On Language About "Climate Change" and Global Warming" and "Pollution"

[HarleyER]

See - the best lies are based on cherry-picked truths. China ARE building more coal still - but they're only run as weird peaker plants that are only on about a third of the time. They have SO much wind and solar they're 6 years ahead of schedule - and are leading the world in clean tech.

From the BBC:

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined​

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined

The country is responsible for 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report.

www.bbc.com

Yes, you're right. The best lies are based on cherry-picked truths.

I love the graph labeled, "How China's carbon emissions have grown".

Sorry pal - but there's no 'believing in' it.
There's scientific facts and peer-reviewed consensus.

I'm sure all the environmentalist and their "peer" reviews would agree with you and would undoubtedly support their conclusions with articles each one of them have written using government funds.

 

[The Barbarian]

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined

China carbon emissions per capita, tco2: 9.24
United states carbon emissions per capita, tco2: 13.83

List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions per capita - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So there you are. It doesn't take "government funds" to lie to you by telling part of the truth. Be very skeptical about those kinds of numbers.

 

[HarleyER]

Oh my gosh! Please go look up climate and weather in the dictionary. Please. You're absolutely betraying how little you know about this subject.

BTW-My comparison between weather forecasters and climate scientists is a apt one. We were told by these "climate scientists" the north pole would be gone by 2013 and the coasts would be flooded. Well, that didn't happen, so they moved the bar (I think it's 2050 now).

Meanwhile, environental alarmists such as Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Nancy Pelosis (to name a few) keep building/buying beach homes.

P.T Barnum was right when he said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

 

[The Barbarian]

BTW-My comparison between weather forecasters and climate scientists is a apt one.

Nope. Entirely different things. Weather is not climate.

What’s the difference between climate and weather?

Have you ever heard your TV weathercaster say, “Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get”? How do weather observations become climate data? And, how do scientists, communities, and businesses use NOAA’s climate data?

www.noaa.gov

We were told by these "climate scientists" the north pole would be gone by 2013

Sounds pretty unlikely. Got a checkable link? Do you even know what "north pole" means?

and the coasts would be flooded

Well, that's certainly increasing. And has been, for a while.

July 28, 2014
—
So-called "nuisance flooding" — which causes public inconveniences such as frequent road closures, overwhelmed storm drains, and compromised infrastructure — has increased on all three U.S. coasts, between 300 and 925 percent since the 1960s, according to a new NOAA technical report.

NOAA: ‘Nuisance flooding’ an increasing problem as coastal sea levels rise

Study looks at more than 60 years of coastal water level and local elevation data changes

www.noaa.gov

P.T Barnum was right when he said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

But you aren't obligated to prove him right.

For now, just show us the reports by scientists saying the north pole would be gone by 2013. I'm thinking someone took advantage of your trust and just told you that was true. But if I'm wrong, show us the reports you have to support your claim.

Edit: Maybe you meant that they predicted the end of north polar sea ice? Here's how that's going:

Dropping rapidly. Has been for decades. But it's got a way to go before it's zero.

 

[Job 33:6]

BTW-My comparison between weather forecasters and climate scientists is a apt one. We were told by these "climate scientists" the north pole would be gone by 2013 and the coasts would be flooded. Well, that didn't happen, so they moved the bar (I think it's 2050 now).

Meanwhile, environental alarmists such as Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Nancy Pelosis (to name a few) keep building/buying beach homes.

P.T Barnum was right when he said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

The North Pole is actually well on its way to completely melting away. I'd give it another 40 years (at least during the warmer time of year).

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum | NASA Global Climate Change

Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.

climate.nasa.gov

It's undoubtedly the work of mankind. Nature has never seen anything so abrupt on this scale.

You'll see a different value based on the time of year and the month that you are examining data from. But one thing is for sure, it's rapidly melting away.

 

[Job 33:6]

BTW-My comparison between weather forecasters and climate scientists is a apt one. We were told by these "climate scientists" the north pole would be gone by 2013 and the coasts would be flooded. Well, that didn't happen, so they moved the bar (I think it's 2050 now).

Meanwhile, environental alarmists such as Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Nancy Pelosis (to name a few) keep building/buying beach homes.

P.T Barnum was right when he said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

And regarding flooded coasts, don't look too closely at what's going on in Florida.

 

[HarleyER]

Sounds pretty unlikely. Got a checkable link? Do you even know what "north pole" means?

Thanks for the graphs but I don't believe anything from the climate "scientists".

 

[HarleyER]

The North Pole is actually well on its way to completely melting away. I'd give it another 40 years (at least during the warmer time of year).

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum | NASA Global Climate Change

Vital Signs of the Planet: Global Climate Change and Global Warming. Current news and data streams about global warming and climate change from NASA.

climate.nasa.gov

It's undoubtedly the work of mankind. Nature has never seen anything so abrupt on this scale.

You'll see a different value based on the time of year and the month that you are examining data from. But one thing is for sure, it's rapidly melting away.

I was in Alaska last year. Our guide told us about how 10,000 years ago one could walk on ice from Alaska to New York without ever touching land. Alarmingly, although there are a few glaciers that are increasing (scientists don't know why) most are melting. What seems to be lost on people is that if the glaciers started to melt 10,000 years ago, there are most likely other factors then autos.

Is change happening? Perhaps. Is man the cause of it? There is no long term evidence of this. Just junk science. One would have to measure global changes over thousands of years to get an accurate picture. And I'm not talking about speculations. The earth rotation to the sun is not circular but elliptical. Does anyone consider this fact for climate change?

Is Earth getting closer to the sun, or farther away?

And will this change in distance affect our planet's climate?

www.livescience.com

 

[eclipsenow]

From the BBC:

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined​

Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined

The country is responsible for 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report.

www.bbc.com

Yes, you're right. The best lies are based on cherry-picked truths.

You see - reality is complex. Try to take in all the information presented to you and see if it synthesises.
1. How does the fact that China is the world's largest emitter undermine anything I said about how they're planning to use the new coal fired power? Both can be true at the same time.
2. How does the fact that China is the world's largest emitter now even relate to what you claimed? I was responding to your claim that:-

"China, Germany and others are building coal plants at an unprecended rate while we are sitting on our hands worrying about the environment. Yet I don't see anyone protesting over in China."​

​

Germany only reopened closed coal temporarily because they relied on Russian gas - and wanted to stop funding their war effort. Again - true patriots want clean energy produced at home to stop funding Petro-Dictators. Do you like the west funding the Middle East and Russia by propping up the world oil market? By remaining addicted to all kinds of fossil fuels?

In a truly global problem - how is it fair that you're pointing at China as the main problem here - when historically the west developed first and are responsible for most of the accumulated CO2? We industrialised way earlier. And even today, note this fact (it's from your own link):

The Asian giant has the world's largest population, so its per person emissions are still far behind the US, but the research said those emissions have increased too, tripling over the course of two decades.​

Now I'm the first to admit that the atmosphere doesn't care about geopolitical considerations like who polluted the most 'per person' - the physics only reacts to how much CO2 and methane and other greenhouse gases are there. Fair point. So why did you try to play the blame game by pointing the finger at China when you're American - and a far worse culprit and contributor at an individual level?

As The Barbarian showed, China has a plan to be carbon neutral by 2060, the EU and others are demanding China stop building more coal, China's coal plants have shrunk to 10 times less in just the last year, and they are not only making incredible speed at home - and are ahead of schedule - they are helping the rest of the world decarbonise faster and faster every year! From the Global Times (August 2024)

Also, the country's exports of wind and photovoltaic (PV) products helped other countries reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 810 million tons in 2023. ​

​

Observers said that China's energy transition will play an exemplary role, illustrating a path that is cost-effective, economically feasible and brings far-reaching effect to the global energy industry. It also proves that China's overwhelming edges in renewable energy is stemming from continuous innovation and a complete industrial chain, rather than certain Western fallacy of subsidies-driven growth.​

I love the graph labeled, "How China's carbon emissions have grown".

Being a science denier, you would. How is that God-honouring, by the way? To just decide that you don't need to be committed to the truth?

I'm sure all the environmentalist and their "peer" reviews would agree with you and would undoubtedly support their conclusions with articles each one of them have written using government funds.

I know right? Government funded science. What has that ever done to help us? Oh - modern medicine, the internet, subsidies to other companies that discover all these great things, DARPA to help fund the science behind the world's largest most advanced military? Just can't trust government funded anything really? Should we defund the police as well? I'm not saying corruption of human nature to greed isn't a thing - but let's explore this a bit more.

Consider the claim that "Climate scientists are just in it for the money!" This supposed government gravy train is only $60 to $120k per year. They are locked away in labs counting numbers and statistics. The idea that this little group of heavily peer-reviewed, heavily scrutinised scientists can punch above their weight and orchestrate the GREATEST CONSPIRACY OF MISINFORMATION IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD is utterly absurd.

Every decent physics lab on the planet can test what CO2 does. No National Academy of Science on the PLANET disputes the science. Even Mythbusters ran a test in their workshop that confirms CO2 traps heat.

This science is old. The Fourier device that measures this stuff is named after Joseph Fourier who discovered how something in our atmosphere heats the world 200 years ago. That's before Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto. In 1856 Eunice Foote then put different gases in different glass bottles with a thermometre in each, and discovered CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas. That's before the League of Nations! Let alone being before the "Oh so conspiracy theoried" United Nations was even a thing. Believe it or not - it’s also before Al Gore’s time!

PUNCHLINE: The science was established before the modern 'left' even really existed.
CO2 traps heat. This is known.

Now, who has the real motivation to lie to the public about all this?
Who has been documented lying to the public about all this?
That would be Big Oil and King Coal - those multi-billionaires who earn more than a petty climatologist's salary in their LUNCHBREAK!

Who has more motivation to lie their pants off? More than that, who has been *documented* as lying their pants off? Exon scientists modelled climate change in the 1970's and 80's - and now Exxon are in court for deceiving the public. And the Koch brothers fund climate denier noise in everything from industry groups, church groups through to retirement villages!

BTW-My comparison between weather forecasters and climate scientists is a apt one.

No it is not! It seems they can predict climate - which is a rough global temperature average across at least a 20 year period - with vastly more accuracy than they can predict the utterly chaotic amalgamation of chaotic systems interacting together - like mandelbrots dancing with each other - that we call simply 'the weather'. Patterns emerge, but the actual variations in a specific region are really hard to map. And the oceans? Apparently the physics there are vastly more chaotic than physicists first thought. 90% of the extra heat the planet is carrying ends up in the oceans. But where it goes from there turns out to be much harder to map - and the climate ocean experts trying to map this have had some major issues lately. That is - we know the planet is cooking - and we know some of what is happening to the weather as a result - but there are still surprises.

We were told by these "climate scientists" the north pole would be gone by 2013 and the coasts would be flooded. Well, that didn't happen, so they moved the bar (I think it's 2050 now).

You see? You just can't help yourself. You've done it again. Exactly who said that, where? You're quoting your echo-chamber. If you really are a Calvinist - you should have more respect for truth and stop just parroting echo-chamber stuff someone said in your obviously MAGA leaning circles.

Meanwhile, environental alarmists such as Bill Gates, Al Gore, and Nancy Pelosis (to name a few) keep building/buying beach homes.

I answered this last time. Why wouldn't a rich person buy a house on the beach when they've got money to throw away? Do you think these people are going to live forever or something? Ask yourself this - will any of them be around in 10 years? 20? What do you know about what the REAL climate scientists have actually said about sea-level rise and when it will hit?

P.T Barnum was right when he said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

There sure is!

SHELL Memo - 1989​

"Africans would push into Europe, Chinese into the Soviet Union, Latins into the United States, Indonesians into Australia. Boundaries would count for little - overwhelmed by the numbers. Conflicts would abound. Civilisation could prove a fragile thing."​

Shell: Page 5, Confidential Group Planning PL89 SO1 - October 1989.​

'Bombshell' 1989 Shell Memo Features in New Court Filing Alleging Climate Deception

In October 1989, Shell researchers wrote a confidential report warning that climate-fuelled migration could swamp borders in the United States, Soviet Union, Europe, and Australia. “Conflict would abound,” the document said. “Civilisation could prove a fragile thing.” Now, that memo — first...

www.desmog.com

Are you done' helping Big Oil spread their lies? Or do you think those multi-billionaires need a bigger pay packet to reward them for destabilising the climate that has supported our civilisation, threatens your kid's and grandkid's economic stability (maybe even their lives), props up Petro-Dictators like Russia and Iran, and poisons your countrymen?

Have you ever seen the public health studies into the deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity? This graph helped me become a fan of nuclear power - back in the days when wind and solar were too expensive to be Overbuilt. (Now I'm a fan of 100% renewables - which is entirely possible with today's price-points.)

 

[eclipsenow]

Thanks for the graphs but I don't believe anything from the climate "scientists".

And there it is. Cherry-picking. From the MAGA crowd. Again? Whodathunkit?

After Al Gore said a 75% chance of that - he also said "Bob used the figure of 2030. We will find out."
In other words - some projections say earlier, some later.

See? Cherrypicking. When we actually go to the source - and check the data - it's simply more probabalistic, more qualified, more nuanced than MAGA misrepresentations allow. So can you please retract this cherrypicking lie?

We were told by these "climate scientists" the north pole would be gone by 2013​

​

That's not what they said. Gore quoted one who was saying 75% chance, and quoted another that said 2030. Virtually in the same breath!
How is it you MAGA types have the boldness to misrepresent and lie about professionals in their field all the time?
Why is there such a disrespect for truth?

You just choose not to accept these results of climate science, but if you need a heart-transplant, computer upgrade, new medicines...

 

[Job 33:6]

I was in Alaska last year. Our guide told us about how 10,000 years ago one could walk on ice from Alaska to New York without ever touching land. Alarmingly, although there are a few glaciers that are increasing (scientists don't know why) most are melting. What seems to be lost on people is that if the glaciers started to melt 10,000 years ago, there are most likely other factors then autos.

Is change happening? Perhaps. Is man the cause of it? There is no long term evidence of this. Just junk science. One would have to measure global changes over thousands of years to get an accurate picture. And I'm not talking about speculations. The earth rotation to the sun is not circular but elliptical. Does anyone consider this fact for climate change?

Is Earth getting closer to the sun, or farther away?

And will this change in distance affect our planet's climate?

www.livescience.com

Does anyone consider the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun? If you really have to ask that question, then you're probably not in a position to judge the topic.

There's a big difference between post industrial revolution warming, and anything experienced as a product of the milankovitch cycles.

Atmospheric CO2 levels have risen sharply since the Industrial Revolution. Ice core data shows CO2 levels were relatively stable for thousands of years, but the past century has seen unprecedented increases. Human activities, especially burning fossil fuels and deforestation, are the main contributors.

The carbon released by burning fossil fuels has a distinct isotopic signature. Scientists have observed an increase in carbon from fossil sources, which is linked to human activity, rather than from natural sources like volcanoes or plant respiration.

While Earth's climate has naturally fluctuated due to factors like Milankovitch cycles (variations in Earth’s orbit), these changes occur over tens of thousands to millions of years. The rapid temperature increase seen in the last century is far too fast to be attributed to these cycles.

And there is no natural source of warming that we know of that can compete. Our emissions are hundreds of times greater than any volcano. Solar output has been stable. Milankovitch cycles take thousands of years. Etc.

 

[rturner76]

Trump Clings to Inaccurate Climate Change Talking Points - FactCheck.org

Former President Donald Trump, who has famously called climate change a “hoax” for many years, hasn’t used the word lately with respect to climate change. But he still clings to some similar arguments, and other claims he makes about climate change haven't changed much over the years.

www.factcheck.org

This article mentions Trump's language about global warming.
But it goes into the common misuse of language about global warming.
And, it underlines that this misdirection from reality, is not new, and many
politicians engage in it.

We are discovering that the systematic pollution of our environment,
and the destruction of natural systems, is having a MUCH FASTER
negative effect on out lives, than the scientists who try tomodel these
changes, expected.

It's time for politicians to stop mocking concerns about how we are destroying
our good earth.

That's right, not to mention this microplastic crap where we have plastic in our drinking water and we're eating fish with plastic in their edible parts. Ban plastic. We used to get along with glass and aluminum or tin cans. Lately, I've been really on my high horse about plastic. Most of it is never recycled and we got these huge plastic islands in the ocean. It's so gross. I try to get glass whenever I can.

 

[eclipsenow]

That's right, not to mention this microplastic crap where we have plastic in our drinking water and we're eating fish with plastic in their edible parts. Ban plastic. We used to get along with glass and aluminum or tin cans. Lately, I've been really on my high horse about plastic. Most of it is never recycled and we got these huge plastic islands in the ocean. It's so gross. I try to get glass whenever I can.

There are probably many sectors where we should ban plastic - especially bottled water. Why pay 3000 times for water that should come out of a tap almost free? Indeed - if we collectively pooled all the money we spend on plastic bottled water - we could probably ensure every town in every first world nation had beautiful fresh clean drinking water coming out of their taps - and then some left over to help the developing world do the same.

Have you got Netflix? Have you seen "Breaking Boundaries?" David Attenborough interviews Johan Rockstrom - a climatologist but also planetary boundaries expert who developed this. If the earth were a car dashboard - a number of warning lights are glaring red! (But the world came together and fixed one of them - the Ozone Layer)

 

[timewerx]

No energy source is perfect - and there are slavery and environmental concerns in China.
All energy sources have environmental impacts. But some have vastly, vastly less impacts on the environment than others. Solar panels are awesome - and can be recycled. Wind turbine blades will soon be made from biopolymers - so agriwaste etc - and then will be melted down and reused again and again.

I think wind turbines are the best atm. If we can somehow keep birds away from wind farms. Maybe give it some holographic surface treatment to scare them away, including insects.

Solar panels tend to be made with highly toxic compounds and their dark color still absorbs heat from the sun and can contribute to "Island effect" of localized high temperatures in cities which keeps energy demand for cooling (like A/C) high.

WHO estimates that fossil fuel pollution settling in our lungs and causing cancer etc, costs our global health budgets and EXTRA $5 Trillion a year!

True, poor health from pollution is costing people but the the healthcare industry is also contributing to economic growth.

We have a real dilemma here. Lovers of money would probably prefer people stay in poor health in order to keep money going around and filling few people's pockets.

The sooner we get this done, the sooner it starts to pay for itself - just on public health grounds alone. Let alone the fact that climate change is REAL and dangerous - and that maintaining a world oil market also props up Petro-Dictators like Russia, Iran, Venezuela and many other countries that don’t like us very much!

I couldn't agree more!

 

[The Barbarian]

Thanks for the graphs but I don't believe anything from the climate "scientists".

( presents Algore as a "climate scientist")

I think we've located your problem...

 

[HarleyER]

1. How does the fact that China is the world's largest emitter undermine anything I said about how they're planning to use the new coal fired power? Both can be true at the same time.

If you will look at the graph, the CO2 emissions in China have been dramatically rising for the last 30 years while the US has remained virtually flat. If China was the least interested the stats should show at the very least, a slight increase, not the significant indicated on the charts.

In a truly global problem - how is it fair that you're pointing at China as the main problem here

Your right and I don't mean to pick on China. Frankly, I can't blame them. But if environmentalists were truly concerned about the environment, they would be protesting those nations whose CO2 emissions are the highest-not the ones where they are flat.

Being a science denier, you would.

This seems to be the new derogatory term. "Science denier"-someone who denies science. This is a clever tactic to discredit another's opposing view. I suppose it worked in 1984.

I know right? Government funded science. What has that ever done to help us? Oh - modern medicine, the internet, subsidies to other companies that discover all these great things,

Yes, and shall we discuss how well scientists behaved under Hitler? How about the Covid virus? Antrax? It's a double edge sword.

You see? You just can't help yourself. You've done it again. Exactly who said that, where?

I really get tired of posting this video of Al Gore. The trouble is that some people here just don't wish to consider opposing views. Hence, they don't even listen to the claims their own people make, marching in lock step to the same drummer.

 

[The Barbarian]

I really get tired of posting this video of Al Gore.

I get it. Real climate scientists don't say the things you claim they do, so you present Algore as a "climate scientist." What a denier to do?

 

[HarleyER]

After Al Gore said a 75% chance of that - he also said "Bob used the figure of 2030. We will find out."

OK, that's five and 1/2 years away. I'll wait.

You just choose not to accept these results of climate science, but if you need a heart-transplant, computer upgrade, new medicines...

Or how about a sex change operation or medication against government released viruses that has not been fully tested? Wow, science sure has advanced. I'm certainly not going to accept a pager if given to me.

I would like to say that I'm not closed minded about the issue despite being a "science denier". But I choose not to accept these results because I simply don't believe there is enough statistical evidence to support the claims being made. All of a sudden you have a bunch of people running around saying the sky is falling, polar ice caps are melting, coast lands are flooding, etc. Let's just throw money at the problem and that will solve it.

Forty years ago we were told we needed to get rid of paper bags because they were bad for the environment. Plastic bags were going to solve our problem. Forty years later we now have a plastic bag problem. So what is going to happen when we scrap all these solar cells, lithium batteries, and windmill blades?

Well, you're not going to reduce CO2 emissions unless EVERYONE on this planet participates. When that happens let me know. Meanwhile, all of China's CO2 is just going to blow over to the US.

I believe the money could be better well spent in feeding people who are starving, creating new medicine, and raising the quality of life, instead of all this waste of resources on climate studies.

 

[eclipsenow]

I think wind turbines are the best atm. If we can somehow keep birds away from wind farms. Maybe give it some holographic surface treatment to scare them away, including insects.

I think I've shared some of this before - so forgive me if I'm repeating myself. Some renewables sceptics like Michael Shellenberger emphasise a few rare stories of renewables going bad. He talks about a solar thermal plant (all those mirrors!) displacing a rare desert turtle habitat. I didn’t know desert turtles were a thing, but if there is ANY endangered species - don’t mess with that habitat for any reason - especially oil or gas or coal or it will REALLY mess it up!

So how much land will be disrupted? Only 0.1% of the land on earth. We can afford to be picky. Do a STRINGENT Environmental Impact Statement before starting any site - and offer the benefit of a doubt to nature. We have ample room to spare!

Really Australia, it’s not that hard: 10 reasons why renewable energy is the future

Renewables technology already exists, it’s getting cheaper and we will never go to war over sunshine. If you need to be convinced of the potential of wind and solar, read this.

theconversation.com

WIND power has the reputation of killing rarer birds of prey, and many bats. The tips of the turbine blades are moving at 300 km per hour. But many wind farms now have bird radar that will switch off wind farms if threatened species fly through. Air-horns blast near some wind farms. Sonic devices ward off bats. Phd in Wind technology Rosie Barnes explains.

Solar panels tend to be made with highly toxic compounds and their dark color still absorbs heat from the sun and can contribute to "Island effect" of localized high temperatures in cities which keeps energy demand for cooling (like A/C) high.

If we're talking city design, my whole family are into New Urbanism and all its flavours. (Ecocity, Sci-Fi, Solarpunk, etc.) What really stores heat? Designing cities that make cars happy, not cities that make people happy. Asphalt, not parks and promenades. Car parks, not tree lined streets, with creeks and brooks with frogs for kids to discover.
Also - dark tiles. They make roofs hot. So yeah, rooftop solar can be a bit hot - but chances are unless your city is painting them white or mandating terra-cotta colours - they're hot anyway. We can compensate for that by NOT building car-based suburbia!

Also, if we MANDATE solar panels get recycled at end-of-life, the recyling industry WILL scale up, and the costs WILL come down.
Watch the EU and their 'Brussels' effect. The same legislation that says "If you want to sell to us, you WILL use USB-C in ALL your phones" also covers recycling solar and wind and EV's. Their requirements to sell to their 500 million customers kind of rules the direction of the tech world. They WANT all this stuff to be easier to disassemble, get at, and recycle. Watch them closely!
But solar power displacing turtles and covering farmlands - as Shellenberger claims? That’s ridiculous. First - solar panels are vastly cheaper than those giant mirror covered solar thermal plants. Second - solar panels can go almost anywhere.

ROOFTOPS: half our rooftops fitted with solar panels would provide all today’s electricity, but all our rooftops would start to replace transport as well Solar panels on half the world’s roofs could meet its entire electricity demand – new research

NATURE journal reports Floating PhotoVoltaics (FPV) anels on EXISTING hydro power dams (already wired up!) would close global coal. They’re hydro dams - they’re ALREADY wired up to the grid. It reduces evaporation and saves fresh water and just makes sense.
Floating solar power could help fight climate change — let’s get it right

NATURE then studied other water areas near cities. “6,256 communities and/or cities in 124 countries, including 154 metropolises, could be self-sufficient with local FPV plants. Also beneficial to FPV worldwide is that the reduced annual evaporation could conserve 106 ± 1 km3 of water.” Energy production and water savings from floating solar photovoltaics on global reservoirs - Nature Sustainability Gosh - clean energy

SOLAR ON CALM SEAS? (Between equatorial archipelago sites - sheltered by Indonesian and Malaysian islands etc.)
“up to one million TWh per year. That’s about five times more annual energy than is needed for a fully decarbonised global economy supporting 10 billion affluent people.”

‘Limitless’ energy: how floating solar panels near the equator could power future population hotspots

New research shows densely populated countries in Southeast Asia and West Africa could harvest effectively unlimited energy from solar panels floating on calm tropical seas near the equator.

theconversation.com

True, poor health from pollution is costing people but the the healthcare industry is also contributing to economic growth.

Not really - not in the USA anyway. It's largely an enormous administrative blow to your economy that you could do without.

Americans spends over $13,000 per person per year for healthcare. Australia about $7,000. Why? Because our government has largely socialised medicine - covers everyone universally - and so can buy medical goods and services from the market in bulk deals. American states - sometimes even individual health providers or hospitals - try to negotiate their own deals. And SO much American ‘healthcare’ is administrative and legal costs trying to get your insurers to do the right thing? Healthcare in the United States - Wikipedia

Now imagine America doing things the Australian way? $6000 per person times 330m Americans = $1.98 TRILLION a year that could be going into building Ecocities, each with state of the art Metros and subways, beautiful parks, and your own Wind and Solar and EV empires! But hey - gotta pay those legal fees!

"For example, the average cost in the U.S. for an MRI scan was $1,119, compared to $811 in New Zealand, $215 in Australia and $181 in Spain. However, data showed that 95th percentile in the price of this procedure in the U.S. was $3,031, meaning some people are paying nearly $3,000 more for a standard MRI scan in the U.S. than the average person in Australia and Spain." 6 Reasons Healthcare Is So Expensive in the U.S.

VOX explains what went wrong:

British Comedian and activist Stephen Fry explains:

We have a real dilemma here. Lovers of money would probably prefer people stay in poor health

Plenty of people in Australia love money a bit too much - but we'd prefer it got spent on things other than insurer admin and legal fees. So we just nationalised the thing decades ago! Our private health covers extras - like a spare room - wine being served with dinner - and some extra fantastic dental stuff. But the life saving stuff? You can be an unemployed street wino and still get full medical to save your life at the local hospital. A good, common sense health safety net is just FAIR! We all pool towards it in our taxes, so that we're ALL covered. And we do it for HALF the cost of America's "private enterprise" model. (Read - hospital needs to make a PROFIT model!)

in order to keep money going around and filling few people's pockets.

Yeah - those insurers and lawyers hey? Please watch the videos above. I like your vibe - and if you get on board with this you might share some good Aussie common sense with some of those "everything's gotta be private or we'll go Commo!" Americans you must meet.

I couldn't agree more!

Nice!

 

[eclipsenow]

OK, that's five and 1/2 years away. I'll wait.

Yes - but will you admit you misquoted the original source material - and were unfair to Al Gore -let alone the state of the climate science?
Will you admit the shape of the overall trend in Arctic Sea ice as observed by NASA and other 'sciencey' organisations?

Will you admit that the first HEAD of the IPCC was a Christian? That there are many Christians in climate science that would not participate in the whole thing if it were a scam? They're church going committed Christians - some married to pastors - that are always talking about Jesus. Do you even know who I'm talking about? Are you aware how much you are slandering your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Or how about a sex change operation or medication against government released viruses that has not been fully tested? Wow, science sure has advanced. I'm certainly not going to accept a pager if given to me.

Ok - I see what's happening here. My bad. I should not have engaged.

I would like to say that I'm not closed minded about the issue despite being a "science denier".

Really? How so - other than openly stating you don't believe a single thing any climate scientist has ever said, ever? What about the mythbusters? What about running one of these tests yourself? Or asking someone you know in physics if the basic physics of CO2 and methane etc all checks out?

The raw physics of CO2 and methane and how much heat they trap is old science, and not controversial. It’s something you could find in an ancient, yellowed, out of print physics textbook from 100 years ago. Do a little maths - and the CO2 is trapping 4 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat EVERY SECOND. Dramatic much? Well - spread out across the entire planet it’s like a few Christmas lights for every square meter of the earth.

BUT THERE ARE TRICKY BITS: What is harder is accounting for where all this extra heat goes? 90% goes into the oceans – then where? What effect? Well - the oceans are tricky to model - and recent data from ships dropping plumb-line thermometers does not match where the models said the heat should be. In some areas it matches, in other areas there’s some surprises. But the fact that this extra heat IS in the ocean is not really disputable.

NEXT TRICKY BIT: PALEOCLIMATE. To find out how sensitive the climate is - that is - when different systems might tip over - we measure different ‘proxies’ from the deep past. The earth’s average temperature leaves markers on biology and chemistry from the past. There are some disputes - but peer-review is generally agreed that we are in trouble and needed to act 20 year ago! Buckle up! At 40 GT a year, and only 200 GT before 1.5 - we're GOING over 1.5! Johan Rockström said so.

EFFECTS: The glaciers are melting, ice caps retreating, seasons arriving earlier, catepillars hatching before the leaves they eat are out, flow on effects up the food chain, and record planetary temperatures that KEEP being broken. The atmosphere is ‘wetter’, weather systems are moving, and we’re seeing climate zone shifting. Farmable land slowly becoming desert. A world with increasing famines and floods.

But NAAAH - there’s no evidence of climate change! (Nudge nudge wink wink).

But I choose not to accept these results because I simply don't believe there is enough statistical evidence to support the claims being made.

Sure - but you're not a climate denier! ;-)

All of a sudden you have a bunch of people running around saying the sky is falling,

No

polar ice caps are melting,

They are

coast lands are flooding,

In some places - they have. But this isn't the most serious effect. Food is. Wet bulb temperatures are. And the impacts here haven't REALLY hit yet! 10 years? 20 years? It's coming soon! Forget sea level rise - food and killer heatwaves. You'll see.

etc. Let's just throw money at the problem and that will solve it.

YES - renewables took an enormous amount of subsidies to get production up.

NEWSFLASH: Many industries and technologies require government help to get started. Who built the interstate highway system? Who pioneered the Space Race to the point where today a tech millionaire could start his own company so cheaply, so he could build reusable rockets that brought the price down even more? Who put a TRILLION dollars into the American internet to really get modern commerce going in America?

Governments can stimulate things until the private sector reaches economies of scale - then the private sector sometimes just takes over. This already happened. German subsidies decades ago led China to take wind and solar seriously - and now solar and wind are the cheapest power in history - even including the costs of storage!

Years ago I was not convinced that an intermittent power source like wind and solar could EVER run the world. It was about the cost to Overbuild them for all that bad weather and bad seasons!

But Tony Seba is an expert in how industries scale up to bring costs down. In 2014 he modelled the ‘learning rates’ of renewables and EV’s and batteries - and pretty much guessed today’s prices! Spot on! He (and many others) says they’re STILL on a downward costs curve.

Professor Andrew Blakers - winner of the Queen Elizabeth prize for engineering (like a Nobel peace prize for Engineers) says the "LCOE from a 100% renewable Australian electricity system is US$70/MWh (2017 prices).” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217309568

Basically - that’s cheaper than coal. Without coal’s $5 TRILLION global health cost. AND he estimates solar will be HALF the cost it is today by 2030. There are revolutions in Perovskites coming that will harness even more sunlight per area. Today’s solar grabs about 22% of the incoming sunlight - future Perovskites could hit 30% even up to 40% - which we used to think was impossible with just silicon. EV’s will soon be cheaper than oil cars to buy outright - AND they don’t need servicing. I have enough solar on my roof to run my house and charge 2 EV’s! I’ll only pay to charge when travelling - 95% of my fuel will be FREE!

Apart from some crazy Trump-led war or something, this thing is now unstoppable. The market has tasted cheap renewables - and it LIKES IT! The IEA says demand for ALL fossil fuels, worldwide, will peak by 2030. Then it will finally begin to decline as old coal plants are retired!

Forty years ago we were told we needed to get rid of paper bags because they were bad for the environment.

Never heard of that one. Is that like when 'they' said there would be no north pole by 2013?

Plastic bags were going to solve our problem. Forty years later we now have a plastic bag problem. So what is going to happen when we scrap all these solar cells, lithium batteries, and windmill blades?

Recycling renewables

Recycling solar panelsSometimes legislation is required to create new industriesBut even without legislation, it’s starting. Texas company recycles from $15 to 18Australian research could mak…

eclipsenow.wordpress.com

Well, you're not going to reduce CO2 emissions unless EVERYONE on this planet participates. When that happens let me know.

Um, the market is now leading this. I thought you would rejoice that Putin and the Middle East petro-dictators days are numbered? Who are they going to sell their product to when we're all driving EV's.?

ONE: Renewables are growing faster than the IPCC Paris goals. The market has finally realised they are 1/4 the cost of nuclear (Lazard 2023). Sure - there are still some new fossil fuels. The world is starving for energy. Only 17% of us live in developed nations. In fact - I’m amazed that only 50 GW of new coal was built last year! But compare that to solar - where 7 TIMES that was build - 350 GW! Wind was 110 GW. Solar now doubles every 3 years! “If this growth rate continues, there will be more solar installed in 2031 than all other electricity generation technologies put together.” The fastest energy change in history still underway

Don’t panic about that new coal - it was only a 1.4% growth. But so many old coal plants are on the verge of closing the moment the renewable capacity arrives that:-

”However, the report expects global coal demand to fall by 2.3% by 2026 compared with 2023 levels, even in the absence of governments announcing and implementing stronger clean energy and climate policies. This decline is set to be driven by the major expansion of renewable energy capacity coming online in the three years to 2026.” Global coal demand expected to decline in coming years - News - IEA

Paris wanted 615 GW solar annually by 2030 - but that could happen in the next year or so and it's still doubling. This article wonders if we're going to see 3 TERAWATTS annually by 2030! All I want for Christmas is one terawatt of solar deployed annually

TWO: EV’s are rising so fast the IEA predicts oil demand will peak 2029. https://www.reuters.com/business/en...-major-supply-glut-looms-iea-says-2024-06-12/

FOSSIL FUEL demand will peak by 2030 - and then emissions begin to decline. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/10/iea-energy-peak-fossil-fuel-demand-by-2030

THREE: CRAZY EFFICIENCY! As we Electrify Everything to run on renewables - we will run 95% of what we do today on 40% of the energy in coal, oil and gas. Anyone claiming we need wind and solar to MATCH the THERMAL BTU’s is cooking the books and skewing the story. They’re ignorant of at least HALF of what the Energy Transition is all about! https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/electrification-energy-efficiency

(That last 5% is the airline industry. We can do carbon neutral airlines - I’m just not convinced we can do them cheaply. Big deal - we’ll have to Zoom call more and maybe really value overseas trips - and not take them for granted like the entitled little first-world ‘consumers’ we are today.)

Meanwhile, all of China's CO2 is just going to blow over to the US.

Meanwhile, you've lost the lead on the next big thing. China's won. They're building all this - and you guys missed out!

I believe the money could be better well spent in feeding people who are starving, creating new medicine, and raising the quality of life, instead of all this waste of resources on climate studies.

It's not either or. That's like saying "instead of all this waste of resources on the military!"
Oh- and you didn't get the memo?
If you want more money for medicine - how about we PREVENT $5 TRILLION in extra health costs due to burning fossil fuels?
Or do you just love Putin and Iran, and want to see them make as much money as possible to fund - whatever.