Climate Change

[Group9]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

That's a misconception. But don't let me spoil your snark.

Really? From the guy who says his own lifestyle is fine, it's others who need to change?

And, you don't see that as convenient?

[ReMetau]

I feel that when enough people get together for positive change, change does happen. Look at what the hippies and racial rights movements accomplished in the 60's.

We definitely need to get away from coal and gas, but I don't know if nuclear is the answer. The 4th gen reactors seem better, but there is still terrible side effects, and we should be finding ways to reduce our energy consumption not finding ways to give us more.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by IdoraKeeper

There is a way to reduce high level nuclear waste...it involves breeder reactors and plutonium...not the nicest stuff around. However that solution does nothing about tsunami or earth quake.

True.

There are nuclear generator designs that are passively self-protecting in case of failures. I believe the CANDU reactor is one such design - given a catastrophic loss of power and control, etc, the damping rods drop by gravity into the core, quenching the reaction.

The Achilles heel of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor was that the standby power generators were at ground level and they got wiped out by the tidal wave. Loss of cooling after emergency shutdown led to the reactor meltdown. Seems an easy problem to avoid, with hindsight. (Chernobyl was a cascade of human and process errors - shutting off protection systems - if I recall correctly)

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Group9

Really? From the guy who says his own lifestyle is fine, it's others who need to change?

And, you don't see that as convenient?

I never said that. If you insist on debating yourself, do it offline. Less typing.

[AiniA]

There is so much misinformation about climate change floating around yet people hold to their beliefs as if they were revealed truth. One stage for denialists is that it may be happening but we can't do anything about it so why worry. To bring, like actual, facts into the discussion US carbon emissions have fallen to 1996 without most people even knowing it was happening. If this level of reduction is possible without any focussed efforts imagine what is possible if real efforts were made.

What’s Behind the ‘Good News’ Declines in U.S. CO2 Emissions? | The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by AiniA

There is so much misinformation about climate change floating around yet people hold to their beliefs as if they were revealed truth. One stage for denialists is that it may be happening but we can't do anything about it so why worry.

I'm finding true deniers, but I'm also seeing alot of people who just have a hate on for "do-gooders", greenies, anyone to the left of Ayn Rand, anyone who is encouraging altruism and collective action, and they'll just line up to oppose any forward motion out of spite.

People who have genuine doubts can usually be convinced by facts. The others will simply sling up any half-assed counter-argument from fake science and manufactured conspiracies to taunts and ad hominem attacks.

To bring, like actual, facts into the discussion US carbon emissions have fallen to 1996 without most people even knowing it was happening. If this level of reduction is possible without any focussed efforts imagine what is possible if real efforts were made.

What’s Behind the ‘Good News’ Declines in U.S. CO2 Emissions? | The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media

The economic cave-in of 2008 led to a drop in consumption as people tightened their belts and industry stalled. Consumption will go up again when (if?) the economy speeds up again, but hopefully the current set of pollution standards will help limit corresponding CO2 and pollution increase.

With the right guidance and regulatory framework, renewable energy will eventually become a growing and profitable industry sector, and the market will start to work with us, not against us.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

Yes we can but that is totally irrelevant wrt to reality.

There is wishful thinking and then there is "the reality." Show me how you are going to get 7 billion people to line up and agree to reduce CO2. You can't even get first world countries to agree to cut back. You are living in a fools paradise if you think global CO2 emissions will be decreased in your lifetime.

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Look at http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/news_d...def_19sept.pdf

If we tackle China and the US, the job is done.! eating an Elephant is a job done piece by piece...

Then US/EU gang up on China.

That's 80% of the issue solved right there...

dave

Xinhua, China News Service | China to introduce carbon tax: official

English.news.cn 2013-02-19 21:05:55

BEIJING, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- China will proactively introduce a set of new taxation policies designed to preserve the environment, including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

The government will collect the environmental protection tax instead of pollutant discharge fees, as well as levy a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, Jia Chen, head of the ministry's tax policy division, wrote in an article published on the MOF's website.

It will be the local taxation authority, rather than the environmental protection department, that will collect the taxes.

The government is also looking into the possibility of taxing energy-intensive products such as batteries, as well as luxury goods such as aircraft that are not used for public transportation, according to Jia.

To conserve natural resources, the government will push forward resource tax reforms by taxing coal based on prices instead of sales volume, as well as raising coal taxes. A resource tax will also be levied on water.

The article did not specify when the new measures will be implemented.

In 2010, MOF experts suggested levying a carbon tax in 2012 at 10 yuan per tonne of carbon dioxide, as well as recommended increasing the tax to 50 yuan per tonne by 2020.

China is among the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gas and has set goals for cutting emissions. The government has vowed to reduce carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic output, by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 in comparison to 2005 levels.

THE WORLD BANK | Tackling Climate Change with a Robust Carbon Price

In order to better understand the impact of climate change on development, the World Bank commissioned a scientific report, Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must Be Avoided. The report concluded that the world will warm by 4°C, on average, by the end of this century with devastating consequences if we don’t take concerted action now…

But we recognise that our work, alone, is not enough. We need a global response that will drive mitigation action in top emitting countries, get incentives and prices right, and get finance flowing to drive low-carbon growth. We need a response equal to the scale of the climate problem, a response that puts us on a new path to ending poverty and building shared prosperity.

In our view, that global response should include supporting the removal of harmful fossil fuel subsidies and placing a robust and predictable value on carbon. We are committed to continue working with others to pursue both ideas…

As these developments unfold, we believe it is worth exploring the idea of a globally-networked carbon market with: pricing and exchange rates to support fungibility across asset classes; a reserve carbon “currency” for conversion and trading of emission reduction assets; and services and institutions to support a market of global scale. Of course, the principle of environmental integrity would need to underpin any effort of this sort…

China is showing extraordinary leadership in this field. China’s seven pilot programmes – capturing between them five cities and two provinces with a total population of 246 million and accounting for a cumulative GDP of $1.6 trillion – are planned to launch this year. Shenzhen will launch its pilot in June 2013; Beijing and Shanghai will follow shortly thereafter. These pilots will pave the way for establishing a national carbon market, and China is already looking ahead to how it might link its ETS with others…

[avb3]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]I've been following this thread and finally decided to add my two cents. I did a stint as a biologist and did some environmental work. Maybe you could even call me a greeny, but I like to think that I'm one who used his brain rather than his knee. ....I came to the conclusion many many years ago that the biosphere as we know it is doomed. While many people would be willing to change their life styles to save the planet for future generations, most will not. Some just don't care but most are just too busy trying to survive the next month to worry about 100 years from now.......

Great post Captain Bill. I fully concur with the frustrations one feels when presenting science to a public, and emotions override the facts. I spent 14 years on my jurisdictions endangered species board, and frequently saw the problems that arose when public emotions over road the scientific data.

[LakeSuperior]

China was building a coal fired power plant per week as of last few years!! If each new plant cuts carbon emissions by half then it is equivalent to 1 brand new coal fired power plant per two weeks.

Then when India starts to come-online, population of 1.24 billion as of 2011...

The EU and US population combined are still less then 1/2 the size of India or China.

Chart is from November 2012 showing proposed increases in coal-fired power generation compared to existing US capacity. Just the increases dwarf the current US capacity. The US growth is probably revised to zero with new EPA emission regulations.

Institute for Energy Research | Countries Worldwide Propose to Build 1,200 New Coal Plants

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

China was building a coal fired power plant per week as of last few years!! If each new plant cuts carbon emissions by half then it is equivalent to 1 brand new coal fired power plant per two weeks.

Then when India starts to come-online, population of 1.24 billion as of 2011...

The EU and US population combined are still less then 1/2 the size of India or China.

The current per-capita contribution to pollution CO2, etc from India and China is still an order of magnitude less than that of the average American or Canadian.

And, um, The Institute for Energy Research.

Now, it's not a foregone conclusion that the citizens of India and China will achieve (or even aspire to) the consumption and waste levels that we have. Still, this makes it all the more important that we get our own house in order, and give the world some less wasteful ways to achieve their social goals, doesn't it? Efficiency would also make us more competitive in the future, if that matters to anyone.

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Clearly we can be making different choices. As you say, our consumerist economies are built on the foundation of everyone buying as much stuff as possible; more than is possible, if you consider the high debt loads. It doesn't have to be this way -- but it is. Sadly, I see no serious signs that this will change before we fall off the cliff. In fact, all the trends are pointing in the opposite direction, with economies like China and India rapidly following North America's lead. There are hopeful signs in some parts of Europe, but not enough.

Actually the consumerist society has already gone off a cliff, it's just that we haven't hit the bottom yet.......that mostly because we are doing a Wiley Coyote thing, we only fall when we notice that there is nothing supporting us , and in the meantime we keep running forward .

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

The current per-capita contribution to pollution CO2, etc from India and China is still an order of magnitude less than that of the average American or Canadian.

Keep doing the math here you are only halfway through the assignment!

Let me help...EU and US tighten our belts and cut carbon in half. India, China, and the remainder of the planet, an additional 7 billion heads come up to our new 1/2 standard or they come up to half our new standard, a quarter. If their consumption is currently one order of magnitude less than ours now.

Trust me you don't want to finish as it is a very very big increase in GW-hours to get the planet at a half or a quarter of our use.

You want everyone to be warm, have hot water, grow good food, and a small car/family to drive correct? We aren't even talking boat/dingy w/small outboard for each family.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

True.

There are nuclear generator designs that are passively self-protecting in case of failures. I believe the CANDU reactor is one such design - given a catastrophic loss of power and control, etc, the damping rods drop by gravity into the core, quenching the reaction.

The Achilles heel of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor was that the standby power generators were at ground level and they got wiped out by the tidal wave. Loss of cooling after emergency shutdown led to the reactor meltdown. Seems an easy problem to avoid, with hindsight. (Chernobyl was a cascade of human and process errors - shutting off protection systems - if I recall correctly)

And the Fukushima II reactors survived the tsunami just fine, proving that it is possible to build a plant that can survive even the worst.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

Trust me you don't want to finish as it is a very very big increase in GW-hours to get the planet at a half or a quarter of our use.

I've done the math. So now you know why it's imperative to bring less-polluting, more efficient power online - so that everyone has access to more efficient power.

You want everyone to be warm, have hot water, grow good food, and a small car/family to drive correct?We aren't even talking boat/dingy w/small outboard for each family.

Increasing numbers of North Americans are discovering they can have a rewarding lifestyle without owning a car. The rest of the world is ahead of us in this area.

If there's less waste and CO2 production on routine things like commuting, heating, power generation, there's more fuel, and more carbon "budget" available for discretionary use, such as boating.

(These are just some ideas, not a prescription. Don't get your Escalades in a knot just yet.)

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Our oceans and fisheries are deeply depleted. We keep eating down the food chain.

So. We can farm fish. Just like we farmed other animas after we depleted the forests.

Our farms are not keeping up with demand for growth let alone the desire for better diets.

Actually they are more then keeping up. Diet is improving everywhere.

Using your own example....aluminum requires are very large amount of energy for its production. That production is only possible because we are mining fossil fuels and depleting non renewable resources. Nothing scratches the surface of Earth like an open pit coal mine. Aluminum is cheap now, for a short time in our human history, enjoy it.

Energy is abundant. As someone said: the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones. We have moved from one energy source to another long before it ran out. With nuclear energy we can have almost unlimited amounts available.

I doubt that anything I say can influence you to believe otherwise, but others read these forums, even if they don't contribute, and I felt your statements should not go unchallenged.

What would make you change your mind?
What changed me was learning that we are hard wired for pessimism. That we tend to grossly underestimate the tremendous progress we have made, and the potential that still exists. When you look at the bare facts you see that the world is still improving.

Essentially you are making the argument that human ingenuity is boundless and can overcome any technical problem. That is a common fantasy I have encountered many times before. There is simply no evidence to support such claims.

A few millennia of history seems to attest that human ingenuity is even so fertile that it comes up with things that only a generation before were inconceivable. And thiscatvan increasing rate even. At the moment innovation is far from slowing down.

Malthus was not wrong. The Green Revolution delayed the effects. But that has run its course, we used the advances not to improve the worldwide living standard but to increase population. We await the consequences.

I think you are mistaken about what Malthus actually wrote... Anyway, we have massively increased living standards everywhere in the world. Even in the poorest country people are eating better then the French in the 18th century...