Natural CO2 emissions completely swamp manmade CO2 emissions in our atmosphere

Not at all. You have demonstrated this perfectly. You are far more entrenched in your beliefs than most people on this board. Just look at the conviction and sheer amount of time and effort you put into it. When somebody argues against you and you being to lose then you become more rabid and your efforts are only increased, even when you have clearly lost an argument.

 

Not at all. You have demonstrated this perfectly. You are far more entrenched in your beliefs than most people on this board. Just look at the conviction and sheer amount of time and effort you put into it. When somebody argues against you and you begin to lose you become more rabid and your efforts are highly increased, especially after you have clearly lost an argument.

 

, although I know quite some people, who propel things on their own

That is the problem, your solution will cost slightly more. In an extreme capitalist enviroment, the maximisation of the profits is on the highest agenda. As a nation we do very little, to help our planet, although I know a number of people, who do far more then our goverment. Just imagine, the Libs are back in power, and we continue Howard's path in doing jack (*)(*)(*)(*).
You are right with your clean coal, and there are heaps of other possibilities, but as soon we are getting ahead (solar panels), the goverment quits it because the national industry might not earn enough themselves. We are a bunch of no goers, and the denialists like dumb are the icing on the cake...
Best regards

 

Love Canal was an example of "an extreme capitalist enviroment" where the interests of the corporatist took precedent over the welfare and Rights of the People. As some might know I'm a laizze faire capitalist and not a corporatist or Keynesian caplitalist as those do not address the Rights of the People related to commerce.

Laizze faire capitalism requires pragmatic and reasonable regulations that protect the Rights of the People and industrial pollution is certainly a concern for the laizze faire capitalist.

Corporatism is exclusively about making profits for the corporate owners regardless of the cost to society or the People. Mitt Romney is a good example of the Corporatist based upon his business history with Bain Capital as it was all about the wealthy investors in Bain making a profit regardless of what happened to their corporate acquisitions.

I would put Obama in the Keynsesian camp and, as corrupted by the US government, Keynesianism is about economic policies that benefit the government and the politicans.

When it comes to pollution we basically have the Corporatist, such as Romney, that opposes any reasonable regulation which will impose any costs on the corporate owners. From the Keynesian camp we have misdirection where the politicans want irrational proposals and regulations such as cap and trade that don't actually do anything to reduce pollution but that do create a government slush fund for the politicans.

If we look at solar energy it has many cost effective applications. I was in this industry in the 1970's and I'm very much for the use of solar energy where it is cost effective. It is not cost effective for large scale electrical power production though because it has a very low capacity ratio of only 18% while coal and nuclear both have a capacity ratio of over 90%. The cost of large scale solar electrical power is about 2.5 times more than electricity produced from coal. The American People simply can't afford to pay for that and some pollution is preferrable to not having electricity. It is purely pragmatic.

As noted though clean coal technology can dramatically reduce the pollution of coal without being prohibitive costs and it is a pragmatic solution which is why, as a laizze faire capitalist, I support it. It is a pragmatic solution that is reasonable.

 

When it comes to coal for power generation in the United States the market is phasing out coal fired plants and this is a good thing. Natural gas is less expensive and power companies (when spending less money) will jump on the environmental bandwagon. They will be the first to say how much less pollution natural gas generation produces.

After reading Shiva's post I have a serious objection to the "umbrella theory" to reduce the effect of global warming. For one it is temporary. For another it reduces sunlight to plants on earth. I read somewhere (I don't have a link) that greenhouses in Holland clean their greenhouses regularly to improve productivity. The article said a 1% reduction of sunlight is a 1% reduction in productivity. This would not be a problem where I live but it may be a problem in places that get less direct sunlight.

Thats all for now.

 

Hey TD well said i agree with most of what you say.

The only thing i dont agree on is that 90% of scientists think its manmade CO2 causing any sort of warming.

 

I think we all know that's how you feel, you've been saying it ad nauseum.

Of course you know more then 90% of scientists, so why not put that brilliant mind to work and cure cancer.

 

The Earth's average mean temperature has seesawed like a jaggered edge way before now, way before manmade CO2 was introduced to the atmosphere, actually from the very start.

Why has it now become a problem - let me guess richy rich thinks its time we all payed through the nose for energy.

Some suckers have been caught hook line and sinker.

Sad thing for you guys is you're not getting what you think you're getting.

About the scienstists agreeing thats as credibale as the science is settled.

 

Yes many are advocating natural gas because it's less expensive and less polluting than coal right now. I don't know how natural gas would stand up environmentally to coal if clean coal technology was used. The by-products of natural gas consumption are CO2 and water and CO2 is the second largest contributor to global warming. We must also realize that natural gas is less expensive now because of demand. If we increase demand then the price goes up and using it for electrical power production would dramatically increase both demand and cost.

It's obvious to me that nuclear fusion is the ultimate solution as it has no long term radioactive by-products and the potential for unlimited power. We're just not quite there yet technologically but we need to keep investing in this because it really is the ultimate solution. In the meantime we have a serious problem and we should be addressing it.

While it's techologically possible to create an umbrella it's also cost prohibitive. It would be a last act of despiration but it could be done. I would note that deserts don't produce food and global warming leads to desertification. How much food would be lost if there was no rain in the farm belt of the US alone? We're already seeing a simple weather pattern change wiping out a significant percentage of the corn in the US this year. Global warming would result in this becoming the norm and not the exception. The US could literally become like the Sahara where virtually nothing grows.

 

Yes, in the past we've had much greater CO2 levels but the environment was completely different. I would state uncategorical that the greater problem is the destruction of the ecosystems which removed CO2 from the atmosphere as opposed to the actual CO2 we produce. Literally millions of square miles of old growth forests have been completely wiped off the map and they consumed huge amounts of CO2. We've polluted our oceans killing off much of the life in them and they were the largest consumer of atmospheric CO2. These changes are virtually impossible to reverse.

By way of example I visited Seattle in 1962 for the Worlds Fair and we drove around the Olympic Peninsula and it was all old growth forest. In 1989 I moved to the Seattle area and visited the Olympic Peninsula and those old growth forests were gone. All of them, except in isolated protected areas, had been clear cut to satisfy our insatiable demand for lumber. They've been replaced with "seedling" single species trees that will again be clear cut in 30-50 years.

We might be able to stop our destruction of the ecosystems, and that is a goal we should strive for, but we won't ever replace that which is already lost. We're not going to remove Seattle from the map and let the old growth forests return there.

What we can do is significantly reduce CO2 pollution that, from a techological and cost standpoint, can be done. We can't eliminate it all but we can make major reductions in a cost effective manner. That is reasonable but it doesn't appear to be supported by our government. Instead we have one side saying "do nothing" or "make it worse" and the other side saying "do stupid things that aren't cost effective" with just a few rational people looking at reasonable means of addressing the problem.

 

There are many places we could plant trees and establish new ecosystems. We could start at the marginal areas and reclaim a lot of desert just by planting trees. Gene Stratton Porter an author from Indiana warned about the destruction of trees many years ago. She died in 1924. It seems her predictions are coming true.

I know i am like a broken record on this trees thing, but what harm can it do? I would rather let nature help us than try to solve this problem with technology.

We could start by stopping logging on public lands. Or....if they log it don't let them clearcut.

National forests were set aside for future generations. I am all for keeping it that way.

 

I agree with all of you principals. Regretably, in this country, the green movement has lost all credability, and "principals" are far down in their list of priorities. The word "green" has become synonomous with "liar", most of their membership consists of discontented social missfits, and city dwellers who wouldn`t know a bumble bee from a blow fly. Greens here live off the environment, not for it.

Our National Parks are breeding grounds for feral animals and noxious plants. All sensible people have the utmost concern for the ecology in which we live, and it`s easy to see how an issue such as this has been politically hijacked in it`s infancy by lazy glory hunters. I think the tide is turning, more people are becoming aware of the situation, and hopefully the environment can get some realistic representation in the near future.

 

That is an awful big paint brush - and one with little evidence to back it up

 

Well said gentlemen

I agree and we dont need a carbon tax to achieve these milestones.

A carbon tax puts the environment and our economy on the back burner while placing the farming of carbon credits and profit margins in the spotlight.

 

Gobbledigooks.

 

Regardless of whether a person believes in "man made global warming" or not I believe there is common ground. We know we're destroying our eco-systems and producing a lot of unnecessary pollution.

We don't have to be a "greenie" to agree that the destruction of millions of square miles of forests isn't good for the environment. We can agree that dumping toxic chemicals into the ocean isn't a good thing. I remember when we used to dump motor oil down the storm drains the ran straight out to the ocean. It was many times worse than the Exon Valdez oil spill and overwhelmingly we don't do that anymore. We recycle our oil instead and that is both a good ecological and economic thing for us to do.

The "climate change" scientist do state that we need to address our econlogical environment and it's continued destruction. It is my understanding that the ecological problem is greater than the CO2 production problem but it's also much harder to address. Yes, planting trees does help but we don't plant a fraction of what's destroyed every year. It's also hare to impose a limitation on small countries that are harvesting their forests for economic reasons. We use hardwoods from many small countries where they don't replace these slow growing trees with anything. What should we do? It's a tough question for us all but I think all of us are concerned about it.

As noted above I think we can also agree that unnecessary pollution which can be eliminated in a cost effective way should be addressed. As noted this isn't the BS that the government is trying to "sell" us which doesn't do anything to eliminate pollution. Cap and trade was one of those absurd propositions because it didn't eliminate any pollution. It would just result in higher costs to the consumers and money being shifted to special interest industries that aren't cost effective like large scale solar electrical production and wind farms. Solar power and wind farms sound good but the electricity they produce is cost prohibitive for the consumer.

What I think we really need is those that "oppose" the AGW "agenda" to come up with solutions that reduce pollution in a cost efffective manner just because eliminating unnecessary pollution is the right thing to do. We should all object to industries polluting our air, water and soil if it's completely unnecessary and can be cost effectively eliminated.

 

Hey dude i agree

Especially about the cleaner coal or gas fired boilers at the front end and to catch all the nitty gritty at the back end we could employ the latest technology in

1. Electrostatic precipitators
2. Fabric filters
3. Scrubbers
4. Co2 capture and sequestration

These measures will do so much more than a carbon tax or ETS cause its at grass roots level.

I seriously doubt farming carbon credits on the stock exchange will have any effect on how much CO2 we send up into our atmosphere!

 

Carbon credits don't clean up anything and it's bogus partisan legislation. It merely creates a slush fund for industries that are not cost effective. If they were cost effective then they don't require government subsidies.

Here's the problem I see. We know that clean coal technology will substantially reduce both CO2 and particulat emissions from our coal fired electrical powerplants. We know that it is cost effective as even with the cost of converting existing powerplants it will still produce the lowest cost electricity.

So why can members of both the Republican and Democratic parties in the US Congress simply mandate the conversion of the existing coal fired powerplants? Give these powerplants a reasonable amount of time, perhaps 5-10 years, and make it happen. I believe the Democrats would support this and I see the Republicans as probably blocking it but the Republicans don't have a case. It's cost effective and has a significant impact even if a person doesn't believe in AGW.

 

Couldn't help myself - even though i haven't posted anything about the carbon tax for a while.

I'm still just as passionate about it.

Cause its financial slavery for every man woman and child in Australia.

And to WHO?

Who else the bankers!!!!!

 

I see people at the zoo laughing at the monkeys and the apes, I see people saying aren't they funny animals. Well people, I think man is the funniest animal. The rich and famous, film stars, singers and dancers. Worth millions yet cloud themselves from reality in booze and chemicals. They act like brats, driving drunk and doing things average people wouldn't dream of.

People in the hundreds are winning big lottery prizes, millions, then within a few years are saying it was the worst thing that ever happened. CEO's earning 6 million a year want to earn 12 million a year, and guess what, most of them are not really happy. The have high infidelity rates, high divorce rates and high suicide rates. Their wives are either closet gin drinkers or take valium etc.

We're never happy, sometimes I think we whing just for the sake of whinging, nothing is ever our fault, it is always someone elses or the governments. We want this done and that done, but we won't be proactive, we won't join political parties, councils or committees. We are all to willing to let someone else do the work.

We always need a bit of a boot up the bum to get moving. I believe the ETS, right or wrong, is that boot. I believe that what ever way we go, it will not be the right way, but we must go some way, we must go into the future with a little more respect. Respect for each other, and respect for the planet we live on.

 

What about some simple direct action? I have always maintained a few simple bits of legislation would clean up more pollution quicker than the stupid carbon tax which will do nothing.
1. Limit car engine size to 2.4 litres and vehicle weight to a maximum of 1.5 tonne. Motorcycle engine size limit to 750cc and make every vehicle pass an emissions test every 12 months.
2. Go back to Howard's plan of dramaticaly increasing ethanol production and provide subsidies for people to convert their vehicles to ethanol, or E85. Reinstate and expand Howard's subsidies to convert vehicles to natural gas. Set a date for the end of petrol powered vehicles on our roads.
3. Convert coal electricty plants to natural gas.
4. Run a campaign to educate people and get them to use less electricity. I think increasing the cost of electricity during the hours of darkness would help people to turn the bloody lights off!
5. Make welfare bludgers start earning their keep by going out and planting trees. If land owners will pay for the trees, the government should provide free labour to plant them with welfare bludgers.
6. Bring back subsidies for residential PV systems. We have one on our house and it produces more electricity than we use, we don't get power bills, Ergon sends us cheques.
7. Expand the rail networks, especialy for public transport and convert them to run natural gas or natural gas fired electricity.

And there are many more things can could done.

 

Ummm - you wanna go and post that on the American side of the forum please? (bends down puts fingers in ears and awaits the massed scream of Americans while they hug their SUV's)

Google up "corn ethanol" - has caused a LOT of lost lives as the price of corn rose and people in third world countries starved. You have to find a crop that does not compete with food cropping

Costs money and the coal power stations won't spend that money unless there is an incentive like an ETS....................hmmmmmmmm

Visit the environment forum and have a look at a couple of the "Lightbulb" threads - hard enough to convince some people to swap away from incandescents - let alone do something radical like switch the buggers off!

Better yet - hook them up to bicycles and make them power up the electricity!!

Yeah but someone has to pay - like the blokes without the PV systems - and they are the ones that are screaming

Again that COSTS - especially rail, which is why Australia went to the "road train" idea. Good idea - virtually every truck out here is a train

 

Assume we have a leaking boat that takes on 1000 GPH in water but we also have a pump that pumps 1000 GPH. Everything is cool as the amount of water leaking in is being pumped out again.

Now let's close the valve on the pump just a little bit (to account for deforestation) and a little bit more (to account for destruction of the ocean ecosystem that absorbs CO2) and now the pump, even with just a slight closing of the value, is only able to pump 990 GPH. We're adding 10 GPH of water to the boat.

On top of closing the pump down by only 0.1% we're also going to drill a few holes in the hull to add to the water leaking into the ship. They're small hole of course so they only let in another 10 GPH.

So we're only adding 20 GPH, or 0.2%, of what was going on before when 1000 GPH was leaking in and the pump was pumping out 1000 GPH. The only question left to ask is how long will it take with this very small difference to result in the boat sinking because it's going to sink eventually.

BTW manmade CO2 emissions equal about 3% of all CO2 emissions from what I recall so our "climate boat" is going to sink a lot faster than the hypothetical boat in the analogy.

 

I'm not talking about the USA, I'm talking about Australia. Do you want to start cleaning up the atmosphere or not?

Jeeezzz BB, you're bloody desparate to find excuses to prevent any direct action, why? Don't you want to start cleaning up the atmosphere? We have a crop right here, sugar cane. We could produce all the ethanol we need. It is not produced from the sugar but a bi-product of the sugar refining process called molasses. But hey, we could start using some of the sugar as well, less sugar on the market might result in actual health benefits around the world.

SO what's the difference between forcing them with a carbon tax and forcing them with legislation? Now we are seeing the folly of Labor selling all our electricity generating plants into private hands! Require them with legislation to convert and provide an interest free government loan to do it.

BB you would have to have the worst defeatist attitude I have ever come across! You give up before you even start!

What a good idea! There is certainly enough of them. You have redeemed yourself BB.

What the hell are you talking about?? Are you saying subsidising the installation of solar power is a bad idea? The carbon tax which is supposed to generate funds to subsidise clean renewable energy is just a scam because we should'nt subsidise solar power? With our PV system the subsidy wasn't much, we paid the greater part of the cost and effectively the state got some electricity generating infrastructure for bugger all!

You don't know what you are talking about BB.

But you just keep your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears and keep chanting the mantra, carbon tax carbon tax carbon tax carbon tax carbon tax carbon tax carbon tax ......

 

Adultmale, you cannot see the forest for the trees