Game Over for the Climate

[Ender]

Something like this?

Yes. Thank you. I did notice, however, that your source was the EPA. I’d like to believe that something from a government agency was reliable but frankly the EPA doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence so I did a quick search myself and found* … *apples and oranges. It turns out this computation isn’t so easy to make. One of the interesting things I did find was that as a result of the 1970 Clean Air Act (by mandating pollution controls they reduced efficiency), the average amount of CO2 released by coal plants went up about 20%. Talk about your unintended consequences.

I also found out something about coal gasification which is intriguing:The permit allows Indiana Gasification, LLC, which is being funded by Leucadia National Corp., to emit just 100 tons of carbon dioxide per year —* a fraction of what coal-burning power plants put into the atmosphere.***
courierpress.com/news/2012/may/10/no-headline—ev_gasification/
If gasification really is that efficient - and there aren’t other problems - this might be another possible solution. One thing is apparent: many coal plants are quite old and inefficient so any calculation involving an average of emissions from all plants is misleading. The real question is what are the emissions from new gas plants versus new coal plants?

Regardless, I remain unconvinced that CO2 emission is a serious problem. Nor do I believe that the total elimination of CO2 would satisfy the people driving this controversy because I don’t believe CO2 elimination is the objective; it is merely a means to achieve an objective.

Ender

 

[po18guy]

By AGW, I mean anthropogenic global warming.

Here are some Church writings on it:

• “Today the ecological crisis has assumed such proportions as to be the responsibility of everyone…The…‘greenhouse effect’ has now reached crisis proportions…” --Pope John Paul II, “Peace With All Creation,” 1990, vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace_en.html
• If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation… Man’s inhumanity to man has given rise to numerous threats to peace…Yet no less troubling are the threats arising from the neglect – if not downright misuse – of the earth and the natural goods that God has given us…Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change… attention also needs to be paid to the world-wide problem of water and to the global water cycle system, which is of prime importance for life on earth and whose stability could be seriously jeopardized by climate change” – Pope Benedict XVI, “If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation,” 2010, vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20091208_xliii-world-day-peace_en.html
• “We believe our response to global climate change should be a sign of our respect for God’s creation” & “Even though energy resources literally fuel our economy…we need to ask about ways we can conserve energy, prevent pollution, and live more simply” & "…our response to the challenge of climate change must be rooted in the virtue of prudence…[M]ost experts agree that something significant is happening to the atmosphere. Human behavior and activity are…contributing to a warming of the earth’s climate… Consequently, it seems prudent…to take steps now to mitigate possible negative effects in the future.” --U.S. Bishops, 2001, “Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good,” U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops, usccb.org/sdwp/international/globalclimate.shtml
• ”We must therefore encourage and support the ‘ecological conversion’ which in recent decades has made humanity more sensitive to the catastrophe to which it has been heading. Man is no longer the Creator’s ‘steward’, but an autonomous despot, who is finally beginning to understand that he must stop at the edge of the abyss." --Pope John Paul II, “God Made Man The Steward of Creation” 2001, vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud20010117en.html

Practical meaning?

 

[lynnvinc]

My joke was referring not to just your effort to counter AGW but I was thinking about threads like the ones on on abortion, masturbation, homosexual marriages, contraception, participating to invalid marriages, COTT vs CITH, EF vs. OF, liturgical abuses etc. That is why I said that the number of posts would go down by 98%.

I think all these deserved to be talked about again and again – for the sake of newcomers, and also maybe we can shed some brainstorming light and maybe get some ideas for effectively reducing these.

I guess the best idea is to live a sacrificial agape love life without sex. Then our energies and focus can be put into humanitarian works.

Of course that would entail totally reversing our American culture of “me, me, me,” and “pleasure, comfort, and wealth”; and while keeping “life,” reconsidering an extremely heavy emphasis “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (over self-control, duties, and righteous living), which have an odd tendency to lead to various no-nos.

 

[lynnvinc]

Practical meaning?

Turning off lights not in use, for starters.

 

[lynnvinc]

and energy use in general.

Even wind farms cause climate change!
telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9234715/Wind-farms-can-cause-climate-change-finds-new-study.html

That rag? The real story is that wind farms MAY be pulling warmer air at higher altitudes down to the ground during the night (which is bad for plants), and the techies are working on fixing this. I say MAY bec even the scientists who discovered this say their data is based on satellite observations and needs to be backed up with ground observations…

No new energy imbalance is created by this; temps are just being shifted around. However, with AGW we are creating an energy imbalance at this point (more energy coming into our earth-atmosphere system, less leaving).

 

[lynnvinc]

Something like this?
Quote:
(Comparing emissions of natural gas to coal) The average emissions rates in the United States from natural gas-fired generation are: 1135 lbs/MWh of carbon dioxide, 0.1 lbs/MWh of sulfur dioxide, and 1.7 lbs/MWh of nitrogen oxides.1 Compared to the average air emissions from coal-fired generation, natural gas produces half as much carbon dioxide, less than a third as much nitrogen oxides, and one percent as much sulfur oxides at the power plant.2 In addition, the process of extraction, treatment, and transport of the natural gas to the power plant generates additional emissions. epa.gov/cleanenergy/energ…tural-gas.html

I’m wondering if any holistic (cradle to grave) study has been done on fracking. I saw the film GASLANDS, and they showed a tremendous amount of (name removed by moderator)uts (trucks after trucks, water, etc), not to mention the pollution – people’s kitchen tap water catching on fire, etc. See - youtube.com/watch?v=z0fAsFQsFAs

 

[triumphguy]

The problem with media (as you pointed out above with the Telegraph, which is one of the more authoritative papers out there, but still a rag!) is who do you believe?

Lies, damned lies and statistics!

 

[DavidinStLouis]

You’re right.

There are lots of reasons to reduce our coal (and oil and tar sand bitumen) use…

Coal ‘smoke’ has been cleaned up **tremendously **over the last 30 years! We’re already way ahead of the game with respect to any pollution from coal - just continue to work toward slightly cleaner coal emissions and we’ll be fine.

And all this is even IF you believe that Global Warming (I don’t know what “AGW” means, and it hasn’t been explained) is MAN MADE.

Personally, I believe that the earth can warm and the earth can cool over time and eras and epochs, it doesn’t need any ‘help’ from us. AND almost *anything *that we do is such a drop in the bucket compared to NATURAL events - volcanic eruptions, forest fires, solar activity, etc. - that the idea that man can ‘control nature’ to such a degree is nearly comical. On the other hand, the idea that we can drive ourselves to ruin, culturally, socially, fiscally and sovereignly (sic) with whacked out, crazy, unproven and unexamined policies is very, very likely.

 

[Ender]

I find this an interesting comment on sources. Here was your response to an opponent citing the Guardian:

That rag?

And here is a source you find more compelling;

See - youtube.com/watch?v=z0fAsFQsFAs

Ender

 

[DavidinStLouis]

I find this an interesting comment on sources. Here was your response to an opponent citing the Guardian:

And here is a source you find more compelling;

Ender

Touche!

 

[ekk1]

There is much that can be done economically.On a personal level, you can save money and reduce green house emissions by going vegetarian, which will also make you healthier. Raising livestock produces 18% of greenhouse gas emissions.We actually need to get to the point that we are sequestering carbon again from the atmosphere, but at least a reduction in emissions will slow down what appears to be inevitable. Perhaps some new technologies which make economic sense will be developed.

 

[FaithBuild18]

Global warming, be it natural or artificial, is entirely unstoppable.

I believe in personal responsibility. I’m sick of going to the park and seeing Gatorade bottles and beer cans floating down the river. Stopping this takes personal responsibility.

I may even have slight conservationist inklings. I love seeing the natural world and hope it exists for future generations to see. But I would never advocate the preservation of such things at the expense of human beings.

I absolutely despise environmentalism. It is neo-pagan, it is idolatry, it is Godless. The reason to be concerned about the environment is not for the sake of the soulless beasts and false mother earth, it’s for the sake of mankind. Environmentalists are willing to wager the prowess and well-being of human beings for the sake of neo-pagan traditions. I would never support any movement that takes food away from the starving, clothes away from the naked, or shelter away from the homeless just for the sake of false gods, yet this is what many environmental agendas seek to do: Prohibit the gathering of food, mitigate man’s acquisition of resources, and limit the construction of homes. Not to mention the correlations between the left (who are the majority of environmentalists) and abortion. Contrary to what they say, the last thing they care about is the future of humans. They’d sacrifice every last human save themselves for the sake of mother earth.

Through the sheer volume of reposts, people like the TC demonstrate a complete infatuation and obsession with environmentalism.

There is no need to exploit global warming and turn it into some twisted social justice issue, rallying around it as a cause for people to essentially worship the natural world. How about we take care of it simply because it is a good thing to do?

 

[FaithBuild18]

There is much that can be done economically.On a personal level, you can save money and reduce green house emissions by going vegetarian, which will also make you healthier. Raising livestock produces 18% of greenhouse gas emissions.We actually need to get to the point that we are sequestering carbon again from the atmosphere, but at least a reduction in emissions will slow down what appears to be inevitable. Perhaps some new technologies which make economic sense will be developed.

False. Have fun taking your fake B12 supplements (chemically different than animal B12), as you pop those pills so that your body can properly convert TCA cycle intermediates into other metabolites. Aside from some fat soluble vitamins and vitamic C, there is almost no nutritional value to vegetables whatsoever. Humans did not ascend to the top of the food chain by eating vegetables all day long. We ate whatever we could (when food was scarce), which included a good mix of both veggies and animals.

In fact, the world would be healthier if everybody grew their own livestock, killed it, and ate it shortly thereafter. The reason animal products in the post modern world are associated with cancer and heart disease is two fold: 1. People eat way too much in general. 2. The vast amounts of chemical additives added to animal products to preserve them. Raising your own eliminates both of these.

If you want to get the same amount of calories from vegetables as you ordinarily get from meat, you will have to eat a bit more than twice the mass of food every day. Such high intake levels of sucrose, which is 50% fructose, will inevitably (if you’re a male), give you serious threats of gout. Not to mention such a high carbohydrate intake alone will make you much more obese than if you were to consume the same amount of calories of meat products.

Americans aren’t fat because they eat meat. They’re fat because they eat TOO MUCH of everything, which includes meat and especially includes carbohydrate rich junk foods like potato chips, cakes, cookies, etc.

Forget global warming. Eat less food because it’s the healthy thing to do. Not to mention all the starving people out there who could really use a share of your plate.

 

[DavidinStLouis]

Global warming, be it natural or artificial, is entirely unstoppable.

…I would never advocate the preservation of (earthly) things at the expense of human beings.

…The reason to be concerned about the environment is not for the sake of the soulless beasts and false mother earth, it’s for the sake of mankind. …I would never support any movement that takes food away from the starving, clothes away from the naked, or shelter away from the homeless just for the sake of false gods,…

…the natural world. How about we take care of it simply because it is a good thing to do?

AMEN to all that!

 

[lynnvinc]

I absolutely despise environmentalism. It is neo-pagan, it is idolatry, it is Godless. The reason to be concerned about the environment is not for the sake of the soulless beasts and false mother earth, it’s for the sake of mankind. Environmentalists are willing to wager the prowess and well-being of human beings for the sake of neo-pagan traditions. I would never support any movement that takes food away from the starving, clothes away from the naked, or shelter away from the homeless just for the sake of false gods, yet this is what many environmental agendas seek to do: Prohibit the gathering of food, mitigate man’s acquisition of resources, and limit the construction of homes. Not to mention the correlations between the left (who are the majority of environmentalists) and abortion. Contrary to what they say, the last thing they care about is the future of humans. They’d sacrifice every last human save themselves for the sake of mother earth.

Through the sheer volume of reposts, people like the TC demonstrate a complete infatuation and obsession with environmentalism.

There is no need to exploit global warming and turn it into some twisted social justice issue, rallying around it as a cause for people to essentially worship the natural world. How about we take care of it simply because it is a good thing to do?

I haven’t really met any of those neopagan-atheist-communist-economy-destroying-world-takeover-genocidal-baby-killer environmentalists that seem to populate your towns.

I guess there are many types of environmentalism. Most environmentalists I’ve know are moms concerned about their children and the children of the world. They have a sense of ethics that it is not right to destroy other people’s food and livelihoods, and poison their air, water, and soil. That’s what motivates all the environmentalists I know.

But if I ever meet one of those #$(&^$# NACEDWTGBK environmentalists, I’ve give him a piece of my mind about how wrong his thinking is and tell him that he’s giving the rest of us environmentalists a really bad name.

Just send those types over to me. I’ll fix their wagons

 

[FaithBuild18]

I haven’t really met any of those neopagan-atheist-communist-economy-destroying-world-takeover-genocidal-baby-killer environmentalists that seem to populate your towns.

I guess there are many types of environmentalism. Most environmentalists I’ve know are moms concerned about their children and the children of the world. They have a sense of ethics that it is not right to destroy other people’s food and livelihoods, and poison their air, water, and soil. That’s what motivates all the environmentalists I know.

But if I ever meet one of those #$(&^$# NACEDWTGBK environmentalists, I’ve give him a piece of my mind about how wrong his thinking is and tell him that he’s giving the rest of us environmentalists a really bad name.

Just send those types over to me. I’ll fix their wagons

So you haven’t met an environmentalist with liberal social views? Huh, that seems to be the only breed I’ve ever met.

 

[ekk1]

False. Have fun taking your fake B12 supplements (chemically different than animal B12), as you pop those pills so that your body can properly convert TCA cycle intermediates into other metabolites. Aside from some fat soluble vitamins and vitamic C, there is almost no nutritional value to vegetables whatsoever. Humans did not ascend to the top of the food chain by eating vegetables all day long. We ate whatever we could (when food was scarce), which included a good mix of both veggies and animals.

In fact, the world would be healthier if everybody grew their own livestock, killed it, and ate it shortly thereafter. The reason animal products in the post modern world are associated with cancer and heart disease is two fold: 1. People eat way too much in general. 2. The vast amounts of chemical additives added to animal products to preserve them. Raising your own eliminates both of these.

If you want to get the same amount of calories from vegetables as you ordinarily get from meat, you will have to eat a bit more than twice the mass of food every day. Such high intake levels of sucrose, which is 50% fructose, will inevitably (if you’re a male), give you serious threats of gout. Not to mention such a high carbohydrate intake alone will make you much more obese than if you were to consume the same amount of calories of meat products.

Americans aren’t fat because they eat meat. They’re fat because they eat TOO MUCH of everything, which includes meat and especially includes carbohydrate rich junk foods like potato chips, cakes, cookies, etc.

Forget global warming. Eat less food because it’s the healthy thing to do. Not to mention all the starving people out there who could really use a share of your plate.

the evidence is conclusive enough, in my opinion, that i diet extremely low in animal protein is far healthier than you suggest, and healthier than a diet high in animal protein.

i agree with your point on total caloric intake. the findings on the advantages of low calorie diets is compelling, and the mechanism at work at the cellular level is becoming clearer.

i also agree with your point about mire responsible livestock production. for one thing, bovines are not meant to eat corn, soy and barley. when fed their normal diet of grass, one ends up with meat which does not cause the cell membrane inflamation that we see with grain fed animal protein. this results in a reduction in inflammatory diseases such as heart disease and arthritis.

the first long term study of the effects of low dose antibiotic ingestion, as most people get from our food supply, has just begun. there is much theoretical speculation, but nothing solid on the topic. it can’t be good for us.

my personal choice is to stay low on the food chain also to avoid exposure to accumulated heavy metals, etc. which have no metabolic pathway for excretion.

 

[lynnvinc]

I find this an interesting comment on sources. Here was your response to an opponent citing the Guardian:

And here is a source [GASLANDS] you find more compelling;

Ender

As you may note, I raised the issue of the impact of fracking as a query, not a fact:
I’m wondering if any holistic (cradle to grave) study has been done on fracking. I saw the film GASLANDS, …
That’s different from using known denialist newspapers (which the Telegraph is) or blogsites for scientific facts; just notice the way they twisted the scientific study on the wind farms to indicate something the study never indicated, dupping the people who don’t take the time to read the actual study.

 

[ekk1]

Global warming, be it natural or artificial, is entirely unstoppable.

I believe in personal responsibility. I’m sick of going to the park and seeing Gatorade bottles and beer cans floating down the river. Stopping this takes personal responsibility.

I may even have slight conservationist inklings. I love seeing the natural world and hope it exists for future generations to see. But I would never advocate the preservation of such things at the expense of human beings.

I absolutely despise environmentalism. It is neo-pagan, it is idolatry, it is Godless. The reason to be concerned about the environment is not for the sake of the soulless beasts and false mother earth, it’s for the sake of mankind. Environmentalists are willing to wager the prowess and well-being of human beings for the sake of neo-pagan traditions. I would never support any movement that takes food away from the starving, clothes away from the naked, or shelter away from the homeless just for the sake of false gods, yet this is what many environmental agendas seek to do: Prohibit the gathering of food, mitigate man’s acquisition of resources, and limit the construction of homes. Not to mention the correlations between the left (who are the majority of environmentalists) and abortion. Contrary to what they say, the last thing they care about is the future of humans. They’d sacrifice every last human save themselves for the sake of mother earth.

Through the sheer volume of reposts, people like the TC demonstrate a complete infatuation and obsession with environmentalism.

There is no need to exploit global warming and turn it into some twisted social justice issue, rallying around it as a cause for people to essentially worship the natural world. How about we take care of it simply because it is a good thing to do?

the problem goes far beyond gatorade bottles in the park. one of many examples is the pending extinction of leatherback turtles, the widest ranging reptile on earth. in necropsies of dead turtles, it is found that the ingestion of plastic bags floating in the oceans is responsible for one third of fatalities. leatherbacks eat jellyfish. they mistake the floating bags for their normal food.

if biodiversity interests you, then google the topic and look at mean biodiversity maps. we are extinguishing life on our planet. if that doesn’t bother you, then consider that some ocean going mammals exhibit mercury levels more than 100 times a toxic load. they are at the same level of the food chain as humans.

our failure in stewardship is becoming more apparent. only humans produce plastic, expel hydrocarbons and lead and mercury into the environment in large quantity.

 

[lynnvinc]

the evidence is conclusive enough, in my opinion, that i diet extremely low in animal protein is far healthier than you suggest, and healthier than a diet high in animal protein.

i agree with your point on total caloric intake. the findings on the advantages of low calorie diets is compelling, and the mechanism at work at the cellular level is becoming clearer.

i also agree with your point about mire responsible livestock production. for one thing, bovines are not meant to eat corn, soy and barley. when fed their normal diet of grass, one ends up with meat which does not cause the cell membrane inflamation that we see with grain fed animal protein. this results in a reduction in inflammatory diseases such as heart disease and arthritis.

the first long term study of the effects of low dose antibiotic ingestion, as most people get from our food supply, has just begun. there is much theoretical speculation, but nothing solid on the topic. it can’t be good for us.

my personal choice is to stay low on the food chain also to avoid exposure to accumulated heavy metals, etc. which have no metabolic pathway for excretion.

It’s very difficult for people to change their eating habits, so it might be suggested to go meatless one or two days a week – like how about Fridays

Or people could reduce their daily portions. Or find some soy substitutes (that tends not to work for me due to the MSG they put in most of those products, which give me migraines).

The other health issue re meat is that toxins, such as pesticides, tend to bioaccumulate and are more concentrated in meat & dairy products than in produce. I know meat has been linked to prostate and breast cancers, etc, but I’m thinking it might not be meat as much as the pesticides in that meat.

We had to give up meat many decades ago bec my husband had high cholesterol and heart problems. So now he eats seafood & goes vegan one or two days a week, and I’m mainly vegan, but occasionally eat some meat or fish, etc.

We just had reading from FOUNDATIONS in my OCDS group last week pertaining to when it is appropriate for them to eat meat. Carmelites don’t eat meat as a penance, but one time when St. Teresa and co. were traveling and their wealthy host presented them with a meat delicacy, a sister expressed concerned, and Teresa said something like “When we’re in the convent we do penance, when we visit ___, we eat meat” (which to them would have seemed like a penance on their penance).