dutchroll

Engineers come in lots of flavours. A colleague of mine once posted a climate change contrarian rant from a guy called "Terrence", who purported to be a power station engineer (what a surprise). He asserted on the basis of his engineering expertise that the increase of atmospheric CO2 from 0.026% by volume to 0.038% by volume in the last couple of hundred years (figures I mentioned some pages back on this thread) was a total percentage increase of 0.012%. Thus he asserted the Industrial Age had only seen total CO2 rise by 12 thousandths of a percent. Teeny tiny. Several of the anti-AGW crowd, clearly not inclined to put any thought at all into this, cheered from the sidelines until I pointed out that the much vaunted and admired Terrence, Power Plant Engineer, couldn't even do basic high school maths and was understating the real proportional increase by a factor of nearly 4000. If it went from 0.026 to 0.052, for example, you would say it had doubled, or risen by 100%. I was pretty scathing in the process, because I struggle to respect people who purport to be educated on something but then demonstrate they're not. Having said that I have some friends who are excellent engineers, but their engineering assessments are not flavoured by political beliefs.

We have 8kw of solar panels and are not even connected to the grid at all (though we live only 5km from an industrial estate and < 10km from suburbia). We have saved: 1) the production and consumption of significant materials to establish mains electricity infrastructure & connection to the grid. We will not draw grid power.....ever. 2) the need to connect to mains sewer as all our wastewater is processed by envirocycle (powered by the solar) and redistributed on the garden to grow native trees. 3) the need to connect to mains water supply as we have plenty of solar power to pump and maintain our own water from underground and 3 rainwater tanks totalling > 1/4 million litres storage. I think you'd have to do some very creative maths to show that the environmental cost of this system is greater than the environmental saving!

In the minds of Abbott's most loyal fans, nuclear fission energy is cheap, requires no intervention by Government, and will be totally funded by free market investment. Please stop spoiling it for them, Litespeed.

The "quote" attributed to Hockey in the picture was again satirical, not literal, and it is clearly a "meme" (a meme being a particular idea or concept) which was designed to highlight both Hockey and Abbott's philosophical objections to wind farms based on "unsightliness" whilst also being heavily in favour of investment in coal mines and conventional power, in a humorous way - though clearly not so humorous for conservatives. They have expressed these views on the public record on a number of occasions. I can substantiate each and every one of my own comments which I have written on this thread, however I would prefer not to do your own research for you. If you wish to stick your fingers in your ears and filter out all the appallingly stupid stuff Abbott and Hockey say (poor people don't drive cars, after all) , be my guest.

I actually think Abbott is an intelligent person, but regrettably as we so often see, intelligence is overruled by deep ideological (conservative in this case) convictions. In Australia you can be moderate-left, or moderate-right, and get away with it. Step outside that boundary and you're going to be turfed by the electorate. You can be his greatest fan, but for those who don't accept the reality that Oz is a generally moderate society it's going to end in tears.

You understand it's satire, right? Abbott and Hockey are on record as being appalled by the "ugliness" of wind farms, while they staunchly support open cut coal mining and fossil fuel power sources. The satire flogs this ludicrous attitude.

Abbott Announces New Rebate Scheme For Rooftop Coal-Fired Power Stations Australians who install coal-fired power stations on their roof at home will soon be eligible for a Government-funded rebate, under new plans unveiled today. Speaking at the program’s launch, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the initiative would become the centerpiece of a range of Government policies designed to address the country’s future energy needs. “Let’s be up front about this, the world is changing. So we need to think differently about how we generate our power needs into the future,” he said. Mr Abbott said the new scheme was innovative and cost effective. “What this new scheme does is allow ordinary Australians to generate their own electricity, reducing their reliance on more traditional forms of energy, and lowering the monthly bill at the same time”. Homeowners will be eligible for rebates of up to $5,000, depending on the size of their power station. Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the scheme will mean production and emissions levels at large-scale coal-fired power plants will fall. “We expect carbon emissions in some stations to fall by as much as 30%. That’s above and beyond the targets set by many other OECD countries,” he said. Mr Abbott said as part of the new initiative rebate schemes for solar panels will be scrapped. “People can still install solar panels if they wish, but there won’t be a rebate. They’re unsightly and ugly, so we’re trying to discourage them”. http://www.theshovel.com.au/2015/08/13/abbott-announces-new-rebate-scheme-for-rooftop-coal-fired-power-stations/

It didn't stop warming, although atmospheric warming slowed as heat was instead absorbed into the oceans (which has created problems of its own). You are repeating a false talking point from the anti-science community. The effect of water vapour is not critical because water vapour in the atmosphere precipitates out quite quickly and the greenhouse effect due to it remains in a state of equilibrium. CO2 does not do this. When was the last time you had to pop up your umbrella because it was raining dry ice? How many parts per million of blue ink would you need to put into a bucket of water to turn it blue? How many parts per million, by body weight, of ricin toxin does it take to kill a human? Without ozone in the atmosphere, life on Earth would cease to exist as it would be quickly killed off by UV radiation. What's the concentration of ozone in the atmosphere compared to CO2? Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen from 0.026% by volume to 0.038% by volume during the industrial age. What therefore is the percentage increase by volume of atmospheric CO2? Hint, from Grade 7 maths: We mathematically treat a "percentage by volume" the same as if it was kg, lb, or whatever. So long as the units are consistent between the numerator and denominator in the equation prior to multiplying by 100. Therefore total percentage increase = (new % - old %)/old % x 100. If toying with percentages by volume screws with your mind too much, convert them to parts per million. 0.026% by volume = 260 ppm. So percentage increase = (380-260)/260 x 100. And magically you will get the same answer.

Well that's right. Rising temperatures due to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were instigated by scientists working at universities because they weren't happy with just their Porsche 911s (which you can see rows and rows of at any Uni staff car park). They wanted Gulfstream 650s too!

You'll note that I have never said anything about Al Gore. I have never even seen his movie on the subject.

1) There are not "thousands of climate scientists who disagree with the consensus". That is absolute rubbish. There are about half a dozen - literally out of many thousands who are studying and researching the science of global climate and closely related fields. 2) The "hide the decline" statement which was taken from a leaked email and the actual true meaning of which has been explained in 4 separate inquiries into climate data had absolutely nothing to do with surreptitiously "showing some warming" if there was none present. That you even quote it shows extreme ignorance as to what it was all about. Questions for Gnarly Gnu: Have you you even read the scientific paper where that originated? Can you explain to us exactly what it was all about? I look forward to you educating us about conflicting temperature proxies versus actual observations. Which was it that showed a "decline"? What did scientists discover about that "decline"? What did they then do about it? What was explained at the subsequent inquires? Another question for Gnarly Gnu: Climate sceptics then set up a group of fairly well qualified scientists to analyse the global temperature datasets to determine what, if anything, had been "fudged". This was called the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature group. What did this sceptical group of scientists discover about the temperature data, GG? Caution: please do not research the answers to these questions if you want to get your argument completely trashed.

I'm always in awe of laypeople who insist they know better than highly respected professionals like: Professor Stephen Hawking - Physicist, Director of Research at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University. Dr Neil deGrasse Tyson - Astrophysicist, Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Centre for Earth and Space, New York. Dr Lawrence M Krauss - Physicist, Foundation Professor of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University.

They're bad in different ways. My view is that Gillard/Rudd was certainly dysfunctional and that brings with it huge uncertainty. Even businesses who are traditionally antagonistic to Labor-style policies would "wear it" if they at least had some 100% certainty as to which road that Government was going down and could implement strategies to just deal with it. However my view of Abbott is that he's so deeply trapped in a far-right conservative ideological straightjacket that his thinking and decision-making processes have become pretty much irrational. Most good Governments have a significant degree of pragmatism despite their ideological leanings. Even Howard in his earlier years was fairly pragmatic despite having staunchly conservative views, though he veered way off this course in his last term and this was why he got roundly thrashed at the ballot box. Hawke too was pragmatic despite his union-leaning bent. The wages accord was signed, the dollar was floated, and a raft of free-market reforms were undertaken. Abbott is none of these. Let's get that fact straight to start with. He opens his mouth before he engages his brain and what comes out of it is pure far-right conservative in ideology. There is absolutely nothing "moderate" about him. Posting that a political thread in the "off topic" section in the "other forums" threads is a waste of time, is a waste of time. Trying to argue scientific facts with people who have decided they're simply not going to accept them irrespective of the volume of evidence available is also, I concede, a waste of time. But it filled in a boring 24 hour slip away from home.

Jesus I'm going to have to spell it out, aren't I? When.....I.....stated......that......"we"........are........using.......more.......geothermal.......I......meant......in........the.......sense.......of.......the........"industrialised world"........in........general........given.......that........emissions.........are........a........"global".......industrialised.........problem. It.........is.........an.........emerging.........and..........improving........alternative.......power.........technology.

"We" = the human race. Just like "the planet" is not "that which exists within the confines of the Australian coastline".

What you think personally is irrelevant to what the best available scientific evidence suggests (and in this case, flatly contradicts it). We actually are making increasing use of geothermal energy but the practicalities of doing it have been hard to overcome. Geothermal is the extraction of heat from the Earth's mantle and crust. About half of that heat is produced by natural radioactive decay, but this occurs hundreds to several thousand kilometres underground. The heat is transferred up through the mantle mostly by convection, and some by conduction. When it hits the crust it slows down dramatically as the Earth's crust has very low thermal conductivity (hence why surface temperatures are not significantly affected by the interior heat of the Earth). Fracking injects water mixed with various chemicals at very high pressure to fracture shale rocks. Geothermal does not. Fracking forces the release of natural gas. Geothermal does not, as it is the passive capture of heat energy. Fracking can cause the chemical fracking mixture or the gas to contaminate water sources. Geothermal cannot. Geothermal doesn't have any real comparison to nuclear fission inside a reactor, which produces long-lasting and highly radioactive waste (geothermal processes do not) which must then be disposed of, and is protected from release to the environment by a steel wall somewhat thinner than the up to 3000 km of rock which covers the heat source for geothermal energy.

Once again I cry for the science. Nuclear fusion is nature's power source. Nuclear fission is the human's power source. They are fundamentally different processes with enormously different ramifications.

If the protagonists against the scientific consensus here want to broaden their horizons, there are two books among many sitting on my bookshelf that I can recommend. De Pater and Lissauer's "Planetary Sciences 2nd Edition" is a good intro into one of my favourite subjects (planetary science and cosmology) and has some introductory basics on planetary atmospherics in our solar system. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521853710?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00 Pierrehumbert's "Principles of Planetary Climate" is much more advanced but is nearly 700 pages of very heavy reading on the physics, maths and chemistry. It has an excellent chapter on infrared radiative physics which discusses the greenhouse effect, thermodynamics, and radiative transfer in gas molecules. http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/climatology-and-climate-change/principles-planetary-climate?format=HB Prediction: right-wing sceptics wouldn't buy these books, because why would you do that when you can just browse "climatechangeiscrap.com" to get your science knowledge? It would be Tony Abbott's favourite website!

I don't see the argument there at all. Doing things more efficiently and smarter isn't an option? Carbon monoxide is colourless and odourless too. So is sarin gas - a chemical warfare agent. Are you advocating that colourless and odourless gases by default have no harmful effects? I assume you are, as otherwise you wouldn't have even mentioned those properties as a factor in determining the deleterious or beneficial effects of something.

You can't be serious. The last hundred years are what we have the most accurate CO2 and temperature records for and where the climate is warming more rapidly than we have ever been able to deduce in history. Global temperature changes back then occurred over many millions of years, not over a couple of hundred like in the modern industrial age! At 7000ppm CO2 you are talking about the Cambrian Period. That's 500 freakin' million years ago. There were no humans. There was no temperature-sensitive agriculture. There were no land plants. There were no mammals of any description at all. Most continents (which were differently arranged to what they are today) resembled desert. Sea level was substantially higher than it is now (anywhere from 30-90m). The luminosity of the sun was significantly lower than it is now. There were massive changes occurring over many millions of years in the Earth's biosphere as gas levels (especially CO2 and O2) changed significantly. While there were periods of rapid flora development, there were also periods of mass extinctions of living organisms observed in the fossil record. It is nuts - simply plain nuts - to even attempt to compare the Cambrian Period and atmospheric composition back then to the scenario now where humans, animal life, and supporting agriculture has evolved to be perfectly suited to the current climate and atmosphere. It's not even as good as an apples and oranges comparison. It's apples and primitive microorganisms. It's a woeful argument.

If you keep pumping billions (literally billions) of tonnes of greenhouse gases into a planetary atmosphere many times faster than the carbon cycle of that planet can absorb them, on what planet and under what laws of physics will the "climate sort itself out"? Sulphur dioxide and particulates from volcanos precipitate out of the atmosphere after a relatively short time and so their effects are short-lived. That has already been explained. Actually it does sit around for many decades. Your statement is simply untrue. CO2 is distributed throughout the atmosphere. How many trees, exactly, do you believe are "eating" the CO2 at 100km altitude - the upper regions at which anthropogenic CO2 has been detected? The extremes of CO2 circulation in the atmosphere were discovered by the "ACE" (Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment) satellite team in 2012. The satellite measured atmospheric CO2 concentration for 8 years. It would be good to get the basic scientific facts straight first and then attempt to construct the "anti" anthropogenic warming argument from there.

I don't like paying tax any more than anyone else. However relating the prospect of additional tax to the plausibility of scientific observations and theories is a bizarre leap of logic. The science is the science. How you wish to deal with the consequences (if you wish to deal with them at all or just prefer to pretend they don't exist) and what measures you feel are reasonable to do that, is entirely up to you. The scientists can only tell you what is happening, the reason it is happening based on the best available evidence, and what you'd need to do to have a chance of fixing it. Then the ball is in your court.

The only issue is that cooling due to the reflectivity of aerosols emitted from volcanic eruptions is always temporary, as the aerosols precipitate out of the atmosphere eventually. The CO2 from our massive industrialisation base always wins out in the end! Regrettably however, there are certain sides of politics for whom the acceptance of solid scientific evidence and knowledge is simply not going to happen.

Quote: "One major eruption and the earth puts out as much gasses of various kinds as the worlds coal plants combined in a year." How can you be referring to a solar flare and state that it causes the Earth to put out gases of various kinds?