Yet another article on global warming

[Kaio]

I've always advocated nuclear and you can call it green tech as well =P, even if it's not recent. Safety tech on nuclear has increased massively and breeder reactors can reuse a lot of the "spent" fuel.

[Kaio]

*edit ugh late double post. I came back from my coding and thought i didn't hit submit when i actually pressed the back button at some point.

[GrobbeeTrull2.0]

Originally Posted by Manseed

The Prius starts at around $20k, when a similar non hybrid car starts at around $10k. It takes a long time to make up that difference by what you save at the pump.

Don't even bring up solar power. If you want to get efficient, how about letting us build some nuclear plants? The waste is almost non existent now, but since nuclear power has this stigma attached to it we have to consider alternatives like wind and solar power.

But as oil becomes more scarce, the price will rise, and thus your benefit will become leaps and bounds greater than previously.

The longer you drive it, the more it will save you.

[Eomer]

As people love to say about corporate companies, I'll say here - follow the fucking money

I've followed the money. And most of it is in the hands of the oil companies. Are you honestly trying to claim that the environmental movement has even a tiny fraction of the financial werewithal the energy and manufacturing industries have? I mean come on. And don't try to claim that it's some sort of conspiracy to get people to buy hybrid cars and high efficient furnaces, because for the most part most manufacturers have everything to gain from maintaining the status quo, not in releasing new and fancy technologies that cost billions to research. Look how long it's taken the NA manufacturers to come out with hybrids compared to Toyota.

Then, we were gonna die by an ice age by the 90s according to several mid-1970s sources.

Key word: several. There were a couple of studies that looked at mean global temperatures and said "gee whiz, things are cooling off right now. I wonder why that is? Hmm, data's inconclusive at this point, so we'll just have to say it's a current trend but that extrapolating further from this would be folly." And then Newsweek and a couple other publications, as the media is wont to do, published articles grossly exaggerating the data. There was NEVER, fucking NEVER, a wide scientific consensus that the Earth was heading towards a new ice age. That is totally false.

And it's been fucking pointed out on these boards about 50 times by now. Keep the fuck up.

[Manseed]

Originally Posted by GrobbeeTrull2.0

But as oil becomes more scarce, the price will rise, and thus your benefit will become leaps and bounds greater than previously.

The longer you drive it, the more it will save you.

Right, but those factors are fairly unpredictable.

My point is that personally, a hybrid car is not going to save me money. I don't hold on to a car for its entire life, and the difference in price for miles per gallon right now does not make up for the difference in price for the car.

[Gauss]

The May 27th Explorations with Michio Kaku touched on some of the themes in this thread. Two people, some professor from caltech and some guy who worked in the oil industry for about 40 years were both interviewed about alternative fuels, Hubbard's Peak and other topics.

Explorations: Past Shows

Definitely worth a listen. They both say some surprising things even about the viability of Nuclear Energy, which I have seen thrown around in this thread.

[Eomer]

Thanks for the link. It confirms my general pessimism on the future of society as we know it over the next several decades. Everyone should listen to that entire program, it's really quite interesting and informative, and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with global warming actually. Both guys lay out quite clearly and concisely why we're going to see some pretty massive upheavels in the world, in the very near future.

We are definitely going to be living in interesting times.

[AladainAF]

Its quite astonishing to watch Eomer counter my argument as worthless because I said "several" sources and then proceeds to render my argument invalid since there was never a scientific concensus, and then when someone posts a link from "two people", it "confirms [his] general pessimism on the future of society".

Incredible.

Anyway, neither of us are going to change each others minds. At least in my case, unless you produce something compelling. Computer models, to me at least, are not compelling. I mean shit, computer models forecast our weather and its never fucking right.

[Smocca]

Okay Aladain you have me curious. What would be considered "compelling" to you. Cause I seriously don't think it can get much more compelling then it already is so I'm just wondering what you have in mind. God himself comes down and says climate change is a hoax? (just a joke don't freak out, but seriously what would you consider compelling evidence for climate change)

[Eomer]

Its quite astonishing to watch Eomer counter my argument as worthless because I said "several" sources and then proceeds to render my argument invalid since there was never a scientific concensus

Your "several" sources, which in reality is I think maybe two studies in the 70's (Tea as usual can comment much better), never even made the claims that you now ascribe to them. They basically said "gee, it's been cooling, I wonder why?" That's why it's ridiculous to use them as some sort of basis to discredit the entirety of current climate science. They never made the claims that you think they did.

and then when someone posts a link from "two people", it "confirms [his] general pessimism on the future of society".

Once again, if you actually listened to the fucking link, IT HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH GLOBAL WARMING IN ANY WAY SHAPE AND FORM. It is entirely to do with the supply of oil and other forms of energy, and how we're quickly running out of cheap and easy energy. The men use well established facts. They are not theorizing about extremely complicated systems comparable to the earth's climate. They're saying "okay, we've used up roughly half of the world's easily recoverable oil in the past century, yet demand is increasing rapidly while supply will soon peak or may already have, this does not bode well for the future." It's a much different claim than anything about climatology, it's quite simple arithmetic. There's some "magic" in the provable reserves calculations yes, and that can most definitely skew things. Woo, we've got 3 or 4 decades instead of 1 or 2, awesome.

Anyway, neither of us are going to change each others minds. At least in my case, unless you produce something compelling. Computer models, to me at least, are not compelling. I mean shit, computer models forecast our weather and its never fucking right.

Once again, listen to the link. It's got nothing to do with global warming, they only briefly touch upon it when discussing whether or not coal is viable energy alternative (it isn't, and not just because of the pollution although that's certainly a concern).

I realize this thread is about global warming and perhaps that's why it has confused you so much, but give it a listen. It should probably be in the other oil price thread. But either way, it's a pretty sobering link. Even if climate change is completely and totally false, that does not do anything to resolve the looming energy crisis.

[Kaio]

Wait, are you implying that more complex theories and areas of study require a larger body of scholars/scientists to reach a consensus to be credible than simpler theories, which even a high schooler can understand/predict, doesn't?

Thats just unfair to the so called complex theories.

[AladainAF]

Originally Posted by Smocca

Okay Aladain you have me curious. What would be considered "compelling" to you. Cause I seriously don't think it can get much more compelling then it already is so I'm just wondering what you have in mind. God himself comes down and says climate change is a hoax? (just a joke don't freak out, but seriously what would you consider compelling evidence for climate change)

That would be difficult if God himself came down, since I don't believe in God, I'd probably be really fucking confused.

Pretty simply really. Compelling evidence would be evidence that either I could observe, or observable, irrefutable, factual evidence from many years of observed data. Its lunacy, in my opinion, to look at data for the last 30 years, and use that data to form a scientific consensus over the actions of something that is over 6 billion years old. Who is to say that the ice ages in the past were not preceded by rapid ice melts in the arctic? The true fact is - we don't know one way or another, and are making guesses. You know, thats fine by me, too. But don't ask me to change my life based on guesses. I mean, I can say that the earth could potentially be due for a magnetic field reversal. Who knows if that plays into anything, as we have been observing it only for the last 150 or so years, but its also a possibility too right? I'm not going to panic over it though.

I believe reducing pollution and green house gases are a good thing, only because who could possibly disagree with a cleaner earth? But don't force me to do it.

Once again, if you actually listened to the fucking link, IT HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH GLOBAL WARMING IN ANY WAY SHAPE AND FORM.

It's got nothing to do with global warming, they only briefly touch upon it when discussing whether or not coal is viable energy alternative.

k.

Anyway, I never said it did, did I? Don't put words in my mouth. I was simply saying that you imply two sources can reinforce your thoughts about the future of society, and at the same time say two sources isn't enough to matter. I just found that funny.

[Kaio]

Originally Posted by AladainAF

Its lunacy, in my opinion, to look at data for the last 30 years, and use that data to form a scientific consensus over the actions of something that is over 6 billion years old.

Damn you just blew my mind! You, Aladain consider it to be lunacy and I'm sure we'll hold your opinion (you should use the word theory it lends more credibility even if it isn't one!) to be of greater weight then the scientists whom have spent their entire lifetime studying the issue.

[AladainAF]

I don't want you to hold my opinion, unless its yours as well. Since when did I post on this thread to change your mind? Since when did I tell you to hold my opinion more weight than scientists? I'm expressing my opinion on the subject -- or is that no longer allowed?

[Kaio]

I guess it's all good, as long as you've convinced yourself that your opinions are better then experts in the field in your own damn mind sure it won't affect anyone else.

Thing is you're not alone with that type of opinion and theres a massive group of people whom don't give a damn about expert opinion in many fields. And yes, that does affect everyone else through changes or lack there of in policies.