LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
I am not shutting down discussion, nor do I think the science is settled. So I don’t know why you quoted me. By the way, I agree that the survey you posted was well done and dependable.
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Theo520
Guest
This fits under highlighting how ‘the science isn’t settled’
Parched Earth soaks up water, slowing sea level rise: studyAs glaciers melt due to climate change, the increasingly hot and parched Earth is absorbing some of that water inland, slowing sea level rise, NASA experts said Thursday.
Satellite measurements over the past decade show for the first time that the Earth’s continents have soaked up and stored an extra 3.2 trillion tons of water in soils, lakes and underground aquifers, the experts said in a study in the journal Science.
This has temporarily slowed the rate of sea level rise by about 20 percent, it said.
Parched Earth soaks up water, slowing sea level rise: studyAs glaciers melt due to climate change, the increasingly hot and parched Earth is absorbing some of that water inland, slowing sea level rise, NASA experts said Thursday.
Satellite measurements over the past decade show for the first time that the Earth’s continents have soaked up and stored an extra 3.2 trillion tons of water in soils, lakes and underground aquifers, the experts said in a study in the journal Science.
This has temporarily slowed the rate of sea level rise by about 20 percent, it said.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
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Theo520
Guest
Brutal Dictatorship Seeks Climate Cash to Fund Continued Atrocities
Naturally he blames his country’s problems on “climate change”
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President for life Robert Mugabe wants the UN (meaning America) to provide $1.5 billion per year, to feed Zimbabwean people who are currently going hungry, thanks to his government’s decade long policy of looting and trashing productive farms.
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Theo520
Guest
How access to energy brought humanity forward
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Here are some random observations on this graph and its application to the subject of this thread.
- The graph shows the per capita GDP, with the implication being that this is a good measure of how much “humanity” has been brought forward. However this view can be distorted by the fact that the mean benefit of this GDP can indeed go up while the median benefit goes down. So while a few people are getting insanely rich though this added productivity, that benefit may not distribute evenly, leaving those who at the bottom staying at the bottom, and maybe even those in the middle falling even lower. This can be compared with earlier ages when industry was not quite so efficient, but it did need a lot of unskilled or semi-skilled workers. That provided, for a brief time, a way for all people to benefit from that access to energy. But one of the things that automation has done through access to energy is reduce the need for as many workers. So a lot of benefit is being produced, and that benefit adds directly to your graph. But that benefit is being concentrated more and more. So the picture is not as rosy as this graph would lead you to believe.
- This graph shows that GDP has gone up dramatically in the past 200 years. The implication is that the cause of this increase has been access to energy. But is it really? A lot of things happened in the last 200 years besides finding oil. We also got a lot smarter in technology. Some of that technology actually uses less energy than older technology. So more energy is not the clear driver of the benefit. The story is not “more energy leads to bringing humanity forward”. It might be more accurately called “smarter technology is bringing humanity forward”.
- Even if we accept the story this graph is attempting to tell, that more energy is bringing humanity forward (a very doubtful story based on 1. and 2. above) what does that have to do with climate change? Well, very little. I know the anti-solar and anti-wind narrative is that phasing out oil and coal will vastly reduce the available energy, and people will have to make do with much less, and suffer as a consequence. But that narrative is only speculation. I discount Obama’s statement about energy prices “skyrocketing”. He does not know what he is talking about, and is just expressing his view of what he thinks is necessary energy policy. It does not have to be that way, even if oil and coal is phased out. Of course my predictions of what advanced technology might bring would also be speculation, and I can’t very well call you on your speculation and then offer my own speculation as fact, so I won’t do that. Except to say that we don’t know what will happen.
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Theo520
Guest
Is your suggestion that we should revert to an agrarian society? We’ll need to lop off 6+ billion people then.
Actually energy did enable all of it. Otherwise we wouldn’t have cars, computers, or refrigerators. That we are continually evolving and making theses machines more efficient is irrelevant. Efficiency improvements comes slowly and incrementally.
What it has to do with climate change is highlight how addicted our world is to energy. If there is a correlation between energy and GDP (I think there is), then a drastic cut in energy would imply a drastic drop in the GDP and standard of living. A drastic increase in the price of energy would have a similar effect.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Your hypothesis that the world’s present population is being supported entirely by fossil fuels is inaccurate. A large part of the world’s population is still living on current organic matter. And I do not have a specific suggestion. I am just pointing out the error in your point. I noticed that you did not at all address my point about the difference between mean and median GDP - the fact that these so-called benefits of high energy usage are very unequally spread around. You make it sound like energy has benefited all of humanity, when in fact it has mostly benefited a privileged subset.
That may have been the initial impetus to the development of technology, but now that we have that technology, it continues to develop with only a modest (name removed by moderator)ut of energy.
Yes, but that addiction may also be satisfied by wind and solar and nuclear. At least your graph offers no indication that fossil fuels are the only way to achieve high GDP.
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Ridgerunner
Guest
For “parched earth” to soak up more water than usual, it has to be “parched” (deprived of water) to start with, that is, presented with LESS water for a time in order to soak up more water later when more rain falls. And incidentally, parched earth soaks up less water than mildly moist earth, by a lot. Any farmer will tell you that. That’s one of the reasons why manmade deserts are so hard to “cure”. The water runs off instead of soaking in.
As I have said before, if we were undergoing “climate change” one would expect the climate to actually change, and for people to experience it. People don’t.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
If the earth were undergoing a spinning around on its axis, one would expect people to experience it, by getting dizzy or something. People don’t.
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sps49
Guest
Devices for detecting the earth’s rotation have been available since the mid nineteenth century, and the details were soon worked out afterwards, We have been studying the climate system since before that time, and there is still debate about how the system reacts to various (name removed by moderator)uts, and there are many black box unknowns. The mathematical model for the pendulum is robust and functions well enough to be used to detect the earths rotation, the various perturbations have been fairly well characterized (friction, line stretch, air resistance). The same is not true of the climate model system whence the dire predictions come.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
None of this challenges my point, which was that direct personal experience is not sufficient to detect climate change, just like direct personal experience is not enough to detect the earth’s rotation. Sure, a carefully constructed pendulum, together with some knowledge of physics can show the earth’s rotation, but the average person does not have a suitable pendulum, or the physics knowledge to appreciate that fact. Yet Ridgerunner implied that no special equipment or esoteric knowledge should be necessary to document climate change. My point remains, even though I can agree with you that the degree of uncertainty over climate change is much larger than the uncertainty over the earth’s rotation.
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sps49
Guest
Ridgerunner aside, I myself possess the ability to fabricate a pendulum, and it is within my personal experience to detect the earths rotation by fabricating and observing a pendulum. But since I am practical as well, I would likely cite the motions of various celestial bodies as my detection criteria. The same applies to Ridgerunner, and I presume you as well. The relative uncertainties you speak of would require a log-log chart to express the differences in a meaningful sense, so great are the differences. No vertigo is required.
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