Yes, indeed. All you need to do now is take the next logical step, which is to acknowledge that pushing a greenhouse gas into the atmosphere in volumes not seen for the last 425,000 years is probably a pretty dumb thing to do.
So if my carbon footprint is very small compared to the overall problem, I should be able to burn my garbage right?
Since its "not very large part of our overall carbon footprint"?
And burn coal instead of natural gas in my home heat, since I personally am "not very large part of our overall carbon footprint"?
And use a car that has no catalytic converter since...I am personally "not very large part of our overall carbon footprint"?
I could go on like this for... well.. infinity.
Its all a matter of who looses and who gains in this game of blame.
The big business will win, and the consumer will loose.
In the end, carbon taxes will be the only solution in yet another pathetic attempt to curb a problem.
Which won't actually work, it will just generate revenue for those who are part of the carbon tax scheme.
Which WON'T be used to make machines to extract co2 out of the atmosphere, or any other technology which would absolutely help, (like solar power plants), and real actual PLANTS....
People will still live the lifestyles and do things they want to do, like drink pop, even tho their very purchase helps add to the problem,,,
As they let their hissssss of the pop, gas out into our precious atmosphere.
A REAL solution we can all do is to grow more plants(cheech and chong had it right all along), plant more trees, DON'T mow your lawn as often, let that grass do its job, cities should be forced to turn dirt/concrete abandoned lots back into weed lots...etc...
Eventually as carbon taxes are implemented, cities will be forced to allow residents to not mow their yards due to "reduced carbon footprint of a yard full of weeds" and the lack of a lawnmower throwing out all that co2, ALONG with killing all those co2 sucking MACHINES... etc....
Its basically illegal to NOT mow your lawn in most cities today, you get your house stolen from you doing that, but it seems in the future it will be exactly opposite, those who DO mow their lawns will be fined and possibly get their houses stolen from them because they killed all the carbon munchers.
The end result is, and always has been the goal: take more money from people, so they:
can't buy another pop,
can't go boating as often,
can't use that skidoo,
can't afford gas for that snowmobile,
can't go on that vacation,
can't buy that house, sure some may see those things as good, but... the flipside....
can't buy that new(carbon efficient) car
can't afford new (carbon efficient) windows for their home
can't put new attic insulation in their home(carbon efficient)
can't replace that furnace, fridge, washer dryer with new(carbon efficient) ones
can't replace those ccfl and filament light bulbs with new (carbon efficient) LED bulbs...etc...
can't HAVE KIDS(did you know the birthrate for the last 6 years in USA is near all time lows?)
And you thought the economy being bad was just, COINCIDENCE?
The poor are less likely to throw out that partiall broken product, where the rich throw them out as soon as they get dirty....etc...
Its NOT about energy efficient products, its about STOPPING PRODUCT MOVEMENT, ALLTOGETHER.
What you are SUPPOSED to be doing, is sleeping.
The goal is to make you foreclose, so you RENT an apartment in the inner city, closer to your job.
Add to that the stress of living in such a place on relationships which cause less children to be born.
If you cannot afford to do anything but pay your bills and go to work, you won't leave your home, you will just SLEEP, or watch TV.(same difference)
You think the carbon tax pushers don't know these things? You think the studies haven't been done?
You think the future dosen't hold perpetual unemployment for the masses?
The only real end result is poverty for the masses,
Who are then forced to live lifestyles of Smile due to a lack of money for new energy efficient products because they are playing more of their income to a carbon pyramid scheme.
Who also don't leave their APARTMENTS due to a lack of money to do anything OUTSIDE the apartment.
A sleeping human is a carbon efficient human(they expell less co2 when sleeping), not to mention they don't go anywhere(super co2 efficient)
The studies have been done on both a rich lifestyle and a poor lifestyle.
The rich lifestyle is co2 un-efficient, they constantly leave their homes and go on vacations, drive their cars all the time after work, go out to eat versus the microwave energy efficient TV(go back to sleep) dinners that poor eat, use their skidoos, snowmobiles, 4 wheelers, go to their SECOND vacation homes, etc....
The rich turn their heat UP when cold, and air conditioning down when HOT (where the poor go get a blanket, or take a cold shower, they don't even have an airconditioner)
The poor also buy cheaper foods, which follow less restrictions on product quality, (not organic, etc) so this means cows, chicken, pork that are raised in confined spaces, where antibiotics are used big time....
Where the rich tend to buy organic, non-antibiotic foods, that mean open pasture raised product, if the animals move around, they increase the co2 foot print...etc..
And you think the carbon pushers HAVEN'T studied all this? ????? REALLY?
Poverty reduces carbon footprint, which is why its the REAL goal for humans.
Poverty reduces carbon footprint, which is why its the REAL goal for humans.
'Not sure I agree. Poverty on a national level also induces low-tech forms of energy production, such as coal-fired power plants (witness China, an emerging first-world country with large-scale remnants of a third-world infrastructure). Until high-tech, green energy production reaches every economic sector, we will have a problem.
Poverty reduces carbon footprint, which is why its the REAL goal for humans.
The economic studies on climate change conclude that it will be cheaper to address the problem sooner rather than later. So if it is poverty you are worried about, you should support immediate action on climate change.
(witness China, an emerging first-world country with large-scale remnants of a third-world infrastructure).
Until high-tech, green energy production reaches every economic sector, we will have a problem.
-Phil
Most what I say is under the American lifestyle.
The poor in 3rd worlds are still very restricted in their abilities, and most of them don't even HAVE power, so technically the power is for their populous that CAN afford power(their rich), which still supports my argument.
it will be cheaper to address the problem sooner rather than later.
So you say that the future can be predicted ? And technology doesn't improve into the future, opening up potential solutions?
I am pretty sure much of our energy efficient solutions came from technological innovations that .... came from the future, versus reducing everyone into poverty, which has the result of stopping innovation because that low class engineer didn't have the job to implement his idea of innovation.
So you say that the future can be predicted ? And technology doesn't improve into the future, opening up potential solutions?
The problem with this argument is that it is you who are predicting the future, not me. I believe we should not assume the future will provide us with a cheap technological fix. You believe we should.
The problem with this argument is that it is you who are predicting the future, not me. I believe we should not assume the future will provide us with a cheap technological fix. You believe we should.
Ross.
LOL, but history shows Im right.
Technology won't stop innovating. We are NOT going to hit a technological brick wall.
Call that prediction, I just call it common sense based on past history.
Also, its HAS been cheaper to address many of these problems NOW, rather than in the 60's, due to innovations. (cars? power plants? recycling? ) Just think if all cars had to have the same technology to reduce emissions back in the 60's. the car would be MASSIVE. and actually waste fuel from the extra weight of technology at the time to solve the problem.
You may be willing to risk your own future on your own predictive powers. But you are also risking mine and everybody else's.
Also, you still haven't considered that if there was a technological fix, it is likely to be beyond the means of the developing world. In fact, there is a pretty good chance that whatever fix you think you are likely to see (e.g. a car that runs on hydrogen fuel cells) would be:
(a) too expensive for the developing world to use, and
(b) manufactured in the developing world anyway, using cheap coal to power their factories.
You may be willing to risk your own future on your own predictive powers.
Again, using past performance to plot future path, is "my own predictive powers?"
SAVE THE FUTURE, KILL THE HUMANS!
I guess you win.
Tell ya what, sell your car, don't mow your lawn, matter a fact, move into an inner city apartment,(if you can even find one next to your job, which you can afford) walk everywhere you go, and after work, sleep, DO NOT go out of your house, turn everything you have off, (including the device that you are using now)
DO NOT use air conditioning, or heat.....etc..
FEEL FREE to reduce your carbon footprint so you can not risk your own future on your own human desires.
And those of us who will benefit from your suffering, will thank you in the future. Please implement these things NOW. I kindly thank you.
And since you are going to turn off that device you really don't need, have a nice life, as this will be the last digital sentence you will read for the rest of your suffering life.
Also, the 3rd world are just following in OUR foot prints because its the natural development of civilizations, they WILL eventually do what we have already done with our own inefficinent technologies, which is innovate.
Also they have it better than we do, they get to use our hard work on innovation, making it much cheaper to implement, because we already did the R&D.
I like technology. I've just finished mowing my lawn with an electric mower using about 10% of the solar power I'm generating. Sure, governments and corporations will want to make a buck out of global warming, but you can fight back! Over the last couple of years I have *increased* my energy consumption, greatly *decreased* my carbon footprint and *increased* the spare cash I have. Technology can help save the planet and help people out of poverty at the same time.
I guess we are lucky here in Australia as we have quite an industry built around installing solar panels. One phone call, panels on roof two weeks later, payback in less than two years and it helps create jobs too.
Well, I agree this is a more likely outcome under your proposed course of action than mine. The difference is that you are apparently willing to take that risk.
Also, the 3rd world are just following in OUR foot prints because its the natural development of civilizations, they WILL eventually do what we have already done with our own inefficinent technologies, which is innovate.
Also they have it better than we do, they get to use our hard work on innovation, making it much cheaper to implement, because we already did the R&D.
Simply untrue. We didn't "fix" our inefficient technologies, we just shifted them offshore. Now, most of what we consume in our "developed" economies is actually manufactured in the "undeveloped" economies, using cheap labor in factories powered by coal-burning power stations. We do that because it is the cheapest option. We will continue to do this while it remains the cheapest option.
The action that is most likely to change this is to make carbon more expensive to use than the alternatives. This is what will drive the innovation you are relying on in your assumptions.
Well, I disagree completely, so lets agree to disagree, and......
since you are so sure of your solution.... lead by example.
(when it comes right down to it, you represent idealism, not real world possibilities, and you also don't consider the impact on the quality of life for the average human)
(blah blah but if we don't do it now, the quality of life for humans in the future,,, THE FUTURE THE FUTURE, but THE FUTURE...
Doc brown can tell you about the future....
What the heck are you still doing wasting precious carbon emissions, get to it, we need YOU to implement solutions NOW, so, turn that main circuit breaker off, and keep the change you filthy animal.
In the meantime, Im gonna burn through carbon emissions like ....theres no future... the two videos i posted surely added to the carbon emissions of this planet....
DOH!
Did I mention that the computer I am using to post this text is running at 4ghz? (it seems if you get your way, that would be ILLEGAL, or prohibitively expensive)
Its over clocked, and water cooled. Thats surely gonna make some carbon nut mad.
Perhaps I better load up my copy of Battlefield3 and get my cpus and dual watercooled overclocked GPUs a run for their money... or i mean a run for their carbon output.
DOH!²
But coke says its ok, because "That is not a very large part of our overall carbon footprint.”
Hypocrisy. Relative to a poor person in the 3rd world, you are a worse offender than THOUSANDS of them.
And ridicule, nonsense or obfuscation?
I guess its a good thing I don't resort to those things to get people to reduce their carbon either.
I use those things to make them laugh so hard that their bellies hurt, and then they say, thank carbon for carbon emissions.
Smoke signals? oh wait, that increases carbon output.
You must have an advanced aboriginal method of getting data uploaded to the nets...
Like this?
Oops, was that considered ridicule? I just thought it was hilarious. Which is my intent.
I will not be continuing in this thread because my points have been made, your view is entirely relative.
Hypocrisy. Relative to a poor person in the 3rd world, you are a worse offender than THOUSANDS of them.
More obfuscation and also a logical error. I don't need to reduce my carbon footprint to the level of "a poor person in the 3rd world" to be effective, and neither do I expect anyone else to do so.
I think hygrogen produced through electrolysis as a fuel source is worth looking into. I've recently been researching HHO fuel cells. I want to build a heat exchanger.
As a vehicle fuel I don't think the numbers work. You have to consider that if 'hydrogen on demand' worked the way people say it works it would be fairly common by now. At least with hydrogen fuel there would be no carbon emissions
@Larry, interesting point. I've looked into hydrogen too. Split water into H2 and O2, store them in cylinders or hydrides or something, recombine them in a fuel cell and that is a non carbon fuel cycle.
@PhiPi
unlike us poor sodden souls here in the Gray Pacific Northwet
True. Not sure there is an answer to that. ? solar panels in sunnier climes and more interconnectors. OTOH, you are closer to snow than I am. <thinks wistfully about snow>
The action that is most likely to change this is to make carbon more expensive to use than the alternatives.
We have had this kind of debate here before. And I'm still not sure it's even possible. Currently if you build a wind turbine or solar panel you are probably using fossil fuels to provide the energy to dig out the raw materials, process them and manufacture the thing.So the question is: Does a wind turbine or solar panel ever produce more energy in it's lifetime than the fuel used to build it in the first place? If not then this is not a sustainable situation, and in fact might be less efficient than just burning the fuel directly to power what ever it is you want to power.
So, far I have not been presented with convincing evidence that wind, solar etc is actually a net gain.
What would convince me is if I saw a country, churning out windmills and solar and whatever all powered by the windmills and solar they have running already. i.e. a self supporting, self regenerating system. With no oil/coal/gas input.
We have had this kind of debate here before. And I'm still not sure it's even possible. Currently if you build a wind turbine or solar panel you are probably using fossil fuels to provide the energy to dig out the raw materials, process them and manufacture the thing.So the question is: Does a wind turbine or solar panel ever produce more energy in it's lifetime than the fuel used to build it in the first place? If not then this is not a sustainable situation, and in fact might be less efficient than just burning the fuel directly to power what ever it is you want to power.
So, far I have not been presented with convincing evidence that wind, solar etc is actually a net gain.
What would convince me is if I saw a country, churning out windmills and solar and whatever all powered by the windmills and solar they have running already. i.e. a self supporting, self regenerating system. With no oil/coal/gas input.
So far I don't see that.
I agree with you that solar is a bit of a "false economy" in that the carbon footprint of manufacturing solar cells probably outweighs the benefit (at least on a small scale).
But some of the other alternatives (e.g. wind, wave and geothermal) do not have that problem, and do become economically viable at costs not much higher than that of fossil fuels. It's that "not much higher" that is currently the problem. As long as the cost of the alternatives are even slightly higher, there is little incentive for business to invest in using them or developing them.
Putting a permanent price on carbon emissions solves that problem, even when the price of fossil fuels plummets (which of course it will do as soon as there is a cheap and viable alternative).
Putting a permanent price on carbon emissions solves that problem,
This is one big point where talk of global warming hits politics. What you are talking about is a tax. A tax designed to limit or shutdown one industry, oil, gas, etc, whist promoting another, wind, solar etc.
That tax is of course ultimately paid by the consumer in higher prices for everything and a resulting lower standard of living. The consumer of course hates this especially when they see guys making piles of money out of trading carbon credits and other machinations it introduces.
It's also an admission of the failure of capitalism. What you are proposing here is a good old Soviet Russian style command economy. That of course goes down very well in the USA.
Me, I live in a very small house, go to work on a bicycle when I can, a bus otherwise, I don't own a car. My heating comes from the waste heat from power stations, I don't run A/C. I have a hard time seeing how I can reduce my carbon foot print anymore without actually committing suicide. So anyone suggesting I should reduce my carbon foot print and pay more for stuff gets very stern looks from me and had better have a good reason why they are pointing their finger at me.
So, far I have not been presented with convincing evidence that wind, solar etc is actually a net gain.
I've been searching the interwebs for this one. Lots of glossy pictures and words saying it is so, mainly from those selling panels. Harder to get figures, like Joules and KiloWatt Hours.
One way to look at it would be to assume a worst case scenario - that all the cost was energy, and with zero contribution from labour etc. So for solar panels like those calcs I did a few pages ago, payback time is 2 years. Lifetime is maybe 20 years, so they must make at least 10x what they consume.
Small scale wind turbines 1-4 metres diameter - they are really bad. A "300W" turbine is more realistically 8W continuous (based on a datalogger I have had running for 3 months) I doubt it would ever pay back. I did see it once make 300W in a gale.
Large scale wind turbines over a megawatt - I think they work out rather well - paying back in just a few years.
As for taxes - they have kick started things but maybe they are not needed so much now? Solar hot water has been cost effective for years with no subsidies/taxes. I think solar electricity got there about a year or two ago, and prices keep falling.
What bothers me the most… and probably the reason I haven't started a solar panel project myself is having batteries in the equation. If I lived near a water source, I would consider using
water to store the energy, pumping water uphill to store energy and then letting it fall through a generator to use that energy… it wouldn't have to be efficient, it would just have to be extremely durable and have a large capacity to store energy.
I'm going to end up living in the middle of a desert… so water isn't an option, unless I start a water business and import it:) Every option I have thought of for this kind of environment involves
lots of gears, which inevitably would wear out, because there would have to be some fairly large gear ratios and all hooked up to some fairly tiny gears… and that is usually where I pause, waiting form further inspiration.
My RV project is my exception to my own basic objection. I'm going to be using batteries, on occasion, whether I like it or not. I can't run power to the beast everywhere I might go and running generators all the time isn't very attractive either. Even if the solar panels only trickle energy to my batteries that seems like a good enough reason to have them.
This is one big point where talk of global warming hits politics. What you are talking about is a tax. A tax designed to limit or shutdown one industry, oil, gas, etc, whist promoting another, wind, solar etc.
That tax is of course ultimately paid by the consumer in higher prices for everything and a resulting lower standard of living. The consumer of course hates this especially when they see guys making piles of money out of trading carbon credits and other machinations it introduces.
It's also an admission of the failure of capitalism. What you are proposing here is a good old Soviet Russian style command economy. That of course goes down very well in the USA.
Me, I live in a very small house, go to work on a bicycle when I can, a bus otherwise, I don't own a car. My heating comes from the waste heat from power stations, I don't run A/C. I have a hard time seeing how I can reduce my carbon foot print anymore without actually committing suicide. So anyone suggesting I should reduce my carbon foot print and pay more for stuff gets very stern looks from me and had better have a good reason why they are pointing their finger at me.
No-one is pointing the finger at anyone. We need to reduce carbon emissions, and the only levers we have to use (unless you really do want to end up living in a command economy) are economic and social.
You can see just from the discussion in this thread just how unlikely it is that appealing to people's social conscience is going to work. By the time you have convinced those that simply don't want to hear that there really is a problem that needs to be solved, we will be looking at a 4 to 6 degree temperature rise, instead of just the 2 degree rise we are currently facing.
So we are left with the economic lever. Put a price on carbon now - not to raise revenue, but just sufficient to drive the development of alternatives necessary to replace fossil fuels, but which are currently economically unfeasible. This will ultimately drive down the price of both fossil fuels and their carbon-free alternatives, so that in the end you will end up paying less than you woud otherwise - and in addition might just end up leaving a planet fit for your children to live on.
The essence of the Stern Review was that in the long run, taking this kind of action now is the cheapest possible alternative. If you are going to disagree with that, I suggest you at least read the summary first.
What bothers me the most… and probably the reason I haven't started a solar panel project myself is having batteries in the equation
Are you off grid or on the grid?
If on the grid, the grid can be the storage. If off grid, the batteries get expensive. Lead acids can't be deep cycled, and when you work out the number of charges and the cost per charge with the battery price and lifetime included, they seem to be around $1 per kwh. Far too high. I've been researching LiFePo4 batteries. Much longer life than lead acids and don't explode like LiPo batteries. Cost more, but they are being used in electric bikes in China which is a large mass market so hopefully the cost will come down. The other interesting batteries are Edison's original NiFe battery - still being made in China somewhere and they are indestructible - people have resurrected them after decades of not being used. And then there are flow batteries. Much to explore with these.
I don't necessarily disagree with you. Just making an observation.
By the way, looking at that nice graph of CO2 and temperature over the millenia, those peaks and troughs look like some kind of relaxation oscillator producing a saw tooth wave. Do you know of any explanations has to why CO2 and T shot up so rapidly when they did? Or Why it was limited to the peaks it achieved? Or why they ramped slowly back down again? Curious.
Dr_Acula… "If on the grid, the grid can be the storage."
This is true in the sense that you mean it. But it isn't completely true. The grid doesn't store the energy. At best they just change how they produce energy.
I'm on the grid…so are some fairly large wind farms, a nuclear power plant and at least one large coal generator… None of them is going to store anything I produce, except possibly the coal generator, which can store coal if they don't need it. If I were to undertake a large project to get off the grid… then I would want to actually get off the grid… not stay on it as a quasi-symbiotic energy source. That is just my orientation. It isn't right or wrong, just how I feel about it. If I can learn enough from my RV project(which I haven't committed to yet), then I think it is likely
my thinking will change as I gain experience.
Quote by Heater;
This is one big point where talk of global warming hits politics. What you are talking about is a tax. A tax designed to limit or shutdown one industry, oil, gas, etc, whist promoting another, wind, solar etc.
I agree. We would be taxed by some international agency that could then transfer that wealth. Maybe that's one reason why I've developed an interest in studying 'permaculture', small self-sustaining communities.
My view is that even natural ecology requires new input from the sun. Any product could consume more resources in manufacturing than it can itself produce but I think it's possible for nature to replace some of those resources faster than we use them.
For all of the 'concern' about carbon footprint I know the difference between contrails and chemtrails. I've seen both. I'm not convinced that concern over carbon emissions is sincere.
I'm learning what I can about propane, steam, HHO, solar... I don't like being dependent. I even reject the notion that drinking distilled water is harmful. I can make my own.
I even reject the notion that drinking distilled water is harmful. I can make my own.
I may have missed a point here but why would you want to be drinking distilled water water?
For sure it's not possible for nature to replace fossil fuels faster than we burn it or turn it into plastic. We are not getting any more Helium either. There are dozens of other resources that are in pretty short supply.
Regarding social structure vs capacity to respond to the huge challenges that we are all talking about.
The problem is that in many of these problem areas, we don't really have enough information to be absolutely certain what we should do next. But we know that we should be doing something. Cultural and social diversity can mimic the role of biodiversity in nature. With enough diversity, not all of the life forms in a particular ecosphere will survive a major stress to an ecosphere, but some will. Without enough biodiversity a major stress could wipe out an entire ecosystem.
I don't think it works to mankind's survival interests to have all societies work the same or to promote a one world culture. If a "one world" culture were to make a major mistake, it could be our last.
I have a son with autism. He is happy and well adjusted. He is an absolute delight to be with, but he can't reason. Someone else has to do that for him… and make all of the other little life choices that depend on human reason. I have studied the issue… we are now told that 1 in 63 children are born with this condition. I don't know if that is true, because I understand the complex social structure that is giving rise to the diagnoses… How often a doctor makes any diagnosis these days is more related to various re-embursement patterns (to educators, doctors and patients in this case). If a doctor makes this diagnosis today… he is calling in support mechanisms to the family and reimbursement to our schools). There are just too many factors that complicate interpreting the numbers. But assume that it remotely reflects some biologic truth… and let's also assume that the numbers are going up. Now drop in this fact… at one of the meetings that I hosted in the mid-nineties, Carl Blackman discussed an experimental set-up that he had rigged… to measure the biologic effects of incredibly weak electromagnetic fields. It just so happens that the model that he chose, included cell cultures of the exact cell types that are found to be a problem in Autism….Let's assume further… that the in fact, this linkage is not an accident, but that it represents an exact mechanism.
Which society would be in the best position to do anything about it? It certainly isn't us.
Comments
Lets take a pro-active approach to this problem.
BAN ALL CARBONATED BEVERAGES.
Until THAT happens, I call Bull-Shoot.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/coca-cola-bubbles-not-very-large-part-our-overall-carbon-footprint
See, when big business has much to loose, they quickly move in on the PR job.
CHA, like coke will actually admit their mainstay product is a harm for the environment. HAHAHAHAHA
Or any of the other companies....
So if my carbon footprint is very small compared to the overall problem, I should be able to burn my garbage right?
Since its "not very large part of our overall carbon footprint"?
And burn coal instead of natural gas in my home heat, since I personally am "not very large part of our overall carbon footprint"?
And use a car that has no catalytic converter since...I am personally "not very large part of our overall carbon footprint"?
I could go on like this for... well.. infinity.
Its all a matter of who looses and who gains in this game of blame.
The big business will win, and the consumer will loose.
In the end, carbon taxes will be the only solution in yet another pathetic attempt to curb a problem.
Which won't actually work, it will just generate revenue for those who are part of the carbon tax scheme.
Which WON'T be used to make machines to extract co2 out of the atmosphere, or any other technology which would absolutely help, (like solar power plants), and real actual PLANTS....
People will still live the lifestyles and do things they want to do, like drink pop, even tho their very purchase helps add to the problem,,,
As they let their hissssss of the pop, gas out into our precious atmosphere.
A REAL solution we can all do is to grow more plants(cheech and chong had it right all along), plant more trees, DON'T mow your lawn as often, let that grass do its job, cities should be forced to turn dirt/concrete abandoned lots back into weed lots...etc...
Eventually as carbon taxes are implemented, cities will be forced to allow residents to not mow their yards due to "reduced carbon footprint of a yard full of weeds" and the lack of a lawnmower throwing out all that co2, ALONG with killing all those co2 sucking MACHINES... etc....
Its basically illegal to NOT mow your lawn in most cities today, you get your house stolen from you doing that, but it seems in the future it will be exactly opposite, those who DO mow their lawns will be fined and possibly get their houses stolen from them because they killed all the carbon munchers.
The end result is, and always has been the goal: take more money from people, so they:
can't buy another pop,
can't go boating as often,
can't use that skidoo,
can't afford gas for that snowmobile,
can't go on that vacation,
can't buy that house,
sure some may see those things as good, but... the flipside....
can't buy that new(carbon efficient) car
can't afford new (carbon efficient) windows for their home
can't put new attic insulation in their home(carbon efficient)
can't replace that furnace, fridge, washer dryer with new(carbon efficient) ones
can't replace those ccfl and filament light bulbs with new (carbon efficient) LED bulbs...etc...
can't HAVE KIDS(did you know the birthrate for the last 6 years in USA is near all time lows?)
And you thought the economy being bad was just, COINCIDENCE?
The poor are less likely to throw out that partiall broken product, where the rich throw them out as soon as they get dirty....etc...
Its NOT about energy efficient products, its about STOPPING PRODUCT MOVEMENT, ALLTOGETHER.
What you are SUPPOSED to be doing, is sleeping.
The goal is to make you foreclose, so you RENT an apartment in the inner city, closer to your job.
Add to that the stress of living in such a place on relationships which cause less children to be born.
If you cannot afford to do anything but pay your bills and go to work, you won't leave your home, you will just SLEEP, or watch TV.(same difference)
You think the carbon tax pushers don't know these things? You think the studies haven't been done?
You think the future dosen't hold perpetual unemployment for the masses?
The only real end result is poverty for the masses,
Who are then forced to live lifestyles of Smile due to a lack of money for new energy efficient products because they are playing more of their income to a carbon pyramid scheme.
Who also don't leave their APARTMENTS due to a lack of money to do anything OUTSIDE the apartment.
A sleeping human is a carbon efficient human(they expell less co2 when sleeping), not to mention they don't go anywhere(super co2 efficient)
The studies have been done on both a rich lifestyle and a poor lifestyle.
The rich lifestyle is co2 un-efficient, they constantly leave their homes and go on vacations, drive their cars all the time after work, go out to eat versus the microwave energy efficient TV(go back to sleep) dinners that poor eat, use their skidoos, snowmobiles, 4 wheelers, go to their SECOND vacation homes, etc....
The rich turn their heat UP when cold, and air conditioning down when HOT (where the poor go get a blanket, or take a cold shower, they don't even have an airconditioner)
The poor also buy cheaper foods, which follow less restrictions on product quality, (not organic, etc) so this means cows, chicken, pork that are raised in confined spaces, where antibiotics are used big time....
Where the rich tend to buy organic, non-antibiotic foods, that mean open pasture raised product, if the animals move around, they increase the co2 foot print...etc..
And you think the carbon pushers HAVEN'T studied all this? ????? REALLY?
Poverty reduces carbon footprint, which is why its the REAL goal for humans.
-Phil
The economic studies on climate change conclude that it will be cheaper to address the problem sooner rather than later. So if it is poverty you are worried about, you should support immediate action on climate change.
Ross.
Most what I say is under the American lifestyle.
The poor in 3rd worlds are still very restricted in their abilities, and most of them don't even HAVE power, so technically the power is for their populous that CAN afford power(their rich), which still supports my argument.
So you say that the future can be predicted ? And technology doesn't improve into the future, opening up potential solutions?
I am pretty sure much of our energy efficient solutions came from technological innovations that .... came from the future, versus reducing everyone into poverty, which has the result of stopping innovation because that low class engineer didn't have the job to implement his idea of innovation.
The REAL solution to this is "S.M.I².L.E."
SM (Space Migration) + I² (intelligence increase) + LE (Life extension).
http://www.futureconscience.com/smi2le-the-futurism-of-timothy-leary/
But what is being implemented is SR (space reduction) + D²(dumb down) + LR (life reduction)
The problem with this argument is that it is you who are predicting the future, not me. I believe we should not assume the future will provide us with a cheap technological fix. You believe we should.
Ross.
LOL, but history shows Im right.
Technology won't stop innovating. We are NOT going to hit a technological brick wall.
Call that prediction, I just call it common sense based on past history.
Also, its HAS been cheaper to address many of these problems NOW, rather than in the 60's, due to innovations. (cars? power plants? recycling? ) Just think if all cars had to have the same technology to reduce emissions back in the 60's. the car would be MASSIVE. and actually waste fuel from the extra weight of technology at the time to solve the problem.
You may be willing to risk your own future on your own predictive powers. But you are also risking mine and everybody else's.
Also, you still haven't considered that if there was a technological fix, it is likely to be beyond the means of the developing world. In fact, there is a pretty good chance that whatever fix you think you are likely to see (e.g. a car that runs on hydrogen fuel cells) would be:
(a) too expensive for the developing world to use, and
(b) manufactured in the developing world anyway, using cheap coal to power their factories.
Ross.
Again, using past performance to plot future path, is "my own predictive powers?"
SAVE THE FUTURE, KILL THE HUMANS!
I guess you win.
Tell ya what, sell your car, don't mow your lawn, matter a fact, move into an inner city apartment,(if you can even find one next to your job, which you can afford) walk everywhere you go, and after work, sleep, DO NOT go out of your house, turn everything you have off, (including the device that you are using now)
DO NOT use air conditioning, or heat.....etc..
FEEL FREE to reduce your carbon footprint so you can not risk your own future on your own human desires.
And those of us who will benefit from your suffering, will thank you in the future. Please implement these things NOW. I kindly thank you.
And since you are going to turn off that device you really don't need, have a nice life, as this will be the last digital sentence you will read for the rest of your suffering life.
Also, the 3rd world are just following in OUR foot prints because its the natural development of civilizations, they WILL eventually do what we have already done with our own inefficinent technologies, which is innovate.
Also they have it better than we do, they get to use our hard work on innovation, making it much cheaper to implement, because we already did the R&D.
I guess we are lucky here in Australia as we have quite an industry built around installing solar panels. One phone call, panels on roof two weeks later, payback in less than two years and it helps create jobs too.
-Phil
Well, I agree this is a more likely outcome under your proposed course of action than mine. The difference is that you are apparently willing to take that risk.
Simply untrue. We didn't "fix" our inefficient technologies, we just shifted them offshore. Now, most of what we consume in our "developed" economies is actually manufactured in the "undeveloped" economies, using cheap labor in factories powered by coal-burning power stations. We do that because it is the cheapest option. We will continue to do this while it remains the cheapest option.
The action that is most likely to change this is to make carbon more expensive to use than the alternatives. This is what will drive the innovation you are relying on in your assumptions.
Ross.
Well, I disagree completely, so lets agree to disagree, and......
since you are so sure of your solution.... lead by example.
(when it comes right down to it, you represent idealism, not real world possibilities, and you also don't consider the impact on the quality of life for the average human)
(blah blah but if we don't do it now, the quality of life for humans in the future,,, THE FUTURE THE FUTURE, but THE FUTURE...
Doc brown can tell you about the future....
What the heck are you still doing wasting precious carbon emissions, get to it, we need YOU to implement solutions NOW, so, turn that main circuit breaker off, and keep the change you filthy animal.
In the meantime, Im gonna burn through carbon emissions like ....theres no future... the two videos i posted surely added to the carbon emissions of this planet....
DOH!
Did I mention that the computer I am using to post this text is running at 4ghz? (it seems if you get your way, that would be ILLEGAL, or prohibitively expensive)
Its over clocked, and water cooled. Thats surely gonna make some carbon nut mad.
Perhaps I better load up my copy of Battlefield3 and get my cpus and dual watercooled overclocked GPUs a run for their money... or i mean a run for their carbon output.
DOH!²
But coke says its ok, because "That is not a very large part of our overall carbon footprint.”
I am and I do. And I don't feel the need to resort to ridicule, nonsense or obfuscation to do so.
Ross.
Hypocrisy. Relative to a poor person in the 3rd world, you are a worse offender than THOUSANDS of them.
And ridicule, nonsense or obfuscation?
I guess its a good thing I don't resort to those things to get people to reduce their carbon either.
I use those things to make them laugh so hard that their bellies hurt, and then they say, thank carbon for carbon emissions.
Smoke signals? oh wait, that increases carbon output.
You must have an advanced aboriginal method of getting data uploaded to the nets...
Like this?
Oops, was that considered ridicule? I just thought it was hilarious. Which is my intent.
I will not be continuing in this thread because my points have been made, your view is entirely relative.
Feel free to "S.M.I².L.E."
SM (Space Migration) + I² (intelligence increase) + LE (Life extension).
http://www.futureconscience.com/smi2...timothy-leary/
More obfuscation and also a logical error. I don't need to reduce my carbon footprint to the level of "a poor person in the 3rd world" to be effective, and neither do I expect anyone else to do so.
I don't find it ridiculous, even though you apparently intended it as such.
Ross.
As a vehicle fuel I don't think the numbers work. You have to consider that if 'hydrogen on demand' worked the way people say it works it would be fairly common by now. At least with hydrogen fuel there would be no carbon emissions
@PhiPi
True. Not sure there is an answer to that. ? solar panels in sunnier climes and more interconnectors. OTOH, you are closer to snow than I am. <thinks wistfully about snow>
So, far I have not been presented with convincing evidence that wind, solar etc is actually a net gain.
What would convince me is if I saw a country, churning out windmills and solar and whatever all powered by the windmills and solar they have running already. i.e. a self supporting, self regenerating system. With no oil/coal/gas input.
So far I don't see that.
I agree with you that solar is a bit of a "false economy" in that the carbon footprint of manufacturing solar cells probably outweighs the benefit (at least on a small scale).
But some of the other alternatives (e.g. wind, wave and geothermal) do not have that problem, and do become economically viable at costs not much higher than that of fossil fuels. It's that "not much higher" that is currently the problem. As long as the cost of the alternatives are even slightly higher, there is little incentive for business to invest in using them or developing them.
Putting a permanent price on carbon emissions solves that problem, even when the price of fossil fuels plummets (which of course it will do as soon as there is a cheap and viable alternative).
Ross.
EDIT: Interesting cost comparison here.
That tax is of course ultimately paid by the consumer in higher prices for everything and a resulting lower standard of living. The consumer of course hates this especially when they see guys making piles of money out of trading carbon credits and other machinations it introduces.
It's also an admission of the failure of capitalism. What you are proposing here is a good old Soviet Russian style command economy. That of course goes down very well in the USA.
Me, I live in a very small house, go to work on a bicycle when I can, a bus otherwise, I don't own a car. My heating comes from the waste heat from power stations, I don't run A/C. I have a hard time seeing how I can reduce my carbon foot print anymore without actually committing suicide. So anyone suggesting I should reduce my carbon foot print and pay more for stuff gets very stern looks from me and had better have a good reason why they are pointing their finger at me.
I've been searching the interwebs for this one. Lots of glossy pictures and words saying it is so, mainly from those selling panels. Harder to get figures, like Joules and KiloWatt Hours.
One way to look at it would be to assume a worst case scenario - that all the cost was energy, and with zero contribution from labour etc. So for solar panels like those calcs I did a few pages ago, payback time is 2 years. Lifetime is maybe 20 years, so they must make at least 10x what they consume.
Small scale wind turbines 1-4 metres diameter - they are really bad. A "300W" turbine is more realistically 8W continuous (based on a datalogger I have had running for 3 months) I doubt it would ever pay back. I did see it once make 300W in a gale.
Large scale wind turbines over a megawatt - I think they work out rather well - paying back in just a few years.
As for taxes - they have kick started things but maybe they are not needed so much now? Solar hot water has been cost effective for years with no subsidies/taxes. I think solar electricity got there about a year or two ago, and prices keep falling.
water to store the energy, pumping water uphill to store energy and then letting it fall through a generator to use that energy… it wouldn't have to be efficient, it would just have to be extremely durable and have a large capacity to store energy.
I'm going to end up living in the middle of a desert… so water isn't an option, unless I start a water business and import it:) Every option I have thought of for this kind of environment involves
lots of gears, which inevitably would wear out, because there would have to be some fairly large gear ratios and all hooked up to some fairly tiny gears… and that is usually where I pause, waiting form further inspiration.
My RV project is my exception to my own basic objection. I'm going to be using batteries, on occasion, whether I like it or not. I can't run power to the beast everywhere I might go and running generators all the time isn't very attractive either. Even if the solar panels only trickle energy to my batteries that seems like a good enough reason to have them.
No-one is pointing the finger at anyone. We need to reduce carbon emissions, and the only levers we have to use (unless you really do want to end up living in a command economy) are economic and social.
You can see just from the discussion in this thread just how unlikely it is that appealing to people's social conscience is going to work. By the time you have convinced those that simply don't want to hear that there really is a problem that needs to be solved, we will be looking at a 4 to 6 degree temperature rise, instead of just the 2 degree rise we are currently facing.
So we are left with the economic lever. Put a price on carbon now - not to raise revenue, but just sufficient to drive the development of alternatives necessary to replace fossil fuels, but which are currently economically unfeasible. This will ultimately drive down the price of both fossil fuels and their carbon-free alternatives, so that in the end you will end up paying less than you woud otherwise - and in addition might just end up leaving a planet fit for your children to live on.
The essence of the Stern Review was that in the long run, taking this kind of action now is the cheapest possible alternative. If you are going to disagree with that, I suggest you at least read the summary first.
Ross.
Are you off grid or on the grid?
If on the grid, the grid can be the storage. If off grid, the batteries get expensive. Lead acids can't be deep cycled, and when you work out the number of charges and the cost per charge with the battery price and lifetime included, they seem to be around $1 per kwh. Far too high. I've been researching LiFePo4 batteries. Much longer life than lead acids and don't explode like LiPo batteries. Cost more, but they are being used in electric bikes in China which is a large mass market so hopefully the cost will come down. The other interesting batteries are Edison's original NiFe battery - still being made in China somewhere and they are indestructible - people have resurrected them after decades of not being used. And then there are flow batteries. Much to explore with these.
What is the RV project you are making?
I don't necessarily disagree with you. Just making an observation.
By the way, looking at that nice graph of CO2 and temperature over the millenia, those peaks and troughs look like some kind of relaxation oscillator producing a saw tooth wave. Do you know of any explanations has to why CO2 and T shot up so rapidly when they did? Or Why it was limited to the peaks it achieved? Or why they ramped slowly back down again? Curious.
This is true in the sense that you mean it. But it isn't completely true. The grid doesn't store the energy. At best they just change how they produce energy.
I'm on the grid…so are some fairly large wind farms, a nuclear power plant and at least one large coal generator… None of them is going to store anything I produce, except possibly the coal generator, which can store coal if they don't need it. If I were to undertake a large project to get off the grid… then I would want to actually get off the grid… not stay on it as a quasi-symbiotic energy source. That is just my orientation. It isn't right or wrong, just how I feel about it. If I can learn enough from my RV project(which I haven't committed to yet), then I think it is likely
my thinking will change as I gain experience.
My view is that even natural ecology requires new input from the sun. Any product could consume more resources in manufacturing than it can itself produce but I think it's possible for nature to replace some of those resources faster than we use them.
For all of the 'concern' about carbon footprint I know the difference between contrails and chemtrails. I've seen both. I'm not convinced that concern over carbon emissions is sincere.
I'm learning what I can about propane, steam, HHO, solar... I don't like being dependent. I even reject the notion that drinking distilled water is harmful. I can make my own.
For sure it's not possible for nature to replace fossil fuels faster than we burn it or turn it into plastic. We are not getting any more Helium either. There are dozens of other resources that are in pretty short supply.
The problem is that in many of these problem areas, we don't really have enough information to be absolutely certain what we should do next. But we know that we should be doing something. Cultural and social diversity can mimic the role of biodiversity in nature. With enough diversity, not all of the life forms in a particular ecosphere will survive a major stress to an ecosphere, but some will. Without enough biodiversity a major stress could wipe out an entire ecosystem.
I don't think it works to mankind's survival interests to have all societies work the same or to promote a one world culture. If a "one world" culture were to make a major mistake, it could be our last.
I have a son with autism. He is happy and well adjusted. He is an absolute delight to be with, but he can't reason. Someone else has to do that for him… and make all of the other little life choices that depend on human reason. I have studied the issue… we are now told that 1 in 63 children are born with this condition. I don't know if that is true, because I understand the complex social structure that is giving rise to the diagnoses… How often a doctor makes any diagnosis these days is more related to various re-embursement patterns (to educators, doctors and patients in this case). If a doctor makes this diagnosis today… he is calling in support mechanisms to the family and reimbursement to our schools). There are just too many factors that complicate interpreting the numbers. But assume that it remotely reflects some biologic truth… and let's also assume that the numbers are going up. Now drop in this fact… at one of the meetings that I hosted in the mid-nineties, Carl Blackman discussed an experimental set-up that he had rigged… to measure the biologic effects of incredibly weak electromagnetic fields. It just so happens that the model that he chose, included cell cultures of the exact cell types that are found to be a problem in Autism….Let's assume further… that the in fact, this linkage is not an accident, but that it represents an exact mechanism.
Which society would be in the best position to do anything about it? It certainly isn't us.