I'm a climate scientist. Bernie is right. Ryan and Delaney are WRONG

[sharedvalues]

There is no way we can count on farcical future inventions to save the planet. SCIENCE IS ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE UNKNOWN.

We need to put a lot of money into research (as Warren has proposed) yes. But we CANNOT count on a discovery that will save us.

We must confront the fossil fuel industry.
“Oil and gas companies destroying the planet for short term profit is criminal activity”. That is correct.

[sharedvalues]

1. Bullock is wrong too

I can’t really understand what he’s saying but Bullock appears to be hoping for magic sequestration discoveries too.

[Xipe Totec]

2. I look forward to seeing these clowns discarded. nt

[ancianita]

3. Then everyone should pay attention to Governor Jay Inslee. He's been on this.

[BlueWI]

16. +1

Go Inslee! See you tomorrow!!

[Kurt V.]

26. +1

[BlueMTexpat]

28. +1!

[calimary]

59. Agreed! Inslee's the climate crisis guy.

Actually doing something about it and making it work for his state.

[Still In Wisconsin]

4. chemical engineer here... two HUGE problems with "inventing our way" out of climate change caused by

CO2: First, CO2 reduction is do-able but IT'S HARD! Not thermodynamically favorable. Second, the engineering challenges relating to planet-scale CO2 reduction are immense!

[sharedvalues]

6. YES.

Exactly. I didn’t want to go into more detail, but carbon sequestration is looking like it’s going to be like nuclear fusion: always ten years off.

We MAY figure something out. We should increase our energy research budget by five times. But we cannot count on it, as Ryan and Delaney want to.

[Blue_true]

10. CO compounds are not the only greenhouse gases.

You are a Chemical Engineer, so you should understand why CO compounds is more accurate than CO2 in describing the primary components of combustion effluent gas streams.

Water vapor is a huge greenhouse gas, unfortunately made worse by the continued heating of the Earth.

You are right about CO compounds and atmospheric recovery. They would be a lot more difficult than water vapor due to them not having a polar tendency like water vapor, that causes gathering them to one location to be more difficult and if they can be bought to one point, condensing them is a bear due to the requirement of either high pressure or low temperature or both.

The way to handle CO compounds is to stop putting human-made ones into the atmosphere. If we could accomplish that, the water vapor levels in the atmosphere will naturally drop, thereby producing some cooling of the Earth.

I just had a thought. Since CO compounds are covalent, that can be possibly used to pull them out of the atmosphere, but the procedure is technical and would require electromagnets and powerful refrigeration units on a craft that can stay aloof in the atmosphere. What would happen is atmosphere can be pulled into the craft. As atmosphere moves down a channel, the electromagnets (actually charged plates) repel polar molecules like water vapor, while non polar molecules concentrate in a stream. The non polar stream would then go to a refrigeration unit which would cool the stream down and fraction out pure compounds. Far-fetched ideas for sure, but if you have done research and development engineering, you should know that is how every stretch invention ever done got it's start.

[Still In Wisconsin]

35. Hey, not saying it can't be done or shouldn't be done...

just that it can't be the whole or even majority of our response to this crisis. And I picked on CO compounds because they're what almost everyone is talking about. We agree... you hit the nail on the head with this: "The way to handle CO compounds is to stop putting human-made ones into the atmosphere."

[Blue_true]

62. Another way to reduce CO compounds in the atmosphere is to plant more plants that draw them out.

I have believe for some time that succulent plant firebreaks in forests can dramatically control forest fires. Plus, that class of plant is a 24/7 CO gas harvester.

Succulents collect and hold and at times release water. So they don't go brown on their body. Low old leave go brown, but a fire burning through them is much easier to douse than one moving tree to tree, very small fire versus a large one.

On the CO compound harvesting, the concept relies on natural dispersion of gas. As CO compounds are pulled out of the air, natural diffusion of those compounds into lower concentration regions happens, thereby providing succulent plants with new CO compounds while depleting the overall amount in the atmosphere.

[Still In Wisconsin]

66. Very, very true.

No better catalytic CO2 reduction than what nature does!

[Blue_true]

70. Nature always shows us the way, if we pay attention.

I am one that believe everything we can possibly invent already exists, it is just that we don't know that yet. Some may call that newaged meta-physical thinking, but I believe it with every fiber of my existence and nothing that I have seen so far contradicts that.

[Still In Wisconsin]

71. That makes sense to me.

It's not about invention, really, so much as it is about discovery.

Yes, that makes metaphysical sense.

[ancianita]

31. Carbon capture is already being done. You think we can't afford THIS?

[Still In Wisconsin]

36. Not saying that at all.

Yes, C capture is being done. It just can't be the whole of our response.

[ancianita]

38. What makes you think I mean that.Most people aware of what else is being done. I'm not saying you're

saying it's the only answer, either.

I'm mostly responding to this:

First, CO2 reduction is do-able but IT'S HARD! Not thermodynamically favorable.
Second, the engineering challenges relating to planet-scale CO2 reduction are immense!

My response is -- so what! The difficulty of solving problems should never be used to cast shade or discourage the problem solvers.

You and most others already know that costly, hard, upfront solutions are far cheaper than backend crisis management, which is no solution at all, but only silly bandaids that profit disaster capitalism, which has no human betterment priority, only profit.

The "externalities" cost of unregulated capitalism is born by human victims. So its victims -- who are all of the rest of us, engineers and all -- don't have to use capitalists' cost-benefit analyses as our guiding principle.

Solving our current problems is best done at point of causation, which is what I think you're saying. My only response is to tell you that cost and difficulty are still affordable and doable.

Upfront solutions get easier and cheaper as they progress, which is why capitalists hate such solutions.

[Still In Wisconsin]

49. Wow. Sorry. n/t

[Blue_true]

63. Succulent plants (like aloe and argave) naturally removes CO compounds through

a process called diffusion and conversion (convert them to O2).

I think that a program of planting succulent plants as greenery near roads and firebreaks in forests (they should be excellent in that application because they are huge and efficient storers of water collected from rainfall), would produce very powerful and significant CO removal with the cost only being the young seedling plants.

[LanternWaste]

40. Who in fact, is arguing it should be the whole or only reponse to the concern?

[oldsoftie]

5. With China & India continuing to build coal plants, it doesnt matter much what WE do.

We've reduced our emissions a great deal. And we continue to make inroads. But the atmosphere has no borders & doesnt care what we've done. China will continue doing what they do. India not far behind.

[NNadir]

9. A typical American consumes about 10,000 watts of average continuous power.

Indians and Chinese less than 1000 watts and a little over 1500 watts per capita respectively.

It is disgusting, absolutely disgusting, that Americans feel that they have the right to demean poor people for wanting to live they way they do.

Live on 1000 watts of average continuous power and come back and tell me how awful the Chinese are.

The way to attack coal use is to attack poverty; and energy, and the access to it, is a big part of what poverty is.

By the way, I'm pretty tired of us congratulating ourselves for switching to gas from coal at the expense of all future generations.

Gas releases 500 g CO2/kwh. Coal about 1100 g CO2/kwh. Let me ask you, if a stinking drunk switches from vodka to two or three six packs of beer is he or she still not an alcoholic?

[oldsoftie]

12. Its not up to the US to make China or India a wealthier country. We're broke.

23 trillion in debt & no stopping it.
Until we realize that nuclear is the best way forward, this is all still a pipe dream. It doesnt matter how much power an american uses; China emits more trash than we do. They're developing & building as many as 500 new coal plants.
No, I'm not going to shutter our economy because they continue to do the WRONG thing.

[NNadir]

15. Neither are we in a position to complain about China and India. Combined they represent a huge...

...fraction of the world's population. The issue is per capita consumption, not bulk consumption.

The United States produces almost as much waste and carbon dioxide for a little more than 300,000,000 people has China does for 1.5 billion.

Is this justice?

We built this wonderful economy that you are opposed to shuttering on coal. Now we are screwing every living thing on this planet and every human being after us by fracking gas and congratulating ourselves for doing so.

By what moral authority do we lecture the Chinese? I read pretty much every damned issues of Environmental Science and Technology.

The link is to the current issue. Why don't you count the number of papers written in this prestigious American environmental journal written by Chinese scientists.

You know that Chinese children have huge concentrations of PDBE flame retardants from "recycling" American electronic waste?

Many of these children have children with unconscionable levels of lead from "recycling" American electronic waste.

Chinese miners dig cadmium for our solar cells. Ethical or unethical?

Smug indifference to this reality doesn't satisfy me, any more than I am satisfied by putting children in cages at the American border, this being excused by the racists who organized this state of affairs, albeit to obscure naked racism, to "protect the American economy."

There are zero Chinese who are less human than I am.

[Kurt V.]

27. thank you

[sharedvalues]

73. Debt is a Republican talking point.

Republicans want to tell you “we’re broke” so you’ll help them shrink the govt to cut taxes on the rich.

Screw that. Spend big on fixing the planet. We can afford it. Just like we afforded a $2 TRILLION tax cut for billionaires. Republicans want us to pay that back. We should spend money on what’s important and make their billionaires pay it back instead.

[Gore1FL]

18. Nuclear is cheap until you figure the rent for the billions of years needed for the waste.

Solve that problem and nuclear is the answer. In the meantime, we have the sun, we have the wind, we have the waves.

Our economy doesn't need to be shuttered in order for us to move forward intelligently. Our economy is going to take a huge hit when the coasts submerge.

[oldsoftie]

21. We should expand all 3 of those. It isnt enough, but it helps. But i'm dealing with reality.

Nuclear is still the best option. Dealing with the waste is still cheaper than the other proposals being pushed. And there are new nuke technologies developed that are far better than what we used to do.
We are not going to stop China doing what they want to do. And there is no guarantee that we can even stop the climate change thats currently going on. We may just have to adapt and handle it. Quit building on the beach. Quit building in low lying areas.

[NNadir]

53. It would be useful to experience the table of nuclides before making such a deadly statement.

What isotopes in nuclear fuel have, in your mind, a lifetime of a billion years or more?

I assume that you have identified a way to store all the carbon dioxide safely for eternity, and if course, that you have a plan ready to roll to prevent the seven million air pollution deaths that take place each year because of air pollution.

Here is the most recent full report from the Global Burden of Disease Report, a survey of all causes of death and disability from environmental and lifestyle risks: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659–724) One can easily locate in this open sourced document compiled by an international consortium of medical and scientific professionals how many people die from causes related to air pollution, particulates, ozone, etc.

It's, um, open sourced. Anyone can read it. It would be interesting if any of the people prattling on about "billions of years of waste (sic) could find a case where so called "nuclear waste" - after more than half a century of commercial nuclear power - has killed as many people as will die in the next 48 hours from dangerous fossil fuel waste, not even including the heat deaths that have been taking place all over the world this summer, but strictly limiting it to carcinogenic and heart killing PM10, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, ozone, heavy metals and other toxic shit that people accept while they wait for the grand renewable energy fantasy that never comes.

Rather than open a science book, they'd rather respond like Pavlov's dogs to the words nuclear energy with insipid comments about "waste," even to the point of just having the coasts submerged because of some illiterate horseshit about "billions of years."

I know every constituent of used nuclear fuel, it's half-life, and it's potential to save what is left to be saved after the triumph of ignorance, the automaton disgust of the great scientists of the 20th century, men like Wigner, Seaborg, and Fermi, women like Lise Meitner.

Opposition to nuclear energy is, in fact, a crime against all future generations since - as pointed out in a paper co-authored by one of the world's premier climate scientists, and widely read and cited - nuclear energy saves lives.

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

There seems to be a mentality - and yes, it's a deadly mentality, since it kills people - that unless nuclear energy, and only nuclear energy, is perfect then every other form of energy will be free to kill in vast numbers. Nuclear energy need not be perfect to be vastly superior to everything else; it only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.

[Gore1FL]

57. Solar, Wind, Geothermal, and Wave energy power don't produce carbon.

The storage facilities for Nuclear waste are literally called "Permanent."

You spent an awful lot of time arguing against things I never advocated. Nonetheless, rent on nuclear waste storage isn't cheap, no matter how much you type.

[NNadir]

61. One would need to know some chemistry. some engineering, and some physics...

...to know how absurdly ridiculous this kind of statement is.

If one knows nothing about these things, it rings through their lazy sloganeering.

First of all, there need not be such a thing as "nuclear waste," and the absurd scheme, making energy dependent on the weather, ignoring the 2nd law of thermodynamics to dream endlessly about toxic batteries for a system of energy that already has an extremely low energy to mass ratio is simply reactionary: There is a reason that humanity abandoned "renewable energy" at the end of the 18th century, that being that most people lived short lives of dire poverty.

But I'm a scientist, and a humanist. For the first part I know what I'm talking about, and for the second part, I'm an old fashioned Democrat inasmuch as I care more about poverty and the environment than turning every damned wilderness into steel laced truck served (or barge served) industrial parks laced with steel made from coal.

People who are cheering for this nonsense are killing a future that did not belong to them.

[Gore1FL]

67. Can you post a link that CO2 is produced by solar panels?

How about a link that says the consumed radioactive materials coming from nuclear reactors is safe for humans?

While you are providing them I will just stay calm in my ignorance of "chemistry. some engineering, and some physics" and continue to believe that the creation CO2 requires a reaction of carbon and oxygen and that radiation causes cell damage.

If we abandoned renewables, nobody told the utilities I am invested in. I've made 10%+, not including dividends since March.

[NNadir]

68. Believe whatever you want to believe; I'm acquainted with the type. Being educated requires...

Last edited Thu Aug 1, 2019, 09:22 PM - Edit history (2)

...a willingness to think and a willingness to work.

It is unseemly to demand of other people - and a reflection of poor character - for one to demand that one have his or her lack of education addressed by a link.

I educated myself on this topic and my journal here let's it be clear what I have learned about energy and the environment with 30 years of hard work.

If you're interested in Energy and the Environment, you'll open a science book; if not, you'll continue to value your "beliefs" over human life.

Nuclear energy, no matter how many lazy dogmatists are filled with "belief," saves lives.

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

It follows that anti-nuke ignorance costs lives.

Generally when I encounter deliberate ignorance, particularly ignorance that kills people. I expand my ignore list.

Have a nice life.

[Gore1FL]

69. We are not talking about green house gasses Solar panels do not produce CO2

However, the product of nuclear reactions inside of nuclear reactors, have, in fact caused issues that have proven to be lethal.

It is bizarre that you would argue such a thing.

I am sorry that your inability to keep on subject has earned me your ignore list, or the threat thereof.

When you can produce the link that demonstrates Solar power as a source of CO2, I will read it.

[sharedvalues]

23. No. We are wealthy. Debt is a GOP talking point.

In the past forty years, Republican presidents have increased the debt while Democratic presidents cut it.

We are done being patsies.

In the next four years, we are going to INCREASE the debt. We are going to increase spending for DEMOCRATIC priorities. Priorities of the American worker. Not the Republican billionaire.

[oldsoftie]

30. We are 23 trillion in debt. Thats a fact not a "talking point". Every president has added to it.

ONE democratic president made a minor dent; Bill Clinton. EVERY other president added to existing debt.
Even ignoring the debt, which most people on the left & right are more than willing to do, NONE of the current candidates have any proposals that will raise the amounts of money needed to fund the programs we discuss here. And that doesnt even include climate change proposals.
Again, i deal with reality. Few others care to do so. And your grandchildren, (if you have any), WILL be the ones to suffer the consequences.

[ancianita]

32. That's not serious debt. We can afford what we want to afford. We'll get OUT of debt through

climate change retooling already being done in Jay Inslee's Washington state. Some of his project plans scale up nationally, even if they're not instant.

And they are manufacturing job creators and machine exporters.

[oldsoftie]

44. Please show me how those numbers work. And how 22 trillion isnt "serious debt".

Especially when it doesnt even include ALL of whats coming. The debt-to-GDP ratio will get to whats considered unsustainable in the next couple decades. Servicing that debt is one of the largest budget items.
How do you get out of debt by "climate change retooling"? How does that raise trillions of dollars? And how does it pay for everything else we want?

[ancianita]

45. Sure. We can have a pie chart war. But you claim that our debt isn't fixable, so you go first. I say

it's not serious because it's under discretionary spending, which everyone tends to slop around with the rest of the budget.

So go ahead. Say what the debt is built from. Use a pie chart. Say who our major debtors are, because it's not just our children and their children. They themselves know how to fix any debt because they've seen it done. Why do you think Andrew Yang knows how to propose a UBI?

Just remember while you do it, that the horribleness of debt is a right wing talking point that you believe is a real problem.

Most of us know it's not.

Anyway, have at it. Back up your original claim.

We'll take turns.

[oldsoftie]

48. Doesnt matter. You dont think debt & deficits are a problem. I remember when Dick Cheney said that.

So no numbers i post will matter to you, because you dont think ANY number matters. And i guess a debt that will never "come due" isnt really a debt then is it?
And it doesnt matter that no one has a proposal that actually raises the amounts needed to pay for what we want, because whatever we DONT get, we can just add it to the debt!

[ancianita]

50. WRONG. Numbers DO matter to me. You brought up that they matter to you first. So. Use them.

Last edited Thu Aug 1, 2019, 10:24 AM - Edit history (1)

It does matter that someone HAS proposals that raise the amounts needed to pay for what we want.

Just because you don't know who they are, doesn't mean they're not out there.

When any candidate, say, Jay Inslee, as governor, who has already budgeted and paid for clean energy climate change projects in his state, says we can scale up his costs nationally and afford them, then I believe him.

He can produce these numbers and wow people in a debate, but numbers in and of themselves are cost projections that everyone argues over with "what abouts" in a debate. And you can bet Trump will mock any and all numbers.

The main thing I'm stressing here is that yes, climate change projects will cost us. Our climate horrors aren't yet here. We are staging them by inaction, and by action we can stop them. The appropriate response isn't fear, withdrawal, surrender or worrying about the upfront costs OR the GDP.

The costs of not spending upfront will be greater on the backend -- just to create safety, which is where we'll end up if we don't do preventive spending to start with. So fuck the current debt to GDP ratio. We're way under what other nations' debt-to-GDP are, and they're willing to mitigate climate change, so let's just lead the way.

Here is what we gain by spending now, national debt be damned -- because if we engineered devastation, we can engineer our way out of it. Ethiopia isn't planting billions of trees for nothing. If they can, so can we.

-- costly carbon capture technology -- at 32 gigatons annual global emissions, it costs us $3 Trillion per year, and to pull back from the 2 degree Centigrade threshhold of the planet, back to the 20 ppm per year carbon in the air, it will take 1 billion of those carbon capture plants we see in Zurich, Switzerland. We'll definitely streamline them over the years, though. So we're talking $300 Trillion -- four times the global GDP.

HOWEVER. Keep in mind that Jay Inslee reminds us that we already spend $5 Trillion PER YEAR on subsidizing fossil fuel; in 2017, less than 2 yrs ago when the US pulled out of the Paris Agreement we had approved a $2.3 TRILLION TAX CUT for the rich. So there's that upfront investment $ to use.

-- additional programs to lower fossil fuel use -- adds up to -$26 Trillion, which means $26 trillion added to the US economy with new manufacturing, transportation and infrastructure retrofitting to lower carbon emissions. Jay Inslee has already listed the economic growth numbers we'll get. Check his website.

-- lowering our carbon footprint to that of other industrialized nations -- 70% of energy prouduced planet-wide is lost as waste heat; confine our footprint to our EU counterparts, and US emissions would fall by more than half; limit the world's richest 10% to the same, and global emissions fall by one fuckin' third;

... we liberals guiltily take fewer flights, eat less beef, use more bikes, buy more Teslas; it's not necessary to adopt the lifestyle of the global poor to stay below 2 degrees Celsius.

"But the climate calculus is such that individual lifestyle choices do not add up to much unless they are scaled by politics" says William Wallace-Weld in The Uninhabitable Earth (2019). So we can abandon the victim-of-our-own-bad-habits politics at this point.

As Jay Inslee says, the scale of this problem is way beyond us as individuals. Doesn't mean we can't scale down our consumption to EU standards, though, does it. No, it doesn't mean that. Yes We Can.

-- unplugging from fossil fuels is doable by 2040, scientists say (right now we subsidize fossil fuel at $5 TRILLION PER YEAR)

-- energy waste -- not wasting food (Americans waste 1/4 of their food, and the waste of agriculture is as much if not more than that of consumers; even mining Bitcoin has wiped out all carbon footprint savings of the last two generations, Bitcoin consumes all the electricity than is generated by all the world's solar panels COMBINED, SO, a simple change of the algorithm could eliminate Bitcoin's footprint completely;

It's a Manhattan Project. Truly. That needs central Democratic governing focus, which is why Governor Jay Inslee's plans are fucking important.

If we DON'T spend in order to keep the debt-to-GDP down, here are the projected costs, given "capitalism" and its current operation of so-called 'market forces as some perfect system.' If you think the upfront spending is enormous, the predictions of economic hardship on the backend spending we'll have to do are beyond comprehension.

For every degree of warming it costs a temperate country like the US 1% GDP, so at 1.5 degrees the world would be $20 Trillion richer than at 2 degrees.

Turn the dial up a degree or two, and the costs balloon -- the compound interest of environmental cascades of catastrophe.

3.7 degrees produces $551 TRILLION in damages; today the worldwide damage is at $280 trillion.

Current emissions trajectory takes us to over 4 degrees by 2100; multiply that by 1% of GDP and you've wiped all possibility of economic growth, which hasn't topped over 5% globally in the last 40 years.

These are sourced by economists and climate scientists whose sources I can cite, but you get my point, I hope.

Don't give me any "yeah buts," because this took a lot of time to look up and offer to you and DU.

[sharedvalues]

55. You've now really moved into Republican talking point land.

The Republican strategy since the 70s has been:

Scream about debt under a Democratic President to stop new spending and weaken the economy under them for political advantage.

Ignore debt and cut taxes under a Republican President.

If you scream about debt you play into their hands. No. Increase spending and force the REPUBLICANS to balance the budget if they care so much about debt.

[LanternWaste]

41. I'm not sure if that's simply self-righteousness or self-validation.

"Few others care to do so..."

I'm not sure if that's simply self-righteousness or self-validation.

Either way, since you're a "reality" kinda guy, you'll provide data or objective (rather than anecdotal) evidence to support that sentiment, yes?

[oldsoftie]

43. Sure! Here you go:

Just read the comments on this board every day on OPs regarding new programs, taxes, etc.
No one wants to accept the reality of our debt and what it takes to pay for all the programs we want as well as paying the debt down. Its simply "tax the rich!" rinse & repeat. Doesnt matter that it wont raise nearly the amounts needed, it SOUNDS good!! Only Bernie Sanders has actually had the guts to quietly state that everyones taxes have to go up. But he only admits it when asked directly.

Facts are what they are, whether we like them or not

[ancianita]

46. That's not your claim. You made a claim without numbers, then defend it with making me do the work.

"Just read the comments on this board," "no one wants to accept the reality of our debt..." "what it takes to pay for all the programs," "paying the debt down..."

You haven't even started with the number reflecting taxes paid last year.

You haven't backed up your claim. When you want to defend your argument you must use the same yardstick you challenged me to use.

So start. "...whether we like them or not"

[Gore1FL]

17. I am not opposed to the U.S. leading the way.

Perhaps if we do, others will follow. I don't think the U.S. need look to India and China for guidance, modeling or excuses.

[ancianita]

33. As far as carbon capture goes, it looks as if the Swiss are leading the way.

[Gore1FL]

58. In any event, we need not wait for China and India to do the right thing. nt

[hatrack]

7. "Technology (TM) Will Save Us!!!"

Same old magical thinking bullshit.

[NNadir]

11. Unless, of course, the technology is wind turbines and solar cells. They're doing...

...a great job!!!!

Up-to-date weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

Week beginning on July 21, 2019: 410.87 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 408.36 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 387.66 ppm
Last updated: July 30, 2019

I personally can't believe I ever questioned how wonderful they are doing, with all those tremendous percent growths reported pretty much every year of the 21st century.

[sharedvalues]

24. You're confusing technologies that exist with those that are still research.

Wind turbines exist today.
Carbon sequestration does not.
We should research it. But we should not bet the planet on it.

[NNadir]

34. And you are confusing technologies that don't work...

...with technologies that are valuable.

I've been listening to wishful thinking about so called "renewable energy" for decades.

The result is that the degradation of the atmosphere is accelerating.

The wind industry has been useless to address climate change, is useless to address it and always will be useless to address it.

The essence of science is that if an experiment fails repeatedly, the theory and not the experiment is rejected.

[sharedvalues]

56. ? This is a discussion about carbon sequestration.

And how, right now, in 2019, it is not yet a practical technology. And we don’t know how long that will take.

That’s what was being discusssed.

[NNadir]

64. Yes, and since it's about carbon...

...it would be useful to know how the steel and aluminum for all those wind turbines that will be landfill 20 years after trucks rip up pristine wilderness to install them is made.

The carbon and toxicological implications of so called "renewable energy" is why it is not even remotely sustainable, as one can easily learn if one spends 30 or so years checking into it in the primary scientific literature as I have done.

My journal here is littered with what I found out.

[LanternWaste]

42. Science is the antithesis of magical thinking.

Simplistic bumper-stickers lacking data to support them notwithstanding.

[ancianita]

51. Just your opinion,man. Because that is what scientists, not just climate scientists are telling us.

[NNadir]

8. Actually this fantasy that it's the fossil fuel industry destroying the planet...

...is a rather simplistic statement coming from a scientist.

I'm a scientist and I certainly don't credit a word of what you say. Of course, I have probably known tens of thousands of Ph.D. level scientists in my lifetime; some of whom were impressive and some, in my opinion, caused me to wonder how they learned to hold a pencil correctly.

The fossil fuel companies would not be making money if people didn't buy their products. Suppose that 60's airhead Sanders became President. What would he do? Outlaw fossil fuel companies?

In fact, despite this airhead's simplistic argument, I note that countries where oil is provided by nationalized companies still produce oil, and still dump dangerous fossil fuel waste into the planetary atmosphere.

It is notable that Senator Sanders lives in the only State in the Union that once upon a time, up until a few years ago, did not burn fossil fuels to generate electricity.

His state now imports electricity generated by burning dangerous natural gas, the waste of which is dumped into the favorite waste dump of the human race, the planetary atmosphere and seas.

This was because Senator Sanders was deeply concerned that as much tritium as is found in a luminescent watch had leaked out of Vermont Yankee.

Anyone who applauds Senator Sanders simplistic horseshit claim that the dangerous fossil fuel companies are solely responsible for climate change is simply and purely clueless.

The cause of climate change is best identified by the use of a mirror.

I'm sure you never buy any products whatsoever involving the combustion of dangerous fossil fuels and dangerous biomass, but this makes you different from about 7 billion other people on the planet.

[oldsoftie]

13. Dayum!

I'm NOT a scientist, but WOW!

[JI7]

19. +

[sharedvalues]

25. Why are you defending the fossil fuel industry?

The principal problem is that oil and gas companies have FUNDED CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL so they can make short term profits.

We all consume energy and are responsible, especially in wealthy countries.

BUT, I’d be surprised to hear that any of us funded climate change denial. We haven’t been able to take action because oil and gas companies have funded propaganda to convince half of America that climate change isn’t a problem. THAT is why oil and gas companies bear enormous blame.

[NNadir]

29. You are confusing an objection to mindless simplification with...

...a defense of fossil fuels.

I have been studying energy and its relationship to the environment for much of my adult life.

My journal on this website, among other things speaks to the serious attention I have paid.

I regard climate change as the most serious issue before humanity.

I am sick to my stomach with glib trivializing nonsense about the subject.

Right and left, those in denial and those who claim to care, we are clueless.

[sharedvalues]

54. Me too. And oil and gas companies fund climate change denial

The biggest threat to our planet today, bar none, is:

Climate denial propaganda funded by rightwing billionaires and oil and gas companies.

Because all the rest of it— all the policy, all the protests, all the individual effort, all the science— means zero without getting a majority of voters to support it. And the ONLY reason there is not majority support in the US is because oil and gas companies have spent hundreds of millions on LIES.

So for that reason, regardless of what else they do or did, the oil and gas companies, and the Republican billionaires that support, own, or run them, are at fault.

You have to agreee with that, right?

[NNadir]

65. It is clear that moneyed interests are in the denial game, but...

...to say that this is the only reason for climate change is a grotesque simplification.

There are even people who carry on endlessly about how bad climate change is whose selective attention is a disaster that is equally destructive.

Some examples:

Joe Romm.

Bill McKibben.

Ed Lyman.

These people think that someone being exposed to a few atoms of cesium-137 is a more important issue than New York City going under water, millions of people dying each year from air pollution, and the complete and total destruction of the planetary atmosphere.


These are things that are happening and do not involve convoluted speculations about what could happen.


They think that the world will be saved by short lived whirlygigs and sheets of glass coated with toxic metals and manufactured using vast amounts of chemicals processed with questionable chemistry and involving the mining of billions of tons of material.

I note that the media is very much as responsible as well. You can read a lot about Fukushima in the media, or about Chernobyl, but very little about the daily death of 19,000 people - 7 million per year - from air pollution.

Like I said above. If you detect the people responsible for climate change, a look in the mirror might help.

The only possible path to saving what is left to be saved involves extremely difficult engineering which will require enormous amounts of energy, the only possible source in terms of energy density being nuclear energy.

[Uncle Joe]

14. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread sharedvalues.

[ancianita]

52. +1 All climate change threads are important here. More than most of us realize.

[calimary]

60. Yep.

[myohmy2]

20. "Oil and gas companies destroying the planet for short term profit is criminal activity".

...and should be treated a such...

...before it's too late...

[Hortensis]

22. Well, we can't count on future innovations but we must develop them.

I'm sure you agree with that. What's important is that the need for climate action was discussed.

Fwiw, Ryan (a conservative Dem), Delaney and Sanders will none of them be our nominee. And that CNN debate was a setup designed to require our candidates to respond to CNN attack questions in 30- and 60-second soundbites that we should expect to turn up in Republican attack ads in the GE. In any case, whoever's president will no doubt be credited with our major climate legislation as is traditional, but congress legislates and funds.

And that's very promising. Virtually all of our over 250 liberal Democrats who came to congress in the last 10-15 years have 100% ratings from the League of Conservation Voters. Older Dems such as Sanders average lower over their legislative lifetimes, but virtually all also score 100% each year now. Our liberal Democratic legislators all been True Believers for some time in the need to fight global warming.

Further, our caucuses include people from environment-related fields of science who entered congress specifically to fight global warming from the seat of power. They're on various interrelated committees, have researched and are writing legislation with the assistance of many, many experts outside, and are just waiting for the people to give us the power to act.

Btw, even our conservative Blue Dogs in the house (27 at current count) score far better than the Republicans. Tim Ryan's lifetime (since 2002) score is 92% and 2018 score 94%. That's a lot lower than his liberal colleagues' 100% average, but many of his counterparts in the Republican Party are scoring 0. Literally.

https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/tim-ryan

[The Mouth]

37. It will only happen if there is NO impact

on the quality of live of the average voter.

Nobody but the farthest fringe of the most extreme left is going to drive one mile less, or change the thermostat by one degree, or vote of anyone, ANYONE who implies, suggests, or advocates ANYTHING costing more.

All massive respect due to scientists, but politics is about what is possible. Any and all emphesis should be on how do we reduce greenhouse emissions WITHOUT COMPROMISING LIFESTYLE. That is what will win, that is what will get done. Tell me (not the Mouth, but an average voter) I have to be hotter in summer, colder in winter, drive an underpowered, limited range vehicle or not be able to take a vacation involving flying or driving and no matter how urgent the need or solid the science, and it's a no-go. All of the facts, science, logic, and reason in the world don't mean shit if the election isn't won.

Politics is the art of the possible.

[Merlot]

39. When delaney spoke about the machine to clean the air he sounded like an investor

hawking a product. Wouldn't be surprised to find out he is indeed an investor of such a product, he spent so much time touting his own entrepreneurial skills.

[Bettie]

47. Thanks for saying this

you are right.

[Princetonian]

72. Bernie is right about alot of things.

I am glad he is on our side.