From The Guardian:
There are three options in tackling climate change. Only one will work
We’re now at a fork in the road: either we cut out fossil fuels completely, or we pass on a dying planet to our children
A "fork in the road" usually refers to a binary choice, i.e. go left or go right. To my mind, this jars uncomfortably with the notion of "three options".
And no amount of CO2 will ever lead to a "dying planet". It'd take something like a global nuclear war to get anywhere near that.
A grim document
10 hours ago
14 comments:
Sigh. Once you see it's from an article in the Gruniad you pretty well know it's going to be bollocks.
Isn't this from the same paper which said "George Soros was the best of the 1%" .
Nuff said ?
Perhaps they should have said "We have come to three tines in the road."
L, it's my guilty pleasure.
Str, I believe so.
S, a cross roads has three option, left, straight ahead, right.
W: four, if you count going back.
S, true.
"And no amount of CO2 will ever lead to a "dying planet""
and even if the global warmmongers are right, higher CO2 levels will only make life a bit more uncomfortable for the human race, whereas, from the point of view of every other species apart from farm animals and crops, the human race is a pest and the sooner it is gone the better.
The Permian-Triassic extinction, the biggest in Earths history, is said to be caused by a run away greenhouse effect.
The Ordovician–Silurian extinction, is said to be caused by a fall in CO2
The Triassic–Jurassic extinction, again too much CO2
And about 3 billion years ago, too much oxygen nearly poisoned everything.
So yes, its definitely possible too much/little of gases in the atmosphere can be catastrophic for life.
For our economy to be severely disrupted, it doesn't have to get anywhere near catastrophic, IMHO.
The solution is more energy use that would alleviate poverty and power mitigation strategies. But from a source that is free of CO2 and as spatially concentrated as possible.
Fun fact. A golf ball sized piece of thorium contains enough potential energy to account for the total energy consumption of an individual for their entire life (so that would be the size of the waste stream to*). And it is so abundant it doesn't need to be mined for specially. It's currently a waste by product of mining for other materials. There's so much of it, its a costly exercise to dispose of.
* Not necessary waste as some of the transmuted elements and fission products are extremely valuable.
It's almost as if climate warriors think that there are only 2 kinds of life: humans and threatened species. The possibility that plants, trees etc might thrive on more CO2 is inconceivable for them as is the idea that species are adaptable If they don't adapt they die
They have moved on from the bald headed, bespectacled man wandering the streets wearing a sandwich board with; "The End Of The World Is Nigh" emblazoned on the front and "REPENT Your Sins NOW - Before It Is Too Late", on the back. That's progress for you!
Ben Jamin'. Good suggestions. Mind you if we could only figure out a way to convert matter to energy with 100% efficiency we could just go ahead and convert the energy of a golf ball made out of golf ball stuff and that would be sufficient for many lifetimes worth of energy usage for an awful lot of people! (e=mc^2) Just kidding.
Meanwhile the Sun's a pretty 'spacially concentrated' form of energy and every day it hits us with more of the stuff than all current sources of energy by a factor of thousands. So at least in sunny climes that's the way to go...arguably. :)
@paul
golf ball weighs 45g. At 100% efficiency(e=mc2) that about 1.4 tw/hs. So say enough to power the UK grid for a day and a half.
A golf ball of uranium would weigh considerably more.
Sun energy may well start of concentrated, but to gather it on earth requires large amounts of dispersed collectors. Which then has to be concentrated. And backed up with a shadow grid/reserves when the sun doesn't shine.
May make sense in the Sahara. Not the UK. Plus all the dispersed toxic waste from manufacturing the disposing of solar panels that then needs dealing with.
"Sun energy may well start of concentrated, but to gather it on earth requires large amounts of dispersed collectors. Which then has to be concentrated."
It appears that artificial photosynthesis has been cracked, so concentrating that energy is no longer a problem, you simply store it as hydrocarbons. Plus it's removing CO2 from the atmosphere. When AP really gets on stream, it's going to be a huge disappointment to all those who get their kicks out of forcing other people to change their behaviour.
BJ. Indeed.
And that would imply enough energy for one person's use over nearly 100million days.
Or a few hundred thousand years. Or a hundred people for a few thousand years.Still not bad for a 45gram golf ball.
Solar waste is an issue but then even Thorium reactors have waste products albeit much less than Hinkley will have.
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