How Australia Perfected Solar Power and Then Went Back to Coal

[bexrbetter]

So... are the presidents of the worlds two superpowers totally misled by those lying 97% of climate scientists, or do you think it might actually be real?

In what way is it a loss for either of them not too sign up? It is already long established as being their political and social programs.

 

That I want me, my children and my grandkids to breathe clean air has nothing to do with GW.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

In the case of China, they will sign it, then do as they please anyway.

...and they will do the right thing as they have been doing for a damn long time now, longer than the 10 years I have been here.

 

FWIW, not a lot I reckon, I have been recently doing an environmental impact assessment for my new factory, not that that would give me any more knowledge over Wiki of course ....

 

 

[Marty_d]

In what way is it a loss for either of them not too sign up? It is already long established as being their political and social programs.

That I want me, my children and my grandkids to breathe clean air has nothing to do with GW.

And that is a winning attitude. If everyone just thought "I want my grandkids to be able to breathe clean air", then worked towards that, global warming/climate change would no longer be an issue. The worst modelled effects wouldn't happen, all the skeptics could say "See? Told you it wasn't real!" and that would be perfectly fine.

 

Personally, I'm looking forward to the Chinese drive toward renewables creating cheaper solar systems and usable electric cars (and planes...) Pity the current government seems set on destroying science and research in this country.

 

 

[turboplanner]

For the climate change deniers.

 

Listened to a turf expert a couple of days ago explaining that virtually all of Melbourne's Rye grass lawns had been replaced by Fescue, because rye grass can't handle the ambient temperatures we have today. That's directly in line with what the Department of Primary Industry expected in 2000.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

My country has so much to be proud of... but we are cursed by bloody-minded ignorance.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-13/renewable-energy-job-losses/6389242

 

 

[skeptic36]

For the climate change deniers.Listened to a turf expert a couple of days ago explaining that virtually all of Melbourne's Rye grass lawns had been replaced by Fescue, because rye grass can't handle the ambient temperatures we have today. That's directly in line with what the Department of Primary Industry expected in 2000.

I'd suggest you probably better get a different "expert".

 

If you get out of Melbourne and have a look around the high rainfall and irrigation districts, you will find them still farming and sowing ryegrass quite happily.

 

I would suggest it may have been the water restrictions your lawns couldn't handle. Dry conditions is something fescue is known to be able to cope with better.

 

 

[turboplanner]

He was talking about MELBOURNE, which is what I said.

 

And the result of climate change in this area is less rain.

 

He was not talking about areas outside of Melbourne which may be irrigated and therefore irrelevant.

 

 

[skeptic36]

He was talking about MELBOURNE, which is what I said.And the result of climate change in this area is less rain.

 

He was not talking about areas outside of Melbourne which may be irrigated and therefore irrelevant.

Yes, but what you said was :

 

, because rye grass can't handle the ambient temperatures we have today. .

Nothing about rainfall in there.....

 

 

[turboplanner]

As the temperature rises, some parts of Australia will become tropical, getting more rainfall and making millions for those who own land there, while other parts, like Melbourne will have less rainfall.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

For the climate change deniers.

You mean; "For those opposed to us easily excitable doomsayers".

 

Please find other than negative titles thanks.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Bex, Bex... how can a man capable of engineering an aircraft engine, not accept the consensus of 97% of qualified scientists in the field, based on empirical data and proven modelling?

 

 

[Teckair]

For the climate change deniers.

Didn't know they existed, I thought everyone understood the climate changes.

 

 

[Downunder]

I worked in the same place (middle of WA) for the last 10 years.

 

Driving the bus in winter, in the first few years, I had to start the bus, put the heater on and then go have breakfast to allow the ice to melt. EVERYDAY

 

The last few years there have been no frosts/ice at all.

 

Some years I would wear a jumper or coat up until December but now never after September.....

 

It is getting hotter.......fact.

 

 

[Teckair]

I worked in the same place (middle of WA) for the last 10 years.Driving the bus in winter, in the first few years, I had to start the bus, put the heater on and then go have breakfast to allow the ice to melt. EVERYDAY

 

The last few years there have been no frosts/ice at all.

 

Some years I would wear a jumper or coat up until December but now never after September.....

 

It is getting hotter.......fact.

Yes I agree, never said it wasn't, not so sure as to why though. I think since the beginning of time there have been cycles of hot and cold and we could easily be in warm cycle. We have had a warm summer and it is still above average and it has been because of the wind patterns we have had. There has been no indication the heat has been caused by the the greenhouse effect. I don't believe every bit of nonsense politicians make up to impose a new tax

 

 

[octave]

I don't believe every bit of nonsense politicians make up to impose a new tax

I don't necessarily believe everything politicians say, I am, however, more likely to believe peer-reviewed research from NASA, CSIRO etc. http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

 

 

[coljones]

It's all about marketing Don. Global warming appeals to a smaller subset because it indicates a particular direction of predicted temperatures. However, many of the activists reside in temperate climates such as the USA, Canada, northern Europe, etc, and to them a bit of "global warming" is not a scary proposition and almost seems welcome. So, a little rebranding was in order, hence the increasing shift to "climate change" in the last 12-18 months.

 

 

Of course, if global warming did come along, there will be some positive changes. Higher carbon dioxide levels will benefit trees, grass and farmers' crops. Warmer temperate places requires less heating by coal or other energy means.

 

That saying is a perversion of the saying that was originally coined to describe the bagpipes: "an ill wind that no one blows good".

 

Me too! That is such a short-sighted thing to do but journalists imply this a number of times every year when recording anything of an extreme weather event, whether wet or dry, cold or hot.

 

Air bubbles, trapped in amber, have been analysed and in some instances have shown carbon dioxide levels ten times the current rate. Can you imagine how lush the vegetation would have been then? No wonder we have so many good coal seams around the world.

 

I would like to add to this 'a fleet of electric light aircraft'. I look forward to the day when battery technology has been developed to the point where it can safely take a light plane for a 4 or 5 hour endurance. Another advantage is that electric motors are lighter.

I haven't heard anyone claim that there is a CO2 drought. The trees and the environment currently take all the CO2 they need out of the air and there will be a CO2 residual. As this residual grows through manmade CO2 production it acts like a big thermal blanket and traps the radiant heat or is absorbed into water resulting in increasing acidification of the oceans. Expecting the environment to sop up the increasing residual CO2 is a bit fanciful and only by planting big fast growing forests will achieve it. Growing more crops will, for a short period of time, before the extra food ets consumed in the body and gets converted back to CO2 again or burned as rubbish,producing more CO2. Expecting the environment to sop up the increased heat mass trapped by the CO2 blanket is also fanciful because an environment loaded up with excess energy is a pretty nasty place with some really wild weather and temp extremes.

 

The absorption of CO2 into the megaforests and the forest's conversion to coal a few millions of years ago reduced CO2 in the atmosphere (sequestration) and with the reduction in CO2 allowed the earth's atmosphere to stabilise and for the world to produce the great polluter, 'umans.

 

I find myself a little torn as the average third world citizen is a low source of poluution. If they were to commence polltion on the per capia scale of Australians then the world would be in for a really big shock. We would be far better off to moderate our own behavior, engage in our own route to CO2 reduction than to sling off at the 3rd world who are nowhere near us in pollution (percapita) - They just have a lot more people trying to live a simple life.

 

 

[dazza 38]

The planet has always gone through cycles of above average heating and cooling. People worry too much.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Dazza can we put that optimistic quote on your tombstone?

 

 

[turboplanner]

The planet has always gone through cycles of above average heating and cooling. People worry too much.

See earlier posts on these cycles vs the current one.

 

 

[Pearo]

The planet has always gone through cycles of above average heating and cooling. People worry too much.

The only difference is that now those extremes are much worse, and they are having an impact. And dont forget, we have some pretty good data going back about 750000 years, so depsite what the naysayers will tell you, its not just a little cherry picked sample.

 

On the topic off solar power, I have been looking at off grid systems for a while. I would like to fit one, but the cost of batteries is what stops me. Put simple, the avg lifespan of a bank is about 10 years from what I can gather, and maybe even less in Queensland due to avg. temps. When you compare that to the cost of grid power it does not add up.

 

What about using the grid for storage? Well that does not add up either. I can get 8c/kwh but it costs me a lot more than that to buy it back. So my current plan is to fit enough panels to cover off as much of my daytime usage as possible, and at night I will rely on the grid. The only problem I have is the neighbours are planning to develop and that is the side the sun comes from, so I am just holding off until I know what they have planned.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Look I believe DAzza because if you can't trust an employee of a big petro company who can you trust?

 

 

[dazza 38]

Look I believe DAzza because if you can't trust an employee of a big petro company who can you trust?

Gas mate, gas, not petroleum . A lot better for the enviroment than coal.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Not really, gas is showing up leaking out of the ground after fracking negating any carbon saving. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Bex, Bex... how can a man capable of engineering an aircraft engine, not accept the consensus of 97% of qualified scientists in the field, based on empirical data and proven modelling?

The post was in reference to the negative titles used to belittle anyone opposing GW views, nothing to do with GW itself.

 

Here's an interesting man ...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milutin_Milankovi%C4%87

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Not really, gas is showing up leaking out of the ground after fracking negating any carbon saving. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

You any good at knitting FT?

 

Bex, Bex...

You got a headache?

 

the consensus of 97% of qualified scientists in the field,

97% you say? Did you meant 97% of Department Heads who need to be on the funding bandwagon? Seriously, a Department today says "No we don't agree with GW" - what are their chances of getting research funding? Lip biting reaps rewards.

 

'Global Warming’ Fear is about Money Not Science

 

Posted on August 26, 2012 by Gary DeMar Filed under Economics, Education, Environment, Global Warming, Liberalism, Politics, Socialism, Taxes

 

League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is spending $1.5 million to defeat five of the most outspoken members of the House of Representatives who believe man-made global warming is a hoax.

 

NB: The use of a negative title here ..

 

The campaign, called "Defeat the Flat Earth Five" will focus on running TV, mail and phone initiatives to spread the message that the members are ignoring science and out of touch with what most Americans believe.

 

Equating these anti-global warming congressmen with a belief in a flat earth shows how the folks at the LCV are as out of touch with the history of science as they are with the science behind climate change (it changes every day) since no one of any reputation ever believed in a flat earth.

 

In the end, it’s not about science; it’s about government (tax-payer) grant money.

 

Scientists live or die by grant money. A long time ago universities began to realize that there's big money to be made in doing research for the government.

 

Campus protests in the 1960s and early 1970s were often directed at schools that were doing work for the "Military-Industrial Complex." The Sterling Hall Bombing that occurred on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1970 was committed by four young people as a protest against the University's research connections with the US military during the Vietnam War. It resulted in the death of a university physics researcher. The bombers were after the Army Math Research Center (AMRC) that was housed in the building.

 

The Manhattan Project, which began in 1939, was led and developed by university professors. The Project eventually employed more than 130,000 people and cost nearly $2 billion ($22 billion in current value). The majority of the money came from the Federal government.

 

Research is big business that is most often driven by ideology. Those who know how to write the grants get the money. A 2005 study in the journal Nature surveyed 3247 US researchers who were all publicly funded by the National Institutes of Health which is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. It consists of 27 separate institutes and centers. Out of the scientists questioned, 15.5% admitted to altering design, methodology or results of their studies due to pressure of an external funding source.

 

With this very brief background study, should we be surprised if scientists who are pushing Global Warming as a man-made disaster would be reluctant to criticize the claim if they knew their funding would be cut? There are big bucks in Global Warming. Those who are pushing it are mostly ideologues with a larger political agenda.

 

Most Americans have an idealized opinion of scientists, that they are somehow detached from the mundane world of power, prestige, and fortune. If you believe this, then you also believe that Tiger Woods only cares about golf and the purity of the sport. Evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould has written:

 

“The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method,’ with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots, is self-serving mythology.”1

 

Scientists are just like everybody else. They want the same things.

 

We shouldn’t be surprised that climate scientists might fudge the evidence to keep the grant money coming in. Who’s really getting harmed? Anyway, the kids need new shoes and an investment portfolio so they can get into the best universities so they can work for a university that gets grant money.

 

If these scientists and politicians were really concerned about Global Warming, would 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists, and 98 world leaders meet in far way places for a Climate Summit?2 Why not set up a teleconferencing system? Really show the world what can be done to “save the planet.”

 

More than 1200 limos were called into service for a meeting in Copenhagen in 2009. Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen’s biggest limousine company, said that there weren’t enough limos in the country to fulfill the demand. “We’re having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden,” she says. This does not count the huge carbon footprint that was created by the number of private jets (more than 140) that were used. The eleven-day conference, including the participants’ travel, created a total of 41,000 tons of “carbon dioxide equivalent.”

 

It’s all a scam. Newsweek “did a cover issue warning us of global cooling on April 28, 1975. And The New York Times, Aug. 14, 1976, reported ‘many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age.’” In 1974, the National Science Board announced: “During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end . . . leading into the next ice age.” Gary Sutton, writing in an online article for Forbes, makes the point:

 

You can't blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed’s mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today’s scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.3

 

Of course, they can be blamed when they (1) claim that they are doing real science, (2) there is no contrary evidence, and (3) what contrary evidence they do find they suppress it. So the next time someone dogmatically asserts that the majority of scientists believe in Global Warming, ask your antagonist how much grant money he’s getting?

 

...........................................

 

Also

 

The government is overreacting to a largely unreal threat of global warming and NASA isn't helping, states a report issued by The Right Climate Stuff (TCRS) research team.

 

Comprised largely of ex-NASA engineers and scientists, the team acknowledges in their report that "climate science is not one of our data technical specialties," but that, nonetheless, given their experience in their separate fields of physics, chemistry, geology, meteorology and others, they felt the need to speak out.

 

Specifically, the report responds to what the group feels is unfounded pulpit pounding by certain NASA bureaus regarding a false damnation of global warming that is seen strictly the result of human sin in the form of carbon dioxide emissions.

 

"Many of us felt these alarming and premature predictions of a climate disaster with so little empirical data to support these claims, would eventually damage NASA's reputation for excellent and objective science and engineering achievement," the report states.

 

First of all, the group states, the argument over whether or not human-induced carbons are at fault for the rise the global rise in temperatures is not "settled," despite what James Hansen or others of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies may say. To support this statement, the report cited several groups all with varying opinions on the subject, including the Department of Atmospheric Sciences of Texas A&M, Hansen himself, Richard Alley of Penn State, Rchard Lindzen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Roger A. Pielke Sr. of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

 

Second, the report argues that natural processes dominate climate change, though many are poorly understood. This includes ice age cycles natural to the world's climate fluctuations, which scientists, including the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have shown affect the level of carbon dioxide in the air. Specifically, the IPCC's 4th assesment report states that the lag in carbon dioxide increases following temperature increases is roughly 800 years.

 

"Ergo, CO2 does not appear to be the throttle that controlled the temperature cycles of the last 700,000 years." Though, they argue, the temperature appears to affect the levels of CO2 - a concept that for many may feel like standing on one's head.

 

Other cycles include the El Nino Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation.

 

Of them, the report states, "Little is known about the cause of these cycles, but it is apparent that when their warm phases coincide, extra warmth is added to the atmosphere. Indeed this was the case in the latter part of the last century."

 

The third main point the report makes is the importance of the influence of humankind on the environment in ways besides carbon dioxide emissions. This includes aerosols as well as changing biomass, which, Pielke Sr., argues, creates islands of urban heat that can affect not only climate, but the measurement of climate change.

 

Fourth, the report argues that carbon-based AGW impact appears to be "muted."

 

The physics of warming by atmospheric carbon dioxide is firmly established, the report states, as most agree that each time it doubles from pre-industrial levels, the planet gets 1 degree Celsius warmer.

 

"The issue in dispute is the amount of amplification that would come from humidification of a warmer mid-to-upper troposphere," the report explains. And here, once again, they argue that, based on severalstudies the answer at present "is far from clear."

 

Next, the group states that the empirical evidence for carbon-based AGW "does not support a catastrophe."

 

Given the amount the word is bandied about, the group says, "somewhere there must be a direct connection of 2 - 4.5 degree Celsius average warming to something 'catastrophic' worldwide." However, they explain, "so far, we have seen no specific papers alluding to anything so specific."

 

This includes, they believe, even major weather events and the rising sea level, the first of which, they argue, despite being brought to the forefront of our consciousness through vigilant and extreme media coverage, lacks "hard evidence of anything that has not been see before, and well before, the last few decades."

 

As for the rise in sea level, it states, "the only real sources of significant sea level rise are the Greenland ice sheets and those in Antarctica." And, it says, there are no projections for either to produce large meltwater for another few centuries.

 

For these reasons, the group ultimately argues that the threat of "net harmful total global warming" is "not immediate and thus does not require swift corrective action."

 

Rather, they believe, "A potential global warming issue has been identified that should be treated as a potential problem for which root cause is not definitely known."

 

For this reason, they argue, the U.S. government is "over-reacting" to the concerns of the media, scientists and activists and that a more "rational process for allocation of research funds without the constant media hype of an AGW crisis is needed."