Global Warming?

oldsoldier wrote: If and I say if, the financial aspect of this battle was not so convolutted with anti-american industrial sentiment I would not be such as questioned individual.

Good thing it isn't, then.  It's pretty much a global deal.  Just because Hannity says that it is driven by anti-American sentiments doesn't make it so.

We do lead the world in clean energy technologies

Really?  Which technologies are those?  The biggest wind turbine manufacturers are Danish and German - GE is now a big player also, after they bought up some German technology.

The biggest solar panel manufacturers are Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, with some Europeans thrown in.  Here also GE is a Johnny-come-lately, and has been catching up - by buying foreign companies and technologies.

In both wind and solar a very large proportion of the projects in the US were developed by foreign companies, because Americans couldn't be bothered.  The big shining exception here would be FPL Energy (now NextEra or some crap like that), which is the US leader in both markets.

In geothermal and hydro, the US just lags in general.  Very sad.  Sure, we have the biggest hydro facility in the world (Hoover Dam), but overall we lag.

The US is probably the fastest-growing market at the moment, but only because we have so far to go to catch up.

Liquid biofuels?  Lagging behind Europe again.

On most of the cutting-edge technologies we lag.  Wave, tidal, etc. - mostly European.  An exception here would be algae- and micro-organism-based research.  Here we have a good foothold.

Car mileage?  Here it is just embarrassing. 

Pray tell - in exactly which "clean technology" do we lead the world?

.. yet the greeners will not allow nuclear to replace coal, and other such alternativesso the answer is?

Oh, you meant nuclear?  Well, we certainly don't lead the world there either.  We stopped building nukes in the 70s - the rest of the world didn't.  We have a long way to go to catch up here.

And while I will certainly agree that there has been lots of irrational opposition to nukes, this is changing.  More and more, the environmentalists are coming around.

An example was the Peterbilt Electromotive Class 8 tractor. A small 150hp diesel engine turning an alternator charging batteries powering two electric motors on the rear axles. Physically saw the demo truck at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree. Same technology proven by railroad locomotives for years. Got 26 mpg as compared to the current 5-6 mpg, and the EPA would not allow it on the American highways. Why you ask, the batteries contained too much lithium, not even lead acid batteries, the same lithium batteries that electrocars use, but someone somewhere in the green movement was against the project, the battery boxes were damn near armor boxes, accidents would need to be catistrophic for any leakage. So the project died, yet Mercedes/DeutzeAlles is marketing the same system for european trucks and so far not a problem nor squeak heard from the greeners. Too many examples of good clean energy technology being over-ridden by greeners and certian financial interests, (Al Gore's "carbon credits") and a cap and trade economy subject to more regulation than foriegn markets.

I am not familiar with this particular engine - I will go do some reading.  But your general claim that the "greeners" are somehow keeping themselves down... well it doesn't make any sense.  That, and there is no support for it.  Your own anecdote doesn't even support it.

Saw dust toilets, and candles, simply is not a viable alternative.

Good thing nobody is arguing in favor of that strawman either.




Edited by Peter Parker - 22 July 2009 at 10:32am

One of my very early stances for the paper. Not a column, as previously stated, rather, a stance.

It is kind of rough around the edges. I was not as good of a writer two years ago:

Caution needs to be taken to keep advances in environmental technology out of the political muck that surrounds the debate on global warming.

Scientists are jumping into the fray alongside politicians from both political parties. Corporations have their fingers in it as well. It seems everyone has a stake in the global warming issue somehow, and one side is just as guilty as the other in bogging down environmental progression.

The issue that is global warming has become a dark pit of political squabbling.

We are in an age when any attempt to truly care or do anything about the environment is almost a sentence of declared war. Someone who talks positively about advancements in green technology now must prepare for a long, drawn out battle of words and wits.

This debate undoubtedly will end in a series of charts demonstrating a whole slew of numbers that appear to be gibberish to anyone without a Ph.D. To counter, just as impressive looking charts can be shown to somehow refute what the first one said.

The entire mess has created quite the Academy Award-wining spectacle.

How fast is the global climate changing? Is this just Earth going through a normal climate cycle, or has human life altered it? What about the polar bears?

These are all very compelling questions, but don't think these questions should change anything. It shouldn't matter what stance any political figure takes on the issue, or what side of the issue a political party speaks about.

It does not matter if someone thinks that Earth will end the day after tomorrow, or that it will last until the sun burns out.

Sustainability of natural resources by moving toward a cleaner society should be the ultimate goal. We should do what we can to improve the quality of our environment now no matter what the current theory on global warming is.

It does not matter which political party you affiliate with, or if you are conservative or liberal. You still breathe the same air either way. The issue of environmental safety should not be used as a political chess piece, as it does nothing but stifle improvement and create apathy.

Luckily, UCF is doing its best to continue working forward.

Updates that can be seen around campus include solar panels for classroom buildings and the green roof for the Student Union. A modified 2007 Toyota Prius with the ability to run completely without gasoline combustion was recently added to UCF's fleet of vehicles. It converts 70 cents worth of electrical power into the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. Simply plug it in, let it charge and watch it go.

These ideas span the spectrum from being complex; converting a motor vehicle so that it plugs into the wall, to simple; planting a garden on the roof to save in energy costs.

However, these updates all share a common goal of creating a more environmentally friendly campus.

We should try and make our campus as environmentally friendly as we possibly can despite the great debates.

That is exactly what advancements such as solar panels and green roofs do. They are not giant leaps in technology, but they are small steps in which future generations can continue to build off of.

Introducing new environmental advances around campus keeps the movement living and breathing fresh air away from political jargon. What better place to demonstrate such steps than a university filled with students in fields such as engineering, who one day may be making even further inventions.

Steady steps towards making the campus more environmentally friendly will not happen instantly.

But we should continue doing what we can right now, and try hard not to step in muck.

oldsoldier wrote: How about 1939-1945 burning down half the planet and no appreciable blip on the climate change meter for that period?

Actually, there was an appreciable DOWNWARD dip during the Depression and the War.  I don't have specific data, but this makes sense to me - millions of people walking around shooting at each other instead of working in factories.  It would make an interesting study to see how CO2 emissions from the war compared to emission savings from the war.

But in any event - the point here is that when faced with an apparently contradictory data point, the correct response is NOT to immediately declare "well then, the theory must be wrong."  Instead, the correct response is to look into it further.  In this case, to try to determine how much emitting was actually occurring at that time.

Mt St Helens was a good example of ash/gases amounts thrown into the sky in volumns way beyond the industrial capabilities of the US.

I was actually joking about the volcanos, seeing as how you (and others) keep bringing them up and I keep pointing out how wrong you are.  I am surprised you keep coming back to this.

All it takes is 15 seconds on Google and you will discover that human activity puts out something in the range of 150 times as much greenhouse gas as all global volcanic activity combined.  It's not even close.  Again, further evidence that you just accept the crap you are told without bothering to check.

Volcanic eruptions (including St. Helens) can have significant short-term climate effects (including global COOLING), and can do great harm to the ozone layer, but in terms of greenhouse gases they are not a big deal.  Certainly not compared to the human juggernaut.

China and India are not considered in the mix, only cap and trade policies on the US economy, which to say has more emmission standards than China and India. But they are "poor" developing nations, hell China now is worth more in economic growth than Japan, now there is an issue. I still remmeber the black cloud rains coming west from old eastern block ( see communist run industry)industrial emmissions, and not a blip during that period either. Black rain, pitted cars, and eroded stone, and no demand that they stop from the greeners of the period, strange. Only the US is evil and to be targeted.

Another Hannity talking point.  And also false, not to mention silly.

The whole point of Kyoto and similar efforts was specifically to include ALL major emitters, not just the US and Western Europe.  There are countless efforts underway, both private and public, to get China, India, and the rest of the developing world on board with CO2 reduction.  Nobody is ignoring China and India.

This is a giant red herring invented by the haters.

Moreover, it is irrelevant.  Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.  So, we aren't going to control emissions just because China and India aren't?  Well, isn't that mature.  I would like to believe that we could lead by example instead of taking our ball to go home and pout.

And lastly, of course - why the major objections?  This is what I just don't understand.  Honest and simple suggestions that will reduce emissions while SAVING YOU MONEY are mocked and ridiculed by the deniers.

When exactly did waste and excess become "family values?"  You and I both, OS, were told by our parents to be less wasteful, not take more than we needed, and put things back the way we found them.  How did our generation(s) become PROUD of being wasteful?

You are always harping about the good old days of your youth.  How about going back to being as conservative (LITERALLY) as we were back then?  How is that a bad thing?  Why should suggestions of waste reduction not only be disregarded, but actively mocked?

How about 1939-1945 burning down half the planet and no appreciable blip on the climate change meter for that period?

Mt St Helens was a good example of ash/gases amounts thrown into the sky in volumns way beyond the industrial capabilities of the US.

China and India are not considered in the mix, only cap and trade policies on the US economy, which to say has more emmission standards than China and India. But they are "poor" developing nations, hell China now is worth more in economic growth than Japan, now there is an issue.

I still remmeber the black cloud rains coming west from old eastern block ( see communist run industry)industrial emmissions, and not a blip during that period either. Black rain, pitted cars, and eroded stone, and no demand that they stop from the greeners of the period, strange.

Only the US is evil and to be targeted.

Sorry 2012 then, and I am amazed that the Sun has nothing to do with "climate change", and any therory that the sun does effect change is unsupported. My old astronomy professor would also be shocked.

Explain Mars then, polar caps gaining and receding in observed cycles, and only 1 SUV ( an electric/solar powered one at that)on the entire planet (mars rover)

Edited by oldsoldier - 21 July 2009 at 12:31pm

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" is beginning to get old. Global cooling, global warming, climate change....that big heat tab in the sky has more to do with these cycles than man could ever do. And on the day that the sun begins to die and expands to encompass our little world, turning us into a orbiting cinder, a lot of good all this psuedo science will have done "mankind".

Last time I heard from another group of wacks, is armageddon is due 21, Jun 2010 anyway, and thier "scientists" confirm it this time without a doubt.

FreeEnterprise wrote: been busy...   Watching our business fall apart from all this government "intervention"... My customers (large corporate, all the way down to small business) are afraid to spend any money as they are terrified to what is happening since Obama took over.   We had 31 employees in January. Now we have 23... Unemployment in Ohio is now over 10%... I feel sorry for anyone who is getting out of school and looking for a job...   We just installed a $800 anti-back siphen into our plumbing (new law). Which we have to pay $45 a year to have inspected... Taxes on cigs have skyrocketed (guess only guys making $250,000 a year smoke... I didn't know). The tax "rebate" we all got is "income" and you have to pay taxes on it next year...   They are contemplating taxing every can of pop $.10... more...   And that is not even considering what they want to do to health care... And the fact that my property taxes went up 20% this year... While the auditor lowered the heads of the schools in my area taxes... And they all got healthy raises... superintendents income went from $109,000 to $143,000...   So, between researching the local corruption, and sending articles to the papers with the proof, (which they have ignored so far) as well as going to meetings and talking to others about our new PAC, I've been swamped...   www.stoptsd.com

Many of your concerns and issues seem to be on a local level.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Obama decided to raise a tax on your RC Cola. Or change your plumbing laws just for the lolz.


Edited by Bolt3 - 20 July 2009 at 5:17pm

Peter Parker wrote: StormyKnight wrote: Peter, you should change your name to Alan Shore. I had to go look that up, but having done so I am curious - is the comparison based on my stunning good looks or my way with the ladies?

StormyKnight wrote: Peter, you should change your name to Alan Shore.

I had to go look that up, but having done so I am curious - is the comparison based on my stunning good looks or my way with the ladies?

Peter Parker wrote: That was indeed not what I meant by that statement.  It is not a standalone conclusory claim - rather this is the conclusion based on my research of CEI, some of which is summarized in my posts. CEI is not to be dismissed solely because they get their funding from Exxon and pals, but that goes in the hopper as well.  The real problem with CEI is the crap they spout. But more on funding - the funding IS important in this case, because if you look at the "think tanks" putting out anti-global warming propaganda, a disturbingly large number of them are heavily funded by oil, coal, and cars.  One or two is a coincidence - when you keep running into oil money every time you check out a liar, then you start wondering, and suddenly the oil money becomes a taint of its own. And that is my point with the funding - it isn't just CEI, but a whole of bunch of them. But the main reason you should dismiss CEI, of course, is because they spout lies. And another important distinction:  CEI doesn't do research.  Scientific research stands on its own, regardless of who pays the bill.  CEI doesn't do science, they do propaganda.  And when evaluating propaganda, funding is very much an issue. This is particularly true with groups like CEI.  Look at CEI's funding lists and look at the issues they cover.  The overlap is disturbing.  I am not aware of a single issue covered by CEI where they did not receive substantial funding from an industry group that would benefit from CEI's conclusions.

Ahhh, fair enough, my bad.