All you ever wanted to know about AGW

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

>use poisonous light bulbs

LED's poisonous? No more so than, say, cellphones.

I'm sure he's referring to CFL's. LED's are still just entering the world of practicality, but it's coming quickly, thankfully. CFLs may not be *that* bad, but we will do better with these.

Quote

>and pay $500 per month in electricity bills

I pay $5 a month and get all the power I need from the sun. You can pay $500 a month if you like. Not sure why you would want to, but it's a free country.

Now, now - that's not proper accounting, Bill. You need to amortize the sunk costs for the initial buildout of your solar array, as well as any upkeep costs. You've been paying far more than $5/month.

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

Quote

I pay $5 a month and get all the power I need from the sun. You can pay $500 a month if you like. Not sure why you would want to, but it's a free country.

Now, now - that's not proper accounting, Bill. You need to amortize the sunk costs for the initial buildout of your solar array, as well as any upkeep costs. You've been paying far more than $5/month.

Yeah, but that doesn't let him get his smug on.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Quote

Now, now - that's not proper accounting, Bill. You need to amortize the sunk costs for the initial buildout of your solar array, as well as any upkeep costs. You've been paying far more than $5/month.

Yeah, but that doesn't let him get his smug on.

And understates the difference between life in San Diego and in much of the rest of the country. He's in one of the most ideal spots in the country for solar power.

[billvon 3,120]

>I'm sure he's referring to CFL's. LED's are still just entering the world of
>practicality, but it's coming quickly, thankfully. CFLs may not be *that*
>bad, but we will do better with these.

Agreed. And I'd also add that there's nothing wrong with being toxic; most cars have 20-30 pounds of very toxic lead in their starting batteries. Not a big deal because 99% of them are recycled.

>Now, now - that's not proper accounting, Bill. You need to amortize the
>sunk costs for the initial buildout of your solar array, as well as any
>upkeep costs. You've been paying far more than $5/month.

Well, I also paid lots of $$$ for my home, which includes costs for the electrical appliances, wiring, feed from the street etc. So all that gets folded in as well.

But the end result is that I will be paying $5 a month basically forever. (The systems have no moving parts, and panels don't have an aging mechanism.)

[kelpdiver 2]

Quote

Well, I also paid lots of $$$ for my home, which includes costs for the electrical appliances, wiring, feed from the street etc. So all that gets folded in as well.

But you pay that whether you use solar or power off the grid. The figure of interest is the differential between the two. It's not $5 versus hundreds of dollars.

You might pay, say $30,000 up front for the solar system. This is considerable opportunity cost up front, though it does retain value if you sell the home down the road. And while I think they rate the panels for a 20 or 30 year lifespan, it's seems likely to keep generating longer than that at some reduced capacity. So I personally would probably amortize over 10 or 15 years.

Power will likely continue to go up in price, so the comparison is likely to improve in time. Right off the bat, with tax incentives, it's not markedly different from buying from Edison. However, the more installations done, the better the industry gets, and each jump in efficiency means something now. And the hidden opportunity savings in subsidizing solar installations is that massive power plants aren't built.

[billvon 3,120]

>I could never rely on solar power for all 12 months of the year.

And I could never rely on wind. But people in Wyoming can. Neither place is all that great for microhydro - but if you live near Seattle, could be a great option.

Which is the good thing about home power. Lots of options.

>Nope I am afraid that if I relied on solar power to keep myself warm, I would
>freeze to death.

And if I relied on it 100% I'd often be in the dark, since solar power isn't notably effective at night. Fortunately we have a power grid that can move power around for us. While I'm generating the grid is carrying my power to local businesses to run their air conditioners, and at night I use that extra capacity to run my house.

[brenthutch 444]

Yes, you live in socal and use solar, others live in Wyoming and use wind; that is all great I support it 100%. I live in PA and use coal and nuclear. Why cant you live and let live. I wont harsh on your buzz so please don’t harsh on mine.

[billvon 3,120]

> I live in PA and use coal and nuclear. Why cant you live and let live.

I am "living and letting live." You can use whatever power source you like. Heck, burn manure in your fireplace for heat if you want to; your neighbors would have more to say about that than I will.

We'll need coal for some time to come - but as time goes on we'll replace end-of-life coal plants with solar and wind (as opportunistic sources) hydro/nuclear (as baseline) and natural gas/biogas (as peakers.) Nothing wrong with that.

[brenthutch 444]

No argument here.

Where is Kalland, Quade, and Amazon? It is no fun arguing with Bill because he is somewhat reasonable. I want to play with the crazies.

[popsjumper 2]

Quote

BTW2 oceans really aren't rising all that much.

We'll need to send an ambassador to convince these people that they are hallucinating.

That or a good boat salesman.


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/03/world/asia/03iht-pacific.2.5548184.html

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[billvon 3,120]

>We'll need to send an ambassador to convince these people that they are
>hallucinating.

?? They're not. Sea levels have risen about 8 inches over the past 100 years or so, and if your island averages a foot above sea level, that's going to be a big stinkin deal. If you rely on wells in a low lying country, you're also going to have problems as seawater starts infiltrating your wells.

But do the math and that's only .1 inch a year. Industrialized countries can deal with this even if their land is close to sea level (think Holland, and with a lesser degree of success, New Orleans.)

Will it be an issue overall over the next 100 years? Yes, to some countries - they will need help to relocate people and maintain supplies of fresh water. Will we wake up one morning to find LA underwater? Not likely.

[brenthutch 444]

Soooo, you would recommend what humankind has done over the last several millennium; adapt or move. No carbon trading scheme, no subsidies for solar or wind. Just let mankind adapt to a slowly changing environment like it has always done. Sold! I am with you Bill! 100%

[billvon 3,120]

>No carbon trading scheme, no subsidies for solar or wind.

Well, if we're one of the causes of the problem, then we're partly responsible for its effects. That's one of the basic tenets of personal responsibility - you're responsible for your own mess.

One option is to help move those people and supply them with water, food etc. Sounds like it could be expensive, but if people prefer that, fine. Best start saving now, though.

Another is to slow down the change as much as is practical to give them more time to deal with the problem. This is a good idea IMO, since we impose ourselves less on people living in other parts of the world. Carbon credits, subsidies etc is one way to do that.

A third is to just say "fuck them." Not the responsible thing to do, IMO.

>Just let mankind adapt to a slowly changing environment like it
>has always done.

Agreed! Drastically cut back our emissions of CO2 so the environment goes back to changing slowly, instead of changing at a historically rapid pace. I am with you 100%.

[brenthutch 444]

"if we're one of the causes of the problem"
A mighty big "if"

"historically rapid pace"

Not at all.

Carbon trading is a solution looking for a problem.

[billvon 3,120]

>"historically rapid pace"
>Not at all.

When - outside of cataclysms like asteroid impacts - has the climate changed this rapidly in the past?

[skypuppy 1]

>"historically rapid pace"
>Not at all.

When - outside of cataclysms like asteroid impacts - has the climate changed this rapidly in the past?
_________________________________________________

Several volcanic eruptions come to mind. Other than that there's a lot we just don't know about the past longer than, 5 or 600 years ago.... How long did it take Greenland to become unbearable to the Vikings? We don't know. We just know they left. I believe you are ASSUMING things when you tell us how fast or slow things changed. We just don't know.

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[billvon 3,120]

>Other than that there's a lot we just don't know about the past longer
>than, 5 or 600 years ago....

We have pretty good proxy data going back millennia.

[skypuppy 1]

Quote

>Other than that there's a lot we just don't know about the past longer
>than, 5 or 600 years ago....

We have pretty good proxy data going back millennia.

I guess maybe I just don't understand this whole 'proxy' data thing. Is that something we think is right in the absence of 'hard' data?

Maybe that is the whole crux of the argument....

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[billvon 3,120]

>I guess maybe I just don't understand this whole 'proxy' data thing.

Proxy data are basically preserved physical characteristics of something that let you determine what happened when.

For example, if you leave your lazy roommate alone in the house, and come back in a week, and see a pile of dishes seven high in the sink, you could then go back through the plates and see what he had for dinner every night. You'd have to be careful to validate your assumptions of course (i.e. make sure he didn't have guests, or took a few days off and then eat twice as much when he got back.) And ideally you'd back it up by looking at the times he logged in to his PC, the contents of the garbage can and the texts he sent. Do all that and you could discover what his dinner choices were (if that was important to you, that is.)

In the physical world you can use things like tree rings, sediment thicknesses, ice cores, air bubbles in ice, boreholes, corals, and sediment isotopes to determine what happened way back when. Any individual proxy is generally pretty low resolution, but combine them to amplify the desired signal (i.e. temperature) and attenuate the nondesired signals (i.e. precipitation levels) and you can get pretty accurate results.

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

>"historically rapid pace"
>Not at all.

When - outside of cataclysms like asteroid impacts - has the climate changed this rapidly in the past?

According to the National Academy of Sciences, pretty often:

Quote

“Recent scientific evidence shows that major and widespread climate changes have occurred with startling speed. For example, roughly half the north Atlantic warming since the last ice age was achieved in only a decade, and it was accompanied by significant climatic changes across most of the globe. Similar events, including local warmings as large as 16°C, occurred repeatedly during the slide into and climb out of the last ice age. Human civilizations arose after those extreme, global ice-age climate jumps.”

“The new paradigm of an abruptly changing climatic system has been well established by research over the last decade, but this new thinking is little known and scarcely appreciated in the wider community of natural and social scientists and policy-makers.” (“Abrupt Climate Change – Inevitable Surprises”, Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, 2002, ISBN: 0-309-51284-0, 244 pages, Richard B. Alley, chair).

More from the Committee:

Quote

“Briefly, the data indicate that cooling into the Younger Dryas occurred in a few prominent decade(s)-long steps, whereas warming at the end of it occurred primarily in one especially large step (Figure 1.2) of about 8°C in about 10 years and was accompanied by a doubling of snow accumulation in 3 years; most of the accumulation-rate change occurred in 1 year. (This matches well the change in wind-driven upwelling in the Cariaco Basin, offshore Venezuela, which occurred in 10 years or less [Hughen et al., 1996].)”

“Ice core evidence also shows that wind-blown materials were more abundant in the atmosphere over Greenland by a factor of 3 (sea-salt, submicrometer dust) to 7 (dust measuring several micrometers) in the Younger Dryas atmosphere than after the event (Alley et al., 1995b; Mayewski et al., 1997) (Figure 2.1). Taylor et al. (1997) found that most of the change in most indicators occurred in one step over about 5 years at the end of the Younger Dryas, although additional steps of similar length but much smaller magnitude preceded and followed the main step, spanning a total of about 50 years.”

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[DanG 1]

Yeah, and abrupt climate changes like the Younger Dryas are associated with massive megafauna (large animal) extinctions. Sounds great.

- Dan G

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

Yeah, and abrupt climate changes like the Younger Dryas are associated with massive megafauna (large animal) extinctions. Sounds great.

Which has NOTHING to do with the question bill asked - care to join the rest of us in the conversation, or continue off on your own tangent?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[DanG 1]

I like my own tangent. sin(me)/cos(me)=tan(me)

BTW, there are theories that the Younger Dryas event was caused by an asteriod impact, so maybe you should join the rest of us over here where we were discussing abrupt climate changes not due to natural disaster.

- Dan G

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

I like my own tangent. sin(me)/cos(me)=tan(me)

BTW, there are theories that the Younger Dryas event was caused by an asteriod impact, so maybe you should join the rest of us over here where we were discussing abrupt climate changes not due to natural disaster.

Again, from the report:

Quote

Briefly, the data indicate that cooling into the Younger Dryas occurred in a few prominent decade(s)-long steps, whereas warming at the end of it occurred primarily in one especially large step (Figure 1.2) of about 8°C in about 10 years and was accompanied by a doubling of snow accumulation in 3 years; most of the accumulation-rate change occurred in 1 year. (This matches well the change in wind-driven upwelling in the Cariaco Basin, offshore Venezuela, which occurred in 10 years or less [Hughen et al., 1996].)”

So...where's the CO2 driving the sudden warming at the end of Y. Dryas?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[DanG 1]

billVon asked (emphasis added):

Quote

When - outside of cataclysms like asteroid impacts - has the climate changed this rapidly in the past?

Maybe I'm dense, but I don't see anyone claiming that CO2 is the only possible driver of climate change.

I'm fairly certain that we haven't had any large asteroid impacts in the last 50 years, but the climate is certainly getting warming. CO2 is a main driver this time, it doesn't mean that it is the only driver that has ever acted.

But you already know that's the current point. Why I waste my time spelling it out is beyond me. I await your redirection/intentional misunderstanding.

- Dan G