deGrasse Tyson & Nye on Climate Change

[photon]

Originally Posted by accord1999

You can't just say that people need to get off fossil fuels, you have to offer solutions that provide low-CO2 energy at the same scale and cost.

Why? There's no guarantee that such solutions are possible, sometimes reality doesn't give you what you'd like to have.

Maybe the reality is that there is no such thing as an energy source that is the same scale and cost as fossil fuels, and we just have to live with the fact that energy will cost more in the future.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by accord1999

By some estimates, the world has spent $4 trillion on renewable energy since 2000 with virtually no difference in the global energy budget.

http://euanmearns.com/worldwide-inve...o-show-for-it/

The world has already provided significant subsidies to try to spur on green energy and in places like Germany, it's done little to reduce CO2 emissions while increasing energy costs for the average consumer. And we all know about Ontario, Europeans and Australians may accept 30-40c/kWh electricity but Canadians won't.

Certainly valid.

My counter point would be that investigating renewable energy is still a relatively new technology. You make incremental breakthroughs (https://arstechnica.com/information-...ot-a-bad-sign/) and one day you hit the tipping point.

If I am permitted to critique your source, it looks like Roger Andrews (the author of the link) is a contrarian to most climate scientists (see last paragraph): http://euanmearns.com/about-roger-andrews/
It could be he's one of the 3% of the scientific community that disagrees with the climate data, ie an outlier?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Izzle

I'll be the first to admit I don't have any solutions. I suppose the time to make changes was in the 1980s when ExxonMobil first noticed the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Could you even then? XOM is a giant company but even it is only a cog the OG industry, most of which is already controlled by nations.

And in the 1980s, China was just developing. I don't see how you convince them not to use coal to provide the energy they needed for their economic boom.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Izzle

Certainly valid.
If I am permitted to critique your source, it looks like Roger Andrews (the author of the link) is a contrarian to most climate scientists (see last paragraph): http://euanmearns.com/about-roger-andrews/
It could be he's one of the 3% of the scientific community that disagrees with the climate data, ie an outlier?

Sure, I would agree with that. But in regards to quantitative analysis of energy systems, he backs up his articles with evidence, data and facts, much more than the various pronouncements about how cheap wind and solar are or how countries could go 100% renewable. So regardless of his feelings about the magnitude of human caused climate change, he shows that many of the proposed solutions are ineffective in trying to replace fossil fuels, tther than perhaps a massive build-out of nuclear to replace coal.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Could you even then? XOM is a giant company but even it is only a cog the OG industry, most of which is already controlled by nations.

And in the 1980s, China was just developing. I don't see how you convince them not to use coal to provide the energy they needed for their economic boom.

Yeah, but they shouldn't have paid to silence it. The study should have been published. The sooner its published, the sooner the rest of the world understands the danger, the sooner they could focus on renewable energy. In an ideal world.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Sure, I would agree with that. But in regards to quantitative analysis of energy systems, he backs up his articles with evidence, data and facts, much more than the various pronouncements about how cheap wind and solar are or how countries could go 100% renewable. So regardless of his feelings about the magnitude of human caused climate change, he shows that many of the proposed solutions are ineffective in trying to replace fossil fuels, tther than perhaps a massive build-out of nuclear to replace coal.

But that could be because the true cost of fossil fuels are not built in. Perhaps renewable energy is already cheaper?
https://www.skepticalscience.com/ren...-expensive.htm

[snootchiebootchies]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...eoengineering/

See, this kind of thing that makes me more nervous than anthropogenic warming. Assuming they could get it right(which is a big assumption) who gets to control the thermostat? Maybe the US decides their country is more productive a few degrees cooler, and Canada ends up a frozen wasteland. Maybe China has their own plans. What is the perfect global temperature, anyway?

But I think society needs to start thinking like this. The odds of reducing atmospheric CO2 concentrations within our lifetime and our children's lifetime is nil. So we have to start treating the symptoms. Not saying we have to completely ignore the cause but more focus and more funding needs to go into things like climate engineering.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Izzle

But that could be because the true cost of fossil fuels are not built in. Perhaps renewable energy is already cheaper?
https://www.skepticalscience.com/ren...-expensive.htm

Externalities are those tricky things that are very hard to calculate and whose costs differ depending on the circumstances of the people using the energy. Fossil fuels have a lot of negative, but also lots of positives in that they provide a lot of energy using relatively simple technology and is easily stored which allows for a lot of activities that otherwise wouldn't be possible. Without coal, China doesn't have any other energy source that it could use to develop to the same extent.

And sometimes externalites are just made up purely because of the authors' bias. There's an often cited IMF paper about fossil fuel subsidies of which oil is supposed to get $1.5T globally. But of that amount, $359B is from road congestion, $271B is from traffic accidents, $23B from road damage and $200B from not taxing oil at a high enough rate.

http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/W...ubsidies-42940

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by photon

Maybe the reality is that there is no such thing as an energy source that is the same scale and cost as fossil fuels, and we just have to live with the fact that energy will cost more in the future.

Maybe. But given the correlation between the cost of energy and the cost of food, any substantial and sustained increase in the cost of energy will have catastrophic effects on developing countries.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Hes

Add More energy (heat) to the system and it becomes more powerful. This has always been known. It is a fundamental aspect of chemistry.

Yeah I understand that aspect and that's fine, but is there any evidence that the storms are more intense today? I think it's a lot of recency or availability bias in action. Katrina was a monster storm. Hurricane Andrew was devastating. I'm sure there are more from earlier as well.

Originally Posted by Izzle

This is a good place to start:

https://www.skepticalscience.com/hur...termediate.htm

I don't know what to believe. That site shows an increased frequency, and I am sure someone posted something about a decreased frequency on this board in the past week.

[Fuzz]

An interesting opinion piece on the amount of coal pollution from China:

http://boereport.com/2017/11/20/oh-f...e-wrong-horse/

At the end it leads to the question, should we be funnelling money to the developing world to increase their efficiency, rather than wasting dollars in first world countries on inconsequential minor improvements? How would you feel about paying an Alberta carbon tax that funds natural gas conversions in China or India, as opposed to replacing light bulbs and funding solar here?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Slava

Yeah I understand that aspect and that's fine, but is there any evidence that the storms are more intense today? I think it's a lot of recency or availability bias in action. Katrina was a monster storm. Hurricane Andrew was devastating. I'm sure there are more from earlier as well.

It is too early to say with certainty, but this is predicted, and evidence is starting to accumulate.

https://www.skepticalscience.com/ext...termediate.htm

There is growing empirical evidence that warming temperatures cause more intense hurricanes, heavier rainfalls and flooding, increased conditions for wildfires and dangerous heat waves.

[troutman]

Arctic climate change being felt farther south, scientists say


'Most people don't understand how bad it is,' researcher says

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cl...outh-1.4410138

The report completed for the Arctic Council, the group of eight countries that ring the North Pole, was released last week. It represents the work of 90 scientists from around the world and summarizes the most recent research from 2010 to 2016.

"Cumulative global impacts related to Arctic change are expected to be large," the document said. "Adaptation costs and economic opportunities are estimated in the tens of trillions of U.S. dollars."

The report concludes the Arctic continues to warm at twice the pace of mid-latitudes and is likely to see warming of up to 5 C as early as 2040.

Barber said at least 15 new academic papers add weight to the theory that the loss of sea ice is causing changes in the upper atmosphere that disrupt southern temperatures and rainfall.

Global air currents are increasingly disrupted. At one point last winter, Barber said, the North Pole was 29 C warmer than average. Air from California was being drawn to the top of the world.

Climate change in the Arctic is well underway and can't be stopped. But the report says if nations meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris agreement, changes in the Arctic will stabilize to a new normal some time around 2040.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by troutman

Arctic climate change being felt farther south, scientists say


'Most people don't understand how bad it is,' researcher says

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/cl...outh-1.4410138

The report completed for the Arctic Council, the group of eight countries that ring the North Pole, was released last week. It represents the work of 90 scientists from around the world and summarizes the most recent research from 2010 to 2016.

"Cumulative global impacts related to Arctic change are expected to be large," the document said. "Adaptation costs and economic opportunities are estimated in the tens of trillions of U.S. dollars."

The report concludes the Arctic continues to warm at twice the pace of mid-latitudes and is likely to see warming of up to 5 C as early as 2040.

Barber said at least 15 new academic papers add weight to the theory that the loss of sea ice is causing changes in the upper atmosphere that disrupt southern temperatures and rainfall.

Global air currents are increasingly disrupted. At one point last winter, Barber said, the North Pole was 29 C warmer than average. Air from California was being drawn to the top of the world.

Climate change in the Arctic is well underway and can't be stopped. But the report says if nations meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris agreement, changes in the Arctic will stabilize to a new normal some time around 2040.

But INDIA and CHINA!

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Originally Posted by troutman

Arctic climate change being felt farther south, scientists say



Climate change in the Arctic is well underway and can't be stopped. But the report says if nations meet their greenhouse gas reduction targets under the Paris agreement, changes in the Arctic will stabilize to a new normal some time around 2040.

Wasn't that long ago, curbing the effects of GHG was targeted for 2040. This is the first I've read "new normal".....

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

An interesting opinion piece on the amount of coal pollution from China:

http://boereport.com/2017/11/20/oh-f...e-wrong-horse/

At the end it leads to the question, should we be funnelling money to the developing world to increase their efficiency, rather than wasting dollars in first world countries on inconsequential minor improvements? How would you feel about paying an Alberta carbon tax that funds natural gas conversions in China or India, as opposed to replacing light bulbs and funding solar here?

I have my doubts that would ever fly, but if it somehow was tied to some benefits here as well then maybe there could be some traction. For example long term gas contracts tied specifically to Canada which would in turn require an LNG project to go along with it. Then maybe.

[troutman]

Deconstructing climate misinformation to identify reasoning errors

http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10...48-9326/aaa49f

https://www.edx.org/course/making-se...x-denial101x-6

https://www.skepticalscience.com/den...eferences.html

https://www.youtube.com/user/denial101x/playlists

Abstract

Misinformation can have significant societal consequences. For example, misinformation about climate change has confused the public and stalled support for mitigation policies. When people lack the expertise and skill to evaluate the science behind a claim, they typically rely on heuristics such as substituting judgment about something complex (i.e. climate science) with judgment about something simple (i.e. the character of people who speak about climate science) and are therefore vulnerable to misleading information. Inoculation theory offers one approach to effectively neutralize the influence of misinformation. Typically, inoculations convey resistance by providing people with information that counters misinformation. In contrast, we propose inoculating against misinformation by explaining the fallacious reasoning within misleading denialist claims. We offer a strategy based on critical thinking methods to analyse and detect poor reasoning within denialist claims. This strategy includes detailing argument structure, determining the truth of the premises, and checking for validity, hidden premises, or ambiguous language. Focusing on argument structure also facilitates the identification of reasoning fallacies by locating them in the reasoning process. Because this reason-based form of inoculation is based on general critical thinking methods, it offers the distinct advantage of being accessible to those who lack expertise in climate science. We applied this approach to 42 common denialist claims and find that they all demonstrate fallacious reasoning and fail to refute the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. This comprehensive deconstruction and refutation of the most common denialist claims about climate change is designed to act as a resource for communicators and educators who teach climate science and/or critical thinking.

[troutman]

Dispite constant bad news (May was the hottest on record in the contiguous USA and Edmonton), I remain hopeful:


Sucking carbon dioxide from air is cheaper than scientists thought

Estimated cost of geoengineering technology to fight climate change has plunged since a 2011 analysis.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d415...&sf191287565=1

The study, in Joule, was written by researchers at Carbon Engineering in Calgary, Canada, which has been operating a pilot CO2-extraction plant in British Columbia since 2015. That plant — based on a concept called direct air capture — provided the basis for the economic analysis, which includes cost estimates from commercial vendors of all of the major components. Depending on a variety of design options and economic assumptions, the cost of pulling a tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere ranges between US$94 and $232. The last comprehensive analysis of the technology, conducted by the American Physical Society in 2011, estimated that it would cost $600 per tonne.