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Climate Apocalypse

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johnson1010
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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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Check out this great clean energy project!

http://www.dump.com/solartechnology/
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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Here is an informative scientific article about how jellyfish are taking over the world

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... tion=false

The apocalyptic point that I take from this article is that humans have gone insane, and lost any coherent sense of security. Building bombs does not make us in any way safer from the real threats to the world, such as the dull expansion of jellyfish as they remove biodiversity from the world ocean.

The apocalypse comes not with a bang but with a gelatinous ooze. A world of pigeons, cockroaches, rats and jellyfish.

The author of this article, Dr Tim Flannery, is among the most sparkling and acute writers alive today. I have read most of his books and highly enjoy his articles in the NY Review. He was recently sacked by the new fascist Australian government from his position as Climate Commissioner, as part of Australia's contribution to the general world retreat into fantasy and denial.
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DWill

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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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I have no quarrel with the pursuit of any alternative energy sources. We'll need every one of them in order to be able to replace oil. An "all of the above" approach is the only sensible one, with panaceas being just, at bottom, special pleading. So go ahead with algae biofuels, but recognize that they're a slender piece in the pie chart. Big Algae won't replace Big Oil.

The environment discussion has become much too weighted toward energy, anyway. Even if we reduced our carbon discharges by 80%, we'd have severe environmental effects to deal with. Your advocating for a human population of something like 50 billion, Robert, is simply baffling to me (not to mention living on the oceans!). Our impact on the planet goes well beyond what we burn to run our machines. We need to say "no" to ourselves, where our hearts' desires are concerned, and that I think is our biggest challenge.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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DWill wrote:I have no quarrel with the pursuit of any alternative energy sources. We'll need every one of them in order to be able to replace oil. An "all of the above" approach is the only sensible one, with panaceas being just, at bottom, special pleading. So go ahead with algae biofuels, but recognize that they're a slender piece in the pie chart. Big Algae won't replace Big Oil.
Consider the algae paradigm shift as like the Cambrian Explosion 500 million years ago. Once enough oxygen was in the air to provide the conditions for multi-celled life to evolve, a baffling range of body forms emerged, as documented by Gould in Wonderful Life. Some were more efficient, such as the four footed vertebrate, and the most efficient outcompeted the less efficient.

With energy, the question is what is the most efficient scaleable sustainable power source. My view is that the answer is algae biofuel at sea. I know I am out on a limb with that opinion, but I fully expect to be vindicated in time, as algae farms outcompete inefficient land based renewable energy and dangerous nuclear electricity.

The slender now will later be vast, to paraphrase The Times They Are A'Changing. When we have an algae based economy, compressing algae in the deep sea for construction materials, using algae as the base of the food chain, and for fuel, fertilizer and fabric, building dams of fresh water floating at sea for cities and factories, with plastic robot whales eating ocean junk and jellyfish, we will move into a system of Big Algae replacing Big Oil, although I hope it will be a path that enables universal abundance rather than systemic inequality.
DWill wrote: The environment discussion has become much too weighted toward energy, anyway. Even if we reduced our carbon discharges by 80%, we'd have severe environmental effects to deal with. Your advocating for a human population of something like 50 billion, Robert, is simply baffling to me (not to mention living on the oceans!). Our impact on the planet goes well beyond what we burn to run our machines. We need to say "no" to ourselves, where our hearts' desires are concerned, and that I think is our biggest challenge.
Discharge is not the problem. The problem is the amount of CO2 in the air and the pace of CO2 increase, which is massively faster than ever before. With ten million square miles of industrial algae farms in the ocean we can chomp up more CO2 from the air than we put in, rapidly stabilising the global climate by converting CO2 into hydrocarbons using sunlight.

The whole story of emission reduction as the solution to global warming is an error. "Just say no" has hardly proved a useful moral principle. Yes we should use energy efficiently, but if we can convert CO2 into hydrocarbons we have potential for universal abundance, salvation through profit and growth. It might take a thousand years to reach a world population of fifty billion, but why not, if it can be done in ways that promote biodiversity?
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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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Well, yes, out on a limb you are, with no expert views (that I could find) concurring with yours that the ocean pathway is the one to pursue. On the 50 billion population, I tried to say that even attaining a source of abundant, nonpolluting energy doesn't make our species suddenly benign to all the other species with whom we share the space. We could still--and we would, I believe--cause yet more massive extinctions.

'Just say no' is an okay moral principle, by the way. It causes a little pain, is all.
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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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DWill wrote:Well, yes, out on a limb you are, with no expert views (that I could find) concurring with yours that the ocean pathway is the one to pursue. On the 50 billion population, I tried to say that even attaining a source of abundant, nonpolluting energy doesn't make our species suddenly benign to all the other species with whom we share the space. We could still--and we would, I believe--cause yet more massive extinctions.

'Just say no' is an okay moral principle, by the way. It causes a little pain, is all.
Look, just consider the thousand year plan as science fiction. I did manage to make the final voting stage of the recent MIT climate collaboration competition with my algae proposal, but I have never had any scientist express the slightest interest in anything I have said. I just think that shows how timid science is as a profession. Their principle seems to be that if it has not been done already it is impossible. Just because something is entirely new and pioneering does not make it wrong.

I agree with you that a shift to algae is not sufficient for the moral reform of humanity. But I do think it is necessary. The problem with the Nancy Reagan 'just say no' morality in the context of climate change is that we have this incredibly seductive energy source, coal, which will send us extinct if we burn it all. So we need a commercially superior alternative. My view, entirely unproven, is that ocean based algae production is the best candidate, as a path to perpetual peace. This is obviously too outrageous for anyone to take seriously.
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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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Robert Tulip wrote: Look, just consider the thousand year plan as science fiction. I did manage to make the final voting stage of the recent MIT climate collaboration competition with my algae proposal, but I have never had any scientist express the slightest interest in anything I have said. I just think that shows how timid science is as a profession. Their principle seems to be that if it has not been done already it is impossible. Just because something is entirely new and pioneering does not make it wrong.

I agree with you that a shift to algae is not sufficient for the moral reform of humanity. But I do think it is necessary. The problem with the Nancy Reagan 'just say no' morality in the context of climate change is that we have this incredibly seductive energy source, coal, which will send us extinct if we burn it all. So we need a commercially superior alternative. My view, entirely unproven, is that ocean based algae production is the best candidate, as a path to perpetual peace. This is obviously too outrageous for anyone to take seriously.
Congrats on the MIT thing. Scientists must, I'm sure, believe they need to keep one eye on the main chance, which might be a deterrent to their lending support to ideas far afield.

Shifting a bit from this, I just read a piece by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post that for me captures exactly the main political difficulties of addressing climate change. For humanity, this all goes way beyond conundrum.
First, in this case, the geographic distribution of risk is unequal. Southern England might eventually have the growing seasons of France. Parts of Africa might see advancing deserts and increasing drought. And while New York City and Bangladesh might both be vulnerable to rising sea levels, only one will have the resources and infrastructure to adapt to change. Urgency will vary by region.

Second, the temporal distribution of rewards is unfavorable. Resources expended today will only get limited results well into the future. Because the cumulative production of carbon is the problem, many of the changes we are seeing are essentially irrevocable. "Most aspects of climate change," says the IPCC report, "will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped."

This does not mean that restricting greenhouse gas emissions is useless, just that it is politically thankless. Inaction may have terrible results. Even vigorous action, however, would only start limiting the terrible results at some point in the middle of the century. And it would never undo them. We could leave most of the vast reserves of fossil fuels in the ground -- a political and economic impossibility -- and still the ice would melt and the sea would rise. It is no wonder that politicians -- even politicians who believe in warming -- tend to have other priorities.

This leads to a fully justified form of skepticism, not about a scientific consensus but about the ability of political institutions -- incapable of dealing with current crises or predictable fiscal challenges -- to respond prudently to scientific risk when there is little political reward.

Michael Gerson's email address is [email protected]

Read more at http://www.arcamax.com/politics/michael ... aqPkiXI.99
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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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DWill wrote: Shifting a bit from this, I just read a piece by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post that for me captures exactly the main political difficulties of addressing climate change. For humanity, this all goes way beyond conundrum.
First, in this case, the geographic distribution of risk is unequal. Southern England might eventually have the growing seasons of France. Parts of Africa might see advancing deserts and increasing drought. And while New York City and Bangladesh might both be vulnerable to rising sea levels, only one will have the resources and infrastructure to adapt to change. Urgency will vary by region.

Second, the temporal distribution of rewards is unfavorable. Resources expended today will only get limited results well into the future. Because the cumulative production of carbon is the problem, many of the changes we are seeing are essentially irrevocable. "Most aspects of climate change," says the IPCC report, "will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped."

This does not mean that restricting greenhouse gas emissions is useless, just that it is politically thankless. Inaction may have terrible results. Even vigorous action, however, would only start limiting the terrible results at some point in the middle of the century. And it would never undo them. We could leave most of the vast reserves of fossil fuels in the ground -- a political and economic impossibility -- and still the ice would melt and the sea would rise. It is no wonder that politicians -- even politicians who believe in warming -- tend to have other priorities.

This leads to a fully justified form of skepticism, not about a scientific consensus but about the ability of political institutions -- incapable of dealing with current crises or predictable fiscal challenges -- to respond prudently to scientific risk when there is little political reward.

Michael Gerson's email address is [email protected]

Read more at http://www.arcamax.com/politics/michael ... aqPkiXI.99
Basically, global warming is a global issue, but the world remains a politically diverse and fractious place. Even if one nation—say the United States—could come to agree on a realistic strategy for reducing its carbon emissions, it would represent a miniscule effort on the planetary scale. The idea that other nations would fall in line behind us is rosy-eyed nonsense. And so is the idea that the United States would make any decisions that would ultimately cripple its ability to compete in the global economy. Any kind of realistic and meaningful strategy for reducing emissions has to come from the people. It needs to be a movement that transcends the divisive and ultimately petty political world.

A clean energy source that could essentially replace coal and oil would change everything of course. But it would be no panacea either because humans are naturally competitive and selfish and destructive. Global warming is but one aspect of our environmental woes. Our ecosystems are in a free fall. Our planet's freshwater systems are in peril. I don't think we'll ever make it to Waterworld, but if we did we would muck that up too unless we could somehow find a sustainable and balanced way to be part of the ecosystem, not to dominate and destroy it.
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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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DWill wrote: Congrats on the MIT thing.
Thanks. I was pleased to get the opportunity to discuss new ideas with some level of institutional backing, although it has not led to anything except involvement with a group called Ocean Foresters.
DWill wrote:Scientists must, I'm sure, believe they need to keep one eye on the main chance, which might be a deterrent to their lending support to ideas far afield.
One eye, not both eyes and blinkers. Why I am happy to talk about this stuff at booktalk is there is an eclectic mix of interest in science, politics and religion. I see paradigm shift as needing to involve consideration of all these together, but prejudices in broader society have generally hardened into bigotry, in all these fields, so innovative thinking is generally unwelcome.

As I have said, I am eager to present ideas in a peer review format where they can be tested scientifically, and that was the main stated objective of my MIT proposal. Unfortunately no one has offered to speak with me on how that might be possible.
DWill wrote: piece by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post
Resources expended today will only get limited results well into the future. Because the cumulative production of carbon is the problem, many of the changes we are seeing are essentially irrevocable. "Most aspects of climate change," says the IPCC report, "will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped." This does not mean that restricting greenhouse gas emissions is useless, just that it is politically thankless. Inaction may have terrible results. Even vigorous action, however, would only start limiting the terrible results at some point in the middle of the century. And it would never undo them.
Gerson selectively quotes the IPCC and is plain wrong in his stupid pessimism. The IPCC report goes on to say "“A large fraction of anthropogenic climate change resulting from CO2 emissions is irreversible on a multi-century to millennial time scale, except in the case of a large net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere over a sustained period.”

Gerson seems to blithely ignore this frank statement that blows his pessimistic narrative out of the water. The IPCC is saying that carbon dioxide removal can reverse climate change. This is simple science, showing Gerson did not read the report, is spreading lies about it, and is just part of the hair shirt Nancy brigade saying 'just say no' to CO2 emissions.

The fact is, reducing emissions is useless, because it distracts attention from the need for an economic paradigm shift. It does not matter how much CO2 we emit, as long as we then remove more than we put in. The entire framing of the debate as about emission reduction is false. As Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out, an emission reduction of 5%, generally seen as impossible, would only result in a short delay of the arrival of dangerous warming. But recognising that means a paradigm shift to geoengineering, and the green lobby rejects that on principle, preferring instead to go down screaming in a climate apocalypse.

On world population, annual growth rate of 0.2% would see us hit fifty billion in a thousand years. At the real current world growth rate of 1.1% we will reach fifty billion in 180 years. That is of course, unless we fail to evolve into homo scientificus and instead allow the four horsemen of the apocalypse to repeatedly decimate population through war, death, famine and plague. Then we would fairly soon be back to the round number predicted in Revelation 14, with 144,000 accompanying Christ on Mount Zion.
Gerson wrote: We could leave most of the vast reserves of fossil fuels in the ground -- a political and economic impossibility -- and still the ice would melt and the sea would rise. It is no wonder that politicians -- even politicians who believe in warming -- tend to have other priorities. This leads to a fully justified form of skepticism, not about a scientific consensus but about the ability of political institutions -- incapable of dealing with current crises or predictable fiscal challenges -- to respond prudently to scientific risk when there is little political reward.
Gerson is expressing a widely held view. Politicians are liars, talking about targets for decades ahead when they will no longer be around, as a way to deflect the lobbying of scientists while pandering to the fossil fuel industry. My view is that the reform has to be led by the oil industry, funding research and development of algae biofuel as a commercial replacement for fossil fuel. When temperature and sea level really start to rise the political incentives will shift and the research done now will rapidly be deployed.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Fri Oct 11, 2013 3:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Climate Apocalypse

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You might have "got" Gerson there, Robert. The question, though, seems to be the feasibility of this large-scale removal of carbon from the atmosphere. We must take out what has already been put up there, is the import of the IPCC statement, and does the committee imply that this is a feat we can't manage? I'm not familiar enough with what the Skeptical Environmentalist has said about that to know if his proposals for geoengineering go in that direction. I do admit that that in view of the impossibility of avoiding more serious climate consequences through reduction of emissions alone, geoengineering has to be part of the solution. A reluctant admission, because we're likely to foul up some other part of the ecosystem.

The barriers to using algae for just about all of our energy needs remain, of course. Not to say they couldn't come down or that algae won't even be any significant part of the answer--because something else we don't even know about now comes along. The NSF put out a paper identifying the hurdles that would need to be jumped over just to get algae up to 5% of our transportation fuels. That is a tiny proportion of our overall energy needs. Still, I'd be all for doing it because every bit will help. I think the NSF is talking about land-based algae production. You say that your idea can be scaled up more more easily.
Last edited by DWill on Sat Oct 12, 2013 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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