Global Warming is Real (Get over it corporate Fossil Fuel Shitheads)

[Nickdfresh]

New study shows Climategate scientists were right

October 21, 2011 3:12 PM |

By Bob McDonald, Quirks & Quarks

Another independent study, this time from the United States, has shown that the climate scientists accused of the so-called "Climategate" affair were, in fact, right about the warming of the Earth.

The Berkeley Earth study was an independent scientific group, including this year's Nobel Physics Prize winner Saul Perlmutter, that used different and more detailed methods to analyze past climate records. But they came to the same conclusion that scientists at the University of East Anglia in England, as well as those at NOAA and NASA, have reached: that the climate over land has been on the rise since at least 1800, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

The intent of the study was to quell the voices of climate skeptics, who have charged that scientific methods were flawed and data have been manipulated or skewed to support climate warming. One of the biggest criticisms of past studies is that many weather recording stations are in urban areas, where heat from cities would give false readings. This study, using data from about 40,000 weather stations around the world, showed that while cities do indeed create a heat island effect, they do not affect the overall climate of the planet, because cities only cover about one percent of the land.

The report also showed how cooling periods, which are also used by skeptics to show warming is not happening, are caused by oscillating ocean currents, which can lower average temperatures for years; but then the trend continues its long-term upward climb. It's all part of the process of a changing climate. The scientists in the study have also made all their data and methods available for scrutiny online, to show total transparency.

This is sweet news for scientists at the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia, who had emails hacked and were falsely accused of manipulating data. More importantly, the report will provide ammunition for politicians preparing for the next UN Climate Summit in South Africa next month.

At the same time, a large consortium of more than 200 corporations from around the world, called the 2°C Challenge, is calling for government action on climate change. The business community realizes that there are considerable costs involved if nothing is done to curb climate change, and profits to be made if companies "go green."

In recent years, these annual UN summits have been deadlocked by countries, including Canada, that often claim the climate science is uncertain, and that the cost of change would hurt the economy. This study and the growing consensus of the corporate community (outside the fossil fuel industry) show that those statements are no longer valid excuses for inaction.

The scientists have done their work and stand united on their results. The business community agrees. Now it's time for the politicians to get on with doing something about it.

cbc.com (http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/quirks-quarks-blog/2011/10/new-study-shows-climategate-scientists-were-right.html)

[ashstralia]

nick, my gov't has just passed a carbon tax. we're on an island which covers about the same area as your country. but only 23 million people, and largely coastally based. now check this out...http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

[Seshmeister]

I find it odd that we are being offered grants here to put solar panels on our roofs and I'm told that it pays for itself in 5 or 10 years even though it constantly pisses with rain, yet in Australia less than 0.2% of your power is solar???

[PETE'S BROTHER]

Every house in arizona should be built with solar panels on the roof, ridiculous that they don't.

[jhale667]

Every house in arizona should be built with solar panels on the roof, ridiculous that they don't.

Same with California...starting to see a bit more of it popping up, though...it's catching on.

[Blaze]

nick, my gov't has just passed a carbon tax. we're on an island which covers about the same area as your country. but only 23 million people, and largely coastally based. now check this out...http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/
Wow ... :headlights:

[VAiN]

Every house in arizona should be built with solar panels on the roof, ridiculous that they don't.

I completely agree... I live in the fucking 'sunshine state'! Where are the solar panels?

[chefcraig]

Every house in arizona should be built with solar panels on the roof, ridiculous that they don't.


Same with California...starting to see a bit more of it popping up, though...it's catching on.


I completely agree... I live in the fucking 'sunshine state'! Where are the solar panels?

The only reason that solar energy has never taken off in this country is because our government hasn't come up with a way to tax sunshine...yet.

[PETE'S BROTHER]

some friends had them installed on their roof, just for water heater, and i wanna say it was still $4k outta pocket! years to recoup.

[Seshmeister]

There are reports that quite a lot of people will install them facing the road so that their neighbors can see how green they are even if that is the side that gets less sunshine.

It's the same with the Prius. The theory goes the reason it sold so many more than the Honda equivalent because the Honda looked too similar to the non electric version. Or Hollywood stars flying private jets but then taking a Prius from the airport.

There is no point in saving the planet if people don't know you are doing it. :)

[PETE'S BROTHER]

ya can't fix stupid

[Satan]

The only reason that solar energy has never taken off in this country is because our government hasn't come up with a way to tax sunshine...yet.

Well, that and the fact that nobody can OWN the sun. Of course solar isn't an option down here, but there's an endless supply of geothermal heat to go around. (Plus the traditional coal & soul burning fires, of course)

[Nitro Express]

We would get a lot more green technology including some nice affordable electric cars but the private financing has dried up. The Department of Energy only gives grants to big corporations. You might note some of the emerging scandals regarding that. Then you have to deal with the EPA that amazingly stalls smaller companies from getting the approval they need. One thing that keeps the legitimate green industries back is the government itself. That is because the fossil fuel companies have bribed enough politicians. Oh they will talk green. They have been doing so since Nixon was in office but when it actually comes to doing it, nothing much happens.

[Nitro Express]

There are reports that quite a lot of people will install them facing the road so that their neighbors can see how green they are even if that is the side that gets less sunshine.

It's the same with the Prius. The theory goes the reason it sold so many more than the Honda equivalent because the Honda looked too similar to the non electric version. Or Hollywood stars flying private jets but then taking a Prius from the airport.

There is no point in saving the planet if people don't know you are doing it. :)

[Seshmeister]

We would get a lot more green technology including some nice affordable electric cars but the private financing has dried up. The Department of Energy only gives grants to big corporations. You might note some of the emerging scandals regarding that. Then you have to deal with the EPA that amazingly stalls smaller companies from getting the approval they need. One thing that keeps the legitimate green industries back is the government itself. That is because the fossil fuel companies have bribed enough politicians. Oh they will talk green. They have been doing so since Nixon was in office but when it actually comes to doing it, nothing much happens.

Government can't really deal with small businesses, the best you can hope for is to be left alone. A small business usually doesn't have time to do the thousands of pages of bullshit to get a grant and government isn't usually very interested in things that are small in scope(at least to start with). If the guys running these things had that imagination they wouldn't be working there.

Ooops did that sound bitter? :D

[Nitro Express]

Government can't really deal with small businesses, the best you can hope for is to be left alone. A small business usually doesn't have time to do the thousands of pages of bullshit to get a grant and government isn't usually very interested in things that are small in scope(at least to start with). If the guys running these things had that imagination they wouldn't be working there.

Ooops did that sound bitter? :D

Apple was a small business. Microsoft was a small business. Some of the biggest corporations now. Yeah and the best thing the government can do is stay the hell out of the way. The whole PC revolution happened because of small business. Mostly started because people can't do what they want to do in a big corporation.

[Satan]

Apple & Microsoft started out in the 1970s, when the reforms of FDR and his cousin Teddy were still intact and enforced. After 30 years of massive deregulation and ridiculous corporate mergers, there's no way in HELL any such company would get off the ground today. Or the minute they did they would be swallowed up (ironically enough) by Apple or Microsoft. Or Google.

[Seshmeister]

Maybe.

YouTube and Myspace were swallowed but Facebook wasn't.

[Seshmeister]

http://s3.amazonaws.com/infobeautiful2/climate_skeptics_960.gif

[Nitro Express]

I like to call it climate change. Big sways in temperatures. You have record high temperatures in London, Moscow, and Los Angeles and at the same time the glaciers are developing where they haven't been for thousands of years. The Wasatch in Utah never had a complete snow melt this summer. I went skiing on the 4th of July this summer.

[Nitro Express]

The only reason that solar energy has never taken off in this country is because our government hasn't come up with a way to tax sunshine...yet.

A lot of truth in that statement. If you think about it we are still hunter and gathers when it comes to energy. We go around and dig and forage for it. We fight over it. On everything else we manufacture it or grow it. We are still digging up the earth and burning it for energy.

That being said I'm skeptical of the UN and carbon taxes. It seems to have a nation breaking agenda to it. I would rather have our president stand up there like Kennedy did with the space program and make the challenge to be off oil in ten years. Of course nobody wants nuclear either. Then let the country go to it trying to reach that goal. We just have too much corruption in politics now. We don't have a technological problem, we have an ethics problem. We really do need a modern Teddy Roosevelt to put these multinational whores back in their place. I think the whole global warming carbon tax gimmick was to benefit the big energy corporations more than solve the actual problem.

I think all that would do is just make our energy more expensive and create a more unemployment. It's a no brainer. The solution is cheap electricity and better battery technology. We are sitting on one of the biggest generators there is. Planet earth. If we could find a way to harness the electrical flux of the planet and atmosphere itself then energy would be very cheap.

[Seshmeister]

Of course nobody wants nuclear either.

Rationally and logically that is maybe the wrong attitude. I've posted before about how many cancers are caused by coal fired generators that only a tiny number of people are aware of. That's going to get a whole lot worse in the future too as the Republicans have now decided(been bribed) to dismantle the only defence of the EPA legislation bill by bill.

Good news for sick fuck businesses and also Hollywood actresses who will be getting Oscars in 20 years time for playing the brave working class woman taking on the big business that killed her kids through pollution...

[Nitro Express]

Rationally and logically that is maybe the wrong attitude. I've posted before about how many cancers are caused by coal fired generators that only a tiny number of people are aware of. That's going to get a whole lot worse in the future too as the Republicans have now decided(been bribed) to dismantle the only defence of the EPA legislation bill by bill.

Good news for sick fuck businesses and also Hollywood actresses who will be getting Oscars in 20 years time for playing the brave working class woman taking on the big business that killed her kids through pollution...

A friend of mine is finishing up his PHD. His area of study is biology but he's doing his dissertation on using bio scrubbers in clean coal technology. Basically they can convert the emissions of burning coal to bio diesel. With nuclear you have a political problem there. After Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima it's got an image problem. Plus, nobody wants the waste.

The thing is they burned a lot more coal in the past and I don't think you had massive amounts of cancer. It just made a huge mess. My dad grew up in a town with a big railroad yard and there was a constant haze of smoke from burning coal. He said if you wore a white shirt to church by the time you got home there would be a black ring around the neck of it. Soot was everywhere. I had lots of relatives live in those conditions and none of them got cancer.

I think much of this cap and trade business is promoted by the nuclear industry. Obama was pushing it hard and he's got ties to General Electric. Also, he's got ties to the people who own the Canadian uranium industry. So yeah they are going to attack coal. It's a threat to the nuclear and oil industry and here in the US we are the Saudi Arabia of coal. You get a lot more cancer when the nuclear plant blows up.

[Seshmeister]

I can understand the waste thing being a worry here in a tiny crowded country but the US has plenty of wide empty spaces to stick it in.

The thing about accidents is that the accidents in Japan and 3 Mile island may have been a little scary but hardly anyone got hurt and irrelevant amounts of radiation leaked. Modern reactors are much safer and produce far less waste.

Coal kills thousands every year.

[Nitro Express]

You have to have a coal fired pizza sometime. The largest energy lab in the country is just over the border in Idaho. I know a lot of people who work there and they all have their convictions that nuclear can be safe and coal can be safe if burned using new techology. They all say the technology is here to provide safe, cheap, energy in various ways but the problem is the politics. From what I hear about Fukishima is they made the mistake of putting the emergency generators where they could be flooded. If they put them up high they never would have lost the cooling.

It seems to be the problem with coal burning is the flouride and particulate emissions. On the new coal plants designs they re-burn the emissions several times and then run the final exhaust through a scrubbing process. My friend says they can make filters with bacteria in them that convert the waste from the burning process into bio-diesel. It just sounds like there is a lot of neat clean coal technology at the academic level we aren't using.

[FORD]

Key words there are "at the academic level". Yeah, "clean coal" sounds like a hell of a concept, but it's not working yet. Communism looked like a good idea on paper too, it was actually putting it into practice that was problematic.

[Seshmeister]

Well all I know is that flying most of the way up the East coast on a clear day I was shocked at the dozens of plumes of dirty smoke all the way up coming from what looked like coal fired power stations. I'm sure I've read that US coal power stations are some of the least efficient in the world, they waste 65% of the energy.

The bought politicians making that even worse by getting rid of what environmental protection you have.

[Nitro Express]

Key words there are "at the academic level". Yeah, "clean coal" sounds like a hell of a concept, but it's not working yet. Communism looked like a good idea on paper too, it was actually putting it into practice that was problematic.

They actually wanted to build a prototype clean coal plant at the Idaho National Laboratory. That's the next step in the process. Somebody with a lot of pull in Washington had the project nixed. Rumors are it was Dick Cheney. He's not a coal guy, he's an oil and natural gas man. He's into fracking and had the EPA rules changed so they can frack, frack, frack.

Fracking has done more damage to Wyoming than coal mining or coal burning ever did. I'm just saying some really smart people are saying clean coal is an option. We will never know until we can build a prototype out in the Idaho lava rock desert and see how the theories work for real and that option was nixed.

So yeah, it never goes beyond academic due to politics. There really are some good knowledgable people in some of these universities and government agencies that can name a lot of solutions or potential solutions. They never see the light of day due to the political agenda. It's more about protecting someone's turf or making money than solving any real environmental problem. We have the real problems and then we have the fake green movement financed by the energy companies.

Right now Exxon and BP can do whatever the fuck they want and our so called green president lets them. Oh go drill the gulf again BP.

It's a real circus. Then you have the nut jobs like Ted Turner who would love to turn the whole US into a wilderness area for him to enjoy while all the polluting is done in China so he still can enjoy his modern lifestyle with the goods they make. He doesn't give a shit because he doesn't live there. A lot of characters involved in the UN think that way.

[Seshmeister]

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j172/matus1976/USCarbonEmissionsbysource-EIA.png

Go nuclear/renewable plus electric cars and it's maybe problem solved?

Then sell all that shit to everyone else. Boom!

[Nitro Express]

Well all I know is that flying most of the way up the East coast on a clear day I was shocked at the dozens of plumes of dirty smoke all the way up coming from what looked like coal fired power stations. I'm sure I've read that US coal power stations are some of the least efficient in the world, they waste 65% of the energy.

The bought politicians making that even worse by getting rid of what environmental protection you have.

I'm fortunate to live where some of the countries cleanest air and water are. I don't deal with much pollution at all here. All our power is hydroelectric. The biggest polluter around here is actually nature. It's the hot pots in Yellowstone Park belching out that sulfuric smell. Sometimes they emit poisonous gas that kills the bison around them.

I had a friend who was fed up with the United States and was going to move his family to Shanghai and make a lot of money. Man. The pollution there made him change that idea in a hurry and he goes there is no way I'm raising my kids in that. Not the paradise some of the news publications make to to be. A country actually sacrificing itself to become a super power and really, I question whether it's sustainable. You have to have industry, you have to have jobs, you have to make things but the big trick is to find an affordable clean way to do it. I'm not into lets just outsource the pollution which is exactly what the west has done.

[Nitro Express]

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j172/matus1976/USCarbonEmissionsbysource-EIA.png

Go nuclear/renewable plus electric cars and it's maybe problem solved?

Then sell all that shit to everyone else. Boom!

I could get along fine with an electric vehicle that has a range of 150 miles on a charge. I would like an electric truck my only question is we are in a harsh winter climate and how are those batteries going to hold up? Even at that if we just made the commuter cars in places like LA electric it would make a huge difference. I know a lot of people who drive off road in places like Moab for fun are converting their Land Rovers and Jeeps to DC motors. I guess all that contollable torque is a big plus in rock climbing situations. One company is making electric motorcycles now. You can smoke the tires and you can carry extra batteries in saddle bags. For long trips oil still rules but for the short trips, electric is the way to go.

[Nitro Express]

How I see it is cheap oil is going to dry up due to worldwide demand. The oil companies know that electric vehicles will have to become the norm because the price of gasoline will become too expensive. But they are hugely invested in the oil/gas industry and they want to milk all the profit out of it they can. But they also want to make money on the new technologies when they become the norm. So what they want is a monopoly on that power. They don't want a bunch of companies making solar panels keeping the costs low they want a few companies they own making the panels expensive. The banks will rig it like mortgages and student loans where you will buy the over priced gear on credit and they get you that way.

You are already seeing it with electric cars here in the US. To sell an electric car here the EPA keeps changing the rules. You need a special sticker and without that sticker it a $30,000 fine per vehicle. Nissan, GM, and one Finish company can sell electric cars and they are all too expensive. That keeps most of us on oil. Without the corrupt politics we would be seeing electric cars running all over the place with some costing as low as $15,000.

[Seshmeister]

I'm now $160 for a tank of gas. This is really starting to get pretty fucking nuts and I only do 8 000 miles a year or so.

It's like the story that when you put a frog in water and heat it up slowly you can cook it without it jumping out.

http://www.ozonlpg.com/fuel_prices_chart_2008-2011-uk.jpg

[Nitro Express]

Wow. It cost me $80 to fill a 30 gallon tank yesterday. I rode my motorcycle a lot this summer so that saved a lot of fuel. My wife drives the big SUV but it's usually full of kids and it's nice when the snow season arrives. In that we are getting 20mpg on the highway. Not bad considering it's a V8 with big tires.

[Seshmeister]

The difference I guess here is that I can choose to take a train or a bus which aren't really options in a lot places in the US.

It's kind of like the Occupy Wall Street thing, although over here things may be just as bad economically if not worse, at times like this we have more of a cushion with a more extended welfare, healthcare and transport system.

[Nickdfresh]

There are reports that quite a lot of people will install them facing the road so that their neighbors can see how green they are even if that is the side that gets less sunshine.

It's the same with the Prius. The theory goes the reason it sold so many more than the Honda equivalent because the Honda looked too similar to the non electric version. Or Hollywood stars flying private jets but then taking a Prius from the airport.

There is no point in saving the planet if people don't know you are doing it. :)

To be fair, the Honda was a two-door coupe golf cart whereas the Prius actually is somewhat functional as a passenger car...