• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

I understand the aesthetic complaints about wind, my cottage is on the Bruce Peninnsula and there are plans for turbines right across the lake from us. It would spoil our view, and probably affect our property value. But isn't mountain top removal more radical? Or fracking (which can contaminate drinking water for miles around)? We like to have our energy "out of sight, out of mind" but that's not the reality for people who live close to these projects. There's also the argument to be made that seeing the source of our energy might push us to conserve (conserve...conservative?) a bit more.

On a related note, here's an article which points out how the latest conclusions of the IPCC are actually conservative, as they always have been:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/sep/27/ipcc-climate-change-report-global-warming
 
FJAG said:
I live down here in SW Ontario on the shores of Lake Erie. From my front porch I can see 18 wind turbines . . .

I wrote that last night in the dark having mentally taken an inventory. This morning I recounted and in fact can see 43 from my front porch. From my back deck I can look SW along the shoreline towards Pelee and see fifty to a hundred more (not today its too hazy but at night the whole shoreline is covered by blinking red lights.

I'm sorry to hear that Wolfe Island and the Bruce Peninsula have them. I haven't been to either place in the last four years but I guess I should have expected it considering how quickly they sprang up here once the reins were released. There is another project going in of some 120 which luckily (for me) they'll be over the horizon from me. I should note as well somewhat selfishly that as these things become ever more common they'll have less impact on property values simply because you won't be able to get lakefront property without them being nearby and the average person (who currently follow a NIMBY line) will become more used to them and will simply have no choice but to accept them.

:cheers:
 
Kilo_302 said:
I understand the aesthetic complaints about wind, my cottage is on the Bruce Peninnsula and there are plans for turbines right across the lake from us. It would spoil our view, and probably affect our property value. But isn't mountain top removal more radical? Or fracking (which can contaminate drinking water for miles around)? We like to have our energy "out of sight, out of mind" but that's not the reality for people who live close to these projects. There's also the argument to be made that seeing the source of our energy might push us to conserve (conserve...conservative?) a bit more.

On a related note, here's an article which points out how the latest conclusions of the IPCC are actually conservative, as they always have been:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2013/sep/27/ipcc-climate-change-report-global-warming

Sorry, but fracking  does not do anything to well water.  The frack zone is thousands of feet below the well water zone.  Fracking has been going on for decades in Alberta and other places- the well water is fine.  I don't expect you to believe me, but there it is.
 
SeaKingTacco said:
Sorry, but fracking  does not do anything to well water.  The frack zone is thousands of feet below the well water zone.  Fracking has been going on for decades in Alberta and other places- the well water is fine.  I don't expect you to believe me, but there it is.

I second that. I've been in and out of Southern Alberta since 1980.  Canadian Fracmaster has been at it since 1976 and Calfrac since 1999.  No methane in the wells.

Of course, as in Pennsylvania, there are surface flares in places like Turner Valley, which prompted people to start drilling there in the first place.

God/Gaia are never as tidy in their planning and execution as we might like them to be.
 
Well water contamination, almost always, is linked to piss poor well construction. No doubt there are a few who have suffered ill effects from fracking, but the number of real victims is far, far less than what the anti-fracking lobby would have you believe.

 
I can remember working as a member of a service rig crew in Central Alberta when Dresser Titan would come on location and frack wells we were completing, especially in the foothills. This would be back in the early/mid seventies. I have photo's of the lease covered in pumpers on the top of a mountain just south of Calgary, we were completing an 18000 foot well.

Contrary to popular belief it does not create a huge cavern that will collapse below us.......



Larry
 
Interesting that Kilo talks about the aesthetic issues surrounding wind turbines before changing tack, but fails to address the rather important issues like cost, availability vs demand times and (implied but not states in my post, should work on that) the massive costs to the Ontario taxpayer to cover the above market pricing for wind power and the considerable losses when forced to dump excess off peak power.

While this isn't a personal attack on Kilo per se (I realize my style and tone probably make it look that way), this is the other issue when dealing with alarmists: the "deflect and change subject" technique when dealing with points raised by the skeptical community.
 
Judith Curry (2013) is following the AR5  SPM.   

"The Australian media continues with thought provoking articles on climate change.  This week, there are two good articles in Australian Financial Times, which are unfortunately behind paywall.  These two articles provide a good summary of the issues that policy makers need to grapple with in responding to the the IPCC report and addressing climate change.  Here are some excerpts:

Why the pause? IPCC report is unconvincing

These reports underpin a now vast industry in research grants, environment lobby firms and advisory businesses of all types.

The reports also provide the basis for billions of dollars in trading climate credits, many thousands of well-paid government jobs in climate bureaucracies, and an enormous green energy industry.

The IPCC report was never going to undermine the science on which all this funding floats, with the various leaked drafts of this key report remaining bullish on global warming. But early reports indicate that it will explain away the troublesome and widely acknowledged 15-year pause in temperatures.

But the existence of the pause is now too widely known for any sleight of hand in the report so the IPCC and its band of supporters will be in damage control mode for some time.

Anyone who has dealt with forecasts produced by experts with impressive credentials in any field, or who knows anything about the inglorious history of forecasting, would not be surprised by a forecast in such a young field being wrong in the short term. The idea is for scientists to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and take another look at the theory.

Climate scientists, however, cannot afford the luxury of admitting even a minor failure. A vast industry depends on the IPCC forecasts.""


http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/29/2-from-the-australian-financial-review/#more-13162

 
What happens if the "pause" continues? If year over year temperatures stay within the statistical norms?
 
Haletown said:
"The Australian media continues with thought provoking articles on climate change.  This week, there are two good articles in Australian Financial Times, which are unfortunately behind paywall.  These two articles provide a good summary of the issues that policy makers need to grapple with in responding to the the IPCC report and addressing climate change.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/29/2-from-the-australian-financial-review/#more-13162

Australia voted in a big way in their last fed election to dismantle the carbon tax system brought in by the previous Labour government. Here's a recent article from Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/09/29/australian-voters-energetically-reject-concocted-climate-crisis-and-carbon-tax-disasters/

The task however is not easy. Under the scheme, farmers had been receiving fairly hefty credits for the 'carbon sinks' that their green spaces provided and they have become quite dependant on the additional carbon incomes they were receiving. Any dismantlement scheme will have to cater to that.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/election-2013/tax-gone-but-hunt-for-carbon-cash-not-forgotten-minister-emissions/story-fn9qr68y-1226721300567

One thing is for sure. A country that was generally green friendly has responded with a massive backlash against the government that imposed a carbon tax scheme.

:cheers:
 
Good idea.  Saves a lot of people the problem of when to get sterilized or promise to never fly again because we all have to do our bit to save Gaia.



"Scientists Recommend Having Earth Put Down"




http://climatism.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/scientists-recommend-having-earth-put-down/
 
ModlrMike said:
What happens if the "pause" continues? If year over year temperatures stay within the statistical norms?

Someone will find something else to whine about.
 
A MIT scientist puts the whole "consensus" thing into focus. Remember, in science if there is a falsifiable claim and it is proven wrong, then the claim goes in the dustbin. If too many of the claims which support the hypothesis are thrown out (or the one major one on which it rests) then the hypothisis is lso thrown out:

http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/29/top-mit-scientist-un-climate-report-is-hilariously-flawed/

Top MIT scientist: Newest UN climate report is ‘hilariously’ flawed
1:27 PM 09/29/2013

Not all scientists are panicking about global warming — one of them finds the alarmism “hilarious.”

A top climate scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology lambasted a new report by the UN’s climate bureaucracy that blamed mankind as the main cause of global warming and whitewashed the fact that there has been a hiatus in warming for the last 15 years.

“I think that the latest IPCC report has truly sunk to level of hilarious incoherence,” Dr. Richard Lindzen told Climate Depot, a global warming skeptic news site. “They are proclaiming increased confidence in their models as the discrepancies between their models and observations increase.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claimed it was 95 percent sure that global warming was mainly driven by human burning of fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases. The I.P.C.C. also glossed over the fact that the Earth has not warmed in the past 15 years, arguing that the heat was absorbed by the ocean.

“Their excuse for the absence of warming over the past 17 years is that the heat is hiding in the deep ocean,” Lindzen added. “However, this is simply an admission that the models fail to simulate the exchanges of heat between the surface layers and the deeper oceans.”

“However, it is this heat transport that plays a major role in natural internal variability of climate, and the IPCC assertions that observed warming can be attributed to man depend crucially on their assertion that these models accurately simulate natural internal variability,” Lindzen continued. “Thus, they now, somewhat obscurely, admit that their crucial assumption was totally unjustified.”

Scientists have been struggling to explain the 15-year hiatus in global warming, and governments have been urging them to whitewash the fact that temperatures have not been rising because such data would impact the upcoming climate negotiations in 2015.

The Associated Press obtained documents that show the Obama administration and some European governments pressured UN climate scientists to downplay or even omit data that shows the world hasn’t warmed in over a decade.

“Germany called for the reference to the slowdown to be deleted, saying a time span of 10-15 years was misleading in the context of climate change, which is measured over decades and centuries,” the AP report said. “The U.S. also urged the authors to include the ‘leading hypothesis’ that the reduction in warming is linked to more heat being transferred to the deep ocean.”

Global warming skeptics have exploited such data to show that the science behind manmade global warming is faulty and politically driven.

n attributing warming to man, they fail to point out that the warming has been small, and totally consistent with there being nothing to be alarmed about,” Lindzen said. “It is quite amazing to see the contortions the IPCC has to go through in order to keep the international climate agenda going.”

However, believers in catastrophic global warming have said the UN report should serve as a wake-up call to those who would deny the issue’s urgency.

“Those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire,” said Secretary of State John Kerry. “Once again, the science grows clearer, the case grows more compelling and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that anyone with conscience or common sense should be willing to even contemplate.”

The UN is set to release its full assessment of the world’s climate on Monday.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/29/top-mit-scientist-un-climate-report-is-hilariously-flawed/#ixzz2gPdcMDOT
 
ModlrMike said:
What happens if the "pause" continues? If year over year temperatures stay within the statistical norms?

Corollary to my first question: at what point does the "pause" become the norm?
 
ModlrMike said:
Corollary to my first question: at what point does the "pause" become the norm?

More fun with St David of Suzuki. On the CTV "news ticker" the Suzuki Insititute claimed the IPCC report "proved" that climate change was "amplified" in Canada. So a 15 year pause was "amplified"? I'm still trying to understand what sort of mathematical manipulation multiplied by zero equals "amplification".

Must have something to do with irrational numbers......
 
Thucydides said:
More fun with St David of Suzuki. On the CTV "news ticker" the Suzuki Insititute claimed the IPCC report "proved" that climate change was "amplified" in Canada. So a 15 year pause was "amplified"? I'm still trying to understand what sort of mathematical manipulation multiplied by zero equals "amplification".

Must have something to do with irrational numbers......

The pause in the process of warming does not mean the effects disappeared. The effects are amplified in the arctic and northern regions, hence the rise in temperature at the north pole versus a smaller increase globally.
 
Amplified as in the increase in arctic ice, I suppose.

I'm sure all those people trapped in the NW passage are waiting for a bit of amplification right now.

 
Solar panels are now 1/100th the price they were in the 1970's and are as reliable as a hammer. Prices per watt has been dropping like a stone for over 40 years. It is very possible we will see solar become the cheapest form of electricity generation if we live long enough.

Burning dinosaurs obviously has no future.
 
Back
Top