[Al_U_Card]

Trump, like a broken clock, appears to be correct at least once with the withdrawal from the Paris "agreement". Time will tell just how much he has cost or saved the planet. The IPCC numbers say no (real) diff. The alarmists are, well, alarmed.

[RedSpawn]

 mike777, on 2016-November-26, 23:19, said:

my last prediction was very wrong but I will predict that Trump will not pull out of the Paris Climate Change Accord.

See http://www.cbsnews.c...ner-us-decision .

What say you now?

You should consider selling that oracle you have been using on Ebay. 😏

[RedSpawn]

 Al_U_Card, on 2017-April-19, 07:29, said:

Are we doomed yet? Latest "last chance to save humanity" has been pushed back yet again.
Meanwhile, climatocrats are panicking over the thought of Trump pulling funds from their schemes.
We can only hope that we are not running out of time to save our economy from the rain-makers and their ilk.

Saving our economy? LOL.

You hear that giant sucking sound? It is the interest expense we pay on our federal public debt of $20 trillion. It acts as a vacuum cleaner and sucks the life out of our federal budget. Why?

Because the amount we pay as interest annually is roughly 50% of the ENTIRE annual Department of Defense (DoD) budget! The annual DoD budget is $800 billion. Our annual interest on public debt outstanding is $400 billion and keeps rising....

See https://www.treasury.../ir_expense.htm

[PassedOut]

How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science

Quote

“Most Republicans still do not regard climate change as a hoax,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who worked for Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. “But the entire climate change debate has now been caught up in the broader polarization of American politics.”

“In some ways,” he added, “it’s become yet another of the long list of litmus test issues that determine whether or not you’re a good Republican.”

Since Mr. McCain ran for president on climate credentials that were stronger than his opponent Barack Obama’s, the scientific evidence linking greenhouse gases from fossil fuels to the dangerous warming of the planet has grown stronger. Scientists have for the first time drawn concrete links between the planet’s warming atmosphere and changes that affect Americans’ daily lives and pocketbooks, from tidal flooding in Miami to prolonged water shortages in the Southwest to decreasing snow cover at ski resorts.

That scientific consensus was enough to pull virtually all of the major nations along. Conservative-leaning governments in Britain, France, Germany and Japan all signed on to successive climate change agreements.

Yet when Mr. Trump pulled the United States from the Paris accord, the Senate majority leader, the speaker of the House and every member of the elected Republican leadership were united in their praise.

Those divisions did not happen by themselves. Republican lawmakers were moved along by a campaign carefully crafted by fossil fuel industry players, most notably Charles D. and David H. Koch, the Kansas-based billionaires who run a chain of refineries (which can process 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day) as well as a subsidiary that owns or operates 4,000 miles of pipelines that move crude oil.

Government rules intended to slow climate change are “making people’s lives worse rather than better,” Charles Koch explained in a rare interview last year with Fortune, arguing that despite the costs, these efforts would make “very little difference in the future on what the temperature or the weather will be.”

Republican leadership has also been dominated by lawmakers whose constituents were genuinely threatened by policies that would raise the cost of burning fossil fuels, especially coal. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, always sensitive to the coal fields in his state, rose through the ranks to become majority leader. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming also climbed into leadership, then the chairmanship of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, as a champion of his coal state.

Mr. Trump has staffed his White House and cabinet with officials who have denied, or at least questioned, the existence of global warming. And he has adopted the Koch language, almost to the word. On Thursday, as Mr. Trump announced the United States’ withdrawal, he at once claimed that the Paris accord would cost the nation millions of jobs and that it would do next to nothing for the climate.

It's not easy for a member of congress to take on the Koch brothers:

Quote

Unshackled by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and other related rulings, which ended corporate campaign finance restrictions, Koch Industries and Americans for Prosperity started an all-fronts campaign with television advertising, social media and cross-country events aimed at electing lawmakers who would ensure that the fossil fuel industry would not have to worry about new pollution regulations.

Their first target: unseating Democratic lawmakers such as Representatives Rick Boucher and Tom Perriello of Virginia, who had voted for the House cap-and-trade bill, and replacing them with Republicans who were seen as more in step with struggling Appalachia, and who pledged never to push climate change measures.

But Americans for Prosperity also wanted to send a message to Republicans.

Until 2010, some Republicans ran ads in House and Senate races showing their support for green energy.

“After that, it disappeared from Republican ads,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity. “Part of that was the polling, and part of it was the visceral example of what happened to their colleagues who had done that.”

What happened was clear. Republicans who asserted support for climate change legislation or the seriousness of the climate threat saw their money dry up or, worse, a primary challenger arise.

“It told Republicans that we were serious,” Mr. Phillips said, “that we would spend some serious money against them.”

By the time Election Day 2010 arrived, 165 congressional members and candidates had signed Americans for Prosperity’s “No Climate Tax” pledge.

The supreme court ruled that billionaires have the right to buy congressional seats, and now the US has a president incapable of independent reasoning. Sad.

[RedSpawn]

 PassedOut, on 2017-June-04, 09:07, said:

How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science


It's not easy for a member of congress to take on the Koch brothers:


The supreme court ruled that billionaires have the right to buy congressional seats, and now the US has a president incapable of independent reasoning. Sad.

The Supreme Court failed us with the Citizens United decision. Or maybe the lawyers failed us.

A corporation is a legal fiction. It only exists through the instrumentality of human beings. Without human beings, a corporation is simply a piece of paper, neither more nor less.

Furthermore, a human being can exist without corporations but a corporation can not exist without human beings. This self-evident truth establishes whose rights are superior and whose "rights" are inferior, especially in a court of law.

A corporation is neither created by God nor is it male nor female nor man nor woman. A corporation is not of the human race because it has no DNA, fingerprints, flesh, blood, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, orifices, skull, limbs, bones, spine, brain, mind capable of reasoning and thought, organs, muscles, respiratory system to breathe and expel air, and no genitalia capable of reproduction.

None of our founding documents mention corporations, but man is mentioned in The Declaration of Independence.

Quote

We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men are created equal that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, delivering their just powers from the consent of the governed.

So how does an artificially created not-for-profit corporation or for-profit corporation have the same Constitutional rights and legal standing as men (human beings) endowed by the Creator with unalienable rights?

Simply put, they don't.

A corporation does not have a First Amendment right because it is neither a man nor woman nor human being; therefore, it has no unalienable rights and can not receive these rights through agency as they are by definition nonnegotiable and nontransferable. Furthermore, a corporation is not a citizen of the body politic of The United States of America. That's why it can't assume public office and govern over men nor can it cast a ballot to vote. And finally, no police officer can apprehend, arrest, or jail a corporation. It is impossible to incarcerate a figment of our thoughts.

These super PACs never had legally enforceable Constitutional rights and their case should have been summarily dismissed until they can prove that they are not legal fictions.

[Daniel1960]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-March-21, 03:59, said:

Every area of science uses a model. Newton's Laws are a model, as are relativity and quantum mechanics. So I have no issue with the use of models. Where I think there is legitimate concern at present is in terms of the sensitivity. There have been a number of papers in the last years pointing towards a sensitivity figure lower than the majority of models are using and the teams behind them have seemingly been slow to react to this, probably believing this to be a temporary anomaly rather than a solid figure. This sensitivity issue also points to one of the serious issues with the models - despite their complexity, a relatively simple adjustment has a huge impact on the long-term trend and the complexity seems to come back as "noise" around this long-term trend. That may be unavoidable, of course, but it means that getting the underlying sensitivty figure correct is absolutely praamount to the models making reliable estimates.

There are also still some other open questions too - clouds is one that gets mentioned often and is still controversial. Perhaps even more important is the question of ocean current cycles. It is well known that some of these have a major impact on climate but it is doubtful that we are currently modelling all of the interactions. Once these are fully udnerstood, we should be able to recalibrate the factors in the models for greatly increased accuracy.

Perhaps the resulting models will show a warming trend that is negligible or even non-existent. Or perhaps we are even underestimating at present. Modelling is absolutely the correct approach though, whichever side of the debate you stand on.

As for a guide on how to remedy the situation, that is a different question entirely and goes somewhat beyond the science itself. It is my considered belief that we possess the technology already to do so if we were really to want to, for example by building aeroforming devices (aka artificial trees). The question is more about who pays, when and in what form. But that moves over into the political sphere rather than the scientific one.

The other issue is that msot models assume a linear sensitivity. Nothing can rise linearly forever, but these models make that assumption. Perhaps, they all reside in the linear range of the equation, but is not guaranteed. Most linear models are just a simpliciation of a more complex system, and can be utilized under certain conditions only. I have no issue with using models. As you say, we use them all the time. However, when the model makes predictions well outside its calibrated range, some semblance of restraint must be exercised.

[Al_U_Card]

 Daniel1960, on 2017-June-09, 10:11, said:

The other issue is that msot models assume a linear sensitivity. Nothing can rise linearly forever, but these models make that assumption. Perhaps, they all reside in the linear range of the equation, but is not guaranteed. Most linear models are just a simpliciation of a more complex system, and can be utilized under certain conditions only. I have no issue with using models. As you say, we use them all the time. However, when the model makes predictions well outside its calibrated range, some semblance of restraint must be exercised.

C'mon Dan, these people want to save the world, no matter what the cost (to the world and its people...). The models are the only source of "support" so they cannot be questioned.

Happily, on another note, this just in:
Nigel Farage and Brexit

Now THAT is something worthy of note.

[Al_U_Card]

Whither climate sensitivity?

With each passing year, the estimates get lower and lower. Will we have time to avert disaster?

[Zelandakh]

 Al_U_Card, on 2017-June-20, 08:09, said:

Whither climate sensitivity?

With each passing year, the estimates get lower and lower. Will we have time to avert disaster?

I have asked you before please to post your sources and not merely graphs that may or may not be misleading. In this case your source appears to be this article from 2015, which in turn links back to data from Climate Audit, a good site but hardly an unbiased one. If you look carefully at the sources you can see that the end points are dominated by papers by scientists on the skeptical side and does not include mainstream papers such as the one mentioned here.

Finally, here is a little further more recent discussion about the subject that is probably simple enough for most who have an interest in the underlying maths to follow. There is also a further link embedded there to a scientist on the skeptical side, Nik Lewis, with a more complicated discussion on the subject. This is amongst the most recent material I can find in this area, so will hopefully give a decent indication to readers on where things currently stand.

[Winstonm]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-June-20, 09:28, said:

I have asked you before please to post your sources and not merely graphs that may or may not be misleading. In this case your source appears to be this article from 2015, which in turn links back to data from Climate Audit, a good site but hardly an unbiased one. If you look carefully at the sources you can see that the end points are dominated by papers by scientists on the skeptical side and does not include mainstream papers such as the one mentioned here.

Finally, here is a little further more recent discussion about the subject that is probably simple enough for most who have an interest in the underlying maths to follow. There is also a further link embedded there to a scientist on the skeptical side, Nik Lewis, with a more complicated discussion on the subject. This is amongst the most recent material I can find in this area, so will hopefully give a decent indication to readers on where things currently stand.

Don't waste your keystrokes - these guys are not interested in the science but are driven to denial by their anti-regulation, small government political belief systems. Tobacco, ozone, acid rain, and now climate change - doesn't matter the problem, their contribution is always denial or confusion.

[olegru]

Several years ago, somebody asked Putin why he never participated in debates with opposition. He said that debates with opposition just waste of time, these guys are not interested in the trues but are driven to denial by their anti-government ideology and political belief systems.

Why did I suddenly recall that old story?

[Zelandakh]

 olegru, on 2017-June-20, 12:56, said:

Why did I suddenly recall that old story?

For the same reason that Trump tweeted about the media having an "agenda of hate" perhaps?

[olegru]

 Zelandakh, on 2017-June-20, 17:48, said:

For the same reason that Trump tweeted about the media having an "agenda of hate" perhaps?

Very well may be. I am not particularly good in reading other people mind and can only guess Trumps reason to tweet that, but I will not be very surprised if reason is the same.

[RedSpawn]

http://thehill.com/b...re-we-sovereign

Nice article about energy systems and climate change....what say you BBO Forum?

[mike777]

 RedSpawn, on 2017-June-25, 21:42, said:

http://thehill.com/b...re-we-sovereign

Nice article about energy systems and climate change....what say you BBO Forum?

W

When you have time take a look at the current market share solar power has for electrical generation. Where do you see its market share in ten or twelve years from 2017?

[RedSpawn]

 mike777, on 2017-June-26, 07:41, said:

W

When you have time take a look at the current market share solar power has for electrical generation. Where do you see its market share in ten or twelve years from 2017?

https://www.statista...rces-from-2000/
https://www.forbes.c...c/#bd987d228000

I think it will continue to grow exponentially provided the government doesn't play favorites and go through extraordinary lengths to protect fossil fuel energy development (coal, oil & gas) and public utilities (nuclear as well).

The biggest impediment is government intervention in the "free" marketplace of energy generation. Never underestimate the power of government to override the natural laws of economics for its own gain.

The growth in terms of solar power generation measured in millions of kilowatt-hours is at the beginning point of an e^x curve. Click on 1st link for 16 year history.

[Al_U_Card]

Are renewables "only" responsible for a few % of power generation because "someone" is impeding progress? Or are they simply expensive, inefficient and time/labor/space consuming methods that are hopelessy outclassed as far as generation and distribution are concerned?
Green power tends to create more ghg overall than stright hydrocarbon removal and use...nuclear is about the only viable alternative, especially thorium, but even the evil oil/coal industry is lining up for renewable subsidies et al.
Efficiency is the key because as population grows, waste becomes an unacceptable luxury

[Zelandakh]

 Al_U_Card, on 2017-June-26, 16:07, said:

Green power tends to create more ghg overall than straight hydrocarbon removal and use...

More misinformation? Here are some more representative figures. Nuclear is indeed strong in the area of its total carbon footprint, almost as good as wind in some studies (although it has some other drawbacks that are hard to ignore). Hydrocarbons on the other hand are considerably worse.

In terms of numbers, America currently gets around 15% of its energy from renewables. Compare that with Germany, where the number is 30%. The truth is that the price of renewables has come down enormously and this sector will certainly continue to grow. Prices for solar rival coal generated electricity in many areas, which shows what is possible if the will is there. Almost all analysts are predicting that solar will become the cheapest power source overall in the next few years. If efficiency is indeed key then we should see a massive move in this direction very shortly.

[RedSpawn]

 Al_U_Card, on 2017-June-26, 16:07, said:

Are renewables "only" responsible for a few % of power generation because "someone" is impeding progress? Or are they simply expensive, inefficient and time/labor/space consuming methods that are hopelessy outclassed as far as generation and distribution are concerned?
Green power tends to create more ghg overall than stright hydrocarbon removal and use...nuclear is about the only viable alternative, especially thorium, but even the evil oil/coal industry is lining up for renewable subsidies et al.
Efficiency is the key because as population grows, waste becomes an unacceptable luxury

https://www.forbes.c...y/#6c9fdfa0128c

Hmmmm.

[Al_U_Card]

 RedSpawn, on 2017-June-27, 13:46, said:

https://www.forbes.c...y/#6c9fdfa0128c

Hmmmm.

As soon as you legislate (oblige) action and $ is involved (tax-payer unlimited resource) the rapacious and even the well-meaning will belly up to the trough... easy money ... that can be used as profit as well as purchasing influence and control.

Renewable refers more to the cash cache than the nature of the beast. The market weeds out the inefficient BUT when the system is gamed by its principals then the playing field tilts away from efficiency and heads towards influence.