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2015 “smashed” 2014’s global temperature record

washingtonpost.com

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

#161

Post by galactical »

drewrv wrote: post #158
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…

I'm curious what book you read because it sounds like it does not agree with what almost all scientists believe. Perhaps you should start with The IPCC Reports.

This was the book, chosen because it looked like the most objective one available: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0986398306

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

#162

Post by codecamper »

ps4fanboy wrote: post #32

Nuclear Power, until those who care about the environment accept that the only clean at scale power solution for base load is nuclear power we will get no where. "Renewables" are great and should be in the mix but they are not an at scale solution. http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/images/ghgemissions/source... By going mostly electric for our transportation and nuclear for power generation we could really make a den…

And so we build nuclear power plants in Nigeria (population 175 million)?

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

#163

Post by vectorjohn »

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?

I don't expect every country to do it this year, or this decade. I also don't expect every country to have nuclear power either, because it's expensive. You think uranium mining is clean? Constructing all that stuff is free? Of course not.

The amount of solar panels needed for a house (or their share, in some solar farm) is miniscule. It's 4-7 panels. If we want to store excess for night, maybe 10. The batteries fairly small (using lithium, a sufficient battery could hang on the wall. Maybe two tesla power walls would do it). The waste isn't that bad (nowhere near the amount of waste people create yearly in plastic or other landfill garbage).

It's totally doable in first world countries. And it would go a long way in developing countries too, for the same reason cell phones gained popularity faster than landlines, because they require less infrastructure.

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

#164

Post by b_emery »

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…

Nate Silver's "The signal and the noise" had an excellent chapter on it. Did a good job getting to the core of the argument, putting it into non-specialist terms, and evaluating the results skeptically, but with scientific rigor. And no agenda. Highly recommended.

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

#165

Post by brc »

moultano wrote: post #95
ekianjo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distract people from real issues and extract taxes, is usually how people use disaster predictions.

The people making these predictions do not have the power to extract taxes. The people who do have the power to extract taxes (Congress) are ignoring the predictions.

With respect, that simply is not true at all. People (activists and their politicians) are continually using the constant threat of disaster to try and gain power. Witness how many times have we heard a politician say 'we have (insert timeframe here) to save the planet'?

The fact that the U.S. Congress has only done a little bit of tax and power extraction on the issue ignores the fact that most of the rest of the developed countries have extracted huge amounts of taxation by throwing around planetary doom. Personally I am thousands of dollars worse off from the application of this power, and my (enforced) sacrifices have not done anything at all to change the planets temperature.

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

#166

Post by DasIch »

flubert wrote: post #99
nostromo wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've misunderstood my comment. We have 200 years of uranium left at current rates of consumption. But if we replaced all fossil fuels with nuclear, we'd consume 10 times more per year and we'd only have about 20 years of energy available before needing to move on to a new energy source.

Okay, it is wikipedia, but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor "Adherents claim that with seawater uranium extraction, there would be enough fuel for breeder reactors to satisfy our energy needs for 5 billion years at 1983's total energy consumption rate, thus making nuclear energy effectively a renewable energy."

There are only four breeder reactors in operation, we'd need a lot more rather quickly for them to be useful.

Also as with all things nuclear there are an awful lot of claims and not a lot of known things here. Nuclear somehow always looks much better in theory than it does in practice.

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

#167

Post by brc »

Afforess wrote: post #12
flubert wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I live in one of those "Record Warmest" boxes, it really was hot during the past year. You can sense a 0.23 degree F average temperature difference? Or maybe you are unhelpfully confusing weather with climate?

As you helpfully state, it is a 0.23F average temperature difference. That could mean the temperature was significantly warmer for a large period of time, then somewhat cooler. Depending on the magnitude, the temperature could have varied widely, but only increased 0.23F, on average . So it could be incredibly easy to sense.

Or it could be personal bias filtering memories and inputs.

I know which one I'd bet on.

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

#168

Post by brc »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #96
VLM wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries get rid of it by burning it, then they stop burning it because its gone. Britain didn't intentionally start lowering production in 1910, they literally burned it all, then had to find something else.

The UK produced significant coal until the early 1980s and the significant reduction in output then was for political rather than geological reasons.

Actually it was for economic reasons. The UK lost comparative advantage for coal production. The way they mine coal in the UK is positively archaic compared to monster open cut mines which out produce the UK deep pits by a wide margin.

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

#169

Post by DasIch »

jupiter90000 wrote: post #92
rayiner wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I get concerned I'm hearing lots of motivated agendas about it rather than facts. What motivation does anyone have to predict disaster?

Here you go [1]. If you don't want to read the whole thing, a relevant part: "News media is tightly entwined with the attention economy. Newspapers try to capture people’s attentions through headlines. TV and radio stations try to entice people to not change the channel. And, indeed, there is a long history of news media leveraging fear to grab attention, often with a reputational cost." [1] http://www.poynter.org/20…

This argument ignores the overwhelming scientific evidence. There is no one who deserves to be taken seriously arguing that climate change doesn't exist or isn't caused by humans.

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

#170

Post by dTal »

JBReefer wrote: post #49
flubert wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Geothermal energy was stored back during the formation of the planet "Nuclear Fission Confirmed as Source of More than Half of Earth's Heat" http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/nuclear-fis...

That's talking about radioactive decay, not fission. The article doesn't do a great job distinguishing between the two, but it's _not_ talking about the process of splitting atoms. >The new measurements suggest radioactive decay provides more than half of Earth's total heat, estimated at roughly 44 terawatts based on temperatures found at the bottom of deep boreholes into the planet's crust.

Not only is this pedantic in the context of whether Earth's geothermal energy is "stored" or "generated", it's also wrong. Fission is when an atom breaks into smaller pieces. What is it that you think happens in radioactive decay?

From Wikipedia, first line in the article: "...nuclear fission is either a nuclear reaction or a radioactive decay process in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts (lighter nuclei)."

Why would you assume that Scientific American got such an elementary thing wrong, then post it as an argument without even checking?

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