The climate change debate continues.

[robinsm]

ok I am giving up, enjoy the conversation.  My apathy has finally kicked in.

 

 

[spacesailor]

Thankfully coal & it's gas SAVED THE WHALE SPECIES.

 

If no coal then we would have no trees left.

 

Peat fires are not hot enough for industry,  only lots & lots of good hardwood, 

 

A couple of hundred years of burning wood, is to me as bad as the coal was.

 

AND it's all a passing phrase of man's history.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[nomadpete]

Yes, you're right about that. Burning coal and oil is just a passing phase of mankind's history.

 

 

[Yenn]

The difference between burning wood and coal is that burning wood, you are burning fuel built up over maybe 40 years. Burning coal for the same mount of heat, you are burning fuel built up over hundreds of years.

 

 

[spacesailor]

"There is a second choice. 

 The land mass we are on has moved. 

 It,s the first time iv,e noticed the sun rising south of Sydney, (almost ). 

 It is,nt the only, time the continents have moved in history. 

 spacesailor "  ( post 856)

 

 There VINDICATED

    "On January 1, the Victorian and NSW governments updated the coordinates of every road, property and geographical feature in their states,

     essentially moving the south-eastern seaboard 1.8 metres north-east overnight.    

    The change is being made to fix a 1.8 metre inaccuracy that has crept into our GPS coordinates, caused by Australia slowly drifting north."

 

spacesailor

 

 

[onetrack]

So ... did the Earth move for you, Spacey? LOL

 

 

[spacesailor]

YES

 

The Sun  rose One house further south-east, this morning.

 

Normally it comes up opposite to our house,  & shines in the front door.

 

Now it's on the wall. wrong side! .

 

Last night's sun-set was a spectacular red ball,

 

In the south-west !.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Methusala]

60,000 square km burnt so far!!! FFS

 

 

[onetrack]

It'll recover - particularly when it gets decent rains again. Large areas being burnt by bushfires is all part of the makeup and history of Australia.

 

We had a massive destructive bushfire West of Toodyay, W.A. in December 2009, with substantial losses in infrastructure and personal losses. If you see it now, you would be hard-pressed to see the fire affected areas from 2009.

 

A moderate percentage of burnt-out West Toodyay residents left, never to return. They bought or built elsewhere, mostly in large country towns nearby. But many burnt-out locals returned and rebuilt.

 

 

[Litespeed]

No it will not recover.

 

The area is too large for species to escape for those that can't fly or hop fast. Way too hot to survive.

 

A lot of the tree and undergrowth will not recover for the same reason- far too hot.

 

The epicormic growth after a fire needs live tissue under the bark. Many have burnt far too hot for that. The same will seeds, they will have been destroyed in most cases.

 

At least 1/2 billion animals killed including complete species.

 

This a catastrophic fire not a normal one.

 

If a human can't escape on foot then most wildlife has no chance.

 

 

[Methusala]

It is inescapably true that these fires are not,"business as usual". The extraordinary dryness, resulting from the failure of normal rainfall over season on season has combined with a decade of record temperatures. Fires have ranged over unprecedented tracts of bushland and attacked where no fires have ocurred previously. We have no idea when or if rainfall will return to normal distribution. This has been building for decades and shows what only a degree and one half increase in temperatures can be like.

 

Even Bill Shorten's Labor had planned to increase firefighting capability but that would have been too little, too late.

 

Well, at least people who receive franking credits are happy and Clive Palmer will get his mine.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

It'll recover - particularly when it gets decent rains again. Large areas being burnt by bushfires is all part of the makeup and history of Australia...

 

1T this is probably true of "normal" fires, but many of these weren't. There are limits to the sort of conditions from which the bush can regenerate and these super hot fires might demonstrate that. 

 

Although we see plenty of examples of the bush "recovering" from past fires, the ecosystem is often changed. Across the nation, I've seen dead trees from past fires towering over an understory of weeds.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Hopefully these fires will prompt some attention to the massive subsidies enjoyed by fossil fuels.

 

https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-reach-5-2-trillion-and-29-billion-in-australia-91592/amp/

 

 

[nomadpete]

Great report.

 

Note that it is not produced by either the Green party nor by the Labor party.

 

The IMF and the International Energy Agency don't have anything to gain by pointing out how much we prop up the fossil fuel industries, so I didn't see it as 'fake news'.

 

$29 billion Australian dollars is a lot to spend annually on all our fuels and it all creates a false impression that fossil fuels are CHEAP. They aren't. Otherwise there wouldn't be any need to subsidise them.

 

 

[old man emu]

https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-reach-5-2-trillion-and-29-billion-in-australia-91592/amp/

 

I found this tidbit interesting:

 

Australia ranked below most countries for mortality rate from pollution related illnesses, with the IMF attributing 2.6 deaths per 1,000 in Australia to local air pollution associated with fossil fuels. This is less than half the rate observed in China (5.3 deaths per 1,000) and significantly below Russia (10.0 deaths per 1,000) and the Ukraine (16.0 deaths per 1,000), where little by way of regulation exists to protect people from air pollution.

 

So while there is a hew and cry in Australia for ever stricter controls on the air quality, which includes petrochemical pollutants, it seems a vast part of the rest of the world couldn't give a rat's.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

The report doesn’t identify subsidies, rather, it says we are not pricing in the true cost of pollution. The subsidies so called, don’t exist as money. If we priced the fuel and activities to include the pollution, prices would go up accordingly. The 29 billion in AUSTRALIA would be added to our petrol and electricity bills. Roughly $4000 per annum per family. Good luck getting that  accepted by voters!

 

 

[nomadpete]

But the voters are already paying those subsidies. Just not at the petrol Bowser, or power bill. They pay taxes for the government to pay it for us on the quiet.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

No, no cash changes hands! It would require new cash, from the taxpayer, to make a change. That is why those big countries don’t seem to care, they just can’t afford it. 

 

 

[old man emu]

Imagine if a wool processing company and a weaving company could get a $1Bn subsidy to start up and establish. We'd have the Italians coming here for suit cloth; cosmetics companies coming for lanolin; landscaping companies coming for top soil, and the whole show could be powered by burning the grass seeds and burrs combed from the wool.

 

For another half billion we might even be able to set up clothing manufacturers to make fine wool suits and other garments. Too bad we don't have the water to extend our cotton growing. I'd rather were cotton Y-fronts than bamboo banana slings. Strewth, maybe we could find some way to extract chemicals from coal to make cheap fabric.

 

 

[hihosland]

If we accept that the climate is changeing

 

then the assertions that is due to human activities is either TRUE or FALSE

 

And we can either ACT to correct or IGNORE

 

resulting in a risk matrix of 4 possible outcomes

 

TRUE & ACT   resulting in a livable globe

 

TRUE & IGNORE resulting in a calamity for humanity and other life

 

FALSE & ACT resulting in a livable globe and new industries

 

FALSE & IGNORE resulting in life goes on as before.

 

Whilst this indicates there is a 3 to1 chance of us being OK the other option is so calamitous

 

that I believe we cannot in any conscience take the risk of not acting to reduce human production of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Assuming TRUE means warming is caused by humans, FALSE means warming is a natural cycle.

 

TRUE & ACT   great reduction is standard of living, huge human cost in developing nations, need to adapt anyway. 

 

TRUE & IGNORE need to adapt anyway

 

FALSE & ACT great reduction is standard of living, huge human cost in developing nations, need to adapt anyway. 

 

FALSE & IGNORE need to adapt anyway.

 

 

[octave]

TRUE & ACT   great reduction is standard of living, huge human cost in developing nations, need to adapt anyway. 

 

 

 

There is an assumption here that production of CO2 and standard of living are inextricably linked. Countries that have reduced their dependency on fossil fuels and have increased the use of renewables have not shown a reduction in standard of living as far as I am aware.   As for the developing world as with other technologies they do not necessarily follow the stages of technological development that we have. A country with no trains does not start off with steam trains.  Many developing countries have gone from no (or little) fixed wire telecommunications to mobile and internet.

 

TRUE & IGNORE need to adapt anyway

 

 

 

The cost of adaption increases the further we go down that road.

 

FALSE & ACT great reduction is standard of living, huge human cost in developing nations, need to adapt anyway. 

 

Again I do not buy the notion that decarbonizing means a sudden and dramatic drop in living standards. Perhaps you could offer some examples.

 

FALSE & IGNORE need to adapt anyway.

 

The deniers point of  view.

 

With these scenarios I feel we need to add the dimension of which options allow us to backtrack. If we act needlessly and the economy begins to falter it would perhaps be like a  recession or perhaps even a depression. This is a worst case scenario and whilst no one wants this, it is a situation that has occured before.  Economies thrive then fail then recover. If the economy starts to worsen markedly we can step back from decarbonisation, we can start digging up all the coal we want.

 

So that is the worst case scenario for decarbonisation. 

 

 The worst case scenario for not acting at all is more difficult to recover from.

 

Personally I would rather justify the fast tracking of new cleaner technologies and perhaps a time of economic downturn than the other option.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

A video on the "97% consensus".

 

 

 

 

[pmccarthy]

"Again I do not buy the notion that decarbonizing means a sudden and dramatic drop in living standards. Perhaps you could offer some examples."

 

Octave, I agree with you that we should decarbonize to the extent possible without throwing the world into recession and killing tens of millions of people. The problem is that the suggestions from Greta and her supporters would do just that. The world is heavily, heavily dependent on coal and oil and best estimates for a "safe" transition are 30-50 years. If that is your proposal, I agree. Even then of course, we will still need metallurgical coal to produce iron and would need a new technology to replace plastics with something that is not a by-product of the oil industry. The technical challenges are huge and we don't have a plan at present. Wind power globally produces less than 0.5% of our energy and is unlikely to become significant. 

 

 

[octave]

Wind power globally produces less than 0.5% of our energy and is unlikely to become significant. 

 

Where does that figure come from?

 

"As at July 2018, wind power supplied around 33.5% of Australia's renewable electricity or 7.1% of Australia's total electricity, was sourced from wind power.[3

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Australia#Wind_power

 

The technological  progress in renewables is increasing rapidly as well as the adoption of these technologies.

 

I would agree that at this stage renewables can't do the whole job, very very few people would disagree.  There seems to be a notion amongst renewables alarmists that what is wanted is to immediately shut down  all the power stations. I know of no serious person who proposes that. 

 

The countries that have made the most gains in bringing renewables online and  the most gains in CO2 mitigation are not necessarily horrid places to live, their standards of living have not declined.   

 

 What is it that is happening that you find so alarming?