Solar Activity Plays A Significant Role In Global Temps

[Westside Steve]

But as far as the grumbling goes how often do you need to say "harrumph; well of course that's the reality but... "

 

I try to keep in mind that you have a kid and maybe you are worried.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Sorry bud, didn't know you expected more.

You do realize without addressing my points that seems insurmountable the whole thing is like arguing about how the Browns might do next year if Joe Namath was quarterback, right?

Anyway, I think you're wrong about excluding Street and public lighting.

We are a pretty big and spaced out, I mean distance wise, nation.

But if there were a practical way to make public transportation work I'd use it.

How much difference will that make? Who knows?

 

Also another facet of the Pickens Plan, which I like, is windmills out west , or really anywhere.

 

Honestly I can't see the federal prize to a scientist who comes up with an engine that runs on cat pee makink a big splash.

That's going to be a drop in the bucket compared to what Ford would pay but...

Solar panels, it seems, are even less efficient than anything else.

 

WSS

 

What? I didn't say exclude public lighting. I'm saying that you'd get more energy saving by focusing on buildings than lighting. But lighting would be fine with me.

 

But you're sort of missing the point. You have to get something that's international and enforceable. It's not about the Pickens plan or public transportation or solar. (And you may want to look at that graph again.) It's about setting market conditions that are favorable to cleaner energy development, and letting markets figure it out.

[calfoxwc]

Well, a serious dent in emissions?

 

How about getting China and India to clamp down on them?

 

China now admits they have "cancer regions" that have become about via....pollution.

 

That would be far more to the point than whining about cows farting.....

[Legacy Fan]

It's about setting market conditions that are favorable to cleaner energy development, and letting markets figure it out.

How is the economic coma that this scenario creates addressed? This is not an immediate fix. It's slow and likely very painful.

[FairHooker11]

Steve or anyone else want to try to figure out how to make a serious dent in emissions?

 

We always hear about how certain ideas "won't make a dent in the problem." Or how acting alone "won't make a dent in the problem." So what's the solution?

 

 

from an automotive standpoint, the carmakers have had to reduce CO, HC & NOX levels since EPA mandates in the Carter administration. And had strict rules to improve fuel mileage in the process.

 

every new model built here in America and imported from abroad met the guidelines and as a result, cars got cleaner.... with the exception of a certain byproduct that resulted in the otherwise

 

smart technology that goes into todays cars - trucks (non bio fueled diesels aside)

 

more CO2....

 

where they go from here...

 

I agree with Steve and others regarding added taxation from world entities that seek more $ from the USA when we are already acting responsible

 

- getting results, and continue adding valuable technology, unfortunately costing more... is expensive , and we PAY dearly trying to afford a new vehicle.

 

So by and large there has been a hand in hand cooperation between large pollutant contributing carbuilders / owners / users and the EPA in meeting goals....

 

WHY cant the administration see a benefit on many levels when it comes to domestic oil / energy production with a comprehensive green policy especially when it can get paid for by big oil profits?

[VaporTrail]

How is the economic coma that this scenario creates addressed? This is not an immediate fix. It's slow and likely very painful.

 

That's a better alternative than an inevitable global economic market crash/war when we use up all the fossil fuels.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Taxes on fossil based energy would have to be phased in and offset in some way to avoid the economic shock.

[calfoxwc]

the old "well, we need utopia in ...eh...some way" thing?

 

Until we have developed legit alternate engery, declaring Obamao war on coal, for instance, is completely dumbass.

 

And doing something significant like taxing fossil fuels over mmgw here in the U.S. means absolutely nothing

 

to the hideous polution by China and India and the rest.

 

Working to better our environment is good. Pretending we have to tax everything in sight because

 

of a theory is not.

 

Every time the left talks about mmgw, it's really about getting $$$$$$$$ from the control of people.

 

If all the glaciers were growing at a fast rate, and we had perpetual winter all over the world....

 

Jimmy Carter, Al Gorish, ObaMao, and all the rest - would blame it on mmgw theory.

 

I mean, what freakin legit sense did it make, for the Kyoto Treaty to exclude China and India?

 

"It's okay if you lead the way toward climate destruction of the earth if you are a "developing country" ???????

 

That was the end of the stupid Kyoto Treaty right there.

[Westside Steve]

Heck, I think that finding a way to offset the carbon tax will be your main obstacle.

I'm not sure how you are framing the question, are China and India on board or not?

If not, and I can't imagine they would be,, the answer is high tarrifs on sthings we import from them.

 

Now since we can only deal with the federal here you could offset your income tax by deducting your carbon tax.

I can't imagine that would be a 0 sum proposition.

 

For this reason:

There really aren't any logical and cheap and green ways to make most of this stuff, especially compared to fossil fuel energy.

So the prices of these goods could be so much higher that it's not possible to replace it just by using fica.

 

You will have to decide how much of a hit that will be to our current standard of living and decide how to sell that to the US citizens.

 

In my opinion it will be harder to sell that idea to emerging countries who are about to get a chance to play in the big leagues.

 

I'm not really trying to be a detractor but these things will have to be addressed, don't you think?

 

Do you have any concrete idea what we might do to avert the new 4 or 5 your deadline?

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

Heck, I think that finding a way to offset the carbon tax will be your main obstacle.

I'm not sure how you are framing the question, are China and India on board or not?

If not, and I can't imagine they would be,, the answer is high tarrifs on sthings we import from them.

 

Now since we can only deal with the federal here you could offset your income tax by deducting your carbon tax.

I can't imagine that would be a 0 sum proposition.

 

For this reason:

There really aren't any logical and cheap and green ways to make most of this stuff, especially compared to fossil fuel energy.

So the prices of these goods could be so much higher that it's not possible to replace it just by using fica.

 

You will have to decide how much of a hit that will be to our current standard of living and decide how to sell that to the US citizens.

 

In my opinion it will be harder to sell that idea to emerging countries who are about to get a chance to play in the big leagues.

 

I'm not really trying to be a detractor but these things will have to be addressed, don't you think?

 

Do you have any concrete idea what we might do to avert the new 4 or 5 your deadline?

WSS

 

The price of carbon should be an international agreement that will be very hard to negotiate, yes. The alternative is to set output goals and let each country figure out ways to get there. But this has been tried and hasn't worked so far because there's no good way to police or enforce it. Which is why it's probably why it's better to agree on a price for carbon. But that may not get you there either, which is why cap and trade is better. But cap and trade is easier to game than a carbon tax, so maybe carbon pricing is better.

 

And no, it's not going to be zero sum, but you should be able to design it so it's close. Plus, you don't want it to be zero sum necessarily because you want it to alter behavior. There should be a financial advantage for lowering your own output - i.e., not paying the taxes.

 

For instance, the US is lowering their emissions despite a growing economy and population, and it has more to do with our shift to natural gas, which emits less greenhouse gases than oil or coal. There are other reasons, like more green energy production, but the shift to natural gas is the main driver. We could use a combination of strategies to get our emissions down to where they'd fit in an international agreement, but it's also not something other countries are going to be able to do because they're not sitting on vast amounts of natural gas like we are. They'd have to go at it a different way. France, for instance, does nuclear. Germany has dropped nuclear and is heavy into green tech. China i heavy into solar and green energy, but with an eye to the future, while polluting like a mofo now.

 

And I don't know what you're referring to by a 4-5 year deadline. The ice caps melting? That's already gone. You can't turn this stuff around that quickly. If there was a deadline, we already passed it. But every year you wait, the costlier it is, and the harder it gets to fix.

[Westside Steve]

No reason it couldn't be a 0 sum and change behavior.

Theoretically the products made with more carbon output will cost more and just shift buyer to things that would have used less to produce.

 

And I am I incorrect in assuming you don't feel very encouraged about a good result here?

WSS §

[Westside Steve]

By the way, green energy solar panels what have you, China has just surpassed the United States as the world's largest importer of fossil fuel.

WSS

[heckofajobbrownie]

And a lot of is coal we're not using anymore.

[heckofajobbrownie]

No reason it couldn't be a 0 sum and change behavior.

Theoretically the products made with more carbon output will cost more and just shift buyer to things that would have used less to produce.

 

And I am I incorrect in assuming you don't feel very encouraged about a good result here?

WSS §

 

It's an extraordinarily difficult problem to solve. You couldn't draw it up any harder.

 

But this is also why carbon pricing is likely the only way to go. Because it's the only thing you could get everyone to agree to and implement. The problem is that unlike cap and trade there's no cap, so you're basically pricing carbon and making it more expensive and making alternative fuel and energy sources more economically viable, and faster, and then hoping for the best.

 

The reason I showed you that graph of Chinese solar panel prices is that they're pouring lots of money into R&D. (So are we, but at much lower rates.) They've been able to figure out how to do it cheaper than we have. Their cost curve is dropping sharper than ours. This is why Solyndra went bankrupt.

 

But it's still more expensive than coal or oil or gas, and less efficient per unit. But that gap is closing and will one day intersect. Some people think it's about 5-7 years off. But if you want to speed time up one way to do it that's a lot more efficient than direct government subsidy is to the price the pollution from fossil fuels. Make them pay for what they pollute, as opposed to now, where they - and we - get to pump it into the air and the atmosphere at no cost. (Other than climate change, respiratory ailments, cancers, premature deaths, etc.) That will allow cleaner sources to come to market sooner.

 

But since we can't do that, because it's market based and makes too much sense, we've been left to regulate pollution out of the states and the EPA. It's more costly, less efficient, etc. But this is the price we pay for being stupid.

[heckofajobbrownie]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the air jumped dramatically in 2012, making it very unlikely that global warming can be limited to another 2 degrees as many global leaders have hoped, new federal figures show.

 

Scientists say the rise in CO2 reflects the world’s economy revving up and burning more fossil fuels, especially in China.

 

Carbon dioxide levels jumped by 2.67 parts per million since 2011 to total just under 395 parts per million, says Pieter Tans, who leads the greenhouse gas measurement team for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

 

That’s the second highest rise in carbon emissions since record-keeping began in 1959. The measurements are taken from air samples captured away from civilization near a volcano in Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

 

More coal-burning power plants, especially in the developing world, are the main reason emissions keep going up — even as they have declined in the U.S. and other places, in part through conservation and cleaner energy.

 

At the same time, plants and the world’s oceans which normally absorb some carbon dioxide, last year took in less than they do on average, says John Reilly, co-director of Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Plant and ocean absorption of carbon varies naturally year to year.

 

But, Tans tells The Associated Press the major factor is ever-rising fossil fuel burning: “It’s just a testament to human influence being dominant.”

 

Only 1998 had a bigger annual increase in carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas from human activity. That year, 2.93 parts per million of CO2 was added. From 2000 to 2010, the world averaged a yearly rise of just under 2 parts per million. Levels rose by less than 1 part per million in the 1960s.

 

In 2009, the world’s nations agreed on a voluntary goal of limiting global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over pre-industrial temperature levels. Since the mid-1800s temperatures haven already risen about 1.5 degrees. Current pollution trends translate to another 2.5 to 4.5 degrees of warming within the next several decades, Reilly says.

 

“The prospects of keeping climate change below that (2-degree goal) are fading away,” Tans says.

Scientists track carbon pollution both by monitoring what comes out of factories and what winds up in the atmosphere. Both are rising at rates faster than worst-case scenarios that climate scientists used in their most recent international projections, according to Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann.

 

That means harmful effects of climate change will happen sooner, Mann says.

[calfoxwc]

So, co2 is going up, even though we went with hard coal decades ago, and have nuclear energy, and etc etc etc etc.

 

Still not one word about the destruction of millions and millions and millions of acres of the virgin rain forests.

 

I wonder why...

 

Oh, yeah. Because it doesn't give emphasis on higher taxes and more political control.

 

"yawn"

[heckofajobbrownie]

It comes in every day:

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study looking at 11,000 years of climate temperatures shows the world in the middle of a dramatic U-turn, lurching from near-record cooling to a heat spike.

 

Research released Thursday in the journal Science uses fossils of tiny marine organisms to reconstruct global temperatures back to the end of the last ice age. It shows how the globe for several thousands of years was cooling until an unprecedented reversal in the 20th century.

 

Scientists say it is further evidence that modern-day global warming isn't natural, but the result of rising carbon dioxide emissions that have rapidly grown since the Industrial Revolution began roughly 250 years ago.

 

The decade of 1900 to 1910 was one of the coolest in the past 11,300 years — cooler than 95 percent of the other years, the marine fossil data suggest. Yet 100 years later, the decade of 2000 to 2010 was one of the warmest, said study lead author Shaun Marcott of Oregon State University. Global thermometer records only go back to 1880, and those show the last decade was the hottest for this more recent time period.

[heckofajobbrownie]

Now look at the temperature graph:

 

 

...Any questions?

[calfoxwc]

yes. The ice age melted during a hell of a spike.

 

so, spikes happen, and have happened before in ancient history.

 

Before mankind.

 

Before mankind made factories.

 

Although, dinosaurs still farted...... it

 

doesn't mean mmgw.

[calfoxwc]

Seen this?

 

http://www.upnorthlive.com/news/story.aspx?id=869453#.UTqZ3taG2Sr

[calfoxwc]

See? Any questions?

 

[heckofajobbrownie]

Might sound familiar.

 

My link

[MLD Woody]

http://www.ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/videos/21262-two-thirds-of-americans-now-believe-global-warming-is-real

 

 

"Among the shrinking percentage of Americans who doubt global warming's existence, there appears to be both a decreased impact of personal experiences on their views on this subject and an increased prominence for personal religious and political factors in the determination of their doubts."

 

Makes sense

[DieHardBrownsFan]

http://www.ns.umich....warming-is-real

 

 

"Among the shrinking percentage of Americans who doubt global warming's existence, there appears to be both a decreased impact of personal experiences on their views on this subject and an increased prominence for personal religious and political factors in the determination of their doubts."

 

Makes sense

 

Like I said, I find it hard to believe that woody is an engineering student. Sound like some 7th grade punk.

[MLD Woody]

Like I said, I find it hard to believe that woody is an engineering student. Sound like some 7th grade punk.

 

And again you have yet to exactly explain why

 

 

 

Also, literally the only words of mine in the post are "Makes sense"

 

 

 

Troll gonna troll?

[DieHardBrownsFan]

And again you have yet to exactly explain why

 

 

 

Also, literally the only words of mine in the post are "Makes sense"

 

 

 

Troll gonna troll?

 

Grow up kid. You haven't even lived yet.

[MLD Woody]

Grow up kid. You haven't even lived yet.

 

 

and troll

 

 

aren't you a little old for that?

[heckofajobbrownie]

Dear God:

 

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) said you can have "an honest difference of opinion" of what's causing climate change without "automatically being either all in that's all because of mankind or it's all just natural," BuzzFeed reports.

 

Barton then cited the biblical Great Flood as an example.

 

"I would point out that if you're a believer in in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn't because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy."

 

Barton is chair emeritus on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and serves on the House Subcommittees on Energy and Power and on Environment and Economy.

[VaporTrail]

...the fuck

[MLD Woody]

I was listening to conservative christian talk radio on the way home from work... my god. I learned so much

 

 

If you are in the military it is better for you to become a more devote christian and you will become more patriotic, etc etc

But if you are in the military and become a more devote mulsim it is bad for america and you become more dangerous

 

When the rapture happens we are bones because so much of our army will disappear

 

I listened to a commercial about a guy that was gay, but thanks to God and this radio station he was able to be cured

 

I listened to some medical christian group ad where this lady thanked God for sparing her husband when he was in the hospital. She also credited the representative for praying with her on the phone and that was her reason for we he was "saved"

 

I learned owning a gun is a god given right

 

Then i learned about all of the horrible stuff gay marriage will do and why "natural" marriage is the only way

 

 

 

Really I can't believe this is a sizable portion of America.