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This exploration of a paper about science denialism seems relevant. It goes over five of the features common to denialism. See how many you can spot in action.
I count five of five.
* Conspiracy theories
Science is our friend, but it has been abused in the last 50 years by colleges and various "think tanks" (on both "sides) to produce a new congressional "bogyman" now that communism is on the back burner.
I find that more or less everyone at the top levels of the Climate Lobby is a former or current member of Greenpeace or the WWF. Greenpeace were the guys who sent out actors to club seals and torture kangaroos for money to "raise awareness" in the nineties.
Journals want people to buy their issues. So, they publish stuff that is as attention grabbing as possible. New! Spectacular! Interesting!
Given the scrutiny of the field by the sceptics, and given the importance to give the impression of "the science is settled", it's a simple matter of the politicos at the top of the dung heap getting the money to the various researchers, who in turn know enough not to rock the boat by publishing things that could be interpreted as "the science is NOT settled". Given this, we can comfortably and confidently say that if real results were not being reported, it would be those NOT supporting AGW.
* Fake experts
Does anyone remember the big scare about aresol cans that destroys the atmosphere? I had read a small blurb on page 6 in a newspaper several years ago that found that they really didn't, that the "study" was flawed. We still don't use the chemical that was the main focus anymore, but it was still interesting.
* Cherry picking
The fact is, the last decade has seen the planet get a bit cooler, not warmer.
we recently had the coldest May in ages.
* Impossible expectations of what research can deliver
So, what is needed is INDEPENDENT research. After a serious investigation of the manners of research in the current climatology field and some serious transparency work, the field could start producing interesting results again.
What could make it easier to determine the direction of the skew due to unreported results is to see if the researchers have a vested interest. And of course, they do.
If you want to prove it as a science you will need to provide a scientific proof that is accurate and verifiable, then we can pull the plug on all the research funding and pass the whole mess over to practical scientists
A science would be backed by a theorem.
But if science is not by itself interested in the politics of the issue, and it is not, then again, why tolerate the IPCC? There are huge fields of science funded in other ways, via the universities. They could do their science in peace and don't make the public play for attention at all. Wouldn't that be a better alternative?
* Misrepresentation and logical fallacies
One of the most interesting ways it was explained recently is when one studied the fact that all swans are white. When a black swan was discovered, it was considered an anomaly and ignored, and the conclusion was that there was no black swans at all. This is the same type of finagling that happens with global warming/climate change studies.
Hiding the decline, for those interested, refers to having a decline in the sixties for the global warmth curves according to the historical data sets produced by the climate models. The sixties had no such decline for real, which would make the veracity of the climate model questionable. Instead of being honest about it, see, a prediction model that exactly matches in historical data will have very little if any predictive power, the originator of that email chose to replace the climate model data for the period in question with tree ring data from a study. The serious part is not what was done, because the model data from the sixties WAS wrong, but that it was done without clearly showing that it was done, and was done in a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the truth.
Keep in mind that roughly one in twenty correlations found to be significant (at p < 0.05) ARE products of random chance.
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Whatever the science is about Climate Change/Global Warming, whether it is profisizing gloom or accurately predicting weather patterns, the main skepticism with the whole movement is this ever changing fact that it is man made.
Man had nothing to do with the previous changes to global climates and they certainly can do nothing, good or bad, about them now. It is this one "fact" that seems to be hotly debated again and again, even when Emails from one institution found faked data to skew results to other studies that actually show the folly of the others that try to make man the villain.
Simply put, we are wasting resources on this and better technologies that could be worked on are shunted aside for the useless Solar and Wind pipe dreams and tiny electric cars that maybe will go 100 miles before needing an 8 hr recharge.
Last post of mine, folks. Believe the doom and gloom if you want, but I hope to have 1.50 bucks a gallon for gas and reasonable rates for electricity. That won't happen if we try to limit our resources and not replace them with tech that will provide the energy we need. Solar and Wind will not be, nor ever get to be, enough.
EDIT... Psst... It has gotten cooler... by almost a whole degree, not warmer.
Whatever the science is about Climate Change/Global Warming, whether it is profisizing gloom or accurately predicting weather patterns, the main skepticism with the whole movement is this ever changing fact that it is man made.
Man had nothing to do with the previous changes to global climates and they certainly can do nothing, good or bad, about them now. It is this one "fact" that seems to be hotly debated again and again, even when Emails from one institution found faked data to skew results to other studies that actually show the folly of the others that try to make man the villain.
Simply put, we are wasting resources on this and better technologies that could be worked on are shunted aside for the useless Solar and Wind pipe dreams and tiny electric cars that maybe will go 100 miles before needing an 8 hr recharge.
Last post of mine, folks. Believe the doom and gloom if you want, but I hope to have 1.50 bucks a gallon for gas and reasonable rates for electricity. That won't happen if we try to limit our resources and not replace them with tech that will provide the energy we need. Solar and Wind will not be, nor ever get to be, enough.
EDIT... Psst... It has gotten cooler... by almost a whole degree, not warmer.
I actually think Solar energy COULD be enough if it was widespread enough. If it was on every house and every building with the highly efficient panels they have now (the ones which get energy even on cloudy days), I think it could be a supply that may even have more energy than we currently have on the grid.
Unlike Wind, Solar is constant and dependable. You will ALWAYS have the sun, and with the higly efficient cells, as long as you have the sun you will ALWAYS have energy.
You won't even need Solar plants if every building has solar panels.
The biggest obstacle is money.
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Unlike Wind, Solar is constant and dependable. You will ALWAYS have the sun,
*Looks up*
What's this "sun" you speak of? Is that one of those "Non-Western-Oregon" phenomena I've been hearing so much about?
Unlike Wind, Solar is constant and dependable. You will ALWAYS have the sun,*Looks up*
What's this "sun" you speak of? Is that one of those "Non-Western-Oregon" phenomena I've been hearing so much about?
It's that thing in Oregon that makes the times lighter where you can see the clouds (solar energy collection would be enabled by the highly efficient panels during this time) vs. when everything is dark and you see no stars (due to clouds). It's that thing that makes it lighter...even if you can't see it.
Of course as a Kobold, if you spend all your time underground...since it's not magic and not a torch...you may not be familiar with it at all.
You'd have to have wires or something to take the energy from above ground down to you.
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I gotta say, all this talk sounds like surface world problems. I'm think I'm gonna HOLY S&@& A RIG JUST DRILLED INTO MY BEDROOM HEY GTFO THAT'S GNOME BLOOD NOT OIL
"thaX wrote:
Does anyone remember the big scare about aresol cans that destroys the atmosphere? I had read a small blurb on page 6 in a newspaper several years ago that found that they really didn't, that the "study" was flawed. We still don't use the chemical that was the main focus anymore, but it was still interesting.
* Cherry picking"
It is cherry picking and marginally relevant.
It is also clearly false.
Irontruth: Not at all. Just saying that environmentalists screaming might not be the best qualification of a true statement.
When did I say that environmentalists screaming is proof of something scientific?
This exploration of a paper about science denialism seems relevant. It goes over five of the features common to denialism. See how many you can spot in action.
I too count five of five characteristics present in posts by climate change denialists, or skeptics, on this thread.
Thanks to Scythia for providing the link. Its good reading as is "Denialism, What is it and how should Scientists Counter it?" referenced in the linked paper.
I am going to take my own advice and not argue any more that human caused climate change is a real phenomenon. It is pointless.
Instead I am going to try to answer the question that started this thread, why the conspiracy theories about climate change?
Obviously the fossil fuel industry has huge financial and political power, and fossil fuel use will have to be seriously reduced or eventually eliminated due to climate change.
When a huge industry stands to lose everything they will do anything they can to prevent it happening, as was the case with the tobacco industry.
They employ public relations consultants and fake experts to promote their case. Astonishingly, some of the fake experts for the tobacco industry show up again on climate change. How can you be an expert in 2 unrelated fields. You can't, no matter, say the right thing and you are an expert.
Its vital to recall scientists are on one side, held to certain standards of conduct and intellectual rigour, and public relations consultants on the other, who are held to neither. They are paid to promote their clients point of view, end of story.
Why do individuals accept conspiracy theories? I can't say about every conspiracy theorist. But peoples political views are part of their identity, and such views are not easy to change. It is likely not to be shifted by an inconvenient scientific consensus.
And its relatatively hard for a lay person to get on top of the science in an area. But to dismiss the conclusion due to a conspiracy is easy. In fact if you want to believe the world was created in 4004 BC, HIV does not cause AIDS also, just say evidence against is a conspiracy. works for everything you want to believe. Ditto for attacking opponents and making up silly positions for opponents so you can refute them.
And what makes you think that an architect from Texas who writes contributor opeds (ie, clickbait) on Forbes's blogging platform is qualified to talk about anything?
I'm not certain which article you are talking about, but the article posted right above your comment was written by Larry Bell.
Larry Bell is (or was) the head of the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture. He does research in how to build habitats to survive extreme environments, in his specific instance...space.
Apparently his research is into the extremes of environments and the extremes the environments on earth can reach, as well as that on space.
He was instrumental from the early 90s to a few years ago with NASA apparently in working with Bell and Trotti to develop ideas in regards to the international Space Station. IN addition, he helped develop rovers similar to the ones sent to Mars. More recently he has done design and advanced hybrid-electric vehicles.
His degree IS indeed architecture, but it has primarily been Space Architecture. He has done research into the climate arena in regards to his jobs at least two decades ago (unsure if he's done ANY real research recently, as I said the most recent stuff he's done is hybrid electric vehicles from what I can tell).
(Edit: currently the thing he is most known in regards to climate change is writing for the MEDIA in regards to being opposed to climate change rather than what I can see with regards to serious research [but I could be mistaken]).
In many ways he's similar to Michael Mann, whom he has had a tussle or two of words with.
Whether that is considered qualified to write on the subject is another matter of debate (which I think I'll steer clear of overall), but I thought I'd clear up who the author apparently is of the article above your comment.
As an aside, the article is 3 years old.
In regards to Larry Bell and his articles...I do find an excellent article here that directly relates not only to him, but also in regards to WHY there are conspiracy theories.
The Continuing Denial of Scientific Consensus of Climate Change
Also written from a media viewpoint, but that considered, is surprisingly concise (perhaps if the writers claims are accurate, because of who it is written by) in regards to why conspiracy theories abound, why most probably agree on Climate Change (he does call it Global Warming...a media convention at one point though, but for the most part sticks with the Climate change), and at least partially why many of the conspiracy theories are not really considered (mostly because most research addresses such things anyways already, even if the media does not), and what the composition of many of the jobs and careers of climate scientists consists of.
Edit: I can only quote a few paragraphs, but I found these most interesting and perhaps those who would not read the article will read these.
There have been a few studies that have attempted to measure the degree of scientific consensus on climate change. Naomi Oreskes in 2004; Doran and Zimmerman in 2009; Anderegg et al in 2010; and the Vision Prize in 2012. All found evidence for a very strong consensus among climate scientists for the idea that recent climate change can mostly be attributed to human activities (see the recently updated rebuttal written by Dana Nuccitelli for details). Most of the world’s scientific academies have made explicit affirmations of the consensus on climate, along with numerous scientific associations. The IPCC reports are a major effort to define the extent of general agreement and to identify the areas of remaining uncertainty.
Climate science can be very difficult to understand, with many people, even experts, occasionally struggling to explain a consensus concept such as an anthropogenically cooling stratosphere. Nobody can grasp it all; we all have to accept parts of the subject largely on trust. Even though consensus doesn’t logically entail certainty, it’s a good enough indicator for most of us to accept the scientific consensus as the most reliable knowledge available.
However, 97% I could accept in regards to Climate Change...but Global Warming...or a specific theory on it...as always, I'm pretty skeptical of THAT percentage...I think a better and more comprehensive number is given in the article...
71% accepted at least some degree of a human role by selecting either “primarily human” (25.7%) or “both human and natural” as causing global warming. The problem here is that even mainstream climate scientist would have been able to vote for “both human and natural”. Nobody denies that solar variations and large volcanic eruptions have played a measurable role in modern climate change. The question is poorly worded, a problem Bell skips over in this case, perhaps because he approves of the result.
Which means both human and natural are around 45% and primarily human is 26% which gets you to around a 71% which indeed is a majority...
And that's just those who would say humans play some role in it (though those saying it's primarily humans without other influences are the minority)...the idea of climate change as a whole...is FAR greater (IMO of course). Remember also this is a survey from a group that is rather biased in some ways against the entire Climate Change (and not all the scientists either, this one report is addressing one specific study and arena of a group of people...not the entire spectrum or even the entirety of everything else).
Still I think it's useful to illustrate that a majority does not necessarily have to be something like 100% (and rarely is, or even very close to that), but it can be a fairly large and representative number showing cohesion in the community as a whole.
I should do one final note, as I did with Bell...this article is ALSO three years old and hence a nice mirror piece to the article posted above. In typical media fashion, you'll note NEITHER article really sources it's information as a scientist would though.
BNW: You honestly got ALL THAT from "independent research"??? Sorry, but that is downright ludicrous. *giggles*Sissyl- Our large canine friend didn't say he got all that from independent research. Much of his post is describing what the scientific community would have to do avoid sources you call tainted or biased.
Sissyl, you have made 2 claims on this thread that are demonstrably wrong. One about the reasonable environmental record of awful regimes in the former USSR, China and Cuba. At least about the USSR this is not only mistaken but the opposite is true to an extraordinary degree. A little research will verify this.
And your claim Greenpeace organised the clubbing of seals so they can film it for propaganda purposes is just silly.
thaX has also made at least 2 factual errors, about CFCs and the last ice age.
But none of this has lead to any revision of your views. And why should it? You believe the scientific community is concealing data, biased et al when its conclusions are opposed to yours.
And if the scientific community were to go through all the rather preposterous steps Big Norse Wolf outlined and they still concluded what they do now, you still would not believe them.
Scott Betts- Its good to see someone who understands the scientific method. But as I suggested to Big Norse Wolf, we are wasting effort on this thread.
If you can show a person's premises are false and they revise their views, there is a point to discussion. If it makes no difference, there is not.
All right. We have a claim that I have made two demonstrably false claims on this thread: environment in authoritarian regimes, and Greenpeace clubbing seals. I will bring up the first now and save the second for later when I have more time.
My stance was: Authoritarian regimes are awful for the environment. Therefore, if you discuss things from an environmental standpoint, authoritarianism is a bad idea. Still, I have gotten some people claiming that China and Soviet were great for the environment n earlier threads, based on the state propaganda from those states. I claim that these people are naive, and I stand by that claim. This is what I have argued in this thread. So, what of what I wrote is "demonstrably false", Joynt? Do tell.
I will get back to you on Greenpeace clubbing seals, and we shall see if it is "just silly". Be sure to decide if you still stand by that viewpoint.
All right. We have a claim that I have made two demonstrably false claims on this thread: environment in authoritarian regimes, and Greenpeace clubbing seals. I will bring up the first now and save the second for later when I have more time.
My stance was: Authoritarian regimes are awful for the environment. Therefore, if you discuss things from an environmental standpoint, authoritarianism is a bad idea.
OK.
I appear to have understood your post as saying the opposite to what you intended. So did someone else on this thread.I am not really interested in checking the original post and arguing about if you expressed yourself clearly and the like.
So I agree perfectly about authoritarian regimes and the environment.
As to Greenpeace and seals, I will look at your later post.
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I don't even understand how the authoritarian or greenpeace clubbing seals has anything whatsoever to do with climate change.
If the authoritarian comment is that government control of stuff is bad, that sort of negates all the examples where government stepping in and regulating/deregulating things has been considered good. People right now are decrying the legalization of gay marriage in the states as big government stepping in and getting in the way of gay rights. that is an authoritarian response that I think most posters here think is fair.
On environmental issues, There are plenty of government treaties and bans that have generally helped the environment. CITES for instance has done a lot in regulating the traffic of endangered species. There is still a black market and smuggling going on, but in many parts of the world it is less than it would be without CITES.
Greenpeace is pretty insignificant when it comes to influencing research. A lot of academics consider them a joke, and they certainly are not funding climate change research, at least on any significant level. That is in contrast to companies like BP oil, EXXON, etc, which often do provide large amounts of funding to university departments. My last graduate school department was geology and geophysics, and we were probably one of the best funded departments on campus thanks to donations from the energy industry. Yet somehow people in my department still worked on climate change related research.
Man had nothing to do with the previous changes to global climates and they certainly can do nothing, good or bad, about them now.
Because thaX says so.
Last post of mine, folks. Believe the doom and gloom if you want, but I hope to have 1.50 bucks a gallon for gas and reasonable rates for electricity.
Ahh, finally a real reason for the denialism: "Stop spending money to fix climate change, it's making my gas prices too high!"
Amazing.
Here.... from 2012.
Why am I not surprised that when push comes to shove, your version of "support" is an blog post at Forbes.
I don't even understand how the authoritarian or greenpeace clubbing seals has anything whatsoever to do with climate change.
It doesn't. Anthropogenic climate change's truth value is not predicated on any of the things Sissyl is trying to steer discussion towards.
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I don't even understand how the authoritarian or greenpeace clubbing seals has anything whatsoever to do with climate change.It doesn't. Anthropogenic climate change's truth value is not predicated on any of the things Sissyl is trying to steer discussion towards.
To be fair, we are entitled to take into account the credibility of any proposed sources of evidence in evaluating that evidence. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, and all that. Or for that matter (for those who don't speak Latin), remember "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."
If the bulk of the evidence supporting AGW were from sources that have a track record of screaming like fishwives about nothing in particular, that suggests that those sources might be screaming like fishwives about nothing in particular when they raised the issue of AGW.
However, as far as I can tell, the research supporting AGW is entirely solid despite a whole bunch of denialists screaming like fishwives about aerosol cans, nonexistent conspiracies, faked data that was demonstrated to be rock-solid, and a number of other nonissues.
So that line of investigation is definitely capable of cutting both ways.
To be fair, we are entitled to take into account the credibility of any proposed sources of evidence in evaluating that evidence. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, and all that. Or for that matter (for those who don't speak Latin), remember "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."
If the bulk of the evidence supporting AGW were from sources that have a track record of screaming like fishwives about nothing in particular, that suggests that those sources might be screaming like fishwives about nothing in particular when they raised the issue of AGW.
However, as far as I can tell, the research supporting AGW is entirely solid despite a whole bunch of denialists screaming like fishwives about aerosol cans, nonexistent conspiracies, faked data that was demonstrated to be rock-solid, and a number of other nonissues.
So that line of investigation is definitely capable of cutting both ways.
In this case, I think it really only does cut one way. But not in the direction that denialists would prefer.
In this case, I think it really only does cut one way. But not in the direction that denialists would prefer.To be fair, we are entitled to take into account the credibility of any proposed sources of evidence in evaluating that evidence. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, and all that. Or for that matter (for those who don't speak Latin), remember "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."
If the bulk of the evidence supporting AGW were from sources that have a track record of screaming like fishwives about nothing in particular, that suggests that those sources might be screaming like fishwives about nothing in particular when they raised the issue of AGW.
However, as far as I can tell, the research supporting AGW is entirely solid despite a whole bunch of denialists screaming like fishwives about aerosol cans, nonexistent conspiracies, faked data that was demonstrated to be rock-solid, and a number of other nonissues.
So that line of investigation is definitely capable of cutting both ways.
I said it was capable of cutting both ways. There is a possible world in which the denialists are correct. It just happens not to be the one in which they live.
Unlike Wind, Solar is constant and dependable. You will ALWAYS have the sun,*Looks up*
What's this "sun" you speak of? Is that one of those "Non-Western-Oregon" phenomena I've been hearing so much about?
In a lot of areas, wind is more reliable than solar. People don't realize how constant the wind is a lot of the time, especially off of ground level.
1 I don't even understand how the authoritarian or greenpeace clubbing seals has anything whatsoever to do with climate change.
2 Greenpeace is pretty insignificant when it comes to influencing research. A lot of academics consider them a joke, and they certainly are not funding climate change research, at least on any significant level. That is in contrast to companies like BP oil, EXXON, etc, which often do provide large amounts of funding to university departments.
3 My last graduate school department was geology and geophysics, and we were probably one of the best funded departments on campus thanks to donations from the energy industry. Yet somehow people in my department still worked on climate change related research.
On 1- They don't per se.
2 Climate change denialists certainly have matters backwards here. The political influence of the fossil fuel industry dwarfs the green movement as a whole, yet alone greenpeace by itself. And in terms of money, and hence the capacity to influence research and the media, the discrepancy is much larger.
3 Good. I don't know what country you are in, but it is rare for universities to have enough funding for research.
In Australia where I live, if a geology and geophysics department came under pressure from the fossil fuel industry not to do research into climate change the department would have little choice but to comply. Or worse, to do research projects of a kind designed to produce results the fossil fuel industry wants.
In a lot of areas, wind is more reliable than solar. People don't realize how constant the wind is a lot of the time, especially off of ground level.Unlike Wind, Solar is constant and dependable. You will ALWAYS have the sun,*Looks up*
What's this "sun" you speak of? Is that one of those "Non-Western-Oregon" phenomena I've been hearing so much about?
I hate to be "that guy", but the big drawback currently plaguing wind farms on the "Let's not kill all the birds" front is that it tends to kill all the birds. That said, if we had to choose, I generally favor hydro-electric and wind. Hydro-electric, while problematic, seems to end up a bit less messy than many sources, and wind does seem pretty reliable if nothing else.
But I'm not an electrician.
In a lot of areas, wind is more reliable than solar. People don't realize how constant the wind is a lot of the time, especially off of ground level.Unlike Wind, Solar is constant and dependable. You will ALWAYS have the sun,*Looks up*
What's this "sun" you speak of? Is that one of those "Non-Western-Oregon" phenomena I've been hearing so much about?
People also don't realize that wind has reached a cost efficiency nearly on par with coal (both of which are more cost efficient than natural gas).
In order of cost efficiency it goes:
Hydro 50% better than coal
Nuclear 25% better than coal
Coal
Wind 4% worse than coal
Natural Gas 20% worse than coal
Solar 80% worse than coal
For recirculating plants (roughly 80% of power plants are recirculating, regardless of fuel source) they use water as follows:
Solar: 900 g/MWh
Coal: 700 g/MWh
Nuclear: 650 g/MWh
Biopower: 550 g/MWh
Natural Gas: 200 g/MWh
Wind: 0 g/MWh
This is water drawn from a source and not returned. Many plants draw 10's of thousands more than that per MWh produced, but they return most of it to the system. In most regions power production accounts for roughly 3% of water usage.
Also, wind is only 4% less cost efficient than coal, while being roughly 15-20% more cost efficient than natural gas. It's actually become a very viable means of energy production.
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I consider this to be more like noise on a graph, a bump in the direction counter to the overall progression over a long time. Evolution theory originated with Darwin. We humans did not even have 200 years to process it yet. When Copernicus was persecuted for his ideas they were already thousands of years old, with work done by many a Greek and Arab researcher to verify it.
One thing.. we don't need as much time. Copernicus did not have the Hubble telescope, and decades of actual space travel to help him form a model of the solar system.
We now actually do more science A YEAR. than what was done from the time of the Ancients to Newton. Comparing what they managed to do with ancient days to the present, you have to avoid taking for granted the tools we have to work with that they did not.
Agreed, we definitely need less than thousands of years. I do, however, suspect that technological advancement is now maybe a bit too fast for the bulk of humanity to keep track of what's going on. That is, despite the rate of achieving new knowledge increasing a thousandfold, people are not a thousand time as fast at absorbing new things.
Which is why I think we still need some time to process "new" discoveries like evolution, when they happen to contrast something that has had thousands of years to settle as the expected truth - like, in this case, the concept of creationism.
All I'm saying is that we need to give humanity (and, pardon me for saying, the U.S in particular) a few more generations before being a creationist gets its rightful place next to the flat-earthers.
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In a lot of areas, wind is more reliable than solar. People don't realize how constant the wind is a lot of the time, especially off of ground level.Unlike Wind, Solar is constant and dependable. You will ALWAYS have the sun,*Looks up*
What's this "sun" you speak of? Is that one of those "Non-Western-Oregon" phenomena I've been hearing so much about?
People also don't realize that wind has reached a cost efficiency nearly on par with coal (both of which are more cost efficient than natural gas).
In order of cost efficiency it goes:
Hydro 50% better than coal
Nuclear 25% better than coal
Coal
Wind 4% worse than coal
Natural Gas 20% worse than coal
Solar 80% worse than coalFor recirculating plants (roughly 80% of power plants are recirculating, regardless of fuel source) they use water as follows:
Solar: 900 g/MWh
Coal: 700 g/MWh
Nuclear: 650 g/MWh
Biopower: 550 g/MWh
Natural Gas: 200 g/MWh
Wind: 0 g/MWhThis is water drawn from a source and not returned. Many plants draw 10's of thousands more than that per MWh produced, but they return most of it to the system. In most regions power production accounts for roughly 3% of water usage.
Also, wind is only 4% less cost efficient than coal, while being roughly 15-20% more cost efficient than natural gas. It's actually become a very viable means of energy production.
If Swanson's Law holds up for a few more years, solar energy will easily beat traditional coal-produced electricity for efficiency. The main problem with solar will not be price, I believe, but rather storage. You can't have you cities powered at night by solar energy, after all. Gotta find an efficient way to store power for use later. If this is resolved then I believe in a few years there wouldn't be any reason to use any technology other than solar (and perhaps nuclear?) as an energy source. Luckily, Tesla is on it.
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Why the conspiracy theories?
Because the alternative is depressing as eff.
The effects of climate change are terrifying. No more ice caps, desertification, massive worldwide weather changes, heat waves, and more. No one wants to think that's true, no one wants that to be the world we're leaving for our kids.
It also seems impossible. Man is so small and the Earth is soooo big, how can we affect it? And how can anything we pump into the atmosphere make any difference?
And then changes are so slow. Yes, we've been talking about it for 50+ years and are seeing the effect, but the changes are so slow that you don't notice. And things aren't going to get really bad for another 50+ years. The scale is too big to understand. Saving for retirement is hard for most people, let alone our kid's retirement.
There have been hoaxes and environmental false alarms before. Global cooling in the 70s. The ozone hole. Nuclear waste. All never got bad. And the other panics. Y2K was a non-event. The Cold War didn't end the world. We haven't run out of oil.
We've spent the last generation dodging disaster, so why would that change now?
Personally, I just hope science advances enough so that we can at least send a rocket to another planet carrying an infant child as the sole survivor of our doomed planet. ;)
...a rocket to another planet carrying an infant child as the sole survivor of our doomed planet.
umm.. that just delays extinction for a lifetime. Send at least two babies.
Solar 80% worse than coalFor recirculating plants (roughly 80% of power plants are recirculating, regardless of fuel source) they use water as follows:
Solar: 900 g/MWh
Where are those numbers from - and what for? Large-scale solar farms in a prime location with a 5 year payback time ?
Solar typically has high investment but very low running costs (sunlight costs a lot less than coal). After the initial investment is paid back, the cell will keep producing with maintenance being the only cost.For hydro and wind it's sort of the same: location matters a lot, initial investment is high but marginal running costs are very low.
@the OP: the original question has been answered fairly well. "I don't want this to be true" (for a large and varied number of reasons) is the key. Science and large commerical interests also seem to be on different sides here, unlike for example when it comes to vaccination.
@general science vs politics debate:
Science is not a tool for making desicions, but for understanding the picture (situation and consequences). Politics is the tool for making decisions. Mixing too much politics into science colors the picture and makes it harder to understand the picture, but may still make sense from a political perspective which looks at a larger picture.
(Now, is there a picture larger than climate change? Well, it depends on whether you think it's a problem with the climate or a problem with science/media/UN).
In an ideal world, media would also be a tool for understanding the picture but I think we can agree it does not function for this purpose.
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There have been hoaxes and environmental false alarms before. Global cooling in the 70s. The ozone hole. Nuclear waste. All never got bad. And the other panics. Y2K was a non-event. The Cold War didn't end the world. We haven't run out of oil.
Ozone hole: real, not a "hoax" or "false alarm;" we fixed it by action.
Nuclear waste: still a problem, just one we don't have the will to face head-on.Y2K: A lot of programmers worked a lot of OT to make that a non-event.
Cold War: What if Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, had listened to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and launched a preemptive strike? That was a close call, not a "hoax" or a "false alarm."
Oil: Haven't run out yet, or for a while to come, but the stuff isn't limitless.
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There have been hoaxes and environmental false alarms before. Global cooling in the 70s. The ozone hole. Nuclear waste. All never got bad.
Hey, sidenote—my father actually works as a contractor for governments. His job is working out places to put that nuclear waste that you refer to as a "false alarm", and trying to keep that "false alarm" from seeping into, say, reservoirs.
In a manner of speaking, his entire job is helping to keep this "hoax" in a state where people can continue calling it a "hoax". :P
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There have been hoaxes and environmental false alarms before. Global cooling in the 70s. The ozone hole. Nuclear waste. All never got bad.Hey, sidenote—my father actually works as a contractor for governments. His job is working out places to put that nuclear waste that you refer to as a "false alarm", and trying to keep that "false alarm" from seeping into, say, reservoirs.
In a manner of speaking, his entire job is helping to keep this "hoax" in a state where people can continue calling it a "hoax". :P
Pfft, silly Kobold. Everyone knows your father doesn't exist, he's just a government cover-up for the Hulk program. That's where all the waste REALLY goes.
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All I'm saying is that we need to give humanity (and, pardon me for saying, the U.S in particular) a few more generations before being a creationist gets its rightful place next to the flat-earthers.Lets be honest, when you say "humanity", you mean "America". Because the rest of the Western World and the much of the other parts of the planet are already on the program. They don't teach creation science in the UK, nor do they try to sneak it as the trojan horse called "Intelligent Design".
The truth of the matter is that the United States is suffering from a self-inflicted lobotomy compared to where we were in the Atomic Age.
To my regret I know of at least one more country that, while not quite as crazy as the U.S in this regard, still won't come to term with evolution. That is my country, where public education doesn't teach creationism but also refrains from teaching evolution. Essentially sidestepping the issue. There was recently a government assigned committee that discussed the question of teaching evolution in schools. Every single member of that committee was a man of orthodox religious education or an orthodox politician. Not a single scientist or secular. The results of the committee weren't a shock for anyone.
You are in Israel are you not, Lord Snow?
I was in Israel for nearly two months in 1984, mostly in Jerusalem, and in fact tried to visit the Dome of the Rock the day an extreme Zionist group tried to blow it up.
Its obvious even to an outsider [I am not Jewish] that there is a lot more conflict between Jews in Israel than people might think.
The orthodox try to tell all the women how to behave, and I am not surprised they make life miserable for the LGBT community and want to dictate what is taught in schools.
And, correct me if I am wrong, immigrants from the former USSR following the collapse of communism are outright hated by many.
Its a fascinating place. But very complicated.
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@general science vs politics debate:
Science is not a tool for making desicions, but for understanding the picture (situation and consequences). Politics is the tool for making decisions. Mixing too much politics into science colors the picture and makes it harder to understand the picture, but may still make sense from a political perspective which looks at a larger picture.(Now, is there a picture larger than climate change? Well, it depends on whether you think it's a problem with the climate or a problem with science/media/UN).
Of course there's a picture larger than climate change. Even if the problem is just with the climate, the action taken in response needs to be sensitive to the human needs. IMHO, the best solution from a technical perspective is nuclear -- there's actually more potential power in the ash swept from a coal-burning plant than there was in all the carbon burned from the coal. However, a generation raised on Chernobyl and Fukoshima won't accept that, and this concern needs to be addressed one way or another, either by dropping nuclear or educating the public.
Cost is another issue, but it's not nearly as simplistic as the industry would have you believe. I can't think of a recently proposed health, safety, or security issue that wasn't greeted by industry hacks with cries of how it would destroy the entire profitability of the industry -- this goes back to things like unleaded gasoline, NOx scrubbers for smokestacks, elimination of DDT, fuel efficiency standards, through chip-and-PIN credit cards, overfishing, and mercury standards. Someone needs to to a realistic assessment of costs to figure out what the most effective approach to climate change will be; the various econuts who think we should all go back to a 6th century agrarian economy are just as delusional as the oil company executives who claim that burning hydrocarbons won't raise atmospheric CO2 levels.
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And, correct me if I am wrong, immigrants from the former USSR following the collapse of communism are outright hated by many.
That was true 30 years ago, but is mostly over today as they more smoothly assimilated into the wider culture. Most of the racial spite these days is split between Jews of European descent and those of Arab origins, with both groups blaming each other for racism constantly. And, of course, to say that there is tension between Jews and Muslims is quite the understatement.
But more in line with the previous subject, what I consider to be the most important issue currently is the political power and rapidly expanding demographic of the orthodox religious. They are the ones pushing for just about everything I consider bad in Israeli policies, and among other things for religious education. Including a diminishing in any sort of scientific education that does not agree with religious dogma, including but certainly not limited to evolution.
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@general science vs politics debate:
Science is not a tool for making desicions, but for understanding the picture (situation and consequences). Politics is the tool for making decisions. Mixing too much politics into science colors the picture and makes it harder to understand the picture, but may still make sense from a political perspective which looks at a larger picture.(Now, is there a picture larger than climate change? Well, it depends on whether you think it's a problem with the climate or a problem with science/media/UN).
Of course there's a picture larger than climate change. Even if the problem is just with the climate, the action taken in response needs to be sensitive to the human needs. IMHO, the best solution from a technical perspective is nuclear -- there's actually more potential power in the ash swept from a coal-burning plant than there was in all the carbon burned from the coal. However, a generation raised on Chernobyl and Fukoshima won't accept that, and this concern needs to be addressed one way or another, either by dropping nuclear or educating the public.
Cost is another issue, but it's not nearly as simplistic as the industry would have you believe. I can't think of a recently proposed health, safety, or security issue that wasn't greeted by industry hacks with cries of how it would destroy the entire profitability of the industry -- this goes back to things like unleaded gasoline, NOx scrubbers for smokestacks, elimination of DDT, fuel efficiency standards, through chip-and-PIN credit cards, overfishing, and mercury standards. Someone needs to to a realistic assessment of costs to figure out what the most effective approach to climate change will be; the various econuts who think we should all go back to a 6th century agrarian economy are just as delusional as the oil company executives who claim that burning hydrocarbons won't raise atmospheric CO2 levels.
Computing sch costs with any kind of accuracy is a proposition every bit as daunting as trying to understand exactly how the climate will change. The system of cause and effect that calculating the costs will encompass just has to take too many details into account.
Some quick and easy examples of elements that are hard to properly quantify yet could have serious impact on cost calculation: some energy sources cause more air (or water) pollution than others, which impacts rates of medical conditions such as cancer, which in turn could encumber public health systems and have significant costs for governments. The international cooperation that might be required for some large scale overhauls of the energy industry could foster new technologies and knowledge (CERN is a wonderful recent example) which could themselves generate positive revenue or even revolutionize the ways certain industries work in the future. The inclusion or exclusion of some developing or third world nations in such a global project could have far reaching political ramifications that may have dramatic implications to world trade and international relationships, each of those potentially making a big difference in costs calculations. The environment itself might react to a change in the energy industry in ways which are hard to predict.
So on, so forth. The scope of the test of giving realistic cost calculations might just be too much.
If Swanson's Law holds up for a few more years, solar energy will easily beat traditional coal-produced electricity for efficiency. The main problem with solar will not be price, I believe, but rather storage. You can't have you cities powered at night by solar energy, after all. Gotta find an efficient way to store power for use later. If this is resolved then I believe in a few years there wouldn't be any reason to use any technology other than solar (and perhaps nuclear?) as an energy...In a lot of areas, wind is more reliable than solar. People don't realize how constant the wind is a lot of the time, especially off of ground level.Unlike Wind, Solar is constant and dependable. You will ALWAYS have the sun,*Looks up*
What's this "sun" you speak of? Is that one of those "Non-Western-Oregon" phenomena I've been hearing so much about?
People also don't realize that wind has reached a cost efficiency nearly on par with coal (both of which are more cost efficient than natural gas).
In order of cost efficiency it goes:
Hydro 50% better than coal
Nuclear 25% better than coal
Coal
Wind 4% worse than coal
Natural Gas 20% worse than coal
Solar 80% worse than coalFor recirculating plants (roughly 80% of power plants are recirculating, regardless of fuel source) they use water as follows:
Solar: 900 g/MWh
Coal: 700 g/MWh
Nuclear: 650 g/MWh
Biopower: 550 g/MWh
Natural Gas: 200 g/MWh
Wind: 0 g/MWhThis is water drawn from a source and not returned. Many plants draw 10's of thousands more than that per MWh produced, but they return most of it to the system. In most regions power production accounts for roughly 3% of water usage.
Also, wind is only 4% less cost efficient than coal, while being roughly 15-20% more cost efficient than natural gas. It's actually become a very viable means of energy production.
The cost issue doesn't solve the water usage for solar, which I think is going to be one of the biggest deterrents. The best regions for using solar also tend to be dry regions where water is rapidly becoming scarcer.
Also the thin, cheap solar panels require tellurium, which is a rare earth metal, being roughly 3 times rarer than gold on the planet. Sustainable solutions should be less reliant on rare materials.
Even if Swanson's law does hold true, solar won't be cheaper than coal for another 15 years.
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Even if Swanson's law does hold true, solar won't be cheaper than coal for another 15 years.
Well, it doesn't really need to be cheaper to become viable, mainly in the same price range. It think if solar is 20% more expansive than coal many might still prefer it. 20% is of course an arbitrary number I just came up with but you get the gist of it. Especially if it is aided by governments with preferential taxation, by the way, which can help close some of the remaining gap in costs for individuals and companies.