"Most Caribbean coral reefs may disappear in the next 20 years"

[ImaginaryNumber]

Originally Posted by John Drake

Imaginary - instead of posting this lengthy BS of others, look out your own window....

In a previous post I noted that the target audience for my posts were those who would read, and those who were willing to change their mind if presented with empirical evidence.

Sadly, you seem to have excluded yourself in both respects. I hope it is only temporary. Love to have you back. You seem like a very sharp guy.

[John Drake]

I read, I quoted and I agreed (that climate changes).

Thank you for the flowers.

The disagreement is basing public policy and expending taxpayer monies on anything that does not achieve a meaningful result or is based on flawed models.

Is that so wrong?

And please do not tell me that the point of AGW advocacy is NOT to create public policy that spends money. If that were not the case, such advocacy would be pointless.

Glad you like my posts. I think my point is...let's talk about ideas and solutions, not argue about whether or not the science is bad. That is arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Why? Because the models cannot be tested or validated. There no such thing as experimental climatology (read my analogy to theoretical and experimental physics). Simple as that.

Thank you.

J

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by John Drake

2a. Australia has already discovered what a fraud cap and trade is and repealed it. Why...because it does nothing but make money for the traders. It creates nothing. It does not reduce carbon. But, more than that, if the climate models are not accurate, how do you know reducing carbon by that amount will make any difference? You don't. So, the money is wasted. Not gonna happen.

Um, right wing governments traditionally don't like such mandated solutions. Australia's new government never had any intention of working with it, and smothered it in the crib. We'll never know if it would have worked in Oz or not.

2b. Your paradigm is just so wrong as to be inverted. We are spending billions on "renewables" with no ROI. If they were the solution, they would have been fully implemented by now. Certainly, you could take the diversification approach. That does not work well, however, on truly big issues. We did not get to the moon by diversifying the effort.

ROI on current renewable energy will happen when the price of non-renewable energy is no longer artificially low. It will certainly be there when the easy oil and gas is gone. The cost per watt of solar has plummeted and will continue to do so. Wind-generation is coming along.

Was the first car perfect? How about 30 years later? It took the oil crisis in the 70s to finally gain some serious engine efficiency. We're just now moving away from lightbulb technology whose output is 90% useless heat. I have every expectation that those technologies will continue to improve, batteries are an area that needs a breakthrough now, and unless your hoped-for fusion comes online right quick, you will be getting more and more of your total energy from renewable sources.

This isn't a moonshot, but the comparison is apt. I don't recall a lot of industry-funded opposition to the moonshot, nor wholesale slandering of rocket-scientists at that time. And it got done.

2c. Here we innovate using venture (vulture) capital. One of these days, some guy (or gal) with money is going to want to make more, they will meet someone with a good idea and the rest will be history. Happens every single day in America. There is no reason to believe that this will not happen in the future.

Who would invest in a new technology, when the incumbent is heavily supported by government policies and consumption habits, and a bunch of bystanders are ready to sh!t on your efforts cos they weren't perfect or 100% efficient in the first 5 years?

When the last oilwell starts making that empty-milkshake sound, of course energy investment will flow like... oil does now. And those proposals and offerings will be written on computers powered by renewables.

And please do not tell me that the point of AGW advocacy is NOT to create public policy that spends money. If that were not the case, such advocacy would be pointless.

All government policy involves money at some point. I would think that's axiomatic. For this advocate anyway, the point is to work with the best info we've got, not fan it away because we can't bear the thought of spending any money on anything that's more than 5 quarters in the future.

[John Drake]

Lake, I appreciate the effort, but, as one professor I knew used to say" Do it over, do it better.

"Um, right wing governments traditionally don't like such mandated solutions."

Political BS, stop that garbage

"ROI on current renewable energy will happen when the price of non-renewable energy is no longer artificially low."

Bad guess, you have no idea.

"you will be getting more and more of your total energy from renewable sources."

Sorry, you have no idea and no information that would support this claim. So, it is BS.

My post and opinion are supported by historical precedence. We did not run out of horses, before we started using cars. We did not run out of whale oil before we started using crude. We did not run out of trees, before we started using whale oil. See a pattern maybe?

"This isn't a moonshot, but the comparison is apt. I don't recall a lot of industry-funded opposition to the moonshot, nor wholesale slandering of rocket-scientists at that time."

non sequitur

"Who would invest in a new technology"

I forgot, you're Canadian, sorry, my bad. (joking with you, no disrespect meant, I like Canadians. Gord is Canadian. It was funny though, you must admit).

"All government policy involves money at some point. I would think that's axiomatic. For this advocate anyway, the point is to work with the best info we've got, not fan it away because we can't bear the thought of spending any money on anything that's more than 5 quarters in the future."

That is how countries go deep into debt. No idea, no plan, just "we must do something."

If the UN report says you need 37 trillion to "mitigate the effects of climate change"....which tells us NOTHING about what 37 trillion would actually do...and you don't have 37 trillion....what do you do? You are saying, throw some money at it....cannot hurt. You are kidding. And you are certainly not going to spend any of my money.

Do it over, do it better.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by John Drake

. We did not run out of whale oil before we started using crude. We did not run out of trees, before we started using whale oil. See a pattern maybe?

Very much. Historically, go for non sustainable resources.
Money to be made.

[John Drake]

A shame to have such a biased, sardonic opinion.

Let me help.

The transition of wood to coal and whale oil. We went to a greater energy density, with greater potential scalability.

Coal and whale oil to crude oil. We went to a greater energy density, with the greater potential scalability.

Continue to apply the paradigm and you might be able to figure it out.

Thanks

J

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Um, right wing governments traditionally don't like such mandated solutions. Australia's new government never had any intention of working with it, and smothered it in the crib. We'll never know if it would have worked in Oz or not..

Ya...that damn Democracy thing, too bad the leaders just can't "go it alone" and impose their solutions on the surfs isn't it. Your Facism is showing....

[ImaginaryNumber]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

Does THIRD DAY refer to the Biblical Third Day of Creation?

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by ImaginaryNumber

Does THIRD DAY refer to the Biblical Third Day of Creation?

Ya think?

[crazyoldboatguy]

=== Very much. Historically, go for non sustainable resources.
Money to be made ===

Nice try at dodging the point. It didn't work. It would be nice if you addressed the point JD made. Could move the debate along.

But, to your point. Is there no money in sustainable resources? You'all gonna build a trillion dollar wind turbine system and not expect to be paid for it?

[Lake-Effect]

Gettin' lazy, JD. Not one gem in that dismissive load of fertilizer. You try harder, maybe.

Richard...

Y'all getting tired? Should we take a break?

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by John Drake

We did not run out of horses, before we started using cars. We did not run out of whale oil before we started using crude. We did not run out of trees, before we started using whale oil. See a pattern maybe?

conachair nailed it (you sort of did too with the reference to energy density and scalability) ... but at none of those transitions were we facing anything like the looming end of the easy cheap energy, or at genuine risk of expiring in our own filth. So this one breaks the pattern.

Unless your magician friends make fission a commercial reality soon, the clock is ticking. (But hey, the rich always survive somehow and Darwin has something to say about all the rest, huh?)

[crazyoldboatguy]

=== But hey, the rich always survive somehow ===

very telling, that.

The early industrial world was choking on its own filth, or didn't you read your primer. Folks got together to face a quantifiable threat and dealt with it. We still are dealing with them. But you have a different agenda. Very telling indeed.

[transmitterdan]

Cheap energy is here to stay for a long time. Reserves of oil and gas are growing faster than consumption. And there are a lot of known reserves sitting "off the books" that are not being counted. Ask yourself how is it that the US has become the largest producer? They found ways to extract resources more efficiently and completely. Very few oil fields in the past 100 years have yielded more than 25% of the oil in the reservoir. The rest is still there. The amount of oil and gas still in the ground dwarfs what we have burned so far. There is easily enough available for another 200 years. If you don't think we can get fusion or something like that working by then you are just refusing to accept on ideological grounds. But diverting capital to wasteful endeavors like wind and solar is a travesty. If we spent that effort on fusion it would be ready in less than 100 years. But the self proclaimed "long view" crowd would have us throw all our resources after renewables that mathematically cannot power our society so they have to talk about reducing the population. That should scare the begeesus out of all of us.

[Coops]

We have let this go long enough now and it is all starting to disintegrate into calling each other's opinions rubbish. Everyone has had their say and quoted their quotes and nobody has changed anybody else's opinion so before it gets to the point of deleting posts and sending pm's we are going to close it. Now you can all unite and detest little old me. But what's new?

Coops.