<i>irreversible ecological changes </i>
Hmmm...
<b>All</b> of evolution is irreversible.
Comment on Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts by Turbulent Eddie
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Comment on Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts by matthewrmarler
AK, quoting: This represents an unprecedented microbial evolutionary response, as reproductive fitness increases acquired in the selection environment are maintained after returning to the ancestral environment.
How can they possibly know that it is “unprecedented”?
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Comment on Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts by ulriclyons
J.C.:
“There are unfortunately no simple solutions or recipes for these issues.”
Yes there is, I offered to show you key material, but you gave no reply.
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Comment on Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts by Philip Lee
Not entirely; it could be done if the uncertainty were “small enough” to allow reasonable engineering trade studies to be performed. That isn’t possible with climate science at present, so, we have advocates (e.g. AK) talking non-linear chaos means CO2 levels could cause abrupt climate change with no evidence, effectively making the range of costs for climate uncertainty infinite.
When it comes to engineering, climate scientists are on the level of snake oil salesmen.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by Jim D
An overview of the current state of affairs. Long and optimistic article from New York Mag. Reading blogs like this and only listening to the Republican talking points, you miss out on what is really happening in the world.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/sunniest-climate-change-story-ever-read.html
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by jim2
I guess this is better than nothing, but it is a study for Malaysia, a country near the equator.
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Comment on Climate Change, Epistemic Trust, and Expert Trustworthiness by eadler2
Blunderbunny said,
“Have you read the paper in nature that you cite. First things first. It talks about likely effects not actual ones. ”
The observations I quoted in the abstract are actual effects based on weather records.
“Next if we just consider the Sahara as an example this is in the process of shrinking. The Sahel is doing very nicely thank you. It busy going green rather than more arid.”
Tropic areas, type A are increasing slightly moving northward. The largest increase in area of a climate type is the arid type B. The arid areas are moving northward and growing according to the statistics in the article. Pointing at southern areas of the Sahara and Sahel that are greening doesn’t contradict the overall statistics. You are like one of the six blind guys trying to figure out what an elephant looks like.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by jim2
OK, JimD. Are you feeling well?
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Comment on Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts by AK
Yet another purveyor of straw men.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by jim2
Wow! Obviously the powers that be can’t stand any whiff of political neutrality. I hope the freedom fighters can win in court!!
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Comment on Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts by Joseph
decline in population, perhaps as early as 2030, which from an ecological perspective, is more desirable than just changing energy sources because it reduces ALL footprints, not just CO2.
Global population is still predicted to grow to 10 billion by 2050. So that will lead to more demand for energy . I haven’t checked your growth rate figures. so I can’t comment on that.
And more importantly demand will increase, because we have billions of people in poverty and near poverty that we hope to move to lifestyles similar to those in the industrialized nations. I don’t know where you are getting this decrease in demand from.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by matthewrmarler
Jim D: An overview of the current state of affairs.
I sent it to a friend of mine who likes to read that sort of thing. To anyone with some knowledge it’s exaggerated to the point of absurdity.
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Comment on Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts by Turbulent Eddie
Global population is still predicted to grow to 10 billion by 2050.
It depends. It depends upon the assumed fertility rates, which is just about as human a choice as can be made. The High ‘variant’ of UN fertility indicates continuing explosion. The Low ‘variant’ indicates a peak within the next few decades with following declines:
And the trend, anyway, of fertility appears headed toward the low variant, intercepting zero population growth about 2028:
Obviously, declining population reduces not just ‘global warming’, but a whole host of other issues, so population decline is, from an ecological perspective, superior to having increasing population, only with a different energy source.
From an economic perspective, the opposite is true – increasing population fosters economic growth, so there is a tension between the two.
Ultimately, many governments are trying in vain to increase fertility, like Russians and Spaniards paying couples to have children and China lifting the 1-child policy, but these measures don’t seem to work.
So declining population may be a reality regardless of economics or environment.
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Comment on Managing uncertainty in predictions of climate change and impacts by JCH
ACO2 is causing the warming… it’s the control knob. And it’s only going to get worse for you guys. August is around .86C, maybe more.
And why is that bad?
Go to gapminder, look at any of the measures of human well being ( GDP, GDP per person, longevity, literacy, infant mortality, etc. etc. ) and see if you find any correlation with warming that doesn’t indicate benefit, not detriment.
The pause has made fools out of a lot of very intelligent people. Natural variation has been working against warming since around 1985. Your 1.7C is ACO2 overcoming major opposition. Now the tables have turned. Natural variation is accentuating warming. The last 60 months is warming at more than twice the IPCC rate. It’s the PDO. It has not worked to boost warming since it last ramped up 1975 – 1983. We’re in the 1920 to 1940 mode.
The assumption in science is that the AMO and PDO were assisting warming from 1975 forward. Wrong.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by beththeserf
BBC Adjudicator:
Welcome to this weeks program of Q and A. Our
subject tonite is ‘The Road to Paris’ and here with
me a representative panel of experts will discuss
urgent climate policies for a brave new world.
I’ll introduce the panel …Token Medja political
reporter, Hugh Green, token women’s gender issues
and complaints representative, Naomi Wilde. token
academic, contradictions epistemics philosopher,
Paul Appleby, and climate scientist, James Malfuss.
(Sounds of applause.)
BBC A: We’ll start with you, James. Your take on policies?
James Malfuss:
Thanks Tony… Well, as a committed representative of
concerned sillies against climate change I raise the
issue of costs – how much to stop it? I mean we’re
faced with all these doomsday outcomes but the
climate’s still changing, Spring … Summer… Autumn
… Winter, they say April is the cruelest month
!
Look, we’ve spent an estimated $1.5 trillion so far to
reduce CO 2 emissions by about .1 % but to little
avail. We need to spend more. Putting on my
mathematics hat, ( puts it on) …I estimate, let me
see, spend 10 x that amount to make it a 1%
reduction multiplied by 50 comes to … hmm ..
$75 000 000 and 000000… //ZZZ^^#?!!ZZ
Dark screen.
[Unfortunately there’s been a power blackout
due to weather conditions and renewable
technology experiencing some teething problems
so you can only surmise what the other members
of the panel would have had to say.]
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by Canman
That story reminded me of a comment by Steven Rasey on a WUWT post.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/29/getting-energy-from-the-energy-store/#comment-1350844
One metric ton of water (one cubic metre) can store
334 million joules (MJ) = 317,000 BTUs = 93kWh
How how must I lift that ton of water to get that much potential energy?Enthalpy of Fusion (ice) = 334000 J/kg
Enthalpy of Fusion (ice) = 334000 m^2/sec^2
If PotEnergy = mass * g * height
and g = 9.8 m/sec^2height = PE / (m * g) = 34082 m
So, freezing a mass of water during low demand is an “energy storage” equivalent to raising that same mass of water to a pumped storage reservoir 34 KILOMETERS in the sky with near 100% efficiency.[emphasis mine]…
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by sciguy54
As a engineer, its hard to have a conversation about the practicality of proposed green “solutions” when many folks want to BELIEVE so hard that the dumbest stuff will work.
For instance, on September 6, 2015 at 12:38 pm AK proposed this gem relative to concentrator photovoltaics:
“They’re a little behind the curve, but the biggest problem for CSPV is clouds and other atmospheric diffusion.
An option I like is using aluminized plastic film as the concentrator, inside a balloon made from transparent plastic, and flying it in the stratosphere. That avoids clouds as well as most turbulence. Of course, you’d have to do some extensive R&D to make the whole thing light enough, and provide cost-effective anchoring.
But at that height, spread them out a bit and they can be over cropland, wilderness, ocean, just about anything, with little impact.”
So, how do you start a conversation with someone who can’t fathom that four or five Km of cable has a bit of weight and some electrical resistance? And that stratospheric winds can generate huge forces on large tethered objects. And that one must space the anchors (and reels and control systems and inverters) as far apart as the cables are long in order to prevent tangling of the cables. Which then limits you to about one concentrator for every 25 square Km. So in the state of Georgia you would be limited to about 6,000 concentrators to serve 10 million people. And of course you would have to close the world’s busiest airport along with every other airport in the state.
But these are simply details. We have engineers to take care of details.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by Peter Lang
Excellent comment. Unfortunately, AK will not understand it.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by Peter Lang
Jim2,
I suggest the greatest priorities for research funding are:
1. develop and licence small modular reactors – not for the USA market but for small to medium grids elsewhere. This is where all the growth in electricity generation and CO2 emissions will come from in the decades ahead. The potential market is huge for low cost small modular reactors. The key for USA to grab a large slice of this market is to get the costs down and for USA to maintain its technological lead.
2. Research the true impacts of low-level radiation and then, progressively over time, raise the allowable radiation limits and reduce the regulatory impediments that are making nuclear power many times more expensive than is justifiable on a rational and objective analysis of the evidence.
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Comment on Week in review – energy and policy edition by beththeserf
The West has gotta have low cost and efficient energy
to survive. Sensible priorities from Peter Lang.
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