posted 03-25- 04:32 AM               

"Including caps on carbon dioxide emissions as part of a multiple emissions strategy would lead to an even more dramatic shift from coal to natural gas for electric power generation and significantly higher electricity prices," Bush wrote in his March 13 letter to Chuck Hagel informing Congress of his change in policy. A few days later, Christie Whitman (whose own wishful thinking had probably gotten Bush into the mess in the first place) finally climbed on board, telling the National Press Club the country was "in the midst of a national energy crisis — this is a long way from being over."

And you aint' seen nothin' yet

Bush still got his three days of bashing in the press from editorial writers and environmental groups for marching directly into the arms of Big Coal, but the heat obviously wasn't enough to drive the White House back toward the middle of the environmental road. Because this week it seemed determined to stretch that economic cover just as far as it will go — and it ain't just drilling in Alaska.

Tuesday, the administration announced it was withdrawing tough new limits (set by an outgoing President Clinton) on the amount of arsenic allowable in drinking water, pending further review. Wednesday, the administration said it would seek to undo regulations forcing more hard-rock miners in the West to post cleanup bonds. And Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney told "Hardball" that if it's emissions environmentalists are worried about, his energy-policy task force may well recommend that more nuclear power be part of the solution.

The solution: More is more

"We do not support the approach of the Kyoto treaty," Cheney said. "If you're really serious about greenhouse gases, one of the solutions to that problem is to go back, and let's take another another look at nuclear power, use that to generate electricity without having any adverse consequences."

Except, of course, the radioactive waste.

more at:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,103558,00.html

posted 03-25- 05:28 AM               

Well, I better ask Hawk if I can moderate this forum aswell, cause give this thread a day and it'll need moving to Flame Wars.

Good post though Tail, what I will never understand is how Bush got elected when everyone knew this kind of thing about him before hand.

Oh, my Fiancee has 2 children, is it possible to get home arsnic filters for the faucets{sp?} (taps in English)

posted 03-25- 08:36 AM            

Now we are all going to pay for it.

But, I do agree with Cheney though. We need nuke plants. This would end our dependency on foriegn oil somewhat...But Bush is an oil man (and miserable failure at that) so who knows what they have up their sleeves.

posted 03-27- 11:45 AM            

Snoooore!

posted 03-27- 01:20 PM               

This is such a huge topic that it's hard to know where to start.

First, global warming has been going on for about 20,000 years. IOW, ever since the last ice age. Did you know that during most of the history of the world there were no ice caps? Most people act as though the current climate is "perfect" when in fact it's simply the way it happens to be right now. It has been constantly changing throughout the history of the world.

Has mankind caused it to accelerate? That's not clear. The ground-based measurements would tend to support that, but the satelite measurements actually show a decrease in temperature over the last five years.

Is carbon dioxide the main culprit? That's even less clear. The number one greenhouse gas is water vapor. CO2 actually contributes only something like 10% to the heat budget of the atmosphere. And the Reason article above shows some natural feedback mechanisms that combat runaway global warming.

There are a few things I find interesting about the global warming "debate." First, how most people will jump to the conclusion that mankind in inherently evil/incompetent and that without rock-solid evidence to the contrary, they assume we must be destroying the environment.

Second, most people's conviction that we're destroying the climate through global warming is based on sound-bite science. It turns out if you dig a little deeper you'll find that no climate expert can say in good conscience that he knows what effect man will have in the future. The computer models simply aren't good enough. The grid size that they're based on is something like a couple hundred kilometers. Important energy transfer mechanisms like thunderstorms are lost in the noise and glossed over. Most runs of the models blow up, going runaway hot or runaway cold. It is only in the last year or two that they've even tried to include the effects of cloud cover, a critically important factor. Most people's convictions were set years ago, based on sound-bites that came when the models were even coarser and less reliable.

There are good economic and resource reasons to make modern society more efficient. But it turns out that CO2 makes a very poor metric of our efficiency. The Kyoto Protocols would probably not crash the economy, but they would very likely be expensive. From what I've seen, we simply don't know enough to be spending (likely) tens or hundreds of billions of dollars to cut CO2 output. It's not at all clear that the protocols address an actual problem.

Just my minuscule opinion.

posted 03-27- 02:38 PM            

I agree that the earth's climate has changed since there was an earth, however this is not the point. The point is that global warming will have a huge negative affect on the world population as it exists now. Any area which is within a few feet of sea level can be submerged by an increase of only a few degrees of average temperature. Weather patterns would also be affected, causing productive crop land to become desert, and desert to become wet. Your point that this has happened throughout geological history only inforces that it is possible, and the severity of the possible affects.

There is still the question of whether or not it IS happening at an accelerated rate now. A major cause of historical warming was C02 from volcanoes. It would seem that the global output of CO2 by industry is much greater than the global output of CO2 by volcanism, which would suggest a maginfied affect. Needless to say, these measurements have to be done over a greater period of time than five years.

As for water vapor being a greenhouse gas: true, but when is more water suspended in the air? When the air is warm. Warmer temperatures from CO2 mean more water vapor in the atmosphere.

posted 03-27- 03:15 PM               

quote:

---

A major cause of historical warming was CO2 from volcanoes.

---

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. That version of the theory has CO2 produced by volcanoes and trapped by sedimentary rocks. Over time, the balance between production and removal gets out of synch and the Earth has gone through several bakings and freezings in the past.

Still, that hypothesis uses CO2 as the major contributor to global warming, and thus is using the same computer models that I mentioned. There's at least equal evidence that the climate is more strongly affected by variations in the sun's output, which we obviously can't control.

> Motives

Yes, one should take into account the motives and agendas of the people involved. But I think comparing skepticism of the Kyoto Protocols to the tobacco companies is disingenious. There's a pretty big difference between the horribly complex interactions of the global climate vs the mountain of statistical evidence that smoking is bad for you.

The current consensus is leaning toward global warming. But I still contend that it's terribly premature to insist that we have much confidence in the current analysis. Certainly not enough confidence to spend billions of dollars on "problem."

posted 03-27- 04:38 PM            

You crisis needing lefties take the cake.
A couple of years ago you were saying that cow flatulence was contributing to global warming.
A bunch of you went out to measure cow farts. Be my guest.

Morons!

posted 03-27- 04:40 PM               

But what it will do is change the salinity of the water. According to the current theories, that change will have a profound effect on the ocean currents. I don't remember the precise mechanisms involved, but I do remember one show that said the Gulf Stream (an ocean current that carries warm water up the east coast of America, across to Europe and then cold water back down the coast of Europe and northern Africa to the equator) will come to a halt. Without that transfer of heat (most of the heat in the atmosphere is actually moved around by ocean currents) the weather patterns will be substantially different.

posted 03-27- 04:42 PM               

And that's another part of my point. We could be good little humans and cut our CO2 output by 100%, only to learn that some other factor completely swamps our efforts. Or, that there was some natural mechanism that could easily handle the majority of the CO2 that we produced. At this point, we really aren't sure. We have some solid-looking ideas. Some plausible working hypotheses. But we've only learned enough to know that we've just scratched the surface and have a long way to go.

posted 03-27- 05:03 PM            

C'mon Jerry. I don't think anyone here just
fell off the last turnip truck rumbling down
the road, even you and prop.

Big business Bush broke a campaign promise,
which makes him a liar. Something all
republicans accused Gore of and was going to
cause the ruination of our country. Yes he's
going to let his people look at the standards.
There going to decide the standards aren't
good for business and that's going to be
the end of it for 4 years.

posted 03-27- 08:11 PM               

So, even though I'm a liberal dude, I say let's leave the lights on all night, forget about mass-transportation, buy as many of those ugly SUVs as we can afford, and party like it's 1999 all over again!

posted 03-27- 08:33 PM               

Ofcourse the human race has dramaticaly affected the atmosphere, and certainly for the worst, and certainly much much quicker than this could ever have happend naturaly, but some of you say that because we don't know the exact process behind all this that that is a reason to leave everything like it is!? Oh contrair.. it's a reason to make drastic changes right now, if you don't know the effect of what you're doing you stop doing it till you know, not stop doing it once everything is screwed up and you can't change a thing! If a doctor wanted to opperate on my daughter but didn't know what he was doing do you really think I'd let him?

posted 03-27- 09:20 PM               

Better shut off all the cell phones and microwave towers then, because some pretty reputable people think that they're not safe, and we really don't know for sure. And we should all stop driving cars because we know for sure that cars kill thousands of people every year...and until we make them absolutely safe we shouldn't use them.

And oh by the way, sailing a ship too far from the coast was considered unsafe because the earth was flat and you would fall off the edge. Since no one knew for sure, Columbus should have stayed home until it was proved otherwise.

Of course I'm being facitious but the fear mongering PC crowd will say anything to halt progress and industrial growth and too many naive people believe everything they say without questioning it.

posted 03-27- 09:41 PM               

No, that's not what he's saying. The problem is that you are saying exactly the opposite... that we should continue on full steam ahead until we have conclusive evidence that we are irreversibly wrecking the environment. That kind of thinking is clearly wrongheaded.

>Better shut off all the cell phones and microwave towers then, because some pretty reputable people think that they're not safe, and we really don't know for sure. And we should all stop driving cars because we know for sure that cars kill thousands of people every year...and until we make them absolutely safe we shouldn't use them.

Again, no one is suggesting that we shut everything off. For the most part, environmentalists aren't saying shut it off, they're just saying slow it down.

Were the people who suggested that cars should have seatbelts really just trying to destroy the car industry? Were the people who first suggested standard emmissions for cars really the enemies of the car industry? NO

>And oh by the way, sailing a ship too far from the coast was considered unsafe because the earth was flat and you would fall off the edge. Since no one knew for sure, Columbus should have stayed home until it was proved otherwise.

... Of course when Columbus set sail, he didn't bring all of humanity with him.

That we are wrecking the environment will probably never be proven to everyone's satisfaction. If think that if it can be scientifically proven that there is a GOOD CHANCE that we MIGHT be doing irreversible damage to the planet, then we ought to take good sense preventative measures.

I'll give you an analogy... if you were told that you might have a heart condition, would you continue with an unhealthy lifestyle or would you wait for the heart attack and then hope that the surgeons can deal with it?

posted 03-27- 09:52 PM               

If it were Al Gore or Alec Baldwin or Barbara Striesand I'd go out an run a marathon. All three are well known authorities on global warming, the last two testified in front of a Congressional Committee about it. And like I said, Al Gore predicted we would be out of oil by now.

posted 03-27- 09:57 PM               

Right... as if those are the ONLY people who are saying that global warming is real.

Please get real.

What if Al Gore, Alec Baldwin, Barbara Streisand, and the best heart surgeon in the world told you that your heart was in trouble? Would you ignore the heart surgeon simply because you hate the other people?

posted 03-27- 11:18 PM               

Jerry, the point is what were doing has planet wide effects, and we don't know if we could ever put it right, if mobile phone were proved to be damaging then something would and COULD be done to sort it out, thing is, we don't know how to fix the whole planet do we, unless you know of someone that can fix a screwed up atmosphere, personaly I haven't heard of one.

There is absolutly no r4eason to carry on making things worse, we have the means just not the willingness.

The pure and simple point is that don't know how bad of an effect we're having, and that we don't know how to repair the damage.

Given those simple facts it would be far better for the planet if we were much more cautious in what we're doing to it.

BTW, who's only thinking of 50 years into the future, lets say it takes 500 years for us to totaly screw up the atmosphere.. does that mean we shouldn't care about it now?? sorry but duh! If in 500 years we don't know how to put things right very very quickly then what we do now is of the utmost importance!

Again, the point is we simply don't know, so why carry on doing things that are very probably making things worse that we can't fix later.. start fixing it now before some one is sitting there one day thinking "yeah, if only this or that had've been done back then.. now it's to late"

posted 03-28- 12:59 AM            

Industry hasn't done themselves any favors by always taking a doom-and-gloom outlook on regulations which make sense. As was mentioned, the auto industry fought seatbelts for years, just like they fought collapsible steering columns and airbags. They said they were all too expensive/dangeous/difficult. They also fought emmision controls and unleaded gasoline, yet I don't think anyone today would argue that these things were bad ideas. Now they say that CO2 restrictions will kill the oil industry.

posted 03-28- 12:07 PM               

And we do have good ideas on how to pull the CO2 out of the atmosphere fairly quickly. For example, a big plankton farm in the middle of the Pacific ocean would likely do it. But of course the tree-huggers won't let us do that. Too much fear of screwing up the ecosystem.

Nat, where do you think seperated hydrogen comes from? The most economical way to do that is to break apart water, and that takes energy. Where does that energy come from? Some other source, it turns out. Hydrogen power is simply a different transport mechanism than other fuels. It moves the energy production to a different place, but it doesn't replace that production. Hydrogen is a viable replacement for gasoline, but it's not a replacement for power production.

Other forms of power have their drawbacks. Wind is inconsistent. It's only useful in a very few applications, and no way can it produce enough energy to have a noticable effect on the total energy budget of an industrialized country. If we covered the US in wind farms it would produce enough energy to power one or two large cities. And what would all those windmills do to the environment?

Hydro power is similar. A dam all the way around the US to capture tidal energy would about power the city of Boston. (Those are both from Pournelle's A Step Farther Out.)

Ground-based solar power is hugely expensive.

Personally, I'm a big fan of solar power satellites and nuclear power. Those would be used to produce the hydrogen fuel or electric power for automobiles and similar applications.

Gore's prediction that we'd run out of oil was based on good science. It was in peer-reviewed literature of the '70s. As long ago as Jimmy Carter they were thinking that at the then-current rate of increase in energy consumption that we'd exhaust the supplies in about 50 years. Since then, consumption hasn't grown as quickly as they thought, new reserves have been found, along with new methods to eek more out of old reserves. Still, it's very likely that reserves of fossil fuels will run low and prices will skyrocket well before the end of the century. (It has to do with exponential growth. I can illustrate it for you, if you'd like.)

posted 03-28- 12:30 PM               

It's like how much food you have in the house. Your "known" food supply will last a few weeks. Does that mean you will start to go hungry in a few weeks? Of course not, you replinish your food supply as you use it up.

Despite dire predictions from the tree huggers ever since the 60's, we still have our 20-30 year supply of known oil. You will see a greater push by industry and government for alternative fuels when they are unable to maintain that cushion. That's the way economics works, like it or not.

posted 03-28- 01:22 PM               

quote:

---

...we still have our 20-30 year supply of known oil.

---

The Parable of Exponential Growth

Once upon a time, there was a population of bacteria living in a petri dish. Their first inhabitant was placed onto the dish at 11:00. These bacteria were particularly randy, and they doubled their population every minute. At 12:00, their petri dish was full.

Q1: What time was it when the dish was half full?
A1: Most people will guess 11:30. But the correct answer is 11:59! Just one doubling period!

Q2: Basically the same question, what time is it when the dish is 1/8 full?
A2: 1/8 is just three doubling periods (1/8, 1/4, 1/2, full) from full. So the answer is 11:57.

This second question is noteworthy because of a speech that President Carter once gave. In it, he stated that there was seven times as much oil in the ground than man had used in all of history. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? Except that means we've used 1/8 of the total supply. Given that industrial energy use has grown at an exponential rate, that means we're just three doubling periods from exhausting all of the oil in the world.

What's the doubling period of our energy consumption? Back when Carter gave that speech, it was around 10 years. That means that at the then-current estimates, we only had 30 years worth of oil remaining.

At 11:56, when their dish was 1/16 full, some far-thinking bacteria recognized the impending limit of their petri dish. They started a massive search and just in the nick of time, at 11:59, they found a second petri dish. They had doubled the size of the known world!

Q3: What time would it be before the bacteria filled the second petri dish?
A3: 12:01! Just one more doubling period!

The natural gas reserves are estimated to be just about equal to the oil reserves in terms of energy produced. IOW, it doubles the amount of fossil fuels we know about. Which gives us just a single extra doubling period, or an extra 10 years. So even if we've only found half of all the fossil fuels in the world (an optimistic estimate,) any new reserves we find would only buy us one more doubling period beyond that. At mid-'70s rates, that means we're within 50 years of using up all of the fossil fuels in the world.

Now, it turns out that conservation has made a difference. For a brief period we've managed to stretch the doubling period to longer than 10 years. But at some point we're going to hit dimminishing returns. Extra conservation won't buy as much of a stretch in our energy budget. And our rate of consumption will revert to growing at the previous 10 year doubling period.

Of course, with fossil fuel production, we won't be producing more and more right up until the minute we use the last drop. Instead, well before that, the production will not be able to keep up with consumption. At that point the price will rise due to scarcity. And very quickly we'll have ample incentive to find new sources of energy.

But changing an entire infrastructure to a new source of energy can't be done in just a couple of years. It'll take decades. Or another way of putting it, we need to get a good start before we're within a couple of doubling periods of running out of fossil fuels.

I don't know what the current rate of increase is. But given the power of exponential growth, I think it's prudent to plan on fossil fuels becoming prohibitively expensive sometime this century.

posted 03-28- 03:32 PM               

When, for "environmental" reasons, we place artificial limits on oil exploration and power sources like nuclear and hydroelectric, we are asking for a rocky transition. Unless the public really gets behind conservation - sell their SUV's, turn down the thermostats, recycle, car pool, and use public transportation - there is going to be a continuing need for more and more energy. This need is not going to be met by limiting oil exploration, tearing down dams and draining resevoirs to protect the fish, and banning nuclear power.

posted 03-29- 04:34 PM               

The Earths Human population grows exponentially, this means that at any moment in time, the living population is equal to all the humans who have lived and died since man took his first upright step. Knocks reincarnation on the head.

posted 03-30- 01:57 PM               

Still, covering 6% of the contiguous US would, I think, have pretty serious consequences to the environment. That's an awful lot of land. And it sounds optimistic to me to think that many windmills could be economically competitive with more compact power sources. And wind power will always be inconsistent. In Texas, some of the days you need the power most for air conditioning are the very days when there's the least wind.