Climate Change - the big debate
Discussion
Prof Prolapse said:
don4l said:
Prof Prolapse said:
Heat/Energy/Photons/whatever are emitted by a cold layer in all directions. It is inevitable that some of these will radiation back and be absorbed by a warmer layer/ground. (Unless the quantum bulls
t mechanism rears it's head again!).
You can do a little experiment to check if this is true.t mechanism rears it's head again!).All you need is a reading lamp, a sheet of white paper and a mirror!
Use the lamp to illuminate the paper. Hold the mirror above the brightly lit paper and reflect the photons back onto the paper (making sure that the lamp is not directly illuminating the mirror).
Does the paper get brighter? Why not? After all, these photons are the same as the ones, apart from their frequency, as the ones that you claim "radiation back and be absorbed by a warmer layer/ground".
Don
--
Which is probably why just about every torch and car headlamp has reflective backing behind the source of light.
Next?
Also if in the actual situation described (with shileding) it looks brighter, then back-radiation has been reflected (by the paper, or in your example, the material behind the source) and not absorbed. Are you saying that the localised emission groundwards from a cooler atmospheric layer at altitude is reflected back by the warmer lower layer and not absorbed? No heating of the lower layer in that case. You seem to think the analogy works and makes your point but it doesn't.
These analogies - not really helpful, we might as well stick to the atmosphere, it's what the discussion is about.
Shamelessly stolen from this thread:
Nuclear Power
Original post from rhinochopig:
Have a read of this chaps - it's not perfect, but it's a reasonable summary. Taken from here http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4092
Let's have a seat at Homer Simpson's control panel, chow down on some donuts, and nap away into oblivion while blinking lights and buzzers warn of impending doom and that glowing green bar of uranium that fell into our trousers. Today we're going to examine the popular notions about nuclear power. Specifically, if xenophobia had not killed nuclear power in the United States in the late 1970's, there's a good chance that we'd have all been driving electric cars for the past 20 years; and uncounted billions of tons of carbon dioxide would never been sucked out of the ground, burned in power plants, and exhausted into our atmosphere.
So let's state the obvious. The immediate reaction to that statement is "OK, that may be true, but look at all the new problems we'd have created with Chernobyl-type disasters and lethal nuclear waste." Fair enough, and important questions, to be sure. Let's start with a quick primer on the various types of nuclear reactors.
So-called Generation I reactors were the early prototypes developed by many nations, and actually placed into production in a few cases. Generation I reactors were characterized by fundamentally unsafe designs, and kludged layers of afterthought safety systems. When most nuclear nations began deploying commercial reactors, they were usually of Generation II design. Generation II reactors were significantly improved, but these changes were primarily evolutionary. Most of the commercial plants in operation in the United States are Generation II designs. A little over ten years ago, Generation III designs began appearing in some of the world's most advanced nuclear nations. Generation III reactors incorporate not only evolutionary improvements, but also revolutionary changes such as fuel cycles that result in much less nuclear waste; reduced capacity for the creation of weapons-grade plutonium; and passive safety designs wherein the reaction cannot be sustained in the event of a problem and the system effectively shuts itself down, by virtue of its basic design. The newest plants being designed for commercial use are called Generation III+, which incorporate all the newest knowledge from operating Generation III designs. If a new reactor was approved and built in the United States today, it would be a Generation III+ design. Even if every plant employee keeled over with a heart attack, neither a Chernobyl nor a Three Mile Island type accident would be possible; the systems are fundamentally redesigned so that the reaction cannot be sustained if things go outside the parameters.
The Idaho National Laboratory is the United States' primary advanced reactor research facility, and they've outlined six new reactor types to be developed for Generation IV. The designs take everything to a new level: Lower cost, safer designs, near-total elimination of nuclear waste, and reduced risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. There are also Generation V reactors in the ether, but these are primarily the domain of late-night rumination sessions at the lab, fueled by tequila and pot.
Then there's fusion power, which is everyone's ultimate goal. Fusion reactors have the profound advantages of using simple tritium or deuterium for fuel, producing no significant waste, and absolute safety since if anything goes even slightly off-kilter, the plasma disappears and you have no reaction. It's the ultimate in cheap, clean, safe, renewable energy, despite gross misunderstandings of the technology expressed by Greenpeace and other factions. The first operational tokamak fusion reactor for research is being built by the international ITER consortium in France and is expected to come online in 2016.
So you can probably guess that Three Mile Island was probably not the newest and safest design, and you'd be right. It was a Generation II design. It was the first and only significant nuclear accident in American history. A broken valve caused coolant to leak into a containment facility designed for that purpose, raising the temperature of the core and causing a partial meltdown. Despite significant confusion on the part of the operators (this being their first experience with an accident), and a somewhat lengthy chain of errors and misunderstandings, everything eventually worked out just as it should. There were no deaths or injuries, and despite 25,000 people living within five miles of the plant, nobody was exposed to any radiation worse than a single chest x-ray. All the studies predict zero cases of future cancer, despite ongoing lawsuits that the courts continue to find to be without merit. With proper perspective, Three Mile Island can (and should) be characterized as a shining example of how well the safety systems work, even in the face of human error and old-fashioned reactor design.
But that's not the way it was perceived. By an unfortunate coincidence, Jane Fonda's movie The China Syndrome about a nuclear accident came out only twelve days before Three Mile Island. The Cold War with Brezhnev was in full force and the words "nuclear accident" were simply too much for a scientifically uninformed public. Three Mile Island became the first nail in the coffin of American nuclear power.
Seven years later in 1986, things got much worse. Chernobyl was suffering from inadequate funding. Much basic maintenance had never been performed. It had only a skeleton crew, nearly all of whom were untrained workers from the local coal mine. The only manager with nuclear plant experience had been a worker installing small reactors on board Soviet submarines. Some genius decided to run a risky test of a type that no experienced nuclear engineer would ever gamble on. The test was to shut down the water pumps, which must run constantly in that type of reactor; and then find out whether the turbines, spinning on their momentum alone, had enough energy to restart and run the pumps during the forty-second delay before the backup diesel generators would kick in. The test was so risky that one faction within the plant deliberately disconnected some backup systems, trying to make the test too dangerous to attempt. The test was run anyway. It didn't work, the pumps couldn't keep up, the graphite core caught fire, the coal miners couldn't find any shovels so they didn't know what to do, and the reactor exploded. If you think I'm exaggerating this, there are extensive resources both online and in print, if you really want the hairy truth. In this short space I'm probably not even giving you ten percent of what a travesty this was — I'm tempted to call it a joke but it's so not funny. For example, they scheduled this right in the middle of a shift change, and the new workers coming in didn't even know what was going on.
Two people died that day, and some 30 to 60 people were dead within three months. Predictions of eventual cancer deaths caused by the radiation run from 1,000 to 4,000. And, of course, the damage to the local environment is extensive and difficult to estimate. The terror of a radiation cloud blowing across Europe was the second nail in the coffin of American nuclear power.
Not only was Chernobyl a monumental failure of the human element, the plant was a Generation I design, specifically an RBMK reactor, which is generally regarded as the least safe reactor type ever built. One design flaw is that the core used combustible graphite, and this distinction is the main reason that Chernobyl-type disasters are not possible in most reactors around the world. Only a very few Generation I designs are still in use, all in the former Soviet Union, and all have been retrofitted with improvements intended to prevent this type of accident. Other nations have long been lobbying for the closure of these reactors, and rightfully so.
How do the dangers of nuclear energy compare to the dangers of fossil fuel energy? A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that some 50,000-100,000 Americans die each year from lung cancer caused by particulate air pollution, the biggest cause of which is coal-burning power plants in the midwest and east. Even taking the maximum predicted death toll from Chernobyl, we would need a Chernobyl-sized accident every three weeks to make nuclear power as deadly as coal and oil already is. Shall I repeat that? If the world was filled with Generation I reactors run by feuding coal miners, we would need a worst-case scenario every three weeks just to match the US death toll we've imposed upon ourselves by clinging to our current fossil fuel system. Next time you see a hippie cheering the defeat of nuclear power in the US, realize that a healthy environment and saving lives are clearly not their priorities.
Well, maybe to them it's more about the future of the planet than about saving lives today. Maybe they just don't want to see high-level nuclear waste created that's going to poison the planet for tens of thousands of years. I can see that. But here's the problem with that logic: The plants we're designing now produce less waste than ever. Some on the drawing board produce none at all. We've already created most of the waste that we ever will. It already exists. It's out there. Lobbying against future cleaner plants won't make the existing waste go away. It's out there now in temporary facilities in neighborhoods all across the country, way more vulnerable than it would be in proper permanent storage in Yucca Mountain.
Opponents say that Yucca Mountain is geologically unstable or otherwise too hazardous, so the waste might leak out. Well, trust me: The location of the Yucca Mountain site was one of the most lengthy and expensive decisions the government ever made. What do you think they were doing with all that time and money, picking their noses? Well, it was a government program, so a large part of the time and budget probably was spent on nose mining. Nevertheless, this was one of the most scrutinized decisions ever made. Environmentally speaking it's as good a site as we could hope for. If you're concerned about it, go to a neutral and reliable source and research it personally. From every scrap of reason I can muster, environmentalists should be Yucca Mountain's #1 fans. I can't imagine why they prefer to leave the waste out where it is now, unless they are driven more by ideology than by science. Who would have thought that?
There is a safe and clean solution to our energy crisis, gasoline prices, and global warming. It's the latest generation nuclear reactor.
Nuclear Power
Original post from rhinochopig:
Have a read of this chaps - it's not perfect, but it's a reasonable summary. Taken from here http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4092
Let's have a seat at Homer Simpson's control panel, chow down on some donuts, and nap away into oblivion while blinking lights and buzzers warn of impending doom and that glowing green bar of uranium that fell into our trousers. Today we're going to examine the popular notions about nuclear power. Specifically, if xenophobia had not killed nuclear power in the United States in the late 1970's, there's a good chance that we'd have all been driving electric cars for the past 20 years; and uncounted billions of tons of carbon dioxide would never been sucked out of the ground, burned in power plants, and exhausted into our atmosphere.
So let's state the obvious. The immediate reaction to that statement is "OK, that may be true, but look at all the new problems we'd have created with Chernobyl-type disasters and lethal nuclear waste." Fair enough, and important questions, to be sure. Let's start with a quick primer on the various types of nuclear reactors.
So-called Generation I reactors were the early prototypes developed by many nations, and actually placed into production in a few cases. Generation I reactors were characterized by fundamentally unsafe designs, and kludged layers of afterthought safety systems. When most nuclear nations began deploying commercial reactors, they were usually of Generation II design. Generation II reactors were significantly improved, but these changes were primarily evolutionary. Most of the commercial plants in operation in the United States are Generation II designs. A little over ten years ago, Generation III designs began appearing in some of the world's most advanced nuclear nations. Generation III reactors incorporate not only evolutionary improvements, but also revolutionary changes such as fuel cycles that result in much less nuclear waste; reduced capacity for the creation of weapons-grade plutonium; and passive safety designs wherein the reaction cannot be sustained in the event of a problem and the system effectively shuts itself down, by virtue of its basic design. The newest plants being designed for commercial use are called Generation III+, which incorporate all the newest knowledge from operating Generation III designs. If a new reactor was approved and built in the United States today, it would be a Generation III+ design. Even if every plant employee keeled over with a heart attack, neither a Chernobyl nor a Three Mile Island type accident would be possible; the systems are fundamentally redesigned so that the reaction cannot be sustained if things go outside the parameters.
The Idaho National Laboratory is the United States' primary advanced reactor research facility, and they've outlined six new reactor types to be developed for Generation IV. The designs take everything to a new level: Lower cost, safer designs, near-total elimination of nuclear waste, and reduced risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. There are also Generation V reactors in the ether, but these are primarily the domain of late-night rumination sessions at the lab, fueled by tequila and pot.
Then there's fusion power, which is everyone's ultimate goal. Fusion reactors have the profound advantages of using simple tritium or deuterium for fuel, producing no significant waste, and absolute safety since if anything goes even slightly off-kilter, the plasma disappears and you have no reaction. It's the ultimate in cheap, clean, safe, renewable energy, despite gross misunderstandings of the technology expressed by Greenpeace and other factions. The first operational tokamak fusion reactor for research is being built by the international ITER consortium in France and is expected to come online in 2016.
So you can probably guess that Three Mile Island was probably not the newest and safest design, and you'd be right. It was a Generation II design. It was the first and only significant nuclear accident in American history. A broken valve caused coolant to leak into a containment facility designed for that purpose, raising the temperature of the core and causing a partial meltdown. Despite significant confusion on the part of the operators (this being their first experience with an accident), and a somewhat lengthy chain of errors and misunderstandings, everything eventually worked out just as it should. There were no deaths or injuries, and despite 25,000 people living within five miles of the plant, nobody was exposed to any radiation worse than a single chest x-ray. All the studies predict zero cases of future cancer, despite ongoing lawsuits that the courts continue to find to be without merit. With proper perspective, Three Mile Island can (and should) be characterized as a shining example of how well the safety systems work, even in the face of human error and old-fashioned reactor design.
But that's not the way it was perceived. By an unfortunate coincidence, Jane Fonda's movie The China Syndrome about a nuclear accident came out only twelve days before Three Mile Island. The Cold War with Brezhnev was in full force and the words "nuclear accident" were simply too much for a scientifically uninformed public. Three Mile Island became the first nail in the coffin of American nuclear power.
Seven years later in 1986, things got much worse. Chernobyl was suffering from inadequate funding. Much basic maintenance had never been performed. It had only a skeleton crew, nearly all of whom were untrained workers from the local coal mine. The only manager with nuclear plant experience had been a worker installing small reactors on board Soviet submarines. Some genius decided to run a risky test of a type that no experienced nuclear engineer would ever gamble on. The test was to shut down the water pumps, which must run constantly in that type of reactor; and then find out whether the turbines, spinning on their momentum alone, had enough energy to restart and run the pumps during the forty-second delay before the backup diesel generators would kick in. The test was so risky that one faction within the plant deliberately disconnected some backup systems, trying to make the test too dangerous to attempt. The test was run anyway. It didn't work, the pumps couldn't keep up, the graphite core caught fire, the coal miners couldn't find any shovels so they didn't know what to do, and the reactor exploded. If you think I'm exaggerating this, there are extensive resources both online and in print, if you really want the hairy truth. In this short space I'm probably not even giving you ten percent of what a travesty this was — I'm tempted to call it a joke but it's so not funny. For example, they scheduled this right in the middle of a shift change, and the new workers coming in didn't even know what was going on.
Two people died that day, and some 30 to 60 people were dead within three months. Predictions of eventual cancer deaths caused by the radiation run from 1,000 to 4,000. And, of course, the damage to the local environment is extensive and difficult to estimate. The terror of a radiation cloud blowing across Europe was the second nail in the coffin of American nuclear power.
Not only was Chernobyl a monumental failure of the human element, the plant was a Generation I design, specifically an RBMK reactor, which is generally regarded as the least safe reactor type ever built. One design flaw is that the core used combustible graphite, and this distinction is the main reason that Chernobyl-type disasters are not possible in most reactors around the world. Only a very few Generation I designs are still in use, all in the former Soviet Union, and all have been retrofitted with improvements intended to prevent this type of accident. Other nations have long been lobbying for the closure of these reactors, and rightfully so.
How do the dangers of nuclear energy compare to the dangers of fossil fuel energy? A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that some 50,000-100,000 Americans die each year from lung cancer caused by particulate air pollution, the biggest cause of which is coal-burning power plants in the midwest and east. Even taking the maximum predicted death toll from Chernobyl, we would need a Chernobyl-sized accident every three weeks to make nuclear power as deadly as coal and oil already is. Shall I repeat that? If the world was filled with Generation I reactors run by feuding coal miners, we would need a worst-case scenario every three weeks just to match the US death toll we've imposed upon ourselves by clinging to our current fossil fuel system. Next time you see a hippie cheering the defeat of nuclear power in the US, realize that a healthy environment and saving lives are clearly not their priorities.
Well, maybe to them it's more about the future of the planet than about saving lives today. Maybe they just don't want to see high-level nuclear waste created that's going to poison the planet for tens of thousands of years. I can see that. But here's the problem with that logic: The plants we're designing now produce less waste than ever. Some on the drawing board produce none at all. We've already created most of the waste that we ever will. It already exists. It's out there. Lobbying against future cleaner plants won't make the existing waste go away. It's out there now in temporary facilities in neighborhoods all across the country, way more vulnerable than it would be in proper permanent storage in Yucca Mountain.
Opponents say that Yucca Mountain is geologically unstable or otherwise too hazardous, so the waste might leak out. Well, trust me: The location of the Yucca Mountain site was one of the most lengthy and expensive decisions the government ever made. What do you think they were doing with all that time and money, picking their noses? Well, it was a government program, so a large part of the time and budget probably was spent on nose mining. Nevertheless, this was one of the most scrutinized decisions ever made. Environmentally speaking it's as good a site as we could hope for. If you're concerned about it, go to a neutral and reliable source and research it personally. From every scrap of reason I can muster, environmentalists should be Yucca Mountain's #1 fans. I can't imagine why they prefer to leave the waste out where it is now, unless they are driven more by ideology than by science. Who would have thought that?
There is a safe and clean solution to our energy crisis, gasoline prices, and global warming. It's the latest generation nuclear reactor.
Prof Prolapse said:
Ali G said:
don4l said:
Prof Prolapse said:
Heat/Energy/Photons/whatever are emitted by a cold layer in all directions. It is inevitable that some of these will radiation back and be absorbed by a warmer layer/ground. (Unless the quantum bullst mechanism rears it's head again!).
You can do a little experiment to check if this is true.t mechanism rears it's head again!).All you need is a reading lamp, a sheet of white paper and a mirror!
Use the lamp to illuminate the paper. Hold the mirror above the brightly lit paper and reflect the photons back onto the paper (making sure that the lamp is not directly illuminating the mirror).
Does the paper get brighter? Why not? After all, these photons are the same as the ones, apart from their frequency, as the ones that you claim "radiation back and be absorbed by a warmer layer/ground".
Don
--
If the mechanism proposed is that there is a bulk transfer of heat from the colder layer to the warmer layer whereby the cooler layer becomes cooler and the warmer layer becomes wrmer, then this would be a complete nonsense.
It's a classic example of baffling people with bulls
t. The warming is, of course, provided by the sun. Which is significantly warmer than the planet. So no issue with the 2nd law. As I keep saying the greenhouse gas theory no more violates the 2nd law than your actual greenhouse does.
ZesPak said:
Original post from rhinochopig:
Have a read of this chaps - it's not perfect, but it's a reasonable summary. Taken from here http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4092
A very good summary. Have a read of this chaps - it's not perfect, but it's a reasonable summary. Taken from here http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4092
I was very against nuclear power twenty-something years ago. The reactors were not that safe, the dangerous waste was a problem, and the governments were using them to produce weapons.
But I know a bit about the science, and Chernobyl was a farce. A reactor of that design would not have been allowed in the West at the time, the Russians were near enough bankrupt, and people who didn't know what they were doing were performing a test that, though on paper might work, the designers had put systems in place to prevent (these systems were subverted or disabled).
Compared to global war over oil, or the laughable windmills, we should just build enough modern design nuclear reactors to meet our needs.
grumbledoak said:
ZesPak said:
Original post from rhinochopig:
Have a read of this chaps - it's not perfect, but it's a reasonable summary. Taken from here http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4092
A very good summary. Have a read of this chaps - it's not perfect, but it's a reasonable summary. Taken from here http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4092
I was very against nuclear power twenty-something years ago. The reactors were not that safe, the dangerous waste was a problem, and the governments were using them to produce weapons.
But I know a bit about the science, and Chernobyl was a farce. A reactor of that design would not have been allowed in the West at the time, the Russians were near enough bankrupt, and people who didn't know what they were doing were performing a test that, though on paper might work, the designers had put systems in place to prevent (these systems were subverted or disabled).
Compared to global war over oil, or the laughable windmills, we should just build enough modern design nuclear reactors to meet our needs.
What's the availability of uranium these days?
Ali G said:
Quite agree - and it should really be the modern western countries who do it, since we are in the best position to do it most safely and will in any case suffer the consequences of dodgy one going into meltdown in some God forsaken part of the world.
What's the availability of uranium these days?
As good as it's ever been, i.e. the current mined reserves will last about 30 years. This is more or less the same as it was in the late 1960s. The mining companies don't bother doing serious analysis further than that so data doesn't exist. Statistically there's plenty more out there in the ground, and if the price rises significantly it can be extracted from seawater!What's the availability of uranium these days?
Edited by hidetheelephants on Thursday 18th November 15:42
A recent quote, or should that be hot air, with similar from the past following it. Just to remind us all what this junk'n'gigo is all about, as if we could forget since even from this small sample the scam has been afoot for at least 10 years and we know it's much longer.
First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.
Ottmar Edenhofer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.
Emma Brindal, Friends of the Earth, 2007
Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.
Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister, 2002
Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.
former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom, 2000
First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.
Ottmar Edenhofer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.
Emma Brindal, Friends of the Earth, 2007
Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.
Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister, 2002
Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.
former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom, 2000
turbobloke said:
A recent quote, or should that be hot air, with similar from the past following it. Just to remind us all what this junk'n'gigo is all about, as if we could forget since even from this small sample the scam has been afoot for at least 10 years and we know it's much longer.
First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.
Ottmar Edenhofer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.
Emma Brindal, Friends of the Earth, 2007
Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.
Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister, 2002
Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.
former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom, 2000
Presumably this means we should offer Arthur Scargill a knighthood for services to the environment then?First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.
Ottmar Edenhofer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.
Emma Brindal, Friends of the Earth, 2007
Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.
Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister, 2002
Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.
former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom, 2000
hidetheelephants said:
turbobloke said:
A recent quote, or should that be hot air, with similar from the past following it. Just to remind us all what this junk'n'gigo is all about, as if we could forget since even from this small sample the scam has been afoot for at least 10 years and we know it's much longer.
First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.
Ottmar Edenhofer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.
Emma Brindal, Friends of the Earth, 2007
Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.
Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister, 2002
Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.
former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom, 2000
Presumably this means we should offer Arthur Scargill a knighthood for services to the environment then?First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.
Ottmar Edenhofer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources.
Emma Brindal, Friends of the Earth, 2007
Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.
Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister, 2002
Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.
former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom, 2000
Its always been about politics and not the science.
After seeing more WWF polar bear ecohype on cable yesterday, now more amusing than anything else, today had ITV telling us that floods are due to global warming. When did journalists stop doing research on the items they cover? A couple of inches of rain and it's tax gas armageddon - unfortunately the facts don't stack up as per polar bears. As one single episode seems to rule the airwaves each time around why not quote Lynmouth 1952 when 9 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, according to ITV that's "proof" that more tax gas means less flooding and that the atmosphere must be cooling. Obvious really it's all so simple even a broadcaster can understand it.
J. I. Barredo 'Normalized Flood Losses in Europe: 1970-2006' in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences: "Following the conceptual approach of previous studies, we normalised flood losses by considering the effects of changes in population, wealth, and inflation at the country level. Furthermore, we removed inter-country price differences by adjusting the losses for purchasing power parities (PPP). We assessed normalised flood losses in 31 European countries. These include the member states of the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Results show no detectable sign of human-induced climate change in normalised flood losses in Europe....These results indicate that changes in population, inflation and per capita real wealth are the main factors contributing to the increase of the original raw losses. After filtering their influence there remains no evident signal suggesting any influence of anthropogenic climate change on the trend of flood losses in Europe during the assessed period."
Episodes of increased flooding occurrence have been identified in geological records ca. 11220, 5790, 4900, 4580, 3600, 2790, 2610, 2340, 2010, 1350, 720, & 630 years ago (Macklin et. al., 2005).
Global Death Toll From Extreme Weather Events Declining
So carbon dioxide emissions must be making us all safer, thank Gaia for that.
J. I. Barredo 'Normalized Flood Losses in Europe: 1970-2006' in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences: "Following the conceptual approach of previous studies, we normalised flood losses by considering the effects of changes in population, wealth, and inflation at the country level. Furthermore, we removed inter-country price differences by adjusting the losses for purchasing power parities (PPP). We assessed normalised flood losses in 31 European countries. These include the member states of the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Results show no detectable sign of human-induced climate change in normalised flood losses in Europe....These results indicate that changes in population, inflation and per capita real wealth are the main factors contributing to the increase of the original raw losses. After filtering their influence there remains no evident signal suggesting any influence of anthropogenic climate change on the trend of flood losses in Europe during the assessed period."
Episodes of increased flooding occurrence have been identified in geological records ca. 11220, 5790, 4900, 4580, 3600, 2790, 2610, 2340, 2010, 1350, 720, & 630 years ago (Macklin et. al., 2005).
Global Death Toll From Extreme Weather Events Declining
So carbon dioxide emissions must be making us all safer, thank Gaia for that.
kerplunk said:
JMGS4 said:
Concrete bases for a 36m high tower... works out by my maths... or didn't you ever do any?
Windage x height x weight = ?????
it's just from here <pats belly> Windage x height x weight = ?????
Edited by JMGS4 on Friday 19th November 07:55
More (brief) comment on the scientific environmentalism cockeyed submarxist drivel from the IPCC with a transcript of the recent drivelling.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/11...
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/11...
turbobloke said:
More (brief) comment on the scientific environmentalism cockeyed submarxist drivel from the IPCC with a transcript of the recent drivelling.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/11...
And yet the media still swallow and propogate the whole thing, hok, line and sinker!http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/11...
Ali G said:
Prof Prolapse said:
Ali G said:
don4l said:
Prof Prolapse said:
Heat/Energy/Photons/whatever are emitted by a cold layer in all directions. It is inevitable that some of these will radiation back and be absorbed by a warmer layer/ground. (Unless the quantum bullst mechanism rears it's head again!).
You can do a little experiment to check if this is true.t mechanism rears it's head again!).All you need is a reading lamp, a sheet of white paper and a mirror!
Use the lamp to illuminate the paper. Hold the mirror above the brightly lit paper and reflect the photons back onto the paper (making sure that the lamp is not directly illuminating the mirror).
Does the paper get brighter? Why not? After all, these photons are the same as the ones, apart from their frequency, as the ones that you claim "radiation back and be absorbed by a warmer layer/ground".
Don
--
If the mechanism proposed is that there is a bulk transfer of heat from the colder layer to the warmer layer whereby the cooler layer becomes cooler and the warmer layer becomes wrmer, then this would be a complete nonsense.
It's a classic example of baffling people with bulls
t. The warming is, of course, provided by the sun. Which is significantly warmer than the planet. So no issue with the 2nd law. As I keep saying the greenhouse gas theory no more violates the 2nd law than your actual greenhouse does.
turbobloke said:
Are you saying that the localised emission groundwards from a cooler atmospheric layer at altitude is reflected back by the warmer lower layer and not absorbed? No heating of the lower layer in that case. You seem to think the analogy works and makes your point but it doesn't.
These analogies - not really helpful, we might as well stick to the atmosphere, it's what the discussion is about.
I paid the analogy as much attention as it deserved and yes I agree I skipped a bit in my attempts to try and understand what on Earth the point was. Of course didn't think he had proven the greenhouse gas theory with lightbulbs and paper. Anyway for once I agree with Turbobloke the analogies seem to make things more complicated. These analogies - not really helpful, we might as well stick to the atmosphere, it's what the discussion is about.
Absorbed and re-emitted. Not reflected.
If the "external work" being done by the sun the whole time then the temperature will rise in the layers beneath the greenhouse gases.
However the layer above the greenhouse gases will, of course, get cooler.
s2art said:
Prof Prolapse said:
However the layer above the greenhouse gases will, of course, get cooler.
?? Do you mean water vapour? Even that gets very high albeit most condenses out.You would expect the region above the layer at which the greenhouse gases accumulate to show a slight, but measurable reduction in temperature though, proportional to the CO2 increase. I believe this is known as the mesophere?
And if you read this review summary they claim:
"Negative trends are recognized in the lower and middle mesosphere with amplitudes of a few degrees per decade. This is similar to the trends obtained with numerical simulations of the doubled-CO2 scenario."
http://www.agu.org/journals/rg/rg0304/2002RG000121...
Found this as well:
http://www.wunderground.com/education/strato_cooli...
ETA: They claim:
"The observed cooling of the upper atmosphere in recent decades is strong evidence that the warming at Earth's surface is due to human-emitted greenhouse gases. It should also give us additional confidence in the climate models, since they predicted that this upper atmospheric cooling would occur."
Edited by Prof Prolapse on Friday 19th November 14:01
The amount of stratospheric cooling projected by models is wrong though most get the direction right re. observed cooling. If the notion of cooling is seen as a major triumph it's a call made quite well by tossing a coin as well as a gigo'd supercomputer, and the matter of cause and effect is still totally missing. The stratosphere is affected by solar activity and its own chemistry. No cause and effect, so no manmadeup cooling either. Presumably as there are no politically correct permanent inhabitants of the stratosphere, this won't affect the environ mental science redistribution of wealth too much anyway.
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