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What would cost billions of pounds? Curbs on consumption and efficiency gains can only bring cost savings, surely? Where are the huge costs that keep being claimed?
Initiatives such as moving the UK's energy production to mainly renewable sources. In fact it was speculated energy bills could rise to £5000 a year just to fund this!!!
Thats just one example but there are many others. The green industry already turns over billions of pounds annually.0 -
thescouselander wrote: »Yes, bad things could happen in some areas, other areas may benefit. I think the key is to prepare to manage these effects. There may be need for a large migration of the population from the worst effected areas to somewhere else - how can this be managed? Can we develop crops that will grow in the changed wetter / drier conditions? How can we deal with flooding etc etc?
Yes, bad things could happen in some areas, other areas may benefit. I think the key is to prepare to manage these effects. There may be need for a large migration of the population from the worst effected areas to somewhere else - how can this be managed? Can we develop crops that will grow in the changed wetter / drier conditions? How can we deal with flooding etc etc
Bad things may indeed happen in some areas. For example large areas of continental land masses experience more droughts and flash floods. This would include central Europe, the US, China, India and South East Asia. Think of how this disrupts food production in the first instance. The idea that it is a problem for some and maybe good for others might well be shortsighted. Large parts of these land masses will also see declining water flow from mountain ranges. We the west are dependent on a lot of food exports from these areas.
Permafrost is already melting in large areas of the northern hemisphere. They are also releasing a lot of methane which may well accellerate in the next few years. This as you may know is a more potent greenhouse gas.
Yes other areas may become available for farming but you are presuming they will be arable, that they will be arable in a reasonable time frame, and that they won't dry out and form dustbowls. You are also presuming that the west which is not self sufficient will somehow become self sufficient despite more heat waves and flash floods or that bread baskets will somehow keep supplying us with food despite a decline in water supply and more droughts.
Compare the problem with food prices and biofuels that caused riots in around 40 countries or the heatwave a few years ago across Europe. Add rising oil and gas prices to the mix and migrating populations.
I don't see any positives in the food supply and I certainly don't see how we can push methane back into the permafrost. We can reduce emissions which may ultimately limit the rate of methane emissions and assuming other countries do likewise but doing nothing, regardless of other countries policies is not an option in my mind.thescouselander wrote: »All of these are big issues that are going unaddressed while everyone is being distracted by the media frenzy re CO2.
Yes as CO2 is the fundamental cause. Mitigation against a changing climate has ongoing costs and is limited in what it can achieve.thescouselander wrote: »Really its just a case of applying standard risk management methodology - a combined strategy of avoidance through reduction of CO2 together with mitigation of the effects by various means. Alternatively it might be better to just accept the changes in climate.
Indeed. It is also about getting consensus on reducing emissions. In fact it isn't but this is what the talking shops are all about at the moment. It is about countries realising they face their own particular problems with climate change and making the desired cuts in emissions. At the moment they are just a convenient distraction for avoiding emissions reductions and more importantly avoiding tough decisions they will need to make.
One of the easiest Gordon Brown could have put in place is using new deal candidates for energy efficiency that he promised in Posnan and then did a u-turn on. Each candidate apparently costs around £4000 to go through the revolving door. It would not only create jobs but reduce fuel poverty and help towards reducing emissions. That sounds like a vote winner to me. By not going down this route it will need more investment in energy production unfortunately he is choosing coal and this will increase emissions.0 -
A Friend for life - I'm not presuming anything, I'm just pointing out that only the negative effects of climate change have been focused on. I have no idea if other areas of land will became viable for farming but I'm pretty sure this hasn't been looked into as much as it should have been.
With regards to reducing emissions there are two problems:
1) There is a significant risk the sorts of reductions in emissions needed can't be achieved.
2) Even if there is a significant reduction in emissions there is no guarantee it will have any effect reducing temperatures. The earths climate is a chaotic system and is therefore non-linear so reducing CO2 to the level it was 100 years ago wont necessarily put the temperature back to what it was then. The earths climate could actually continue warming anyway.0 -
moonrakerz wrote: »
. They certainly don't go back more than 100 years otherwise they start coming up against historical warmings and coolings - which just doesn't fit any of their theories - unless they fiddle the figures as they did with the famous "hockey stick curve" ! This curve only goes back 1000 years anyway - the last ice age finished 10,000 years ago and there were plenty more before that as well !
Perhaps the natural state is with no ice-caps, or perhaps with ice caps as far south as London. I don't know and THEY certainly don't either.
Why should I believe the IPCC members when they are basing all their gloom and doom forecasts on what has happened in the last few years ?
PS: Don't tell them - but it has started getting colder again. This is well documented.
:rotfl:I am unable to remain quiet here! I've never heard so much rubbish!!
Where is your documentation for global cooling? I'm not saying it can't take place, but the amount that it changes the earths temperature is virtually zero in comparison to current warming. Shall I tell you how it might cool? Temperatures rise, icecaps melt, the ratio of salinity in the oceans is altered, the salinity in the oceans is what creates the oceanic conveyor system (google thermohaline circulation) - one part of which you may be familiar with is the Gulf Stream, its what stops us in the UK having winters like Canada - so yes it may well get cooler...eventually, but not now, not until all of the ice caps have melted through increased temperatures.
As for your statement about the IPCC, it is utter garbage. They use instrumental records for the last few hundred years and beyond that they use proxy records from palae-archives such as ice cores, lake sediments etc. to determine environmental conditions in the past. So the hockey curve shows the last 1000 years, but if you look into the past (see graph on page 2), you can go back a whole 650 000 years and you won't see a period that is as warm as we currently are experiencing now.
As a side note there is actually no such thing as a "natural" state either. It's been well debated in the past and you can't actually define 'natural' conditions, nor 'pre-human impact' conditions due to the multiple glacials and interglacials that have taken place.
:ABeing Thrifty Gifty again this year:A
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Permafrost is already melting in large areas of the northern hemisphere. They are also releasing a lot of methane which may well accellerate in the next few years. This as you may know is a more potent greenhouse gas.Yes as CO2 is the fundamental cause. Mitigation against a changing climate has ongoing costs and is limited in what it can achieve.
:ABeing Thrifty Gifty again this year:A
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:rotfl:I am unable to remain quiet here! I've never heard so much rubbish!!
Typical man-made climate change zealot tactics, if you can't win by reasoned argument try good old fashioned rubbishing the other side
You ask about recent cooling - Google it there is plenty there to read !
You state (quite correctly) there is no such thing as a "natural state" - why, then , are we constantly being told to revert to a cave man life style to preserve the present state ?0 -
moonrakerz wrote: »Typical man-made climate change zealot tactics, if you can't win by reasoned argument try good old fashioned rubbishing the other side
You ask about recent cooling - Google it there is plenty there to read !
You state (quite correctly) there is no such thing as a "natural state" - why, then , are we constantly being told to revert to a cave man life style to preserve the present state ?
What I am rubbishing is the total nonsense you have spouted about the IPCC using short-term climate records !
Also saying I have a "man-made" view on recent climate is incorrect. I couldn't care less what is causing it , all I know is that it is getting warmer and we can already see the effects of it and need to do something about it. I'm not interested in the cause, we've moved way past that in my view.
We are not being told to preserve the present state, we are being asked to "act before it is too late" to stop catastrophic impacts from occurring. I don't think that. I don't think there is anything we can do except prepare for the inevitable.
:ABeing Thrifty Gifty again this year:A
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moonrakerz wrote: »No, just totally simple !
1. Ice floats on the water.
When the ice melts the additional water will make no difference.
2. When water freezes it expands, so if anything sea levels will fall when the ice melts and the ice is replaced by less bulky water.
And your point 2 certainly does ignore physics.
(rant snipped)Why should I believe the IPCC members when they are basing all their gloom and doom forecasts on what has happened in the last few years ?
PS: Don't tell them - but it has started getting colder again. This is well documented.0 -
thescouselander wrote: »Initiatives such as moving the UK's energy production to mainly renewable sources. In fact it was speculated energy bills could rise to £5000 a year just to fund this!!!
The thing is there are many possible solutions, some of which are cheaper than the status quo. But there is only one status quo. Once I know specifically what solutions people think will cost too much I can suggest better ones, but if you just blindly repeat headlines because it coincides with the view you want to hold, then there can't be any discussion because it's all FUD and has no informational content.
For the record: I'm not particularly excited about wind turbines - they can turn a profit for energy companies so they aren't the end of the world, but even then they are small potatoes. Photovoltaic solar is still just too expensive. Solar thermal could be useful where it can be used on a large scale. CHP is the bee's knees. Micro-generation is interesting. Heat pumps need to be installed instead of resistive electrical heating - with government grants if necessary. Gas absorption heat pumps are promising. Programs for insulating homes are not ambitious enough. Hybrid vehicles need to be advanced diesels, not petrol. Electric vehicles are not practical as the battery technology isn't there yet. Hydrogen is a waste of time. Air travel is currently too cheap. Nuclear fission has all the problems of high set-up costs without the benefit of being renewable... then there's hand-wringing about the waste. Underground coal gasification trumps mining where the geology allows it. I'm not keen on the idea of biofuels, however they are something of a mystery to me energy-balance-wise. Clean coal is just a sticking plaster; the research money would be better spent on something else. Nuclear fusion is taking too long.
Note that a lot of the ideas that I like the most are ways of using less energy rather than generating more. That's because I think that's more cost-efficient and provides better energy security. But energy companies won't want to lose custom, so I think leaving energy efficiency in their hands isn't a good way to ensure it's effectively carried out. I have nothing against green taxes - the revenue would only be raised elsewhere anyway, plus increasing costs has the greatest potential to alter behaviour. In reality we subsidise energy more often than we tax it.
Most of all, fossil fuel depletion means that alternative fuel sources will be needed at some point regardless of CO2 and so these costs aren't an issue of "if" but "when".Thats just one example but there are many others. The green industry already turns over billions of pounds annually.
If you were more specific about what you think isn't cost-effective I wouldn't have written so much.0 -
Overpopulation will wipe out the human race long before climate change has any effect.
There isn't enough food, water, land and natural resources to comfortably support 6bn as it is. With the developing world changing and becoming more demanding added to the fact that we're all living longer, the planet just will not be able to cope.
I'd sooner people were pledging not to breed like rats rather than pledge to turn off their tv at night. Governments can talk about cutting emissions as mush as they like, but they might as well not bother for all the good it will do.0
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