theoretically capable of reaching the same energy densities as gasoline. When you leave out externalities and subsidies, fossil fuel prices are kept artificially low. So the cost argument only works to a point, and it only works because society fronts the cost for externalities and supported the vast public expenditure into creating the infrastructure in the first place.

>I'm only skeptical of there being anyway to fix something you can't really prove you fixed.

You can't "prove" anything, but if temperatures and GHG concentrations stabilize, we can reasonably say that human action has "fixed" climate change.

>>3810954
Public transportation isn't going to work in the US. The only place with a population density high enough to warrant an intricate PT system is the Northeast but from current trends, they're leaving that area and moving to the south where populations are much less dense = very bad for public transportation.

>>3810954
Also, I'm pretty sure fossil fuels are subsidized in the US (feel free to show me a link as I'm not afraid to admit I'm wrong).

>>3810982
are not subsidized* sorry

>>3810961

>Public transportation isn't going to work in the US.

But we have it. I use it. It works for me.

>>3810820
the issue is the rate of change of climate due to human activity. not whether or not climate changes.

>>3811013
Not to the scale hes talking about as a replacement for cars (and in comparison to Europe).

>>3810961

Plan new development so that places are walking-distance and mass transit is accessible

Even for the suburban widely-spaced environments, bike lanes and more bus routes could help. Oil prices will increase anyway, making alternative transportation more desirable and affordable, and such considerations must be factored into new development and renewal projects. And of course battery-electric vehicles are fine on roads designed for ICE-powered ones.

The roadblocks aren't so much technical, economic or practical, but the opposition exists mainly due to politics and culture wars.

protip: fusion power, as fast as fucking possible.

oh wait never mind people are too busy caring about stupid ass politics and small problems in their lives.

>>3811024

>Not to the scale hes talking about as a replacement for cars (and in comparison to Europe).

PRT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgvsrHsgeQg

>>3811028
We already are doing that really. I've traveled a lot over the east coast and lots of places have bike lanes and most rural places that have bus routes, they don't get used much and have to be subsidized out the ass.

>>3810982

That's correct, I believe the latest numbers totalled $20bn annually in benefits to the fossil fuel industry, if we count tax cuts, non-payment of royalties and other forms of preferential treatment. Some oil companies even manage to get a net payment from the federal government, and themselves pay $0 in taxes.

>>3811034

US funding for the ITER reactor was dropped to $0 in 2009. There will not be commercial fusion power in at least 50 years at this rate.

>>3811054
& how much does that cost?

>>3811060
See
>>3810982
>feel free to show me a link as I'm not afraid to admit I'm wrong).
>link
Most big corporations get tax breaks~.

>>3811056

For rural areas, there will not be much choice other than to use cars and trucks. This is not where the bulk of the problem lies. If we can get the urban and suburban areas to use gasoline cars less, then it is both practical and will have the largest impact overall.

>>3811060
that's really fucking depressing, any idea why billionares aren't investing in fusion energy now?
they would make a fucking fortune if it worked, and probably be loved for thousands of years to come by greatful future generations

>>3811064

>& how much does that cost?

About one quarter the cost per mile of track compared to light rail.

I know this is my position, not yours, so you're still in the adversarial mindset. But instead of trying to find reasons to dismiss this for competitive, argumentative reasons, pretend I didn't show you the idea but you found it yourself. Research it on your own time, you'll be impressed by how solid the idea is.

>>3811090
I don't really have to. I'm in a transporation studies class (Civil Engineer) and EVERY expert says we won't be going to public transporation anytime soon because of population dynamics.

>>3811074

Oh I found a link:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-29/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-12-times-support-for-renewables-s
tudy-shows.html

Globally, fossil fuel subsidies equals $557bn. Imagine what you could do with that money!

>>3811099
We're talking about the US, not the world. It says nothing about US subsidizes in that article.

>>3811088

Actually my bad, it's way more than $20bn. And the reason is that fusion is just too far away for private investors to see any potential. Like most science-y megaprojects, the government is eager to slash funding when it doesn't show immediate results. Fusion itself is not a guaranteed silver bullet, by most accounts it is notoriously difficult to harness as an economy source of energy. If it were easy it probably would have been done already and we wouldn't be having this discussion.

& FYI I'm not talking permanently. Eventually the cost of oil will go up enough to negate even population dynamics.

>>3811109

So I found this:

http://www.eli.org/pressdetail.cfm?ID=205

$72bn over 7 years, so about 10bn a year. It appears I was mistaken. Still, quite a hefty sum.

>>3811097

>because of population dynamics.

So why is it that in the US, people are flocking to the exurbs and the rural areas, but most of everywhere else shows the opposite trend of increasing urbanization?

>>3811118
it's not like we have much of an alternative, it probably isn't easy, but there has not been enough effort to at least try, I mean like badass effort, (space race style), we need this ! anyway, ill be quiet now, im being idealistic i guess

>>3811154
People moving to the south mainly from what I understand. It's supposed to be our next big area of development. You see people in China and shit moving inward to work in factories, etc but that is not exactly the case in the US anymore haha.

>>3811167
I should have added, the south is way far away from needing a good PT system (I live in the Panhandle of Florida).

>>3811167

But don't Southern states lag behind others in economic growth? Climate change is not exactly going to be friendly to the region, but of course people generally don't factor that into their house buying decisions.

>>3811195
The economics of the states is beyond my scope, sorry.

>>3811195
Second page of this .
http://www.businessfacilities.com/Rankings/BFJulAug10_STATE_RANKINGS.PDF
I'm sure it varies greatly by source so if theres a better one, please show me as I'd like to read it.

>>3811215

Economics isn't my strong suit either, which is why I asked. It's interesting to see that in your source, the top tens are all resource extraction states or southern states. I'm not sure how "Business Facilities" ranks as an authoritative publication, but my Google skills have failed to find a better journal covering the same topic.

Interesting to see Texas as simultaneously the number one wind power producer in the US and also the one being ravaged by wildfires and Rick Perry. Maybe he's doing something right by cutting funding to firefighters and forest services, apparently it is correlated with a positive business outlook.

>>3811249

In terms of economic recovery from the recession:

http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/gsp_newsrelease.htm

Northeast has done pretty well, but other parts are mixed up. Texas and Louisiana have done well while Oklahoma and Arkansas have lagged behind. I don't know if this says anything about long-term prospects about moving in to the region.

>2011
>Still believe the theory of human caused climate change

Next you guy's will tell me you're all young earth creationists...

>>3811097

You've chosen to take the "I'm right no matter what" attitude. That's a shame. I had hoped you would be more high minded.

>>3811313
All you have to do is google and link and I'll read. I didn't say ANYTHING that implies, "I'm right because I'm right." In fact, read all of my post. I've said multiple times, provide a link, I'll happily read it, and admit I'm wrong.

>>3811308

We have pretty solid evidence that humans are causing climate change. If you want to falsify anthropogenic climate change, you'd have to either

a) disprove modern physics; or
b) find a negative forcing that exceeds anthropogenic forcing; or
c) prove that all the scientists are lying (lol climategate)

>>3811313
& while we're on the subject, how many of my points have you looked up on your own? Is it only important I understand yours but not the other way around? This works both ways (except I understand that if I'm making the claim, I should prove it).

>>3811348

It doesn't have to be a battle. Just start with the wiki page:

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

It's an incredibly promising technology. It spreads out the weight of a train into 4 person modules so that the track doesn't need to be strong enough everywhere to support that entire load. The result is track that's 1/4 the cost and vehicles that can leave the track where needed and intelligently mingle with traffic in the city. Masdar city has banned cars and is replacing them with an underground PRT system as we speak. They traverse a branching network of tracks, with pods routed by computers like packets on a network such that they never collide, take the shortest route to your destination and you're never left waiting longer than 5 minutes for one to show up.

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

>>3811348
i herd u liek engineering

>>3810806
>wat do
LFTRs
Evacuated tube maglev
PRT in really congested areas
Automated electric cars
Solar roadways that can replace ugly above-ground power lines and also power vehicles

>>3811405

yeep's problem with PRT is not its feasibility in a general context, but specifically in the US and where he lives (Florida). yeep isn't saying that PRT cannot work, but that it wouldn't be feasible in the deep south of the United States. At least that's my understanding.

>>3811405
From the wiki: "Thus, in central cities, where heavy travel volumes could justify investment in guideways, vehicles would be far too small to meet the demand. In suburbs, where small vehicles would be ideal, the extensive infrastructure would be economically unfeasible and environmentally unacceptable."
Was kind of what I've been saying the entire time :P. I'm not saying this doesn't have a future, its very interesting and very impressive. I never disputed that. I just think it is down the line a bit.

>>3811435
What do we do about air travel?

>wat do
Well that's exactly wat they were waiting for!
Got carbon credits?
carbon is the element of life and controlling it is...
so cutting right to the chase...

>>3811454
There is some criticism to his statement as well if anyone wants to read but either way, transportation is sadly grossly underfunded in the United States :(.

>>3811458

I have no idea what you're trying to say

>>3811457

Air travel probably can't be saved, at least not in the widespread and affordable way that it is now. It would take some pretty major advancements in hydrogen-fueled jet engines or biofuels to make it work. High-speed rail and passenger ships would probably take over.

>>3811443
Thank you.
>>3811405
>It doesn't have to be a battle.
My apologies, that is just the usual attitude I'm used to on 4chan haha.

>>3811471
Though I haven't read anything to suggest this, maybe one day when public transportation is way up in the US and car ownership is down, airplanes will come back. No need in Europe since its a lot smaller geographic.

>>3810961
"Public transportation isn't going to work in the US. The only place with a population density high enough to warrant an intricate PT system is the Northeast "
LOL what else is worth saving?
The south are all inbred and California are all illiterates who can't even understand the TV.
If earth had lasted long enough then maybe more of the US would matter but except for the industrial drones in the great lakes region why would anyone even consider spending money on anything outside the North Atlantic coast?
Farmers and minorities can't pay for space travel. Do they even understand what it means?

humans are by far one of the hardest animals on earth to kill, basically on the scale of rodents; climate change is the least of our worries as a species.

>>3811480
>that is just the usual attitude I'm used to on 4chan
>>3811490

>>3811490
Anyway, if you had bothered to read the thread, a link got posted earlier stating that most of the top 10 states for expected economic growth are in the south.

>>3811457
Ideally we'd get rid of it, with evacuated tube maglevs there's no need. Or we could use hydrogen powered planes or solar powered airships or something.

Planes are a really inefficient form of transportation

>>3811493

If we're speaking of climate change as if it were capable of killing every human being on Earth, we've already fucked it up beyond all hope

The problem of course is not that climate change will make us go extinct, it's that it'll make many other living things go extinct and that it will seriously impact our standard of living.

>>3811490

What the flying fuck are you talking about?

>>3811351
I do not wish to falsify anything, you seem to think people just object to something for no reason other than to be a contrarian or to feel 'different,' in fact it's just that I, and others feel this particular extraordinary claim has not met it's burden of proof, the required extraordinary evidence.

The only true alternative to fossil fuel is nuclear energy. Too bad you greentards destroyed that industry.

Hydrogen and electric powered cars, nuclear, solar, wind and hydro power.

>>3811351
>a) disprove modern physics;
If you knew something about moder physics you will know how hard is to predict climate trends. Chances are that you are a climatologist that barely passed Calculus.

>>3811515
As long as we have chicken, beef, pig & fish as poultry. And Corn, Rice, Wheat, Other Veggies we are going to be OK.

>>3810866
I support this endeavor 100%. So says the emperor of the moon.

>>3811524

You have not truly grasped how enormous the mountain of evidence is that humans are causing global warming. We understand, in excruciating detail, the wavelengths absorbed by carbon dioxide and re-emitted in the infrared. We can detect this spectral signature in laboratory experiments, with ground instruments pointing to the sky, with satellite instruments pointed at the ground, and all of this can be replicated in any reasonably-equipped university physics lab. It's the reason why we can be fairly certain that a heat-seeking missile will track and destroy a non-stealthed target, and it's the reason why industrial CO2 lasers can be used to cut human flesh in surgery.

A while back on /sci/, there was a troll who kept asking for more and more evidence, and he was never satisfied. He never had to offer a source or citation of his own (yet insisted he was up-to-date on the literature), just fronted some bullshit argument which he never gave up on. Once or twice it was "undersea volcanoes." Nevermind that CO2 emissions, even from undersea volcanoes, are accounted for, and even if we take the absolute maximum estimate of global CO2 emissions from volcanoes it is still a dozen times smaller in magnitude than anthropogenic emissions. "Maybe the scientists haven't found ALL the undersea volcanoes!" he'd say, and then repeat twenty times more.

I had a sneaking suspicion that he was you. I hope this isn't the case.

>>3811543

>Too bad you greentards

Like James Hansen and Mark Lynas? Know your shit before you spout it

>>3811572

Pretty sure you can't have a functioning ecosystem supporting food crops without bees and other pollinating insects. Much of this support system is invisible and you don't really think about it, but rest assured it is quite important that we keep it healthy.

Again, you're missing the point: it's not that we just want to survive, we also want to maintain a similar standard of living as we currently have come to enjoy. Killing off everything except corn and pigs doesn't seem like the best way to go about it.

>>3811599
>implying bees will go extinct
Anything that has survived massive extinctions from the past will survive this evil human induced climate change.

>>3811578
>You have not truly grasped how enormous the mountain of evidence is that humans are causing global warming. We understand, in excruciating detail, the wavelengths absorbed by carbon dioxide and re-emitted in the infrared. We can detect this spectral signature in laboratory experiments, with ground instruments pointing to the sky, with satellite instruments pointed at the ground, and all of this can be replicated in any reasonably-equipped university physics lab. It's the reason why we can be fairly certain that a heat-seeking missile will track and destroy a non-stealthed target, and it's the reason why industrial CO2 lasers can be used to cut human flesh in surgery.

That's all jolly good, however the question is whether or not there is a enough evidence to suggest the human contribution to CO2 is enough to affect the climate in the future, and what, if any role this might have played in the slight overall warming trend of the last century.

>I had a sneaking suspicion that he was you. I hope this isn't the case.

Your suspicion, not based on evidence or logic, is incorrect.

>>3811599
>James Hansen
Greentard that made NASA become from the pioneer of SPACE to the voodo witches of Earth Science. He's a political shrill and a enemy of any human that wishes to go one day to space.

>Mark Lynas
>"Why We Greens Keep Getting It Wrong"[4] and the same year was the main contributor to a UK Channel 4 Television programme called "What the Green Movement Got Wrong." In these he took a line similar to environmentalists such as Patrick Moore, Bjorn Lomborg and Richard D. North, explaining that he now felt that several of his previous strongly held beliefs were wrong.
He realized the mistakes he made, I respect a man that can say he made a mistake.

>>3811555

>If you knew something about moder physics you will know how hard is to predict climate trends.

You mean weather trends? Weather is indeed very hard to predict past the second week from starting conditions. Climate is a different story. It is a very basic error, confusing weather and climate.

If the "skeptics" were better at calc than climatologists, then I'm sure they'd make better predictions than mainstream scientists. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case about 100% of the time.

>>3811578
You realize that CO2 is a trace gas, its a gas that is irrelevant in the great scheme of things.

>MFW I'm neither a denier or an alarmist

Thing is I don't think there's persuasive evidence to push me off the fence on this. I do hope however that no one here regards that book and movie by Mr. Gore as having any more scientific validity than a pamphlet from the creation museum.

>>3811637
Aww the good ol hockey char, how cute. Do you realize that this increase in temperature is because of an increase in urbanization in the areas of temperature measurement.

>>3811613

How do you explain the extinction of the Cave Lion, the Giant Moa, the Dodo, Stellar's Sea Cow, the Auroch, the Passenger Pigeon, the Golden Toad, the Baiji River dolphin, and about 1200 other catalogued plant and animal species? Plus a couple hundred megafauna from about 10,000 years ago, which coincided with the Neolithic Revolution. What a coincidence.

To the point, no, the extinction risk from climate change is not equal to zero. Animals that may have been able to migrate during past interglacial-glaciation cycles have been cut off by human development. See Curt Stager's TED Talk or this Nature article:

http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/83/

>>3811637
Climate predictions have been infamously inaccurate, where you been?
Also I hope those quotation marks weren't an attempt to demonize or belittle skepticism in general, you know that thing that is an integral of the scientific method...

>>3811674
All those animals where either very specialized or very big for their enviroment, bees wont go extinct as long as angiosperms survive.

>>3811659
Not to mention increase in human population. All lifeforms produce heat, especially mammals. More people means more heat, which means higher surrounding temperature, which translates to global warming. If anyone has even ridden on a packed bus or train, they would know what I mean.

>>3811659

That's not a hockey stick. Do you honestly not realize what that's from? I thought it was obvious from the context.

>>3811648

Dude, ALL greenhouse gases are trace gases. If the greenhouse effect did not exist, or there were no GHGs, the Earth would be a frozen iceball. Small concentrations can make a big difference.

Pic related. If we scale the temperature as Kelvins, we can make ice ages look completely insignificant. But a difference of a few degrees of average global temperature means the difference between New York today and New York under a mile of ice.

>>3811692
We are in an icehouse earth and we wont become a green house earth for the time being. Hell in a couple of thousands of years we go to another Ice Age. I would love to see how greentards from the future will blame us for that too.

>>3811692
>implying temperature is linear

>>3811692
The biggest green house gas on earth is water vapor, CO2 is nothing compared to Water vapor.

When will you guys realized that AGW or ACC is a politically based supposition created to control the population!

>>3811720
I think AGW is full of shit. But I also think you're full of shit. For the same reason. Extraordinary claims, no extraordinary evidence.

>>3811748
The evidence is right there man, its all part of a conspiracy by the NWO. They want people of the 1st world countries to be scared so they can give their liberties to the elites so the elites can then purge the 3rd world and get resources from them. Then they are going to install chips on us to make us their slaves!

>>3811626

I am glad that you aren't that uber-troll. I am happy to answer your questions.

>whether or not there is a enough evidence to suggest the human contribution to CO2 is enough to affect the climate in the future

Firstly, we have already determined that changes in CO2 concentration can change the climate. We know this from the evidence mentioned in my earlier post about the mass spectrometry analysis, and this is also confirmed by observation and paleoclimate proxies. Increase the CO2, and you will increase the temperature. Doesn't matter whether humans or volcanoes does it. This is an unambiguous feature of physics that is unchallenged even by most skeptics.

We know that the excess CO2 in the atmosphere is from human sources, because the C12/13 ratio is shifting towards the heavier isotope, linking it to the combustion of fossil carbon. Future carbon emissions will cause more warming, consistent with the previous observation. You cannot increase carbon emissions without also increasing the temperature, barring some kind of equal or greater negative forcing. So far, no strong negative forcing has been identified.

>>3811652

The Inconvenient Truth is actually quite accurate and contains few errors. It is very inaccurate to compare it to a creationist pamphlet. But no, it is not a valid scientific work, just like Planet Earth is not a proper substitute for a semester studying geography. Pretending that AIT is trying to be anything more than a documentary is quite silly.

But if you're actually interested in learning more about the science, I can recommend the following books:

David Archer - Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast

John Houghton - Global Warming: The Complete Briefing

Ray Pierrehumbert - Principles of Planetary Climate

>>3811769
>The Inconvenient Truth is actually quite accurate and contains few errors.
No, No, NO!.

IT is a political leftist propaganda by a man that wants to gain political and economic power. Did you know he got a D taking the class that inspired him that he had to change humanity?

Can we at least agree that where economically viable, green energy should be used? Really nothing to lose from it.

>>3811675

>Climate predictions have been infamously inaccurate, where you been?

Broecker predicted warming in 1975. He was right.

Hansen predicted warming in 1988. He was also right.

The IPCC, in their First Assessment Report in 1995, also predicted warming. They were right.

McLean, as illustrated above, predicted a gigantic temperature decline in 2009. He was wrong.

Don Easterbrook predicted cooling in 2008. 2009, 2010, and 2011 were all hotter than 2008. Easterbrook was wrong.

Roy Spencer is so fucking wrong the editor-in-chief of a journal he submitted to resigned when he found out Spencer was trying to take advantage of him.

Monckton.... Well, Monckton is Monckton.

So in conclusion, climate predictions have been quite accurate, at least those from actual climate scientists.

>>3811791
You sure cause its quite cold here in australia.

>>3811769
CO2 has had a minor influence on climate in the past as indicated by ice core records, however it has never been the primary driving force of a climatic change.

>The Inconvenient Truth is actually quite accurate and contains few errors.

haha oh wow.

>notsureifserious.jpg

http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html

No please greentards, take this pseudoscience out of /sci/ and back to /x/ where it belongs!

>>3811786

>IT is a political leftist propaganda by a man that wants to gain political and economic power.

[citation needed]

Seriously dude, there's worse people out there then fucking Al Gore. Don't get so hung up on him, he's not some kind of monstrous evil supervillain

At least read one of the three books I mentioned. Houghton and Archer are light reads, and Archer only requires a tiny bit of math and chem. Houghton has no math at all. Pierrehumbert is pretty hardcore, so you should only tackle it if you have a good grasp on calculus and classical mechanics. All three books should be part of an education pack listed on /rs/.

If you prefer online learning, there's an MIT CourseWare course on climatology, and also there's these two blogs:

http://scienceofdoom.com/
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/

>>3811789
>Really nothing to lose from it.
We lose land. Solar farms and wind farms take up lots of land. An ordinary power plant wouldn't require that much land.

>>3811806

Depending on whether it's coal, oil, or gas, a fossil fuel plant needs:

- a site for the plant itself
- an air pollution buffer zone
- gas terminals
- shipyards and maintenance facilities for LNG ships
- open pit mines
- mountaintop removal mines
- pipelines
- offshore drilling rigs
- etc.

It takes up quite a bit of land.

>>3811806
Man always finds a way. This is obviously not a single solution but a good step in the right direction. Currently installed in delux suites in Sears tower in Chicago.

>>3811805
Im an Engineer so Calculus is piece of cake for me, now the time it would take for me to read this is another story. I will read them with an open mind but I still dont trust them and I have read a lot in the subject and hate how the voice of dissent are shut down in closed quaters.

>>3811825
By the way, the biggest cost in big buildings is climate control and not only do these provide power, they reduce the greenhouse effect inside the building.

>>3811825
Solar energy is to much of an hassle, we need to put panels in strategic places where the sun shines a lot. Nuclear is the better option.

>>3811793

Just because it's cold today doesn't mean it's cold everywhere.

Didn't Australia get unprecedented flooding this summer?

>>3811819
Land required by wind or solar farms:

-Land to build the solar panels or wind generators
-Land for roads leading to the farm
-Land to park the vehicles used by the maintenance crews, technicians
-Land to build the factories that make the solar panels or wind generators
-Land to mine the materials used for the factories
-etc.

>>3811837
Yea but im sure its not because the evil humans.

>>3811836
Though I realize this isn't realistic due to the shitty wiring etc. It could do way more than it is doing now though.

>>3811856
>hurr lets pave over spain with solar panels i cant believe no one has done this to solve our energy issues yet

>>3811794

>CO2 has had a minor influence on climate in the past as indicated by ice core records, however it has never been the primary driving force of a climatic change.

That's not what I gathered from the literature.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356

>Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm09/lectures/lecture_videos/A23A.shtml

>The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History

http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/climate_sensitivity.pdf

>Climate sensitivity constrained by CO2 concentrations over the past 420 million years

Etc.

>>3811863
Do you know where Spain is?

>>3811851

So overall, there's no difference between land used for a fossil fuel plant and land for a solar plant.

Actually, since you can put a solar panel pretty much anywhere, you can chalk that up as a victory for solar. You should probably drop the "takes up too much land" argument.

>>3811836

Can't be 100% nuclear. A nuclear plant can't wind down production the way other power plants can. The excess production would be wasted, a situation which utilities loath. It must be combined with other sources of energy.

>>3811794

I'm actually not joking. There's like two errors, one is a wrong citation and the other was attributing Kilimanjaro melting as evidence of anthropogenic climate change. Compare and contrast with Christopher Monckton, Ian Plimer, Bjorn Lomborg, or The Great Global Warming Swindle, which has so many errors it almost seems like they're intentionally lying. Unlike Monckton, Gore has never claimed to invent a cure for AIDS and then sell it on his website.

>>3811869
yeah i live like 2 hours from the border...not like the fuckers are doing anything productive for themselves anyway, maybe instead of coming here they can get a job and use the desert for something useful

>>3811906
And this is the same mentality of the NWO elites, the thing is that they will force the people to submit to them!

>>3811873
A solar panel can generator at most 1000 watts per square meter at 100% efficiency. In practice, it generates about 100 watts per square meter. On the other hand, a gas electric generator using approximately the same area can generate over 12 KW. Generators can be stacked on top of each other to conserve land use, but solar panels can't.

>>3811829

>I will read them with an open mind but I still dont trust them and I have read a lot in the subject and hate how the voice of dissent are shut down in closed quaters.

Voices of dissent are clearly not being shut down. Skeptic papers get published all the time, even if they suck terribly, because editors are afraid that they'll draw attention to themselves if they incur the wrath of skeptics. It's a real catch-22 for journals and scientists: if you reject a skeptic paper, it's a conspiracy! If you accept it, that means global warming isn't real! and/or your journal gains a reputation for publishing shit.

As far as I know, Ian Plimer has profited greatly from his relationship with the Australian coal and mining industry, and made a killing off his book and speaking engagements, but he still teaches at the University of Adelaide. He hasn't been censored, reprimanded, or punished for his views. It's the same with pretty much every skeptic. Their horns get tooted all the time, especially in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fox News, and so forth.

If you feel like you don't have much time to go over a thick textbook like Pierrehumbert's, I recommend watching Richard Alley's AGU talk which I linked earlier. He also wrote two popular books, The Two-Mile Time Machine and Earth: The Operator's Manual. If you would prefer to read something like that, I believe you can pick those up at any big bookstore.

>>3811921
Solar panels definelty not have 100% effcency.

>>3811932
Read the next sentence.

>>3811921

Do you remember what this thread is about?

Two themes dominate: one is that climate change is a problem, and no matter how useful fossil fuels are, they must be phased out eventually. Secondly, fossil fuels are limited, they will reach peak production soon, and it will become very expensive to use whether climate change is real or not.

We are discussing solutions here. Small gas generators are not going to be part of that solution.

>>3811929
They might be sceptics that are shirlls paid by the coal, oil industry but you also gotta admint that there's lots of shrills paid by green or leftist organizations. I personally believe that we should shutdown the coal industry and invest on Nuclear Power but environmentalist instead of persecuting this industries persecute the nuclear industry!

>>3811921
Land use is not an issue, as far as solar goes its a total non issue since most solar plants are IN THE FUCKING DESERT, we are NOT going to run out of land any time this millenium, fresh water and arable land are harder to come by but the fact that a 50km^2 solar plant takes up vastly more space than a .5km^2 coal plant isn't the issue, the issue is it costs fucking billions of dollars to make and doesn't work at night.

>>3811944
>one is that climate change is a problem
Nope, we must learn to adapt to the changes in our environment, we aint the lords of the universe, not yet atleast.

>Secondly, fossil fuels are limited, they will reach peak production soon

Defined soon, still I agree that we relied to much on dead animals for our way of living. Oil should only be used for polymers and not for fuel. We should switch or dependancy of fossil fuels with next generation nuclear plants.

>>3811957
People live in that fucking desert. Are you going to tell them to get the fuck out of their historic land just because we westerners cant find other solutions to our energy dependency?

>>3811950

>but you also gotta admint that there's lots of shrills paid by green or leftist organizations.

Are there? No one even listens to Greenpeace these days. Your visceral reaction is probably the same as it was for Al Gore. Almost every scientist I can think of works for public or private research universities. They don't (and can't) make money by milking a cash-strapped NGO or green energy startup. That situation just doesn't happen.

>I personally believe that we should shutdown the coal industry and invest on Nuclear Power but environmentalist instead of persecuting this industries persecute the nuclear industry!

It's kind of a myth that the environmentalists are the ones who killed nuclear. When did reactor construction peak in the US? It was the early 1970s, before Chernobyl and before Three Mile Island. So safety wasn't the main concern there. The truth is, nuclear waste is an enormous burden for energy companies, because their insurance liabilities are basically infinite. Combined with high construction costs, it was impossible to gain the trust of private investors. So everywhere in the world, the nuclear industry is heavily subsidized by government.

Is nuclear expansion necessary? It may well be. But it wouldn't be the cheapest option, and you'd basically have the nationalize the whole industry if you want it to succeed. Otherwise it is a fantastic source of reliable baseload power and has the best safety record of any energy source.

>>3811978
If I had enough money I would invest in Nuclear, absolutely. The problem is not lack of government intervention, is the opposite the government intervention with its excessive regulations have made it impossible to invest on Nuclear. Also we could use the nuclear waste for other kind of nuclear plants.

>>3811961

>Nope, we must learn to adapt to the changes in our environment

Adaptation to medium levels of emissions will equal a few hundred trillion dollars, plus $890 trillion of unavoidable damage, according to a 2009 IIED study. I can't think of a single set of research that supports a conclusion of adaptation as being less expensive than mitigation.

>>3811968
Yes, there are people living in every square mile of all of the earth's deserts, how silly of me, sorry.

>>3811995
But the Earth will change regardless of how much we might affect the Earth. Did you know that in the antiquity the Sahara was a grassland not a desert?

>>3811895
>I'm actually not joking

Then you're just apallingly ignorant, and even worse, ignorant of your own ignorance.
Yeah very accurate film, you know except claiming sealevel rise of 20' is likely to occur, claiming evacuations of island population that simply has not happened, that Thermohaline circulation may cease, that the melting of kilimanjaro's snow is caused by climate change, despite the fact that that region has not experienced any warming, and the glacier has been melting for 125 years, in reality due to nearby deforestation, claiming that the slight warming trend of the last century has influenced hurricane strength and frequency; it has not.
These are just a few of the many errors, must I go on?

>>3811990

It's not just regulation. France has the most nuclear-friendly environment in the entire world, and they get most of their energy from nuclear plants. But their nuclear industry is still completely nationalized. Private investors won't touch it, except Bill Gates who is swimming in cash.

>>3812002

In even deeper antiquity, the oceans were degassing methane and hydrogen sulfide and animals drowned in battery acid. DOESN'T MEAN IT'S A GOOD THING

Change will happen, sure, but it would be better for us for the change to benefit rather than harm us.

>>3812002
You're thinking of the sahel zone, not quite the same thing

>>3811961
Gorge Monbiot spoke with an International Energy Agency spokesperson, as reported in the Guardian newspaper in December 2008.

“In terms of non-OPEC [countries outside the big oil producers' cartel]“, he replied, “we are expecting that in three, four years’ time the production of conventional oil will come to a plateau, and start to decline. … In terms of the global picture, assuming that OPEC will invest in a timely manner, global conventional oil can still continue, but we still expect that it will come around 2020 to a plateau as well, which is of course not good news from a global oil supply point of view.” ~ http://www.monbiot.com/2008/12/15/at-last-a-date/

The report is here: http://www.iea.org/weo/2008.asp

The IEA Energy Outlook for 2011 is due November 9th. Whether it will include a revised peak estimate is not known.

>>3812005

>claiming sealevel rise of 20' is likely to occur,

It's actually inevitable past a certain level of warming. Paleoclimate records attest to this. It will take hundreds of years at least, but it will happen assuming high concentrations of GHGs.

>claiming evacuations of island population that simply has not happened

Gore mixed up his tenses. Tuvalu, for example, is not currently evacuating to New Zealand, but they are making preparations for wholesale evacuation if shit hits the fan. If you're going to call him out on grammar, then sure, that makes 3 errors.

>that Thermohaline circulation may cease

Yep, I've seen some papers on that.

>that the melting of kilimanjaro's snow is caused by climate change

That was one of the two real errors I mentioned earlier. Did you miss it or something?

>has influenced hurricane strength and frequency; it has not.

Actually, yes it has.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7051/abs/nature03906.html

>Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7209/abs/nature07234.html

>The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones

you faggots are missing the point, its the fact that earth's climate has changed in such a short timescale which is the big deal.

0/10 shitty thread would rage again etc

>>3812019
No the Sahel is the region of today that has grasslands, in the antiquity North Africa had a much better climate than the harsh desert of today. It wasnt lush or anything but it was better than the shithole is today.

>>3811882

I will just point out that LFTR has, among other great features, far better load following compared to current reactors.

>>3812040
Do you realize that in the past there wasnt records of hurracanes as extensive as today? Hell the only hurracanes that where noticed where the Major Hurracanes.

>>3812051

It's kind of funny how everyone on /sci/ is always pimping LFTR

Seriously though, while it sounds like a great technology, I don't think it will be commercialized in time to make a difference. Would be nice though.

>>3812047
the Sahara was a vibrant savannah, with numerous copses of trees and water, just as Kenya is today

>>3812059

We've had almost 40 years of satellite observations now, and we wouldn't miss a single tropical depression. Over that time the size and intensity of the strongest storms has increased. In the North Atlantic basin, the numbers have increased as well. Those are the facts.

If, before the era of weather satellites, only strong storms were noticed, it wouldn't make a difference to our observations on the strongest hurricanes. Observation bias would inflate the numbers of the smaller and less powerful, not the largest ones.

>>3812060
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2011/01/china-starts-lftr-development-project.html


IF CHINA CAN DO IT, SO CAN WE

>>3812066

So are you saying the Sahara is going to turn into fertile farmland soon?

>>3812077

>A large scale LFTR program would enable China to replaced fossil fuel energy sources with nuclear power by 2050, if LFTR development had a 20 year gestation period.

20 years to commercialization? After that we'd need another few decades to reach high market penetration. 2050 sounds quite optimistic.

>>3812077
I require this bumper sticker