Reply to: Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn

[pjclarke]

but as for their authoritarian proposed "solutions", they don't even sound good on paper

Example?

[pjclarke]

but Germans don't seem to be getting very far in spite of following "George's advice".

er-hem...

Solar PV has failed in Germany and it will fail in the UK | George Monbiot | Environment | theguardian.com


Ah yes, the Energiewende. Patience, during the transition phase, as nuclear is closed down, coal became the cheaper fuel for generation, temporarily, ironically increasing emissions, but this will reverse as the solar and wind build out ramps up...

[Zero Liability]

Sounds good in theory... to certain people. I can't comment on the science in all its expansive size and since I'm not really qualified to, but as for their authoritarian proposed "solutions", they don't even sound good on paper, and neither do Marxism/socialism, which were exposed as incoherent even at the time the theories were being penned. These people shouldn't get the "it sounds good in theory" "get out of jail free" card. They're narcissists who want authoritarian solutions imposed on the back of what their tea leaf readings tell them. Even more scummy than the people who are just in it for the £££.

[BlasterBates]

"Greenism" is like communism, sounds good in theory but falls flat on it's face when you try it out. George Monbiot might think he has the solutions, but Germans don't seem to be getting very far in spite of following "George's advice".

100 Billion Euros For Nothing! Germany

Electricity bills in Germany are very expensive compared to everyone else.

http://www.renewablesinternational.n...150/537/72469/

...oh and energy poverty is fairly regular topic on national TV discussion shows, so this isn't just a bit of propaganda from "Big Oil", it's like a massive problem they're now trying to tackle.

In the meantime sticking our fingers in our ears and copy-posting the latest bollox from Green intellectual pygmies seems to me um less than productive.

[pjclarke]

We will mitigate, we will adapt and we will suffer.

The proportion in which we will conduct these activities is as yet unknown. The problem is, the mitigate part requires unprecedented intergovernmental co-operation to bring down emissions, and as we saw with Kyoto, the political will is not there ...As the US ducked out of that treaty and it is historically the largest emitter, the Chinese, Indians and the other fast-growing nations ask themselves why should they forgo all that lovely cheap energy?

Changes in individual behaviour, 'lifestyle' changes are worthwhile, but it is only large scale changes in energy, industrial and transport policy at Governmental and intergovernmental level that have the ability to deliver effective mitigation, and judging by the history of the conferences designed to enable that co-operation, well, they've been an irrelevance since Rio onwards.

There is no shortage of technical solutions, for the general reader George Monbiot in his book 'Heat' describes how a 90% cut in UK emissions could be achieved with minor impacts on quality of life. (Any solution that imposes lifestyle changes, that requires a reduction in convenience, or consumerism is not going to fly despite the 'Green Totalitarianism' nonsense), Al Gore did a similar job in his book 'Our Choice'. Then there are the IPCC WG3 reports and special reports on carbon capture etc.

Take cement production, it is a big source of CO2 - as the gas is a by-product of the process, and it requires high temperatures to produce, yet there are perfectly good low-carbon alternatives, but the industry is conservative - no manufacturer will make the switch without an incentive, in reality meaning a financial penalty such as a carbon tax. Or take construction, our houses are unbelievably leaky, it is perfectly possible to build homes in this country that require no central heating, but again, because of conservatism within the industry and no lead from Government, we will carry on getting Barrett houses.

In terms of a financial incentive, cap and trade seems to have failed, but the fee and dividend proposal, where a fee is charged at the point of origin or point of import on greenhouse gas emitting energy, and 100% of it is returned to the public, seems to me more promising...

In the meantime, sticking our fingers in our ears, and copy-pasting the lastest bollox from the antiscientific intellectual pygmies such as Watts and Steve Goddard seems to me, um, less than productive.

[doodab]

I don't think photosynthesis will fly, and it's nothing to do with whether dumping this stuff in the ocean works or not.

In order to balance out CO2 emissions from fossil fuel usage we would need to be storing energy via photosynthesis at about the same rate as we release it from burning fossil fuels. That is somewhere around 14TW. That isn't a huge amount in the grand scheme of things (it's a tiny fraction of the energy delivered by the sun) but photosynthesis isn't terribly efficient so we would need to turn roughly an additional 5% of the earths surface area over to it to make that happen (based on a ~0.4% conversion rate of solar to stored energy, which is what I managed to google up on what biofuels manage). Take out the land and that means we need to use about 7% of the ocean. So that gives us two questions. Do we have 7% of the ocean that is a) suitable and b) currently free of photosynthesizing bacteria that we can use? And what will it cost?

Clearly it won't be cheap, and therein lies the main problem with it IMO. The stored energy ends up at the bottom of the sea. It's not like we would be making fuel we could use, which would offset the cost somewhat.

[doodab]

TBH communicating with you one dreams for memory loss

So you can forget you are talking bollocks? You seem to manage that easily enough....

[DodgyAgent]

.

TBH I am amazed you remember to breathe.

TBH communicating with you one dreams for memory loss

[doodab]

I meant reverse the effect not the process.Do you take everything literally?

Erm, you do realise that photosynthesis stores solar energy as chemical energy by turning CO2 and water into hydrocarbons, which is basically the reverse of burning hydrocarbons to release energy, don't you? So it's actually you that bought up the subject of reversing the process as the best way of dealing with excess CO2.

TBH I am amazed you remember to breathe.

[DodgyAgent]

No you haven't. We're burning (what used to be biomass) that took literally millions of years to grow and for the sake of me winning an argument we are burning it at a faster rate than we can create replacement biomass via photosynthesis.



Oh goody, yet another piece of spurious dodgy bulltulip. It was quite clear in what I said that I'm talking about reversing the process of burning. You really must be quite thick not to have grasped that. Either that or you are simply slinging mud because you've realised your arguments are twaddle.

[DodgyAgent]

No you haven't. We're burning (what used to be biomass) that took literally millions of years to grow and as far as I can tell we are burning it at a faster rate than we can create replacement biomass via photosynthesis.



Oh goody, yet another piece of spurious dodgy bulltulip. It was quite clear in what I said that I'm talking about reversing the process of burning. You really must be quite thick not to have grasped that. Either that or you are simply slinging mud because you've realised your arguments are twaddle.

I meant reverse the effect not the process.Do you take everything literally?

[doodab]

I have already explained how stimulating photosynthesis would reverse the process.

No you haven't. We're burning (what used to be biomass) that took literally millions of years to grow and as far as I can tell we are burning it at a faster rate than we can create replacement biomass via photosynthesis.

I suppose you think that the only way for any sort of technology to work would involve burning something

Oh goody, yet another piece of spurious dodgy bulltulip. It was quite clear in what I said that I'm talking about reversing the process of burning. You really must be quite thick not to have grasped that. Either that or you are simply slinging mud because you've realised your arguments are twaddle.

[EternalOptimist]

I think someone should take that y-axis off pj, before he hurts someone

[DodgyAgent]

How incredibly naive. Why would you think that? The burning of hydrocarbon fuel is incredibly easy and incredibly expensive (in terms of energy) to reverse. That's what makes it so bloody useful and hard to replace in the first place.

I have already explained how stimulating photosynthesis would reverse the process. I suppose you think that the only way for any sort of technology to work would involve burning something

Manager: "OK Doodab how are we going to build an IT system to run our accounts payable?"
Doodab: "Simple, burn a couple of PCs that should do the trick"

[EternalOptimist]

If we can use geo technology to pump CO2 into the atmosphere then it should not be too hard to reverse the process.

why bother. Water vapour is many times more potent than CO2

there is no problem. why propose vastly expensive non solutions to a non problem