The advantages of using fossil fuels

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

Have you bought a mirror?

I wouldn’t normally make a joke like that but irrespective of who your comment is directed at it is not appropriate language to use on a forum. I’m surprised at you mmmmikey. You have been taking the moral high ground quite a bit of late and while I have enjoyed the humorous nature of a lot of your posts I think in your enthusiasm to jump on the bash GA band wagon you have overstepped the mark and forgotten common decency.

Yet another trolling thread from GA, and as always, Ken desperately rushing to his defence.

Funny how you never challenge the utter rubbish he posts!

Martyn1981

1961Nick wrote: »

It's like one of those cigarette adverts from the 50's stating how a particular brand would improve your health & longevity!

Mart will love the bit about CO2 being plant food....:rotfl:

@ all.

For anyone a bit confused by this, let me explain.

One of the worst AGW denial scams/lies out there is that CO2 is plant food, therefore we will benefit from this. Sadly Nick tried to squeeze this in a while back, so I pointed out the truth.

There are no end of articles on this, but to cut to the chase, whilst plants might grow bigger, their nutritional value will drop. the most serious concern lies around rice as it is a staple food for 1-2bn people and studies have found that increased CO2 levels will lead to lower nutritional/vitamin levels in the crop.

At the moment, the heads of the USDA (under Trump) are still trying to block the publication of recent peer reviewed science on this.

USDA tried to cast doubt on study about climate effects on nutrients in rice

The multiyear study looked at what happens to a range of rice strains when grown under carbon-dioxide concentrations at end-of-the-century levels, which are forecast to be markedly higher due to the combustion of fossil fuels. The study involved eight researchers from the U.S., Japan, Australia and China. In test plots, some rice was grown with the higher levels of carbon dioxide, while control plots received no additional carbon dioxide.

The UW news release noted the study showed how rice grown at the century's end is expected to have lower levels of four B vitamins as well as less protein, zinc and iron, and it noted that the impacts will have a disproportionate impact on poor countries where rice is a dietary mainstay.

The study had a much rockier path through the USDA bureaucracy.

Initially, Ziska said, the study appeared to be moving smoothly through an internal department review in the early months of 2018.

The paper also completed an independent peer review organized by editors of Science Advances that involved scrutiny from at least two independent experts, according to a statement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

But in early May, shortly before the scheduled publication, Ziska said, he unexpectedly received a fresh round of questions from within the department's Agricultural Research Service and he then found that a USDA news release he had helped to prepare about the study had been spiked.

Durham, in a statement to The Seattle Times, said all research service papers follow the same review and clearance process. "This paper was no exception."

Despite the lack of USDA support for the study, promotional efforts by UW and the editors of Science Advances helped stir media interest, with The Washington Post, The New York Times and other outlets in the U.S. and internationally reporting on the findings.

The USDA did make Ziska available for interviews. But after the splash of publicity for the study faded, Ziska, disillusioned, decided the time had come to leave. Now at Columbia University, he will continue his research on the impacts of a warming world on agriculture.

JKenH

GreatApe wrote: »

The poor girl suffers from depression and anxiety
It shows in her most recent talks
She literally believes if zero isn't achieved within a handful of years then life is going to collapse

That's a very unreasonable view point and makes me wonder why those around her with a duty of care are not explaining to her that a warmer planet isn't really a huge problem. Well actually I don't wonder I believe she is being used. at most it's a modest economic cost spread over decades likely centuries. It isn't a threat to life or her existence which she has been misled to believe

Like I've said if you look at actual data for climate deaths and tragedy it's a graph that rapidly fell as Fossil fuel useage increased. Fossil fuels and globalisation have allowed humanity to get rich and productive enough to deal with droughts failed crops hurricanes and tornadoes etc

Historically, currently, and for the near future, fossil fuel useage and its growth are POSITIVE for health and wellbeing. This is obvious by the fact of which country would you like to live in. Rural India or rural Germany. One is more or less zero fossil fuels the other is heavy fossil fuels.

I feel Greta’s parents are letting her down badly. She should be having a happy life as a child and with her condition not be put under the spotlight of worldwide media. While she is the darling of the media she appears to be coping well but time under the media spotlight will take its toll and inevitably there will be some who will seek to make her life a misery because of her views. She is obviously very emotional but we don’t know how she will cope with criticism about what she is doing by Macron and others let alone trolls on social media.

It is nature of her disability that makes her so passionate and while she is allowed to speak uninterrupted all is well but her disability is one that will prevent her from handling conflict well and in the future we might see a different side of Greta which may not be so pretty. Once the bubble bursts she will be dropped like a hot potato and no one will want to listen to her. How will she deal with that? I just wouldn’t expose my kids or grand kids to this sort of attention.

I would question the whole idea however of having a sixteen year old (disability or not) heading up the fight against climate change. Surely it devalues the argument. It is putting emotion ahead of science. What is the source of Greta’s wisdom - something she has been taught at school? Trying to read a scientific paper on atmospheric physics is something that would cause most of us to give up after page one. Can a sixteen year old really understand the science? We might just as well put a GCSE economics student in charge of world economic policy.

Those promoting climate change have however realised that it is the young they want on their side because they are idealists not faced with real world decisions. The young always love a scrap with the previous generation. It is easy to blame their parents for having burnt fossil fuels to keep them warm in their homes as children and in cars to take them to school when they were too lazy to walk/cycle or get the bus. My generation has supposedly destroyed their world but they would make the same choices had they lived a generation earlier. The choice was burn fossil fuels or be cold, be a vegetarian and cycle everywhere.

Yes, Greta is the darling of the revisionist left because being sixteen she can stand on a platform of innocence, having never consciously had to decide whether to put the heating on or be cold. She can’t be labelled a hypocrite unlike those standing behind her and applauding her every word. No one would dare to stand up in public to a sixteen year old girl who is on the edge of tears and tell her the realities of her parents and grand parents generation. Who better to promote your message?

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

@ all.

For anyone a bit confused by this, let me explain.

One of the worst AGW denial scams/lies out there is that CO2 is plant food, therefore we will benefit from this. Sadly Nick tried to squeeze this in a while back, so I pointed out the truth.

There are no end of articles on this, but to cut to the chase, whilst plants might grow bigger, their nutritional value will drop. the most serious concern lies around rice as it is a staple food for 1-2bn people and studies have found that increased CO2 levels will lead to lower nutritional/vitamin levels in the crop.

At the moment, the heads of the USDA (under Trump) are still trying to block the publication of recent peer reviewed science on this.

Putting the politics aside, a couple of things jump out at me regarding this very narrow study of the effect of increases in CO2 levels on crops. Firstly; it looks at only one crop, admittedly a pretty important one at the moment; Secondly, it's assuming that the source of nutrition in 80 years time will be the same as today.

This study actually takes us back to GA's assertion - more use of fossil fuels will make the world wealthier therefore a subsistence diet of rice will be unnecessary at the turn of the century.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Yet another trolling thread from GA, and as always, Ken desperately rushing to his defence.

Funny how you never challenge the utter rubbish he posts!

Sorry Mart but I am getting fed up with you labelling everything as a trolling thread just because it doesn’t promote/support your point of view. You post some absolute rubbish political YouTube clips and I don’t challenge all of those. You have this left wing view of the world that respects no one’s point of view other than your own. As someone posted a while back, we can all make our minds up about what we read without a helpful soul like you deciding what is trolling and what is not.

Anyway what I was actually doing here was challenging mmmmikey using foul language. Is that really what you want to see on here? Oh yes, you ‘thanked’ mmmmikey’s post so, purely on a hypothetical basis, I suppose you wouldn’t feel too offended if I called you one as well. I wouldn’t do that of course.

It certainly would lower the tone of discussion if we all used that term when we didn’t like something but that is the way this forum is heading with some of the intolerant personal comments being made - “morally bankrupt” being another that springs to mind.

While your intention may be to devalue the comments made by certain individuals, what you are really doing is devaluing the whole forum. As I have pointed out before a casual visitor will just think what a load of losers.

JKenH

1961Nick wrote: »

Putting the politics aside, a couple of things jump out at me regarding this very narrow study of the effect of increased in CO2 levels on crops. Firstly; it looks at only one crop, admittedly a pretty important one at the moment; Secondly, it's assuming that the source of nutrition in 80 years time will be the same as today.

This study actually takes us back to GA's assertion - more use of fossil fuels will make the world wealthier therefore a subsistence diet of rice will be unnecessary at the turn of the century.

Different plants thrive in different growing conditions. Other varieties of rice may perhaps grow better. Anyway it is not beyond the wit of man to genetically modify the plant to make it suit different conditions.

GreatApe

1961Nick wrote: »

Putting the politics aside, a couple of things jump out at me regarding this very narrow study of the effect of increases in CO2 levels on crops. Firstly; it looks at only one crop, admittedly a pretty important one at the moment; Secondly, it's assuming that the source of nutrition in 80 years time will be the same as today.

This study actually takes us back to GA's assertion - more use of fossil fuels will make the world wealthier therefore a subsistence diet of rice will be unnecessary at the turn of the century.

Plus why does Marty have such conviction in studies

They are called studies and not experimentation for a Reason they are not reliable and often deal with very marginal factors

Regarding food, the most important factor is calories then macros then nutrients

If more CO2 did indeed boost productivity (calories and macros) but lowered nutrients (don't believe it) this would in fact be a net benefit. You literally save marginal starvation people

Plus let's say nutrition is down 10% per kg of rice or whatever but now the person has 20% more rice to eat well he is in fact getting more nutrition and has gone from near starvation to okay

Plus vitamins and minerals are not something most humans lack
Most humans get well above the minimum healthy amounts
We just pee or excrete the excess
Plus there is a super easy solution called vitamin and mineral tablets



So to summarise

1: don't believe studies they often contradict each other so I don't believe this rice nonsense
2: less nutritious but more of the food can mean you get more nutrition overall
3: less nutritious rice isn't really a problem if you have a balanced diet and the vast majority of humans have above what is necessary
4: to the small groups of humans who have nutritional deficiency, this is often to do with fussy eaters not to do with lack of nutrition available they can take a table once a week

Oh and as you say, rice is one thing
Different stains may benefit form higher CO2
Different crops may be more nutritious with more CO2
Farmers may figure out with higher CO2 they can and should use more fertilisers
Etc etc

Marty once again trying to paint the most black picture he can

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

Different plants thrive in different growing conditions. Other varieties of rice may perhaps grow better. Anyway it is not beyond the wit of man to genetically modify the plant to make it suit different conditions.

Not necessary and it's more likely not just fake biased study

Plus humans are not on the edge of nutritional deficiency

It's such a non problem we don't even monitor it

People eat a huge range of things and the vast majority get well above minimum levels


If anything a move to more vegetarian and vegan diet would be the actual risk to human heath and cause many more nutritionally deficient sick humans. Just watch the number of vegan videos on you tube where the person breaks down crying after finally admitting they are sick very sick and need to start eating a more normal meat and dairy diet

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

I feel Greta’s parents are letting her down badly.

I don't Envy them a mental disability is hard to deal with and their poor daughter has multiple

She sincerely believes life is going to end

Why she was allowed to develop these views and thoughts without correction is a sad tale of guardians letting their kids down

However I think this is starting to become apparent
Some commentators said her emotional speech was greeted enthusiastically
I watched it and no it was one or two people cheering or clapping probably to save the girl from total silence and everyone else was silent they could see she was upset and could understand her views are one of true existential disaster she is truely afraid for her life

Sad very sad
I wouldn't give her anymore of a platform if I was a news outlets
But then it's the modern age competition and social media rubs away with this type of thing

Good luck to her
I don't see how this will help her
She may spend years going around giving such talks with a mindset of the world is ending
Robbed childhood indeed but not because of fossil fuels but because a little girl was let free to run around with her imagined monsters being confirmed as real by idiotic adults with an agenda

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

Different plants thrive in different growing conditions. Other varieties of rice may perhaps grow better. Anyway it is not beyond the wit of man to genetically modify the plant to make it suit different conditions.

Just to emphasize again, because someone might think genetic modification will be necessary to avoid less nutritious foods

No evidence global warming will result in a net change in nutrition
Humans typically get well above min levels
This isn't a problem nor do we need to genetically engineer anything to fix this non problem

The few people who do have nutritional deficiencies can solve it with vitamins and nutrition pills

Real risk to human nutrition is from adopting a vegan diet which is less forgiving and has and will result in many sick people (I'm not suggesting being vegetarian or vegan is impossible but rather it's a higher risk for marginal groups than a normal diet which includes meat or dairy)