The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[sendler]

That's funny. It appeared to me that if he was shilling for anything unreasonable, it was wave power, electrolytic hydrogen production, and oil from algea. Which he (or the producer) just stuck in at the second half of the film after correctly telling us it is a big waste of money all through the first half. Disjointed.

[hydrive]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Bjorn Lomborg is a fossil fuel shill, and he's a political scientist.

Do you have any evidence that he's paid off by oil companies to present a specific point of view?

Seeing that carbon taxes and cap and trade schemes haven't ultimately lowered emissions, I think he's bringing a breath of fresh air to the debate. BTW, I'm not even particularly against carbon taxes per se, I've voted for governments in the past that have instituted both of these green programs. I'm an evidence based guy, and so far the evidence suggests its doing little to change energy technology. The technology is developed completely separate and unrelated to carbon taxes and cap and trade schemes.

He's basically promoting technological advances and engineering at saving us, which I find more viable than trying to tell people what they can and cannot purchase in the energy market. His ideas sound less kooky than trying to tax carbon emissions out of existence, quite frankly.

He's an environmentalist, not an oil company shill so far as I can tell, but if you have evidence please present it.

Technology and innovation is our only hope. Tesla has proven the electric car isn't just a Golf Cart. Innovating the old combustion engine has delivered better fuel economy, just look at the innovation Mazda is putting into its new Skyactive D and X engines. Good performance, double the fuel economy of just a few years ago. Its just too bad they aren't building sub 100hp 3 cylinder diesels with turbos that would easily get 60mpg.

Technology and innovation are cutting carbon emissions in half by developing better combustion engines before electrics go mainstream.

A carbon tax and cap and trade hasn't solved any problems yet. All they have done is cause mass political upheaval. I've supported governments in the past that have installed these schemes, but I'm starting to rethink it given current realities and where the solutions seem to be coming from. Incentivising car companies to produce better engine technology is probably a better idea than carbon taxes on gasoline and diesel. Instead of taxing fuels to make people not afford it, why not just produce cars that get better fuel economy? Novel idea...

[hydrive]

Originally Posted by sendler

I watched "Cool It".
.
https://youtu.be/ChKevI7nwIM
.
I might be interested to skim through Bjorn Lomorg's book.
.
https://www.amazon.com/Skeptical-Env...vironmentalist
.
Because the movie somewhat contradicted itself. The first half devloped his concept (that I agree with in part even though his understanding as presented is very much incomplete) that we have much bigger problems to worry about than Global Warming. The first half of the movie makes the point that trying to reduce carbon emissions will cost a fortune and change very little in the end when it is finally seen what is really possible. He also correctly identifies that spending money on socio-economic changes, health care, housing, education, all pay forward toward a better world more than upending existing infrastructure.
.
But then in the second half of the movie, shows solar and wind and other typical sci-fi solutions like wave power and Hydrogen electrolysis in a hopeful light. When he just spent the first half stating that they are too expensive for what you get.

I agree some of the suggestions in the last part of the movie sound a bit out there, but then again so did the concept of global warming itself when people first suggested it.

Whether what he suggests is practical or not, he did cost it out and explained its far cheaper than carbon taxes/cap and trade schemes or other 'green' policies in vogue today.

Not all of his suggestions are pie in the sky. Blocking sunlight by spraying a fog/mist in the air might be pushing it...

[oil pan 4]

Their answer is to use wind and solar power that we don't have and probably can't create enough of to charge grid storage batteries that could never be manufactured and drive electric cars that we also cant make batteries for.

Nearly everyone with a physics or engineering background says we need more nuclear power because it's the only technology that scales up, it's entirely possible we could be generating half our power from nuclear 20 years from now.
But nuclear power is bad. It must not be as bad as the CO2 released by bring coal, that's how I can tell they really are not that worried about it or just don't know anything about the nuclear fuel life cycle.

[niky]

We all want nuclear. But the rather noisy far left is preventing us from pushing it.

Realistically, nuclear is also a limited resource, but it helps get us further down the road than we can go without it.

Originally Posted by aerohead

In grade school,driving on the way to school,the radio announced the news from the from Mauna Loa monitoring station that there was no longer any place on Earth where there was 'clean' air.
These things don't leave your consciousness.

When taking a cruise (chaperone on a school trip for hotel and restaurant management students) a decade ago, the brown hydrocarbon haze hanging in the air out at sea was rather depressing.

[freebeard]

We all want nuclear.

Not all. Some (one?) of us want people to stop wasting so much energy.

[Xist]

You reduce usage as much as you like. I want superpowers!

Personally I think making the world more bike and potty-trained horse friendly would go a long way.


In Arizona, that would require air-conditioned bike tunnels. A 10,000-square feet solar shade would probably be more cost effective.

Until it fell on Phoenix.

Okay. I am finally getting off the computer and pretending to do something nice on Mother's Day. I woke up over an hour ago and thought I would just check my e-mail and drink some Diet Coke.

I wonder how much energy and resources Hallmark holidays waste every year.

[niky]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Not all. Some (one?) of us want people to stop wasting so much energy.

Oh, me too. But we will still need power plants for stuff besides personal consumption.

We do have to get off this planet sometime. And research requires energy.

[freebeard]

Xist — pedal-power velocipedes with built-in heat pumps. Even though a solar shade would be more likely to blow away than fall.

niky — https://duckduckgo.com/?q=biomimetic+architecture&t=palemoon&iar=images

We've had the intellectual property since Frei Otto and Buckminster Fuller's work in the 1970s. But we're all down on the plantation in our minds.

edit:
Allow me to correct myself. According to Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomimetic_architecture], it goes back to [even before] Antonia Gaudi:


Which reminds me of Bruno Taut:



This appears to be a modern reproduction of his beehive house, that I've only seen in low-fi black&white!

There will be a glass dome over the Alps
Author : Bruno Taut : Architect

[oil pan 4]

How are we supposed to use less power while at the same time adopting electric vehicles or plug in hybrid?

Places like where I work use some where around 400,000 to 500,000 KwH per day and they are a model of efficiency, most of the motors are on drives, for a cost of around 8 to 10 million dollars and maintenance cost of 20,000 to 50,000 dollars per years.
They're not going to use any less power.