Global Warming – really, aye?

I await my flaming.

you seem confused between challenged with facts and flamed

The climate is cyclical. It has changed greatly many times with no help from mankind.

I never understand why people keep making this point.

Do they REALLY think that the world’s foremost climate scientists are unaware of natural climate cycles?

I always picture someone in a white coat, sitting at a desk deep inside an IPCC research lab, stumbling on these comments and saying: “By Jove, there’s a chap here who reckons the climate has always changed. I think he might be onto something. Get me someone at NASA immediately.” 😆

Its also interesting they believe the same budget let purveyors of lie or scientists as the rest of us call them about previous change and causes but not about current change or causes.

I also wonder what they think is natural about burning tons and tons of fossil fuels and why they have not realised that previous natural change does not preclude current man made change.

What’s cost got to do with it? Is offshore wind too expensive, or is coal too cheap? The need for renewables has nothing to do with being competitive in the market.

The cost is directly related to the carbon footprint of their construction, maintenance and operation.

They are not very “green”, when the true “carbon cost” is added up.

After all, volcanoes spew out somewhere in the region of 0.15 to 0.26 BILLION metrics tons of CO2 every year! That’s a lot.

Not everyone agrees with those numbers

Nobody believes scientists, that’s the problem. We all know scientists have vested interests, we all know you can lie with statistics and we have all been fed conflicting dietary advice in our lives. It’s time we stopped treating scientists as prophets.

Read Bad Science if you don’t agree with me.

Hydrogen powered cars. Ridiculous, requires huge electrical output to produce. Complex and expensive infrastructure to supply.

As opposed to deep drilling on and off shore, massive transportation vessels and pipelines, refineries, storage and distribution network. Though I guess you could knock that all up with the bike spares in your shed.

gobuchul – Member

The climate is cyclical. It has changed greatly many times with no help from mankind.

that’s sort-of why lots of people are extremely concerned.

we’ve all seen the historical temp/CO2 graphs… the climate has warmed/cooled a LOT uring the last 800,000 years, probably longer, but the greenland ice-cores only go back so far…

and all of that variation has happened within a CO2 range of what, 180-300 ppm?

we’ve already gone way past that; we’re at 400ppm at climbing, we have no idea what’s going to happen – but it’s going to be HUGE.

why is everyone so concerned about this?

if it does turn out to be a disaster we can just press a button to fix it.

Gobuchul, a quick sum says that even taking the highest figures for volcanic out-gassing of C02 in the article you link you still only get to 2% of anthropogenic CO2.

That’s okay then, if volcanos can do it, we can do it too.

Not everyone agrees with those numbers

I don’t see anything in that article that contradicts what I said?
The figures seem pretty much in line with the USGS figures I quoted

All he says is that they have a relatively small sample size and that “Our planet’s isolated volcanic frontiers could easily be hiding a monster or two”

Okay. Are we very likely to stumble across 11,200 volcanic monsters?

He also suggests we might need to include emission from degassing volcanoes and magma because “this process might give off as much as half the CO2 put out by fully active volcanoes”

Okay, so lets add 0.13 to the largest estimate of 0.26.
That gives us 0.39 billion tons.

Manmade CO2 still absolutely dwarfs that at 35 billion tons and rising.

Deniers, Alarmists.. not sure there is much to choose between them to be honest.
Silly graphs showing warming over a hundred years are as bad as silly graphs showing stalling across 15.

Climate change is natural, this is a fact I’m afraid. Very scary stuff.. thank god for the Scientists agreeing upon that!

What is acceptable for climate change? Slow warming is fine? a rapid or slow decrease perhaps? How much effect is man allowed to have?
Climate should be rapidly decreasing apparently, would that be okay because we didn’t have any effect upon it?
We can make ethical/sustainable decisions based upon real data rather than things we don’t understand.

Let’s just deal with the small things in our Society and let climate change do it’s thing, humans are not very good at planning 50 years ahead let alone a million years.
Please do change the way you live for ethical and sustainable reasons but don’t do it based on hogwash about the bogeyman. Come on chaps lets be sensible for once.

I’ve just found where the STW deniers and head-in-sanders are hanging out

Here and the other car threads

Given the increasing number of extreme weather events affecting the area I live, doing something seems sensible.

I’ve just found where the STW deniers and head-in-sanders are hanging out

What’s your point?

Gobuchul, a quick sum says that even taking the highest figures for volcanic out-gassing of C02 in the article you link you still only get to 2% of anthropogenic CO2.

The point is that even the specialists don’t fully understand where to look and how to measure the CO2.

As opposed to deep drilling on and off shore, massive transportation vessels and pipelines, refineries, storage and distribution network.

However, the hydrogen systems do not replace having to do most of that.

Read Bad Science if you don’t agree with me.

Brilliant clearly you have not read it as what it does is complain about the widespread lack of understanding of science a subjetc matte ryou have so amply demonstrated.

Slow warming is fine?

Well – slower warming gives us (and nature) more chance to adapt. Hoewver the other issue is that a warmer atmosphere has more energy in it which gives rise to more extreme weather – hurricanes, freezes etc. Nature can deal with this to an extent, but we’re a static farmer species and we pin our future abundance of food on a few harvests each year. Take out a few of those and we’ll be in trouble.

Plus if a few million sparrows starve well it’s bad, but we don’t care so much about it. If a few million people die, it’s worse.

I am a geologist and know exactly where to look. Direct measurement not being feasible estimates are made. I’m happy with the estimates being accurate to an order of magnitude which is all you need to know to say volcanic emissions are tiny compared with anthropogenic emissions.

Produce hydrogen using a fuel cell powered by solar panels on your own roof and store it in a tank on site, and I assure you you need none of:-

deep drilling on and off shore, massive transportation vessels and pipelines, refineries, storage and distribution network.

“The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems has built a completely self-sufficient solar house (SSSH) in Freiburg, Germany. The entire energy demand for heating, domestic hot water, electricity, and cooking is supplied by the sun. The combination of highly efficient solar systems with conventional means to save energy is the key to the successful operation of the house. Seasonal energy storage is accomplished by electrolysis of water and pressurized storage of hydrogen and oxygen. The energy for electricity and hydrogen generation is supplied by solar cells. Hydrogen can be reconverted to electricity with a fuel cell or used for cooking. It also serves as a back-up for low temperature heat. There are provisions for short term storage of electricity and optimal routing of energy. The SSSH is occupied by a family. An intensive measurement program is being carried out. The data are used for the validation of the dynamic simulation calculations, which formed the basis for planning the SSSH.”

Produce hydrogen using a fuel cell powered by solar panels on your own roof and store it in a tank on site,

Seriously?

So with about 2000 – 3000 kwh of electricity per year I could produce enough hydrogen to power a practical vehicle?

You have solved our energy problems. Please release your vehicle design and save us, whilst making yourself very rich.

pressurized storage of hydrogen and oxygen

Lovely stuff pressurized hydrogen, not very volatile at all.

No mention of powering a vehicle though?

The problem with solar is that the absolute maximum amount of energy that can be generated per m2 is relatively low, averages about 100W in the UK.

As opposed to deep drilling on and off shore, massive transportation vessels and pipelines, refineries, storage and distribution network.

Exactly. It really is a remarkable illustration of how people take oil and other hi-tech energy supplies for granted when you hear them complaining that putting a few windmills up in the sea is somehow too technically challenging to be economic.

Edukat. I would need to know much more about what you are ‘doing’ and your whole story before I would consider your idea of ‘sensible’ as fact. Your real story might be inspirational for all I know but I’m not going to believe someone chatting guff on a cycle forum without a bit more info.

Molgrips. I would consider that unethical and unsustainable and unproven.
We can warm it a bit and that is fine as long as the humans don’t die.. Isn’t that the type of living that got us here??

I’m afraid my vehicle wouldn’t compete with one powered by one producing hundreds of tonnes of CO2. Fossil fuels are too cheap.

As for producing enough renewable electricity, that’s really not a problem. A litre of petrol is equivalent to about 10kWh. I used 360l of petrol last year which is the same amount of energy as is produced by 14 PV panels in this part of the world.

when you hear them complaining that putting a few windmills up in the sea is somehow too technically challenging to be economic.

It is.

You need nearly all of the same equipment, skills and technology as offshore oil and gas, with a fraction of the output.

Lovely stuff pressurized hydrogen, not very volatile at all.

Yore right only a total f***ing lunatic would have pressurised, flammable gas in their house…hang on.. my toasts burning.

Molgrips. I would consider that unethical and unsustainable and unproven.

What, exactly? Not sure what you mean.

Yore right only a total f***ing lunatic would have pressurised, flammable gas in their house.

Supplies of Natural gas and LPG do occasionally go wrong and results can be terrible.

However, hydrogen is a different ball game. Can you remember your physics at school?

Doing:

Living close enough to Madame’s place of work that she can walk (so can junior)

Buying locally within reason

No gas

Produce twice as much electricity as we consume

Heat with wood (not much needed as the house is well insulated – November and still 21°C inside with 10°C outside this morning)

Recycling, buying second-hand

Holidays using public transport and human power (we walked to Santiago and caught the bus back this year)

On the negative side we ski which contributes to maintaining a town at altitude in Winter.

I remember Susie B’s knockers from school if that helps?

Oh and somehting about temperature and pressure of gasses of different compositions? and something about forcing and global warming potential?

I’ve just found where the STW deniers and head-in-sanders are hanging out

Here and the other car threads

Switching to a car with a lower CO2 output isn’t always the answer…you need to factor in the manufacturing cost of the car too. In terms of environmental friendliness, it’s probably better to keep an old car in tip-top condition and use that than to buy a new vehicle every three years.

Also, you need to factor in things like the efficiency of your home’s central heating, whether you regularly use air travel and whether you have children…

IMHO, the sooner we rid ourselves of a dependence on non-renewable energy, the better. We’ve some uncomfortable choices to make in the next few years and we simply cannot continue with a model of unrestricted growth.

That would be in Freiburg in the far South of Germany? I wonder why they didn’t do it in Hamburg?

I used 360l of petrol last year which is the same amount of energy as is produced by 14 PV panels in this part of the world.

Well done. However, I bet the bloke that fitted your solar power system used a lot more.

Living close enough to Madame’s place of work that she can walk (so can junior)

This isn’t possible for the vast majority of people. Lucky you.

Holidays using public transport and human power (we walked to Santiago and caught the bus back this year)

Where from? Are you based in Spain or South America?

That would be in Freiburg in the far South of Germany? I wonder why they didn’t do it in Hamburg?

Doesn’t make it null and void though. Plenty of people DO live in places at that latitude and greater. Possibly the majority, thinking about it!

Maybe, but the discussion seems to be about what we can do, and the vast, vast majority of people on this forum live at significantly higher latitudes than Freiburg. Of course solar makes sense if you live in Spain or SoCal, but we need to be careful how we extrapolate.

lots of people don’t have the funds/permission/both to radically alter the fabric of their house.

millions of people live in crappy old brick boxes that would require so much alteration that the most economical course of action is to rebuild from scratch.

We had the choice between the modest house we live in near to Madame’s place of work (which is in the most expensive part of town) or a flash house out of town with a swimming pool and huge garden. It’s often choice rather than luck.

You bet wrong on the number of solar panels, our electricity consumption is around 1750kWh a year. (Edit: I misread you on this – I’ve no doubt the solar installer used some fuel, as did all the others in the supply chain. However pessimistic you are the embedded energy is les than four years production)

Santiago from St Jean de Luz in France (which is near home).

Maybe, but the discussion seems to be about what we can do

This must not become a personal discussion; otherwise it’ll descend into mud slinging and willy waving and that’ll get us nowhere.

It’s often choice rather than luck.

Sometimes, but often people don’t have that much choice. Your experience is just that. Other people’s experience varies a lot, so don’t get all preachy about it.

aracer – Member

That would be in Freiburg in the far South of Germany? I wonder why they didn’t do it in Hamburg?

It seems they have a branch in Freiburg, and none in Hamburg

Edukator – You live at 43° latitude. Your experiences with solar will be completely different from most on this forum.

It’s often choice rather than luck

Totally disagree on that one.