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2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

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Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#141

Post by flubert »

tahssa wrote: post #77

My 3 wishes.... 1. Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly. 2. Automobiles should be banned from cities, roads should be turned into parks maybe with some commuter trains. 3. The top 62 richest people on the planet should give their money over to make wish number 1 and 2 come true. ;)

>Every person on the planet should have a carbon consumption rating and have exponential taxes applied accordingly.

Anyone know how practical it might be to have a "progressive" carbon tax, similar in nature to a progressive income tax? I can't think of a good way to measure individual carbon-dioxide generation offhand, but that doesn't mean that there isn't. Maybe in a piecemeal fashion? Bringing back carbon based Luxury taxes on airline tickets, with a $100 tax on the first transoceanic flight, $200 for the second, $400 for the third, etc.?

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#142

Post by JupiterMoon »

js8 wrote: post #103
JupiterMoon wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea what proportion of Western Europe would need to be covered in solar panels and wind farms to reliably give 90% of the required kWh per day? The other 10% could come from tidal. But you'd need much of the potential hydro capacity to act as energy storage. (Assuming battery/hydro back up on a daily basis).

Not that much, actually: http://www.techinsider.io/map-shows-solar-panels-to-power-th... It certainly seems more feasible than some feeble attempt to cover the Earth with a reflective surface as a geoengineering measure to counteract global warming.

Promising. However naive extrapolation from that source would would be a significant underestimate of required capacity. Western Europe has significant seasonal deviations in sun. Our governments would not accept direct electrical imports from Africa. We also consume much more energy per capita that other regions.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#143

Post by epistasis »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #73
vectorjohn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people keep saying this, but I really don't think it's true. Solar and wind work fine at scale. There is nothing un-scalable about them. What they don't do is work at night, and in that case nuclear is a fine option. Although batteries that can run a house overnight aren't that expensive.

If we went fully "renewable" how much industrial waste would these batteries that everyone needs create? Solar and Wind really doesnt work for everyone, where it is cost effective, available and reliable it makes sense to mix them in, but you cant tell me you fully expect every country to go 100% Solar and Wind?

Batteries are really not that bad for industrial waste. Lead-acid are terrible, but there are better options when it comes to daily storage of lots of energy.

Compared to coal, give me batteries any day! And we don't really yet know the full effects of all this cheap natural we're getting through fracking. Though I'm sure fracking is probably better than coal mining, we'll have to wait to see.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#144

Post by Udik »

josu wrote: post #43
oolongCat wrote: post #6

I live in one of those "Record Warmest" boxes, it really was hot during the past year. Its funny how people you would consider uneducated and poor in my country would understand that there is clearly something going wrong with the world around us, while some people with lots of money, influence and education choose to believe that this is all a conspiracy by a foreign government. It's just nuts, really, something is…

One cold morning, with a very clear sky, no clouds in sight, I overheard two old ladies discussing how when they were young the sky was bluer, they both agreed. This was in Salamanca, Spain, not Beijing, so no smog to account for.

I was also made suspicious to some of the claims about climate change by the fact that in Italy we've had, since I was a child, two common sayings:

"Summers are not as they used to be"

and

"there are no autumns and springs anymore"

They were used as examples of empty cliches that old people repeat - something to absolutely avoid. Somehow it was known that while everybody feels that it is so, it's also a form of mis-perception, much like "Nowadays young people have no manners any more". Then the climate change issue became prominent, and immediately everybody was transformed again in its own legitimate one-person weather station, complete with long and accurate temperature records.

In the "Dictionnaire des idées reçues", a long and hilarious list of vacuous cliches that Flaubert compiled in the 1870s, you can read the following line:

"Hiver. Toujours exceptionnel"

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#145

Post by fmihaila »

api wrote: post #25
orf wrote: post #17

It sounds bad but I'm very unoptomistic about our chances of stopping this. There is just too much pollution and too little meaningful global cooperation. Just imagine if Trump did get into office as well...

IMHO the problem with stopping this and many other forms of environmental degradation is that it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven so to speak. Poverty is worse than all but the most severe natural disasters. Infant mortality in many poor countries is probably a lot higher than it is in Miami during a hurricane . Poverty is worse than pollution or storms. Even if the sea level rises it would be better to…

Desperate people living in poverty are not those most responsible for climate change. The developed countries, most prominently the US (in absolute terms), contributed most to the problem and have the economic power to start addressing it. The reason Canada (to take another example) hasn't done more to prevent climate change has more to do with greed and misallocation of resources than with poverty eradication.

The choice between lifting people out of poverty and addressing climate change is a false dilemma. Both can, and should, be worked on. Energy abstinence is not the solution. Instituting a carbon tax, ending the monopoly of rent-seeking energy utilities like NV Energy (who do all they can to stop renewables in their track, see [1] and [2]), and letting the market work would be far more effective. All that is needed is political will.

[1] http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/jan/12/nv-energy-puc-price-...

[2] http://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/01/review-of-net-metering-s...

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#146

Post by oldmanjay »

citrin_ru wrote: post #88

I'm recently come to US and currently live in (rented) apartments where gas stove with pilot light is used. 24x7 small fire inside stove turns gas into heat and CO2 with water. I was very surprised - it is waste of energy. I never seen pilot light before (in other countries).

I would be amazed to find out that a) this only exists in America and b) it is significant

Edit: it is significant, although the citations are impossible to follow. I am amazed. But I see nothing that indicates it unique to the US.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#147

Post by epistasis »

brc wrote: post #140
epistasis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given nuclear's huge expense, huge lead times, and intense local political opposition, and comparing it to how battery&renewable is getting much cheaper with time, I don't doubt that battery&renewable will be cheaper at scale than nuclear power will be by the time that either could be built out.

The expense and lead times and nimby-ism which cripples nuclear are mostly regulatory. If you apply the same constraints to wind generation (which is increasingly happening) it looks even worse than nuclear.

I've never seen convincing numbers that the expense is regulatory. And the nimby-ism is not regulatory in the least.

There are always grand claims of how cheap nuclear can be, but it has never been seen in practice. Sometimes people even claim that nuclear is cheap by only looking at the operating & maintenance costs, ignoring the true costs of nuclear, which are all upfront.

What type of nuclear constraints could be applied to wind generation? Validation of designs? There's very few turbine designs out there. I can't see how wind could be ever be made more expensive than nuclear, but am open to new data.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#148

Post by brc »

jupiter90000 wrote: post #40

Is anyone aware if there is reliable data prior to say 1880? [1] Is there any possibility that large scale climate trends could be outside of the observed window of time available? For instance, some large scale natural state-shifting appears to occur on the order of hundreds of years (reference is about earthquakes, but maybe relevant?) [2]. Based on everything I've heard/read/etc about this, it seems unlikely that…

Yes, the central England temperature series (CET). Now run by the met office, it goes back to 1659.

There is no scientific doubt about the roman and medieval warm periods being as warm or warmer than today. The anthropological evidence of this is abundant, and it shows up in most proxies as well.

The most likely case is that the natural variations swamp whatever changes humans make. Based on evidence, it's unlikely that co2 is a major driver of climate, but more of a minor player that has a ceiling on how much effect it can make.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#149

Post by DasIch »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #61
nostromo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earth has a set amount of uranium that is destroyed when creating energy. Currently we have about 200 years of uranium available for economical extraction. But if we tried to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear, we would be out within a few decades. Then we'd need to move to other non-renewable materials (thorium?) or start mining astroids. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-glob... And the min…

Pick a problem, you cant solve them all at once. - mining is pretty much a necessity of life at this point. - 200 years to come up with solutions to energy production while not turning the planet into an oven sounds pretty good.

There aren't a lot of problems though, there is just one: We rely on fossil fuels. Switching to nuclear fission won't change that in the slightest.

Also even if you could get sufficient agreement on the need for more nuclear power plants - which you won't - it would still take way to long to build enough of them to have an impact.

It makes much more sense to invest in renewable energy, the energy grid and research into nuclear fusion.

Re: 2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

#150

Post by lutorm »

galactical wrote: post #138

What's a good book for someone who wants to know more about climate change? I recently bought the most scientific, written by scientists book I could find on Amazon, and the gist of the book is that any amount of warming that is happening is due to geologic cycles and not human activity. The consensus here seems to be that it is due to human activity, so if that's the case can you point me to a good explanation of wh…

Not hard at all. Assuming you have the required stamina, just look at the IPCC Working Group I's reports, like http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-2013-Contribution-Inter.... From there, you can find thousands of references if you really want to track things down.
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