The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[redpoint5]

Maybe wind turbines should be built on shore and directly pump water into a nearby reservoir atop a hill or mountain, and electricity would be generated on demand via hydro releasing the water back to the ocean.

This reduces conversion losses since the kinetic energy of the wind would directly move water uphill, and only 1 conversion would need to take place when you actually need electricity. You'd still have frictional losses by gearing and moving the water in a tube, but perhaps it wouldn't be too great. Any idea what the losses might be?

Seems cheaper than building a crane system which would probably need more maintenance, though I'm not sure about this either.

[freebeard]

Maybe wind turbines should be built on shore and directly pump water into a nearby reservoir atop a hill or mountain, and electricity would be generated on demand via hydro releasing the water back to the ocean.

If you're building on shore you will have tides. Use tidal power to raise to a lower reservoir and then windpower to lift it higher.

[sendler]

"economists and policymakers often regard growth as a substitute for equality: it is politically easier to grow total income and expect that enough will trickle down to improve the lives of ordinary people than it is to distribute existing income more fairly, as this requires an attack on the interests of the dominant class. But if growth is a substitute for equality, then by the same logic equality can be a substitute for growth (Dietzand O’Neill, 2013). By distributing existing income more fairly we can improve human welfare and accomplish social objectives without growth–and therefore without additional material and energy throughput. A shorter working week plus a job guarantee and a living wage policy, as described above, are central mechanisms for accomplishing this. So too is investment in public services. By expanding access to high-quality, generous public healthcare, education, affordable housing, transportation, utilities and recreation facilities, it is possible to enable people to access the goods they need to live well without needing high levels of income to do so."

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by sendler

By distributing existing income more fairly we can improve human welfare and accomplish social objectives without growth–and therefore without additional material and energy throughput. A shorter working week plus a job guarantee and a living wage policy, as described above, are central mechanisms for accomplishing this. So too is investment in public services. By expanding access to high-quality, generous public healthcare, education, affordable housing, transportation, utilities and recreation facilities, it is possible to enable people to access the goods they need to live well without needing high levels of income to do so."

I've already given a sufficient critique of the previous parts, but this quoted part has a ton of stuff wrong with it.

I'll start with the fact that fairness is not equalness. The words are not interchangeable. If someone works and that labor produces something valuable to society, and another person does not work and produces nothing of value to society, it would be unfair for them to receive equal compensation.

General welfare is in proportion to how efficiently labor and wealth is allocated. We don't just randomly select who will become a brain surgeon. The people most interested and naturally inclined to certain disciplines rise through the ranks of hierarchy to achieve their positions. Any system that disregards hierarchy is also lowering the welfare of all people. If we all lived in caves, we'd be equal, but none would be well.

Welfare and growth go hand in hand. The more material resources available, the better off people tend to be.

Perhaps people would be happier to work less hours, but that would require them to also be happy with less material wealth since everyone working less equates to there being less stuff available.

What motivation does one have to do anything at all if their job is guaranteed along with their wage? That's not how contracts work. They fall apart when 1 party agrees to give regardless of performance, and the other agrees to nothing.

Living wages are a stupid idea. It implies there are dying wages. Not only that, but certain jobs like working at fast food isn't meant to be a career; it's meant to be an introduction to the workforce by young people, people who already have support from their family.

This whole talk of climate change is a talk about the tragedy of the commons. Expanding social services is expanding the commons, which as we already know, is susceptible to tragedy because when something is owned by everyone, it's owned by nobody. Why would we expand the amount of things owned by nobody if we can help it? It's the #1 reason I come across when I see failure in work or practically every aspect of life; failure to own something means it gets neglected. Ownership means being responsible for the well-being of something.

[slowmover]

Medical costs need only one fix: enforcement of anti-monopoly law. Providers MUST post prices. No procedure without fixed estimate. Same with prescription medicine. Eliminate prescriptions in most cases, first, and no fixed provider, second. That drops prices by 80%. Instantly. Insurance is needed ONLY for catastrophic illness.

School bus fleet. That’s a laugh. Like the rest of the electric car debacle. Pay the manufacturer an inflated sum that might have gone to fossil fuel company. Pay the same or more is result. But doesn’t address the giant infrastructure costs.

Saying people are the same but for opportunity is ridiculous. A 6-year old knows better. And few things — if any — are as well bolstered by evidence.

The belief that “racism” is a sin, or that opportunity is limited, is fictional crap to destroy a society. There’s no institution bettered by, say, a preponderance of women. The opposite effect entails.

The destruction is to family life. That women should desire a career is preposterous. Cannot be supported by improved family member outcome. My family has been sending women to Ivy League and similar since the 1880s. Honors graduates and several with advanced STEM degrees. They’d laugh at you whether they married or not.

Climate change happens whether or not we exist. Banning plastic straws and eating artificial meat won’t change a damned thing.

Too many people? Yup. There’s a cull planned and you won’t be consulted. As with all else that affects you. Somehow or another there are those who feel not the least responsibility to you or anyone else how many children they have. And in any advanced society are never not a burden, they fail to ever pay their own way as a group. Which are easily identified.

In this country, only one group DOES pay a surplus.

Why not ask those men why they feel it incumbent to support women not their wives, and children not their own?

As with all else they (you) won’t be asked. That’s the prerogative of the top .01% percent who now own the place. Whether or not they are Americans is long past the point of mattering. No law applies to them. That was the point of “equality before the law”. That family or wealth changed no aspect of playing to the rules.

You won’t see the Chinese blinding themselves with the idea that incompetent people be placed in positions for which they are poison. A society that DOESN'T push forward its best is headed to the trash heap. (Welcome to 21st Century America).

You (we) have been played for suckers. And now we are paying the price. Climate change is just more propaganda to have you agree to greater surveillance and control. The countdown to the final rake-off of money (profit) is underway.

Thats all that matters.

The hockey stick graph? He won’t open his method to investigation? That’s not science. He folded. Game over.

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[redneck]

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Renewables Threaten German Economy & Energy Supply


https://www.forbes.com/sites/michael.../#66317d478e48

A new report by consulting giant McKinsey finds that Germany's Energiewende, or energy transition to renewables, poses a significant threat to the nation's economy and energy supply.

One of Germany's largest newspapers, Die Welt, summarized the findings of the McKinsey report in a single word: "disastrous."

"Problems are manifesting in all three dimensions of the energy industry triangle: climate protection, the security of supply and economic efficiency," writes McKinsey.

Bloomberg News, which strongly advocates renewable energy, last week called the supply problems a "warning short to the rest of the world."

“We have to have systems in place to make sure we still have enough generation on the grid -- or else, in the best case, we have a blackout, and in the worst case, we have some kind of grid collapse,” Severin Borenstein, a University of California energy economist told Bloomberg.

Quoted Bloomberg article.


Climate Changed

Sometimes, a Greener Grid Means a 40,000% Spike in Power Prices


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...n-power-prices






>

[RedDevil]

These still are early adopter problems.
Germany has a lot of wind farms, as has Texas, but the adjacent countries or states haven't (except for Denmark and to a lesser extent the Netherlands).
In the temperate zone wind moves around in a chaotic pattern of anticyclones; if one place is about windless it is typically surrounded by a ring of relatively high winds. So once the wind farms get spread out more evenly then the total wind output will also become more stable.

Apparently the shortages were caused by exceptionally high power usage as everybody was running their A/Cs in the heat wave. So there are not enough solar panels yet. Throw in some rapid response battery storage systems and the sub-second $9,000/kWh spikes are a thing of the past.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Welfare and growth go hand in hand. The more material resources available, the better off people tend to be.

Perhaps people would be happier to work less hours, but that would require them to also be happy with less material wealth since everyone working less equates to there being less stuff available.

This is the reality I am trying to find the solution for. Right now welfare for those of the bottom 70% depends on exponential growth of the human endeavor in order to get enough scraps trickling down to survive. As does the debt based economic system. But there is a limit to growth on a finite planet. Growth is tied to energy almost 1:1. And is also highly correlated to material throughput. And we have already used much of the affordable, low entropy, minerals, soil, water. and energy resources. With no regard for those that will come after us having anything at all left even just 300 years from now. Let alone 300,000 years from now. There is an end to growth. And we are fast approaching it. Which will make our current social system obsolete.
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We have two choices: Bend back down over the coming decades using the remainder of our current energy wealth to build what we really need for a system where everyone can be happy with less stuff (USA and rich country lifestyles will have to eventually reduce material and energy throughput by something like 90%). Or, just continue on with business as usual until we break over the top into a cascading descent into Mad Max. It has already started.
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Buckminster Fuller realized we were reliant on fossil energy slaves to prop up civilization in 1930. Donella Meadows showed us there were limits to growth in 1971 with computer models showing peaks at 2020-2040. 1970 Georgescu- Roegen started publishing about the need for a steady state economic model. Which Herman Daly and others continued from 1980. Current contemporaries like Jason Hickel, Daniel Christian Wahl and 1,000's of others are now laying out a new social system that can replace this obsolete, growth based and consumptive current one.

[freebeard]

"Lonesome Friends of Science"

The lonesome friends of science say "The world will end most any day"
Well, if it does, then that's okay 'Cause I don't live here anyway
I live down deep inside my head where long ago I made my bed
I get my mail in Tennessee My wife, my dog, and my family, uh-huh

John Prine

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[aerohead]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

If you're referring to Medicare, it's way more complex than 1/3 the cost. That is operated at a loss and made up on everyone else with money. Many places stop taking Medicare and Medicaid because it doesn't make financial sense.

I'm not entirely opposed to a single payer medical system, because clearly ours isn't good. It isn't really a free market solution either, as the government incentives employers to offer health insurance, which should be illegal. It's insane to have insurance dependent on a particular employment. It should have always been individual, because it covers individuals. We don't have employer provided car insurance.

Without going too far into health insurance... there's nothing the government can do cheaper than the private sector. It's like Venezuela outlawing starvation. Nobody dies of starvation if you make it illegal to list that as a cause of death. Similarly, nobody can provide cheaper healthcare if you outlaw higher prices for 1 arbitrary group of people while allowing any price for everyone else. Sounds like an institutional ageist law to me. The very definition of institutional ageism. Why are we privatizing space transport if it's more expensive than government programs?

I know my grand kids will wonder what we were thinking back when we had institutional racism, sexism, and ageism written into our laws and informal practices and think of us as backwards Neanderthals. I'll go on record as being ahead of the progressive curve. People are sovereign individuals who own their bodies, labor, and associations. It's their great responsibility to utilize those things to the best of their ability, because individuals are most capable of directing those aspects of their life.

I finished the 288-page book Saturday morning.I'm at 34-pages of transcribed notes, 91 pages into the book.I hope to have something evidential to share by this coming Saturday.
In the meantime,I'd have you consider what the federal government can sell a guaranteed bond for,compared to a share of stock on Wall Street.Then I'd have you consider the difference in operating cost of two identical enterprises,one with zero advertising and zero dividends to shareholders,compared to one created through an IPO,and an imperative to channel 'profits' to someone who'll never contribute an iota of personal capital to the operation,plus run advertising on every TV station,radio station,and print medium,plus equally maintain the enterprise,minus the expenses not shared with the publicly-owned clone.