What level of responsibility do you feel for the negative impacts of anthropogenic climate change?

[Ridgerunner]

China is a truly pathetic country. Acc to a docu I saw the costs of its environmental harms outweigh its growth in GDP/year (and their “EPA” has absolutely no authority at all). They are going backwards fast.

Which brings up another issue – anti-environmentalists and climate change skeptics often say AGW is a hoax that is being perpetrated by “warmers” who want to bring the world into totalitarian communism.

The point is the totalitarian nations like China (and Russia) have a much worse track record on the environment than do democratic nations.

However the problem is we can hardly call ourselves a democracy when the multinationals own the goverment and the media (including a big presence on the internet), and have enormous influence on our public educational systems and also in our local parishes.

We just don’t get the truth and are flying blind by not understanding that AGW is real and needs to be addressed by everyone starting 20 years ago.

The world is as pathetic as China.

But talking about why people reject AGW is getting off topic. On good thing China is doing is getting in to making alt energy products… So if the US refuses to encourage such production, at least we have some source from which to buy things we want…

There will, for a time, be a market for Chinese solar panels in the U.S.; perhaps in other developed countries. But the technology is still not cost-effective for the end user. It’s a “boutique” consumer item. The reasons why China has manufacturers who make it and ship it here while U.S. attempts fail are: a) It’s not cost effective no matter who makes it, and b) they can manufacture them cheaper than we can.

And this government has indeed encouraged production of alternate energy devices and resources, spending billions in the way of subsidies, loan guarantees, etc. And still, it’s not viable from a market standpoint; witness the bankruptcy of Solyndra and the absolute foolishness of the corn ethanol program.

But getting back to my point, which one might acknowledge to actually be topical, I don’t think we, in this country, have any idea how Chinese people live. The poverty is almost universal and it’s extreme. The people who come from the countryside where they’re lucky to have enough even to eat, to work in some utterly befouled place like Shanghai at what we consider miserable wages, consider themselves fortunate for the opportunity, never mind that it’s dark at noon and that respiratory diseases are rampant. They actually have money for the first time; something they didn’t dare to hope for not so long ago.

The same is true in India. People point to Calcutta, for example, as hell on earth. And yet, the in-migrants to Calcutta are there for the tiny opportunities that Calcutta presents. People who never had money in their hands before, now do. They can not only avoid starvation (for the most part) but they might actually aspire to owning a radio or a cheap cell phone. People who routinely work in extremely toxic environments on the job are not concerned about CO2 emissions, and we are not going to convince them to return to the countryside and starvation for the sake of them.

We in the West have luxuries the rest of the world doesn’t have, and one of those luxuries is the ability to actually care anything about the environment in which we live. Another is the ability to do anything about it. And that is precisely why emissions in the U.S. are not on the increase while those of China and India increase by 10% or more per year, with no end in sight.

Returning to my consideration of why, exactly, people in the U.S. might rightly feel responsible for MMGW (if, in fact, it exists and is harmful) what we have been doing is preaching a gospel about CO2 emissions that the developing countries responsible for most of it are going to ignore and are, in fact, ignoring. Reduction of fossil fuel use, we say, is the answer, no matter the hardships it causes…and that’s in a country where emissions are not increasing.

Possibly those who believe in MMGW cannot come up with ways to persuade the rest of the world to ameliorate atmospheric carbon. If we want to have any significant effect on it, we are going to have to find ways to make it attractive; ways to make it pay or at least to improve diets. We could be pursuing, say, silvoculture with effect, rather than throwing a half billion dollars at a Solyndra. We could, instead of making utility bills “skyrocket”, find ways to sequester carbon in the countryside, and to make it attractive to do, both here and abroad. That is something the policymakers in this country resolutely fail and refuse to do. Why?

Because it doesn’t have the “moral romance”; the “I’m giving something up for the world” charm which Catholics, it seems, find particularly attractive. Perhaps it’s our not eating meat on Friday and giving up things for Lent that inclines us to that. It’s not a bad way of thinking, but we must ask ourselves whether it’s realistic.

Yes, people ought to do things that save money because it’s prudent to do it. But beyond that, what? Is making life harder for the poor or even the middle class the answer when we know for sure that making utility bills “skyrocket” or making CAFE standards so harsh that no family of six could ever fit in the same car together won’t have any effect on carbon emissions?

(continued)

 

[Ridgerunner]

(continued)

I’ll admit that I was particularly angered by “Cash for Clunkers” which was ostensibly based on an intention to reduce MMGW. So we subsidized people wealthy enough to buy new cars and destroyed the “clunkers” on which the poor depend for transportation. It is difficult to imagine anything more misguided. And what of the energy it took to build all of those alleged “non-clunkers” the wealthy were helped to buy? What was the net carbon gain there? Nobody quantified it. Nobody even cared to think it through. It was pure romance. We could think ourselves virtuous by self-indulgence, an indulgence obtained on the backs of the poor.

In the Amazon Basin, I am informed, there is a lot of “slash and burn” agriculture. Poor peasants go into the jungle, cut down all the trees and plant corn or squash or whatever. The soil laterizes in a year or two…turns to stone…and then they move on and repeat. And yet, recent studies indicate that in much older times, pre-Columbian, the Indians had a combination “food tree” and agrichar method that was sustainable. Undoubtedly it contributed a great deal less to CO2 emissions as well.

Maybe we can’t do anything about the Amazon Basin, though we do have some few manufactories that will only buy “boutique” products from farmers there who use environmentally friendly methods. But whether we can do anything there or not, we could certainly do it here. I wonder how many miles of tree lines could have been planted with the half billion this government gave Solyndra for nothing?

As I said before, if the MMGW movement fails, it will fail for a lack of new and better ideas.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There’s a certain truth to the CAFE comment that is interesting to ponder. I bought my first new car in 1995, a Saturn SL stick shift rated 40 mpg highway. In 2003 when I went to replace it there were NO conventional cars (gasoline, non-hybrid) cars on the market rated 40 or better. Finally, in 2011 GM caught back up to where they were in 1995 when they introduced the 2011 Chevy Cruze Eco model rated 42. Today they’ve got several cars rated over 40 (including the, IMO, gimmicky Volt).

Unlike the Saturn, the Cruze isn’t even a penalty box car. It has all the safety gadgets, comfort frills and refinement of other cars in its class. It just happens to be the ONLY car sold today that offers a manual transmission with gear ratios optimized for fuel efficiency. All the others are “sport tuned” which is why most of them get worse mpg ratins than the automatic versions (pathetic since even a modern automatic with torque converter is inherently wasteful of energy).

We do have a stupidity problem in America when it comes to wastefulness. One doesn’t have to be a “warmer” to admit that.

Personally, I think projected CAFE standards will be waived or postponed. And, frankly, I think they should.

The U.S. is not Japan or Europe, where everything is near to hand and where virtually nobody has more than one or two children. For one very small example, I have a full-size pickup. My sister has a light truck. I can carry a round bale on mine (and I often do) My sister can’t on hers. I can pull a 5 ton fertilizer buggy. She can’t.

So maybe round bales shouldn’t weigh 1000 lb or more, huh? Well, all of the existing machinery is geared to produce them. So if everybody is forced into light trucks, all that will have to be remanufactured, using a great deal of energy to do so. And maybe they shouldn’t make 5-ton buggies. Well, they’re made to carry five tons, and if a pickup can’t pull those, then they’re considerably overbuilt for their purpose and will become obsolete.

There are lots of things like that.

One of my daughters has eight children. It’s impossible to find a car that will carry them all, given all the regulations now for carrying children. It’s very difficult to find a car that will carry more than three kids and two adults and still meet regulations. It’s all well to say “Oh, there is this minivan or that”, but such vehicles are not common and, when used, are not as predictably serviceable as an SUV.

I’m not a young guy, but I travel extensively in my work. I have test driven just about everything there is, and when you’re on a long road trip, you really need the vehicle weight and the sophisticated suspension that only a relative few cars provide. That’s not a small thing in a country like ours where everything is spread out.

In any event, the truly wealthy will not be obliged to drive tin cans around. They’ll have their big luxury cars even if they have to buy them from countries that don’t have the same standards we adopt. After all, gasoline costs more than twice as much in Europe as it does here, and yet European manufacturers still make gigantic Mercedes and other gas hogs, and will continue to do so. Maybe John Kerry will have to drive a BMW SUV instead of an Escalade. But he sure won’t be driving some tiny little car.

 

[lynnvinc]

It would be interesting to see if this fellow has real objective facts to back him up, or whether this is just how he sees things.

Back in the 1920s when virtually none of the big pipelines in place now existed, fuel was hauled by trucks to population centers. In fact, sometimes fuel sources created population centers precisely because fuel was readily available by truck or train. Before Standard Oil of Ohio, Cleveland was just a small town. Standard Oil made a city out of it.

It is difficult for me to believe the environmental hazards of hauling millions of gallons of fuel by truck for short distances were less than sending it for greater distances through a pipeline.

And frankly, I totally doubt the petroleum pollution was less in the 1950s than it is today. In those days, spills and sumps were essentially ignored. That’s hardly the case today. If one looks around in almost any city (if one know what one is looking for) one will see the remnants of establishments on now-unused ground that was hopelessly polluted by petroleum distillates back in the 1940s and 1950s. That’s why commercial builders always have environmental studies done on development land. They don’t want to inadvertently buy one of those places and get charged millions by the EPA as soon as they take title.

But it’s no news that oil now costs more to recover than it did when it poured out of the ground on its own in Pennsylvania years ago, or than it would off the coast of California today, where untapped oil constantly seeps to the surface of the ocean. Maybe that’s a better argument for tapping the coastal resources than it is to curtail development of the Bakken Formation.

You bring in a lot of good points for a holistic approach.

SCIENCE does not publish articles unless they go thru pretty stiff peer-review, so I imagine the article was based on well-substantiated facts. I don’t have a subscription for SCIENCE, but I’ll look into it at our library, if they have the recent issue.

It makes sense, tho, and it will make much more sense that a gallon of gas in the future would be much more polluting than one decades ago, as we drill deeper and deeper off-shore and go for tar sands bitumen. I even have this idea tar sands may be a boondoggle (costing more to produce than profits gained, or more energy (name removed by moderator)ut than energy output), which is then masked by subsidies. That would be a hoot. People tell me “no,” that there is about a 2-to-1 return on energy, but I wonder.

And re local environmental issues bitumen is really a hazard, bec it is acidic and eats thru the pipes, and once it leaks into waterways, there is almost no possibility of cleaning it up bec it sinks to the bottom (unlike oil that floats on top). See insideclimatenews.org/news/20120626/dilbit-diluted-bitumen-enbridge-kalamazoo-river-marshall-michigan-oil-spill-6b-pipeline-epa

We’re just better off becoming much more energy efficient/conservative and shifting to less polluting, less hazardous energy sources.

I feel very good with our Chevy Volt (our first luxury pizzaz car) only requiring about 26 gallons of gasoline per year for about 1000 miles, and the other 5000 miles being driven on the battery (costing us about $160), powered by wind-generated electricity. I know there are people who score much better than me on the environment, but the idea of going back to a more polluting way of life is out of the question. I can only go forward, not backward. Plus we’re saving lots of money with the Volt, and will be saving even more once our solar panels are up (about 45% off our electric bill). We’ll be in good shape to retire (our house is already paid off), so our bills and expenses will be quite low. All bec I dared to go environmental some 23 yrs ago.

the anti-environmentalists are really missing out on a lot – the savings and the fun and the good feeling of doing good for others (or reducing bad, to be more frank).

Come on board. You’re all welcome!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I feel very good with our Chevy Volt (our first luxury pizzaz car) only requiring about 26 gallons of gasoline per year for about 1000 miles, and the other 5000 miles being driven on the battery (costing us about $160), powered by wind-generated electricity. I know there are people who score much better than me on the environment, but the idea of going back to a more polluting way of life is out of the question. I can only go forward, not backward. Plus we’re saving lots of money with the Volt, and will be saving even more once our solar panels are up (about 45% off our electric bill). We’ll be in good shape to retire (our house is already paid off), so our bills and expenses will be quite low. All bec I dared to go environmental some 23 yrs ago.

the anti-environmentalists are really missing out on a lot – the savings and the fun and the good feeling of doing good for others (or reducing bad, to be more frank).

Come on board. You’re all welcome!

Thanks for the invitation. But we don’t all drive only 6000 miles in a year or live in the Rio Grande Valley.

There must be a fair amount of steady wind there. I know it’s true in a good part of Kansas, and you see the windmills that take advantage of it. Around here, that’s far from the case. There is one of those big windmills on the campus of a local college that I pass from time to time. It almost never turns. There’s just not enough wind for it. Hope it didn’t cost them too much.

 

[Mitro]

Hi, i’m joining this thread a little late but I hope I can contribute.

I must say I am very concerned at the results of that poll. It seems to be a near-solid split between “yes it’s happening, time to sacrifice” and “no it’s just natural, no need to sacrifice”. It’s also coincidental that in our society we are reaching a pole in religion, with either entirely secular or entirely orthodox beliefs, and the middle ground is all but vanished. I just thought that was an interesting parallel.

It is very clear that the north/south poles are melting and the animals are disappearing with each passing day. May God forgive us our misunderstanding of natural science and guide us to a righteous course of action.

The following are quotes from the EP Bartholomew I, I have edited the sectarian references out, it is my hope that we can all benefit from his example.

“Permit us to propose that perhaps the reason for this hesitation and hindrance [to accept climate change] may lie in the fact that we are unwilling to accept personal responsibility and demonstrate personal sacrifice…The real crisis lies not in the environment but in the human heart. The fundamental problem is to be found not outside but inside ourselves, not in the ecosystem but in the way we think. Without a revolutionary change within ourselves, all our conservation projects will ultimately remain insufficient and ineffective.

Whether natural or unnatural, we can all agree that our comfortable lifestyles in the West are simply unsustainable while countless millions of babies live in abject poverty. Just ask, how much food do we waste each day? And the price on the animals and forests taken in order to produce all of our paper, clothes, etc cannot continue much longer without dire consequence.

I hope we can put aside our differences and work for the common good of all God’s creation. I pray that he will open all of our minds and our hearts, that we may all make take responsibility for our wasteful lifestyles, most especially me.

Your Brother,

Mitro

 

[4elise]

It has always been important to do what is right as an individual as one’s conscience mandates. But to suggest that others will see and follow one’s example with respect to climate change is a fiction that Oprah planted into the American consciousness. People will do what is in their immediate best interest as they see it. That’s the problem with The Enlightenment. It just didn’t consider human nature. Rousseau’s perfectibility of man is a pipe dream. Rejoice that your citizenship is in Heaven and do what is right in your own eyes. If my happiness was contingent on my fellow man doing the right thing, I would be looking for the nearest water tower.

I guess if someone follows my lead has nothing to do with my choice to do what I believe is right … nor would I suggest that.

I have a responsibility to do what I can - others can chose to do what they can or not - and I believe it is an excuse to say - my small contribution is too small … If everyone believed this — nothing would ever get done…

So - my happiness is in my eyes — doing what is right - it is not contingent on if others will do likewise - so no water tower needed…

 

[4elise]

I take full responsibility. My bad.

Are there any actions you have taken to mitigate climate change as an individual, or in support of any specific policies?

 

[4elise]

As a member of humanity, I take responsibility by doing what I can with recycling, my diet (vegan) and using energy in a conservative manner as best I can. To ignore this situation, is IMHO, to ignore the obvious. I don’t feel “guilty” about it, but I do believe I must do something in my sphere to mitigate the negative effects of what is happening.

Well said - we must do what we can do — not out of guilt but out of our God given responsibility.

 

[4elise]

Thank you. If only there were more people like you this planet wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.

Each person has the same opportunity to respond this way - and then yes, perhaps if more did things may be better!

 

[Midwest88]

I’ll say this: I support fracking.

And the Church SHOULDN’T jump on the “Go Green” bandwagon, or at least not endorse policies. I’m not sure what made you think the RCC should become an advocate for the green movement. Recycling and re-using is nothing new … my family has been doing it NOT because of the earth’s health, but because of common sense: not to waste money and to use things that aren’t broken, but are workable.

I mean, I guess I understand why numerous CAF members actually believe this stuff to be dire, and if they see it’s within the realm of our responsibility to support this movement, but all I see is a movement that sucks the money out of the economy. The whole movement is a paradox.

 

[pnewton]

I voted in the middle. Climate change does not bother me or worry me. Climate change, extinction of species and contintental change has been a constant in the history of the Earth. I am much more concerned with environmental issues of pollution and dwindling resources. As mentioned above, the inequity of the rich and the poor also is a concern. I see no need in a drastic reduction of lifestyle in the West, as that will not solve poverty, but I do consider that we must be willing to make some sacrifices and lifestyle changes to help bring those who are in the worst of poverty in the world up to a livable level of poverty. I have no dream of eliminating poverty. I know this is simply not possible. I do think the poor should be able to live without fear of starvation, with some hope for the future, and with a measure of happiness and human dignity. This I do believe is attainable.

To this end, I do not support all environmental initiatives. I believe one thing we have to be willing to give up is our go-green elitism, where we want environmetal initiatives that drain resources best spent on humans. Just as we should not give pets the affection due people, we should not give the Earth a consideration due the poor. So for me, economic impact is always a consideration.

 

[manualman]

Personally, I think projected CAFE standards will be waived or postponed. And, frankly, I think they should.

The U.S. is not Japan or Europe, where everything is near to hand and where virtually nobody has more than one or two children. For one very small example, I have a full-size pickup. My sister has a light truck. I can carry a round bale on mine (and I often do) My sister can’t on hers. I can pull a 5 ton fertilizer buggy. She can’t.

…
One of my daughters has eight children. It’s impossible to find a car that will carry them all, given all the regulations now for carrying children. It’s very difficult to find a car that will carry more than three kids and two adults and still meet regulations. It’s all well to say “Oh, there is this minivan or that”, but such vehicles are not common and, when used, are not as predictably serviceable as an SUV.

CAFE isn’t as thoughtless as you might think on these matters. 3/4 ton pickups are NOT regulated under CAFE for precisely the reasons you cite here. 1/2 ton pickups are. Those routinely pulling 3-5 ton buggies around would probably benefit from having a 3/4 ton for longevity’s sake. The trannies in most half tons aren’t up to much of that sort of work.

I personally have a 7 passenger Honda minivan with 200,000 miles on it that we’ve driven all over from the Atlantic coast, to the Rocky mountains and everywhere in between (often pulling our popup camper behind). It’s as spacious inside as a Suburban and nobody but me has done any work on it for well over a 100,000 miles now. I’m an intermediate shade tree DIY guy at best. Trust me, for cruising comfort, room and reliability, the 15mpg Burb’s got nothing on today’s minivans. When it hit 200k, I had promised my wife a new one, so we also now have a 2012 which has improved from 25mpg highway to 27. The only advantage the Burb has anymore is limited offroad capability (irrelevant to me personally), a higher tow rating and ego compensation for the insecure. That’s it. Not much for an extra $10k and loss of 10mpg, IMO.

My Cruze Eco meets the future CAFE standards TODAY and is no sort of penalty box for commuting duty. Plenty of space to access common maintenance parts too.

I’m with you on Cash for Clunkers. It was NOT an environmental initiative, it was a giveaway to the auto industry disguised as an environmental initiative. A veiled bailout, and a poorly designed one since it helped foreign manufacturers as much or more than US ones.

 

[lynnvinc]

I’ll say this: I support fracking.

Need to see GASLAND before making a final judgment on this issue. Even tho fracking might actually help re AGW, it does cause tremendous local pollution, health problems and death. And Cheney saw to it in the 2005 Energy Bill that the fracking fluids are exempt from EPA oversight – which means they could even put cyanide in it and get by with murder. As it is they put glycol ethers in, which eat thru the membranes of reverse osmosis water filters, rendering them ineffective for local people whose water has become contaminated — leaving them to suffer all sorts of health consequences and die.

I mean, I guess I understand why numerous CAF members actually believe this stuff to be dire, and if they see it’s within the realm of our responsibility to support this movement, but all I see is a movement that sucks the money out of the economy. The whole movement is a paradox.

Anyone who has actually done EC (environmentally correct) things knows that this nearly always saves money (immediately, in the short run, or in the long run) and helps the economy, or at least does not cost, or only costs a pitance in pennys or effort.

The costs of doing nothing to solve environmental harms, however, is tremendous. Imagine having a Katrina or Sandy (or even much worse storm) every two or three years, instead of every seven years. Or double or triple the wildfires, droughts, floods, disease spread, and heat waves in the U.S. and around the world. AGW is costing us plenty right now, and will be costing us a huge portion of our wealth in ensuing years and decades. Unfortunately much of these costs (including human health and lives) are already in the pipes for many decades to come; what we need to do now is turn this Titantic around so our ship of life is not totally wrecked.

I hate to sound like an alarmist, but we all really should be alarmed. When there’s a real fire in the theater, then not informing the people so they can file out efficiently and peacably is much more unconsionable than yelling fire when there is no fire.

And when mitigating AGW actually saves people money and helps the economy, it seems totally wrong-headed and wrong-hearted not to mitigate, even if one has serious doubts about the science or scientists.

 

[manualman]

Oops, there’s arguable a 4th benefit to a Burb over a minivan. Minivans max out at 8 passengers and IIRC you can get a 9 passenger Burb. But I question whether you can actually take 9 passengers and their luggage in a Burb without exceeding its GVWR (i.e. safety). Same goes for full size vans. Ridgerunner’s daughter probably needs a 3/4 ton 12+ passenger van for long family trips to have enough GVWR and those aren’t CAFE regulated.

 

[Ender]

The costs of doing nothing to solve environmental harms, however, is tremendous. Imagine having a Katrina or Sandy (or even much worse storm) every two or three years, instead of every seven years. … I hate to sound like an alarmist

But this is what you are: an alarmist. There is no real scientific evidence to suggest that Katrina or Sandy was caused by global warming nor is there any particularly good reason to believe that hurricane activity is increasing, as this chart indicates (record highs in 2005-6 do not constitute a trend).

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

There may be valid indicators of the impact of global warming but hurricane activity is not among them.

Ender

 

[lynnvinc]

But this is what you are: an alarmist. There is no real scientific evidence to suggest that Katrina or Sandy was caused by global warming nor is there any particularly good reason to believe that hurricane activity is increasing, as this chart indicates (record highs in 2005-6 do not constitute a trend).

There may be valid indicators of the impact of global warming but hurricane activity is not among them.

Ender

Not referring to now, but to the future. What’s happening or not happening now was the responsiblity of our forebears. They didn’t understand about GHG emissions, tho science has know about it for over 100 years – even the scientists did not quite understand the extent of the possible negative impacts until about 30 years ago. And the impact science has been coming in ever since year after year, decade after decade “it’s worse than we thought,” “it’s much worse than we thougght.”

The emissions we are emitting today will be impacting future generations for 100s, even 1000s of years. And they project more severe storms in the future. When you add heat into a system, and conditions gear it toward expressing itself in kinetic energy, that’s when the storms will be enhanced. More heat, more vigorous kinetic movement.

 

[lynnvinc]

There will, for a time, be a market for Chinese solar panels in the U.S.; perhaps in other developed countries. But the technology is still not cost-effective for the end user. It’s a “boutique” consumer item…

Actually that was true a few years ago. Now solar has come down in price so much, that it is now about competitive with convention energy. And it will come down much further with improvements in technology and economies of scale. See “Solar Power close to Cost Parity with other Energy Sources” at enn.com/climate/article/45731?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateChangeNews-Enn+%28Climate+Change+News±+ENN%29 .

Also it is what our solar installer told us – the prices have come down dramatically in the last few years, they are about one-fifth of what they were, and they are projected to come down even much further in a few years.

The reason we are investing in solar this year is that it will bring us about a 12.5% return on investment (conservative estimate) – better than the bank and less risky than the stock market. And if we want the good tax break, then it would be a mistake to wait until we are retired. (RE the break – it is only fair when oil & coal get such huge subsidies, tax-breaks, and gov support in various ways.)

Now you may say we live in sunny S. Texas, but our situation is not ideal. Our roof slope is south by southeast, and it is very steep, so we will NOT get maximum benefit from our PV panels. I’m imagining that we’d probably get 15% or more on investment if our situation were ideal.

We’re just going with our certified solar installer’s plan – panels flat against the roof. However, a friend of ours did his own solar set up several years ago. He went to a junk yard and got some supplies to create adjustable stilts for his panels, which he changes 2 times a year – for summer and for winter sun angles. Also his roof is due south. He gets more energy out of his configuration. Germany is going solar and they hardly get sun at all (it’s like the worst low sun places in the U.S.); and they have lots of wind generators. Not sure about wind farms, but wind generators here and there across the land.

 

[lynnvinc]

But this is what you are: an alarmist…

I am an alarmist and proud of it – doing God’s will. I actually hope that those who are not alarmists (who deny AGW is happening or is dangerous) are in the right, but prudence requires me to be an alarmist on this issue of AGW.

My only sorrow is the sorrow of Cassandra (who could foresee disaster, but no one believed her). It is very sorrowful – dolors upon dolors – that few listen to the AGW alarmists and would risk the life of the world.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Actually that was true a few years ago. Now solar has come down in price so much, that it is now about competitive with convention energy. And it will come down much further with improvements in technology and economies of scale. See “Solar Power close to Cost Parity with other Energy Sources” at enn.com/climate/article/45731?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateChangeNews-Enn+%28Climate+Change+News±+ENN%29 .

Also it is what our solar installer told us – the prices have come down dramatically in the last few years, they are about one-fifth of what they were, and they are projected to come down even much further in a few years.

The reason we are investing in solar this year is that it will bring us about a 12.5% return on investment (conservative estimate) – better than the bank and less risky than the stock market. And if we want the good tax break, then it would be a mistake to wait until we are retired. (RE the break – it is only fair when oil & coal get such huge subsidies, tax-breaks, and gov support in various ways.)

Now you may say we live in sunny S. Texas, but our situation is not ideal. Our roof slope is south by southeast, and it is very steep, so we will NOT get maximum benefit from our PV panels. I’m imagining that we’d probably get 15% or more on investment if our situation were ideal.

We’re just going with our certified solar installer’s plan – panels flat against the roof. However, a friend of ours did his own solar set up several years ago. He went to a junk yard and got some supplies to create adjustable stilts for his panels, which he changes 2 times a year – for summer and for winter sun angles. Also his roof is due south. He gets more energy out of his configuration. Germany is going solar and they hardly get sun at all (it’s like the worst low sun places in the U.S.); and they have lots of wind generators. Not sure about wind farms, but wind generators here and there across the land.

The Rio Grande Valley is not Germany. Germany is giving up on solar because it’s very costly and inefficient. slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/project_syndicate/2012/02/why_germany_is_phasing_out_its_solar_power_subsidies_.html

And despite the fact that North Sea winds are hurculean and that Germany has spent billions on wind power, Germany is still not gaining much electricity from it, and probably nothing in the way of CO2 emission abatement. telegraph.co.uk/comment/9559656/Germanys-wind-power-chaos-should-be-a-warning-to-the-UK.html