The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[basjoos]

The way I look at it is, what is the normal temperature and CO2 level for the Earth? If you look at graphs of CO2 and temperature levels from the Cambrian era to the present, our current CO2 and temperatures are abnormally low. The only time that CO2 and temperature levels were comparable to current levels was at the end of the Carboniferous/ beginning of Permian era, but at that time the O2 level was much higher than current levels.

CO2 levels started out at around 6,000ppm during the Cambrian era, dropping down to as low as 180ppm during the most recent Ice Age. The overall trend for carbon dioxide levels has been downward as plants pull carbon out of the atmosphere and put it into the ground where some of it converts into coal/oil/gas and also as sea floor ooze. Corals and mollusks also bind carbon in the form of calcium carbonate which eventually gets converted into limestone. Plate tectonics then subducts part of this stored carbon into the Earth's interior, making it forever inaccessible to life. Extrapolating this trend out into future, CO2 levels should continue to drop as carbon continues to get pulled out of the atmosphere and deposited into the earth's interior.

If you look at plants,the optimum CO2 level for C3 plant photosynthesis is around 1400 ppm, which is the level that greenhouse growers try to maintain in their greenhouses by using CO2 generators. But the minimum CO2 level for plant growth is 150 PPM, so the CO2 levels (180ppm) during the most recent Ice Age came very close to the level where C3 plants would cease to grow. Our current CO2 level is 400ppm, which is a lot closer to the minimum level where plants will grow then it is to the to the optimum CO2 level for plant growth, so I wouldn't mind having a bit more of a cushion above that minimum level.

The forests of the Cretaceous era, when CO2 levels were about 1400 PPM, were about twice as productive as our modern forests and were also growing in the Arctic and Antarctic regions which at the time were ice-free. The Antarctic ice cap appeared about 8 million years ago, the Arctic ice cap about 4 million years ago, but for most of the earth's history between the Cambrian and the present the poles were ice free. The fall line along the southeast US is where the seashore left its mark since this was the level where it was located for most of the time since the Atlantic ocean first appeared. The flat sandy coastal plains was seafloor. Lateritic soils and rocks are formed under moist tropical conditions, so any location with laterite is either tropical or has had tropical conditions in the past. Laterite can be found as far north as Scotland and the Ural mountains.

Another indicator as to what is the normal climate for the earth is to look at plant genetics. For practically every species of temperate zone tree for which cultivars have been selected, there is at least one columnar cultivar. But there almost no columnar cultivars of tropical trees. The columnar shape is the optimum shape for collecting sunlight at high latitudes and is the shape you see for trees growing in the taiga forests. Our temperate trees were growing in the arctic regions as recently as 4 million years ago and evolved into their current broader shape as they were pushed south by the cooling climate. This makes it is easy to pick the ancient genetics out of their gene pool, since the columnar shape is the shape that they had for most of their existence.

The way I look at it, the CO2 and temperatures levels are simply returning to the levels where they have been for most of the past 500 million years. Some of our current ecosystems will get disturbed by a warming climate, but life as a whole will thrive, especially since the warming climate will make the polar regions more clement for life. All of this hyperbole about the earth not being able to support life if the temperature rises a degree or two is just propaganda by people trying to advance various social causes.

[oil pan 4]

That's what I have been saying all along less ice is good, I would be more worries if the glaciers are growing.

[RedDevil]

Life as a whole will not go extinct with higher levels of carbon dioxide, but humanity will get a beating. Losing all our sea ports, many of our biggest cities, over 30% of all fertile land (which produces close to 50% of our food, as the muddy flood planes are excellent farming ground). And it could happen within a century.

[sendler]

"Given the math, human tendencies, and the issues pertaining to time, scale and cost, the current green energy movement currently is little more than hot air. It’s just not going to happen in time.

We’re nowhere close to being able to build out the massive energy projects required. The equivalent of 200, 10 MW off shore (or 450, 4MW onshore) wind turbines every day for the next 30 years? That’s a total pipe dream. While at the same time replacing all built out fossil fuel infrastructure with electric.

We lack the political will, the cultural readiness, the proper narrative. Even the appropriate resources.

Beyond those concerns, nearly everything about how we heat, move, cool and manufacture the components of our modern lives will have to be refashioned (and possibly jettisoned) as part of that project.

Such an ambitious undertaking has no historical analog. It’s a ridiculously complex set of problems (which have solutions) and predicaments (which don’t). It’s exactly the sort of situation that politicians will avoid as long as possible, after which it will be too late to do very much about it"
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https://www.peakprosperity.com/getti...-green-energy/
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpi.../#776522c935f7

[litesong]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

You do realize the top definition for the acronym AGW is Asian Gone Wild.

Yes, communist chinese (always small letters), who murdered, tortured & starved to death, 100 million of their own Brothers, Sisters, Children & Babies, make all Asians go wild.
Possibly due to distance from communist chinese(always small letters), the rest of the world will not accept the idea, that communist chinese(always small letters) want to subdue (murder, torture, starve to death) the rest of the world, too. So, the world gives wealth to the communist chinese (always small letters) for shoddy products, so communist chinese(always small letters) can murder, torture & starve people to death......easily.

[Hersbird]

Communism is just doing what it has to to survive. Socialism is no better as it can only survive by becoming Communism, then doing what Communism has to to survive. You can't allow shining cities on hills to be an example of what you could have with liberty.

[litesong]

Post from 14-4-17:
.....the Present High Arctic Berserker, PHAB, or FAB ...... CONTINUES. As surmised (by me) months ago, FAB now is.....215+ straight days of High Arctic over-temperatures. If not for 1 questionable day, FAB would be 230+ straight days long of over-temperatures.
.... Generally, regular weather can easily over-whelm & reduce the effects of AGW. Half a century ago (longer?), weather limited straight over-temperature days to 30 to 40+ days. But AGW has powered up over-temperature periods. Now in the High Arctic, during periods of low or no direct solar radiation, FAB's now reign over regular weather.
These are NOT passing events, but will continue into the future.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by basjoos

All of this hyperbole about the earth not being able to support life if the temperature rises a degree or two is just propaganda by people trying to advance various social causes.

'hyperbole about the earth not being able to support life' is really about inability to support the current financial system. Different thing, is it not?

Litesong — It more about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cE8L7xUb1A

[litesong]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

Communism is just doing what it has to to survive.

"JUST doing" is the JUST-ification by communists (always small letters) for murder, torture & starving to death, 200 to 300(+?) million people, outside the bounds of warfare, earning communists (always small letters) the short-term record for genocide & democide on the face of the Earth. Such is the wont of authoritarian dictatorships, which adore murder, torture & starving to death, peoples in its grasp.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by Cephalotus post_id=1501919 time=1570304833 user_id=27450

Nonsense.

Taking Germany as an example.

If you electrify all sectors and depending where we get gases and liquid fuels for ships, planes, gas peakers & Co (some import is an option) we need to produce maybe around 1000TWh/a of electricity in Germany.

This could be 700TWh wind power and 300TWh solar and for simpla caclulation this translates to 200GW wind power and 300GW Solar power over here

If average lifetime of a wind power plant is 20 years and for a solar power plant it is 30 years you need to build 10GW of each for each year.

so far we built 7-8GW each in our best years. 10GW is not far of.

Battery capacity should be around 200GW / 500GWh, add 100GW gas peakers and 100GW electrolyseurs

CATL is now building a 100GWh cell/battery factory in Germany. It is for electric cars, but as you see, this amount isn' problematic either.

We just need to do it.

Much easier (and cheaper) than building new nukes

You are an expert on Germany. But you keep forgetting that Germany is only .08 billion people out of 8 billion. Germany did not produce those 7GW per year of new wind and solar capacity all by itself for those few years that it was at that level. How much of the world's total solar and wind raw materials and manufacturing capacity did that represent? You were 20% short of your modest goal of 1000TWh/ year in 30 years, so for the world to achieve your per capita energy wealth and make the goal of having it done in 30 years, so that the first ones can start to be rebuilt in 30 years perpetually, world installation of wind and solar would have to increase 120X beyond what you did for a couple years at the peak.
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1000TWh/ year of rebuildable electricity is a lofty goal and will be much better than nothing but is realistically a little low in order to replace what Germany is currently using for Primary energy. Currently almost 14,000 PetaJoules which is 3,900 TWh/ year. Many industrial heat processes that now use thermal gas or coal, such as cement and steel, which will be needed in huge quantities for wind installs, will not see any efficiency gain from switching to electric. So estimates of efficiency improvements from full electrification of human civilization are closer to 2:1. Leaving 1,500 TWh/ year for Germany. 70,000 TWh/ year for the World! would be less than half of the total primary energy we are now using. And 3 billion people still cook and heat with wood as their only means.
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And then there is the question of retrofitting or replacing all built out machinery and infrastructure that uses carbon fuels world wide.
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Along with battery production. When GigaFactory 1 was announced, it was stated to at once double the world's capacity of production. With .035 TWh/ year. Has it ever had a year that matched it's stated capacity yet? World capacity is now stated to be about .4 TWh/y. Projected to be 1TWh/y by 2025. Just to replace the worlds 1.3 billion current gas/ diesel light vehicles, to say nothing of farm tractors and heavy trucks, with electric cars with 60 kWh batteries, requires 80 TWh of batteries! Just for cars and light trucks! And most people in the world do not even have one yet, but want one. And we talk of a proposed addition of another .1 TWh GigaFactory like it is a big deal.
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I'm not studying all of this, and saying all of this to be negative. I am being pragmatic given the real data. To save the future as best as possible as we face down the approaching bottlenecks of debt reconciliation, Energy/nonrenewable resource/ water/ fertile soil/ ect depletion, and mass migration/ mass extinction.
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Greta gives us a new buzz word in the media. Fairy tales. We have fairy tales by under informed economists and politicians of eternal exponential growth on a finite planet. And just as inaccurate, fairy tales of a possible Green replacement to the same standard that we have now. While (forgetting) uplifting the exploited Global South. Many of our demands are untenable. Net zero in 12 years? Extinction Rebellion demands that it be so within 5 years. This will certainly precipitate the collapse that they claim to be fighting against. Be pragmatic. Maybe it is better to slide down now under control to a simpler more cooperative way of life, rather than to keep growing to an inevitable higher, steeper "Seneca Cliff".
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Many of our ideas will turn out to be wasted moves. Such as individual families living in "green" McMansions. Such as executives earning 500 times the amount as the base employee. Such as mail ordering whatever frivolous "green" gadget "the market" has advertised (brain washed) us to want, before throwing it away to lust after the next thing. Such as "green" 60kWh personal vehicles for each of the eventual 10 billion people on Earth.