How can we mitigate global warming?

[lynnvinc]

Just posted this on another thread, and thought appropriate here:

Lynne makes a good point about oil and the military subsidies that support it. I would actually support a law that made it required to amortize the cost of any war in an oil - exporting country to amortize the cost of that war over 15 years and pay for it via a tax on crude oil. THAT would be free market economics at work. What we have now where all taxpayers fund the military protection of the oil economy whether they use oil or not is central planning, not free markets!

But it has almost nothing to do with electricity. America is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We don’t fight wars to keep the natural gas supplies flowing. There may come a day when Americans are willing to allow the power company to turn off their AC units if the wind isn’t blowing hard enough to make the juice needed. But it ain’t today, so power companies DO need to build enough fossil fuel peaker plants to back up the wind farms.

Well, you are right as it stands re electricity and the need for other than wind sources.

Even nuke needs some type of back up peaking plants for high demand times, since it has to run fairly constantly 24/7. We had a ComEd guy come to our parish environmental committee meeting in Aurora, IL in the mid-90s and we discussed it with him (ComEd runs on 75% nuke, 25% coal), and he suggested some water reservoir idea, whereby the water is pumped up by nuke into a higher level reservoir during the non-peak times, then released to generate hydro-electric power during peak times (I think it’s being done in some places). I got into talking about EVs that the Fox Valley EV Association (meets at COD) were converting and those slated to be produced in the future by auto companies, and he got all excited. He said if enough people were plugging in their EVs at night, during non-peak times, ComEd might be able to cut its electricity rate even in half!

I think wind might be able to supply maybe 20% or 30% of our electricity demands. And solar, nukes, and hydro some more, maybe up to 50% or so all combined. Since America is only at 3% wind power now, there is a great ways to go. Iowa is generating 20% of its electricity from wind right now.

And they are working on various other ideas like geothermal, tidal power ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power ) and air-borne wind turbines (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_wind_turbine ), etc.

Also algae fuel (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel_from_algae ), fuel from a fungus that produces a fuel nearly identical to diesel fuel (sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103192319.htm ) other biofuels from other non-food sources. There are lots of ideas out there and experiments going on, some of which could pan out and help supplement our energy needs.

Then there is the 5th energy source – efficiency/conservation. It’s been calculated that our American economy could reduce its energy demand by over 75% cost-effectively through these means without lowering productivity (see rmi.org and natcap.org ).

We reduced our household energy demand by some 30% or so from 1990-95 cost-effecitively without even doing everything we could have done (I was keeping records for years back in the early 90s, even figuring in the monthly average temps, provided by the gas co, and saw our gas bill go down and our electricity bill plummet). This was before we went on 100% wind power here in Texas in 2002, and then just recently got a Volt.

Energy reduction also includes “reduce & reuse,” bec there is an energy component in every product & in water (esp hot water). We’d been frugal before; we just become somewhat more frugal after 1990 in our efforts to reduce our harms. Aurora, IL had really great garage sales – a good reuse measure. I also had a bike there and off-set some driving by cycling – which is good for the health, reduces neighborhood crime, and (I felt) good for the spirit. Just be sure the bicycle routes re safe enough from reckless drivers, if you plan to do some cycling.

So my guessimate is that beyond our initial 30% or so cut in energy use, with wind power and our Volt we’ve perhaps cut our fossil fuel energy use by maybe 60 to 70% (all measures combined). And, with nearly everything we have been doing for this fossil fuel reduction either saving us money or not costing.

If one puts their mind and heart into it, and calls on God in prayer, nothing is impossible!

 

[lynnvinc]

Here’s something interesting I just ran across – the International J of Low-Carbon Technologies, ijlct.oxfordjournals.org/ . It is not open-source and it seems pretty technical, but one could read the abstracts.

And then there is Mother Earth News (to which my sister gave me a year’s subscription back in the early 80s) – chocked full of neat ideas: motherearthnews.com/

 

[beischel]

People are fools to think they can stop global warming when it is actually caused by climate cycle and not man made as some misguided people think. Proof is that as carbon dioxide levels have increased, the temperature has not increased along with it. In fact, the average temperature has dropped slightly. This is a warming period that is occurring naturally as they have occurred in earth’s history in the past. BTW as further proof, scientists have recorded that nine glaciers are growing in size. They could not grow if it were getting warmer.

The climate freaks are using the imagined crisis as another means of trying to take more money from more people. It’s all about the money folks.

 

[vz71]

The climate freaks are using the imagined crisis as another means of trying to take more money from more people. It’s all about the money folks.

But some of the ideas coming from this can be utilized to increase economic efficiency overall.
Which means more cash flow and more propsperity.

One need not agree with the motivations to agree when a given idea is a good one.

 

[lynnvinc]

People are fools to think they can stop global warming when it is actually caused by climate cycle and not man made as some misguided people think. Proof is that as carbon dioxide levels have increased, the temperature has not increased along with it. In fact, the average temperature has dropped slightly. This is a warming period that is occurring naturally as they have occurred in earth’s history in the past. BTW as further proof, scientists have recorded that nine glaciers are growing in size. They could not grow if it were getting warmer.

The climate freaks are using the imagined crisis as another means of trying to take more money from more people. It’s all about the money folks.

See, using terms like “fools” and “freaks” is unwise, especially when the scientists have a lot of education and are considering a large number variables.

Scientists and those who know well about AGW have never claimed that GHGs, such as CO2, are the ONLY factor that determines climate. For instance (just to bring in one other factor out of many) during the past 11 years there has been a decline in solar irradiance in the sun’s short-term sunspot cycle; see from Wikipedia re Solar Variation en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_activity_and_irradiance_measurement#Solar_activity_and_irradiance_measurement.


As you can see there has been a downswing since about 2000, during which time we would have expected a significant decrease in global average temp…down to the level of that around 1975 (when there was another solar minimum), but has it stayed well above that figure.

There was also a strong “la niña” in 2011 which caused it to be cooler than the previous year. La niñas and el niños are natural fluctuations that contribute to the climate zig-zagging year to year, which is one reason longer than 10 year trends need to be studied. The main point is, despite these cooling factors (less solar irradiance and la niña) the temps are still way above the 70s and before temps.

-670.jpg

Scientists have been aware of the greenhouse effect for nearly 200 years, and it explains why earth is 33C warmer than it would be without it (making life on earth possible); it is based on laws of physics – see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect – and except for an article in an obscure Hungarian journal, no scientist nor their dog are disputing the GH effect. See: youtube.com/watch?v=e0vj-0imOLw&feature=player_detailpage

As for making money off of AGW – that’s true. Only the “in” people have privy info on this and are making a big bundle on it.

I suppose it wouldn’t be in violation of anything if I told you the secret insider information, so here goes:

• Turn off lights not in use
• Become energy/resource efficient/conservative
• Install low-flow showerheads & toilets
• Insulate your home and caulk around windows
• Move close to work & shops (ABC News just did a special Mon nite on how longer commutes can lead to health problems and divorces)
• Next time building a home, build a passive solar home (orienting big windows on south, etc).
• Plant deciduous trees that shade home and yard in summer, and allow sun to warm them in winter.
• Turn off engine in drive-thrus (and order the veggie burger)
• Offset some driving with walking & cycling – not only saves money & the earth, but is good for the health and spirit
• Eat low on the food-chain (also good for the health)
• Get a solar clothes dryer (rope & clothes pins)
• Water garden only in the early morning or late afternoon
• Xeriscape (plant drought resistent plants that don’t need watering)
• Hypermile (reduce gas expenses by 10 to 50% – also saves on break repairs)
• Reduce (don’t by junk you really don’t need or want)
• Reuse – use reusable cups, napkins; use the clean back sides of paper; buy things that last.
• Buy energy efficient appliances.
• Turn off vents in rooms that don’t need cooling/heating
• Wear sweaters/sweats indoors during cold winters and short-sleeves during summers & adjust thermostat to save $$ & the earth.
• Carpool
• Run multiple errands, planned so as to reduce driving.
• look for other tips on this thread
• do your own searches for tips & let us know about them
• pray to God for other tips, and esp for the grace to implement them

 

[CarolVP]

Sorry, but I don’t understand. Why would anyone be seeking to mitigate against something that isn’t happening? It’s the same as continuing to study Peking Man for scientific information.

Save money by whatever means at your disposal, but there’s no point in attempting to deal with a non-issue. World-wide temperatures peaked around 1997/1998.

Keep your own environment in good order and in pristine condition, by all means, but don’t waste time and effort on futile attempts to change something that can’t be changed.

(Yeah, I know that this is not the forum for discussing it, but surely one would make sure some catastrophic event is actually going to occur before making plans to do something about it. )

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Sorry, but I don’t understand. Why would anyone be seeking to mitigate against something that isn’t happening? It’s the same as continuing to study Peking Man for scientific information.

Save money by whatever means at your disposal, but there’s no point in attempting to deal with a non-issue. World-wide temperatures peaked around 1997/1998.

Keep your own environment in good order and in pristine condition, by all means, but don’t waste time and effort on futile attempts to change something that can’t be changed.

(Yeah, I know that this is not the forum for discussing it, but surely one would make sure some catastrophic event is actually going to occur before making plans to do something about it. )

This will be a fruitless argument. The posters who argue for AGW are completely convinced that it is real, that it is happening, and that we can do something about it. Completely convinced. There is absolutely NOTHING you can say that will make a dent or any impact in their belief system. No amount of facts, no amount of data, NOTHING will make an impact. It’s really silly. Except that some of them reside in political offices where they can actually restrict our lives based on their erroneous beliefs. That’s a problem.

 

[Luna_Lovecraft]

This will be a fruitless argument. The posters who argue for AGW are completely convinced that it is real, that it is happening, and that we can do something about it. Completely convinced. There is absolutely NOTHING you can say that will make a dent or any impact in their belief system. No amount of facts, no amount of data, NOTHING will make an impact. It’s really silly. Except that some of them reside in political offices where they can actually restrict our lives based on their erroneous beliefs. That’s a problem.

And it’s an argument best left to another thread. Don’t derail this one, please.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

And it’s an argument best left to another thread. Don’t derail this one, please.

I’m not derailing the thread. The title is “How can we mitigate global warming?” which is in dispute. Well, AGW is, anyway.

How can you mitigate something that isn’t happening?

 

[vz71]

I’m not derailing the thread. The title is “How can we mitigate global warming?” which is in dispute. Well, AGW is, anyway.

How can you mitigate something that isn’t happening?

Actually…it is.

It is part of the natural cycle that the planet goes through.
We have had many ice ages and many warm periods.
It looks like now we are entering a warm period.

My opinion though, if people wish to try to change the climate, go ahead. It will not work. BUT…the technology and knowledge that comes from this activity will be a benefit to us all.

Where I wish to draw the line…where these changes are enforced upon anyone.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Actually…it is.

It is part of the natural cycle that the planet goes through.
We have had many ice ages and many warm periods.
It looks like now we are entering a warm period.

My opinion though, if people wish to try to change the climate, go ahead. It will not work. BUT…the technology and knowledge that comes from this activity will be a benefit to us all.

Where I wish to draw the line…where these changes are enforced upon anyone.

I have seen conflicting evidence on that, but I’m willing to go with it, since the sun activity is what causes our climate cycles.

I think some people mean well, and others have an agenda.

 

[lynnvinc]

Sorry, but I don’t understand. Why would anyone be seeking to mitigate against something that isn’t happening? It’s the same as continuing to study Peking Man for scientific information.

Save money by whatever means at your disposal, but there’s no point in attempting to deal with a non-issue. World-wide temperatures peaked around 1997/1998.

Keep your own environment in good order and in pristine condition, by all means, but don’t waste time and effort on futile attempts to change something that can’t be changed.

(Yeah, I know that this is not the forum for discussing it, but surely one would make sure some catastrophic event is actually going to occur before making plans to do something about it. )

For one thing JPII (since 1990) and BXVI have been repeatedly calling on us to mitigate climate change, saying it is everyone’s responsibility.

One way to look at it is using Pascal’s wager – he said what is there is no God or heaven, believing that there is does not harm (FALSE POSITIVE); on the other hand, if there is God and heaven, then disbelieving these would lead to very serious repercussions (FALSE NEGATIVE).

Same way, if there is no AGW, then mitigating it does not harm – in fact it save a tremendous amount of money and mitigate many many other environmental and non-environmental problems; if there is AGW (and 97% of climate scientists say there is, and it is based on laws of physics), but people fail to mitigate it, this could lead to very serious harms, possibly runaway warming that would annihilate all life on earth.

It is just prudent (as the U.S. bishops tell us) to mitigate climate change.

So with that, let us return to mitigation strategies…

 

[lynnvinc]

Here’s a good idea for big cities (tho it might not be as effective in the U.S., due to our high crime rate): Bike sharing and EV sharing – pick them up close to you, and drop them off near your destination. They’ve had bike-sharing for several decades in some European cities (usually clonky bikes that people would not want to steal, but provide good transportation, esp during traffic jam times), but this is the first I’ve heard of EV sharing:

Imagine, you can rent a four-passenger electric car just about anytime you want. You walk out of your apartment or condo and there sits a Pininfarina-designed, Bolloré Lithium Metal Polymer battery-powered electric Bluecar (also pictured on page 3). You’ve paid your €144 $187] annual membership fee to be part of the Autolib program. Your trip takes a hour, which costs you €9 or the equivalent of about US$12. You drop off the car at one of the 1,120 parking and charging stations around the city. At that point your financial responsibility for the vehicle ends. No loan to service, insurance or taxes or even fuel to buy, no maintenance to perform. It’s about as trouble-free car access as you could ask for.

That’s what some 6,000 subscribers, as of December 31, 2011, in Paris and 45 surrounding communities, now have available to them. Eventually, there will be some 3,000 Bluecars in the Autolib system. The first 1,0000 are now in service as of March 2012, with 300 more cars to be added monthly (evworld.com/tours/hotspot_tour1.pdf)

Check out EV World at evworld.com/index.cfm for interesting developments in fuel efficient transportation, include jets and electric bikes…

 

[vz71]

Agreed. If we utilize Pascal’s wager when looking at what we can do, it helps.

There is a lot that can be done that does not have deleterious effects economically or otherwise. So it makes little sense not to do them.

However, as the actions grow in economic impact, we need to look towards the evidence to decide if the economic hit is worth whatever gain there may be.

 

[lynnvinc]

Agreed. If we utilize Pascal’s wager when looking at what we can do, it helps.

There is a lot that can be done that does not have deleterious effects economically or otherwise. So it makes little sense not to do them.

However, as the actions grow in economic impact, we need to look towards the evidence to decide if the economic hit is worth whatever gain there may be.

I figure it will take at least 10, maybe 20 years just to implement the things that either have no cost or save us money (and help us in other ways). After that we can see if we need to sacrifice a bit.

There’s so much “low hanging fruit” that’s even falling off and rotting.

I remember a commercial from the early 90s. A couple rushes out of the house crying, “We’ve been robbed.” Turns out they had been robbed of great savings because they had a less efficient AC than the one being advertized.

I’m thinking if we could put little meters (if it wouldn’t cost too much) on our electrical things that would put it in watts and/or cents, then that might help us become more conservation/efficiency minded.

Now that we have our Volt with a little efficiency ball near the mph gauge that rises if we accelerate too fast and drops if we decelerate too fast, and stays above optimal efficiency if we drive more than 58 mph, we are able to easily adjust our driving habits to aim for the most efficient driving. That is now carrying over to driving our van, which doesn’t have that efficiency ball. It’s bringing to mind things I learned in school: momentum = velocity x mass. It takes a lot of energy to get a heavy thing going, but once it’s going it’s not so hard to get it going faster…sort of like some exponental or quadratic function curve.

 

[lynnvinc]

Okay, I’ve started a thread for those who want to discuss whether or not AGW is a reality:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=674588

From an article yesterday in the NY Times, May 9, 2012, nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html :

Game Over for the Climate
By JAMES HANSEN
Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is the top climate scientist in the U.S. His article echos an American Geophysical Union conference paper he gave 3 years ago (read esp p. 24): columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/AGUBjerknes_20081217.pdf

In the NYT article he’s referring to something Obama said about how Canada will be exploiting the Candian tar sands “regardless of what we do,” which according to Hansen would spell extreme disaster long term for humanity, and even a lot of serious problems short-term. He also makes suggestions for something better than a Cap&Trade scheme.

This is important, since JPII told us in 1990, that it’s everyone’s responsibility to mitigate global warming, and BXVI has been repeatedly telling us this.

For those interested in reading or making suggestions about how we can mitigate AGW (in ways that don’t break our piggy banks), I’ve started a thread at forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=656903

Here’s your chance to bash Hansen to smitherines. Just remember his wife, children, and grandchildren (about whom he is very concerned) are Catholic, and if we want him to become Catholic (he’s some Protestant denomination, like Adventist or 7th Day Adventist–non-practicing, I think), don’t bash him too roughly

 

[vz71]

I figure it will take at least 10, maybe 20 years just to implement the things that either have no cost or save us money (and help us in other ways). After that we can see if we need to sacrifice a bit.

You will forgive me that I intend not to sacrifice anything until it I am convinced.

As you pointed out, there is plenty that can be done that will cost nothing or actually save money.

 

[lynnvinc]

You will forgive me that I intend not to sacrifice anything until it I am convinced.

As you pointed out, there is plenty that can be done that will cost nothing or actually save money.

Sacrifice is not a bad thing, and in this context would do good, since nearly all (if not all) the measures to mitigate climate change also mitigate many other local & regional environmental problems, and other problems.

However there are so many things we can do at this point to mitigate – maybe reducing our GHGs (and thereby other pollutants) by even 50% or more – that save money without lowering living standards or productivity, and this would probably take us 10 years or more (it took my household 22 years to reduce by 60 or 70% cost-effectively). In economic terms we are living well within the “production possibilities frontier” (we’re highly resource/energy inefficient, given current off-the-shelf technology & know-how). And I’m also thinking that after 10 years (when we should know more about AGW), new tech would have been developed that will help us reduce further without sacrifice.

However, back to the idea of sacrifice. I was just talking to a person yesterday who was wowed that my husband and I had been married 43 years, and she asked how we did it. I told her we were Catholic and that we just put up with each other, we practiced agape – Christian sacrificial love.

A Carmelite sister used to say, “Our neighbors are our hairshirts.” (Lay Carmelites are not supposed to take on penances, but simply undergo the daily problems of life and offer them up as our little penances, dealing with them without complaint – I’m a terrible backslider on that.) I told that person, “Our spouses are our hairshirts.”

And when I was a young Protestant person I practiced penance without realizing it. One warm day when my scout troop was hiking and I was wearing my sweater, our leader (a Catholic) asked why I was wearing the sweater since it was hot. I didn’t really have an answer, so I just said, “So it would be seem cooler when I take it off.” She went on to talk about things above my head…I’m thinking it might have been about Catholic stuff like penance. I didn’t understand her words or what she was saying.

Even now when I drive our Volt on the weekdays, I don’t put on the AC or radio (and am getting 4 to 6 extra miles per charge); but when my husband drives it on the weekends, we use the AC, since the weather’s in the 80s & 90s, & radio. And he doesn’t like me looking at the little efficiency ball as drives, and he never wants to hear the word “hypermiling” for the rest of his life. He wants comforts and doesn’t like controls, since he lived in poverty as a kid and suffered various lacks. However, he sacrifices in some very big ways – he’s stayed married to me for 43 years .

The only sacrifice required now would be to become conscientious and aware of all the money-saving and no-cost things that mitigate AGW (and other problems) and implement them, no matter how small (like take reusable shopping bags, or hankies to wipe hands in restrooms). And offer these little deeds up.

 

[ekk1]

I figure it will take at least 10, maybe 20 years just to implement the things that either have no cost or save us money (and help us in other ways). After that we can see if we need to sacrifice a bit.

I find this to be an interesting statement, in light of a lecture I just finished concerning the difference in perception between private goods and the commonwealth. If something is held in common, such as natural resources like water, air and forests, then the depletion is often perceived as having little or no cost. People who have tried to put a real number on natural resource depletion, put it at about $2.5 Trillion right now. This is equivalent to the economic crisis of 2007-08 occurring every year. But because, it is not money deposited in a bank, we don’t count it. One thing is certain. It is not a sustainable economic model, and it may well collapse catastrophically in the next 50 years.

Global warming is only a part of the problem. There is acidification of the oceans occurring at an alarming rate, from surface interaction with the hydrocarbon being spewed into the atmosphere. Whether you buy the apparent fact of global warming, or not, you cannot deny the acidification issue, which may be a larger one than the other. If you look at mean species distribution since 1750 (the start of the industrial revolution), along with temperature change cycles of the previous 2,000 years (obtained from ice cores in Antarctica), project that trend to 2050, it looks like we have a very serious problem looming in the near future.

We are sacrificing a great deal every day, in the form of our natural resources savings account, which exists in the form of plants, oceans, animals, and minerals on our planet. The public ownership of these resources is being exploited for private gain.One example that comes to mind is that the tradewinds which sweep across the Amazon Rain Forest daily transport billions of tons of water vapor to the agricultural regions of South America. This in turn produces a weather system which provides irrigation to feed about one billion people. As the forest is depleted, the weather system changes. The interaction of various systems on our planet are not entirely understood. We do know that what we are doing right now is not sustainable, and is close to crisis as population and demand increases.

We are consuming resources 30-50% on average faster then they can be replaced. This has obvious implications, as we realize those resources are finite. This same spending model has been adopted by our society in general. The combined spending of local, state and federal governments is $1.30 for every $1.00 collected in revenues. That is not a sustainable model either. If we time it right, maybe we will see massive government failure as the environment collapses on us, and most species on the planet have died.

 

[Mimi]

Just jumping in here after reading a couple pages of posts.
I’m all for conservation and reasonable ways of helping the environment. The earth is my only home (until I hopefully matriculate to my Heavenly home).

Anyone hear of Agenda 21? Here’s what I wrote on another thread.

It’s part of the fed-gov land grab which is part of Sustainable Development which is part of Agenda 21 (the PLAN to globalise everything & take control of every aspect of our lives).
This is no conspiracy theory. Check out these web sites:

clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/

freedomadvocates.org/research_center/

I have been researching this for about a year & our country is being sold out to the UN by govt regulations. Our liberty is being sold out little by little.

Behind all this is neo-paganism, Earth-worship. This is another reason why we must push to evangelize, pray, be the best Catholic we can, pray, and pray some more! There are some excellent brochures to download & print out to give to people at:
americanfreedomwatchradio.com/?page_id=327

Smart Growth, smart meters, etc. are all part of this move toward total control over many by an elite few.

Mimi

---