A few thing to think about regarding carbon capture:
The system has yet to be installed a commercial plant.
Because of the inefficiency of the system, power plants will use more fuel.
The collector needs to be installed on EVERY power plant on the planet.
A piping collection network as big as the world’s existing natural gas network needs to be constructed.
It is still not certain if the salt domes that are proposed for storage of the CO2 will work.
We better get going.
Doom and gloom is how both sides operate. “If you allow same-sex marriage it will be the end of civilization.” (No kidding, that is ACTUAL testimony from the Righties). So while there could be actual scientific proof that we could eventually obliterate our atmosphere by dumping bleeep into it, the Righties are using absolutely unfounded pulled-right-from-their-arse hocus pocus stories to justify unconstitutional discrimination. I’ll take the Global Warming hysteria.
I believe this is pointing out that the current version of the energy bill does not have a version of Cap & Trade in it.
Yes, because CO2 is causing global warming, which can and will have detrimental long-term effects on our entire civilization within most of our lifetimes – and may be having such an effect even now. So what’s so hard about that?
Well, Bruce, given a choice of allowing the natural cycle to proceed at a glacial pace over millenniums or accelerating it to ruin the planet for human habitation within a few generations, I’ll go with cutting our contribution to the timespan reduction.
Cap and trade should die. It really doesn’t do anything to REDUCE output of greenhouse gases, anyway, just shuffles around who’s putting out what. What we really need is increased investment in cleaner technologies.
How long could I go before twisting this hot summer weather into some screed about climate change? Apparently only this long. Deniers never tire of this game: when it’s cold in the winter, that’s “evidence” about climate trends, and when it’s warm in the winter, they say “If this is climate change, I’ll take it!”. So why should I be any different? But there IS a difference. For deniers it’s all a big game of scoring cheap points.
For everyone else, the climate debate has been for decades now about the degree of conclusiveness of the evidence, measured against the practicalities of reducing carbon output. Now, the evidence is massively supportive (the scientists’ e-mail “conspiracy” has been debunked, please be aware). But because the pro-carbon people are still unprepared to reduce carbon in ANY meaningful way, they are cornered into a position where they have to argue that there is NO compelling evidence. And so that is the position they take.
So let me be the first to haul out the heavy artillery of WWII analogies on this issue and call the climate legislation obstructionists the Neville Chamberlains of the planet. We have SUV’s in our time. If there is a current issue on which people are absolutely discrediting themselves, in a way that current science and future calamities will hold them accountable for, this is it. “If this is responsibility, I’ll take it!” Well, you’ve got it. –Tom Toles
Pay now. Or pay later. We, and the Earth, will pay for our arrogance and willful ignorance of what our activities are already doing to our environment.
Bruce, as long as we’re around “doing our thing”, the ice caps will never return. The proportional impact of CO2 to its presence is higher, methane is even higher. CO2 causes the warming.
Paleoclimate studies tell us what happened, and what is happening, much more quickly today.
Those “increased growing seasons” only have one problem, the “deniers” don’t reflect on the LOSS of agriculture occurring on actual productive soils, which don’t happen to exist in those areas that will be getting longer heat seasons.
It IS a complex issue, and simple minds don’t grasp that. The simple-minded will just repeat any fraud they hear, presented by those CAUSING the problem.
“Jade,
Argentina just legalized same sex marriage, and that’s a Catholic country.”
I saw that. :) And it was the same argument there. And one of the comments I liked that I found related to that: “If Divorce didn’t end the world then same-sex marriage surely won’t.” or something similar. As it turns out Argentina didn’t legalize divorce until about 1970. And as any sane, intelligent person can tell you: divorce is a threat to marriage, equal marriage opportunity is not.
When the global temperature increased slightly (this came first), the CO2 trapped in the polar ice caps was released into the atmosphere (this came second.)
Canuck - right. I’ll be happy when I can grow grapefruit in my back yard. This is the first year of the last three when it was even warm enough that I could grow lettuce and tomatoes!
Guys, remember that Earth was never intended to last forever, and I feel pretty certain that we will find a way to destroy ourselves long before this chicken little story does.
silly me I thought is was THAT star out there- the sun.
DUH,
some say the earth is cooling over the past 100’s of years.
I once quizzed a UN scientist, well what do you KNOW?
she said: we do not know, many conflicting ideas…she had no religious fervor she was a scientist.
But the U.S. (R) Senator f/Indiana hes growing hardwood trees and collecting -$40,000, already on his “carbon- credits” on the Chicago exchange, go figure.
harley - Roy Spencer is indeed a climate scientist, but he’s taking one approach and overplaying it a bit according to the folks at RealClimate.org. I quote:
“There is some merit in using databases of high resolution temperature data instead of the monthly means available via WMO or GHCN. However, there are no panaceas, and no reason to expect that these data are less affected by inhomogeneities than the monthly data. AFAIK Spencer has not looked at that, and so claims that everyone else has got it wrong are very likely to be somewhat premature. Once he has a proper paper outlining exactly what was done, and how the known issues have been dealt with, we might be in a better position to judge - but for now, this is merely curious, not definitive. - gavin”
They also have a comment on a previous paper which is quite interesting to indicate how Spencer gets his results - and skews his graphs to make them look better.
harley wrote:
“CO2 is opaque to infra-red radiation which remains trapped in the atmosphere. That raises the average atmospheric temperature.
“wrong”
Sorry, harley, YOU are categorically wrong. CO2 is opaque to infrared but transparent to visible light, just like most glass, so light gets in, gets converted to heat, and has a hard time getting out. This is high school science at most. (Actually, I think I saw a project on this at my fifth-grader’s science fair.) If Dr. Spencer questions this, I say in all seriousness that he is either a complete moron or has managed to miss the most basic science on the way to his PhD.
But he doesn’t say that. The article you linked to does not deny this, it questions the magnitude of the heat trapped, which is a completely different and far more difficult question, having to do with things like absorption spectra, reradiation, etc.
1981? That was global cooling. I would be looking at winter wheat for a nice crop.
Gee motive- trout, I thought that CO2 was what supported plant life. Silly me. Also, I know that the fjords of Greenland supported much agriculture at recently as the 1500’s. Much of Canada and the northern hemisphere now populated by other vegetative growth could easily support crops. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the rest of humanity could adapt as well. Maybe not the liberals, but humans could.
“1981? That was global cooling. I would be looking at winter wheat for a nice crop.”
Global cooling was an issue in the late 60’s & 70’s because, it was thought, increasing levels of dust and other particulate matter might be blocking the amount sunlight reaching earth’s surface.
We are in an interglacial period, which may be nearing its end.
Loco, you seem to be being deliberately obtuse. Of course CO2 is what plants “breathe.” That doesn’t mean it isn’t ALSO a major cause of global warming. Or for that matter fatal to humans in large doses. Or something that preserves shipped food when frozen.
And if you read my posts carefully, I never claimed that humanity would be exterminated or any nonsense like that – the only people saying that are the deniers, and they are pretending that those of us following the science are saying that. What I say is that a shift in climate will have a detrimental impact on our civilization, which is far more fragile than life on Earth. Sure, some people will survive even if the polar ice caps melt completely. But in that case you can kiss New York, Miami, Charleston, Los Angeles, Seattle, London, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sydney, etc., goodbye. I like civilization. I would prefer not living like Mad Max, thanks.
As for a more realistic near-term scenario, if the growing regions north of the Equator shift further northwards due to warming, so that the Midwest becomes more akin to Mexican desert and Canada and Siberia become the new breadbaskets, and the US can no longer support itself as a consequence, do you think that might have an impact on geopolitics?
Let’s try not to oversimplify here. Our species can adapt, so can life on Earth. But between now and then we could have any number of disastrous changes to our lives. Most wars in human history have come about over resources – the Vikings started colonizing during that Medieval Warm Period the deniers so love, because a warmer climate led to a population explosion. But they didn’t have nukes, missiles, or planes. As usual, we are our own worst enemy. I worry about that more than I do about the survival of the species. If we really want to destroy the Earth, we can do that (there are plans), but global warming isn’t about that.
tomcib almost 14 years ago
A few thing to think about regarding carbon capture:
The system has yet to be installed a commercial plant. Because of the inefficiency of the system, power plants will use more fuel. The collector needs to be installed on EVERY power plant on the planet. A piping collection network as big as the world’s existing natural gas network needs to be constructed. It is still not certain if the salt domes that are proposed for storage of the CO2 will work. We better get going.Jaedabee Premium Member almost 14 years ago
“Doom.. Gloom… must do now…”
Doom and gloom is how both sides operate. “If you allow same-sex marriage it will be the end of civilization.” (No kidding, that is ACTUAL testimony from the Righties). So while there could be actual scientific proof that we could eventually obliterate our atmosphere by dumping bleeep into it, the Righties are using absolutely unfounded pulled-right-from-their-arse hocus pocus stories to justify unconstitutional discrimination. I’ll take the Global Warming hysteria.I believe this is pointing out that the current version of the energy bill does not have a version of Cap & Trade in it.
Motivemagus almost 14 years ago
Yes, because CO2 is causing global warming, which can and will have detrimental long-term effects on our entire civilization within most of our lifetimes – and may be having such an effect even now. So what’s so hard about that?
benbrilling almost 14 years ago
Well, Bruce, given a choice of allowing the natural cycle to proceed at a glacial pace over millenniums or accelerating it to ruin the planet for human habitation within a few generations, I’ll go with cutting our contribution to the timespan reduction.
bloomfan almost 14 years ago
Cap and trade should die. It really doesn’t do anything to REDUCE output of greenhouse gases, anyway, just shuffles around who’s putting out what. What we really need is increased investment in cleaner technologies.
SuperGriz almost 14 years ago
Jade,
Argentina just legalized same sex marriage, and that’s a Catholic country.
Bruce,
Ya got it backwards. CO2 is opaque to infra-red radiation which remains trapped in the atmosphere. That raises the average atmospheric temperature.
SuperGriz almost 14 years ago
Here’s Tom Toles’ Friday rant:
Friday rant, hot and bothered edition
How long could I go before twisting this hot summer weather into some screed about climate change? Apparently only this long. Deniers never tire of this game: when it’s cold in the winter, that’s “evidence” about climate trends, and when it’s warm in the winter, they say “If this is climate change, I’ll take it!”. So why should I be any different? But there IS a difference. For deniers it’s all a big game of scoring cheap points.
For everyone else, the climate debate has been for decades now about the degree of conclusiveness of the evidence, measured against the practicalities of reducing carbon output. Now, the evidence is massively supportive (the scientists’ e-mail “conspiracy” has been debunked, please be aware). But because the pro-carbon people are still unprepared to reduce carbon in ANY meaningful way, they are cornered into a position where they have to argue that there is NO compelling evidence. And so that is the position they take.
So let me be the first to haul out the heavy artillery of WWII analogies on this issue and call the climate legislation obstructionists the Neville Chamberlains of the planet. We have SUV’s in our time. If there is a current issue on which people are absolutely discrediting themselves, in a way that current science and future calamities will hold them accountable for, this is it. “If this is responsibility, I’ll take it!” Well, you’ve got it. –Tom Toles
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/
rotts almost 14 years ago
Spammerflaggen!
jqmcd almost 14 years ago
Pay now. Or pay later. We, and the Earth, will pay for our arrogance and willful ignorance of what our activities are already doing to our environment.
Dtroutma almost 14 years ago
Bruce, as long as we’re around “doing our thing”, the ice caps will never return. The proportional impact of CO2 to its presence is higher, methane is even higher. CO2 causes the warming.
Paleoclimate studies tell us what happened, and what is happening, much more quickly today.
Those “increased growing seasons” only have one problem, the “deniers” don’t reflect on the LOSS of agriculture occurring on actual productive soils, which don’t happen to exist in those areas that will be getting longer heat seasons.
It IS a complex issue, and simple minds don’t grasp that. The simple-minded will just repeat any fraud they hear, presented by those CAUSING the problem.
Jaedabee Premium Member almost 14 years ago
“Jade, Argentina just legalized same sex marriage, and that’s a Catholic country.”
I saw that. :) And it was the same argument there. And one of the comments I liked that I found related to that: “If Divorce didn’t end the world then same-sex marriage surely won’t.” or something similar. As it turns out Argentina didn’t legalize divorce until about 1970. And as any sane, intelligent person can tell you: divorce is a threat to marriage, equal marriage opportunity is not.Loco80 almost 14 years ago
When the global temperature increased slightly (this came first), the CO2 trapped in the polar ice caps was released into the atmosphere (this came second.)
Canuck - right. I’ll be happy when I can grow grapefruit in my back yard. This is the first year of the last three when it was even warm enough that I could grow lettuce and tomatoes!
Guys, remember that Earth was never intended to last forever, and I feel pretty certain that we will find a way to destroy ourselves long before this chicken little story does.
SuperGriz almost 14 years ago
HARLEY,
What you exhale is C02. It’s a gas, man.
SuperGriz almost 14 years ago
Loco, that is so 1981.
jaxaction almost 14 years ago
silly me I thought is was THAT star out there- the sun. DUH,
some say the earth is cooling over the past 100’s of years. I once quizzed a UN scientist, well what do you KNOW? she said: we do not know, many conflicting ideas…she had no religious fervor she was a scientist.
But the U.S. (R) Senator f/Indiana hes growing hardwood trees and collecting -$40,000, already on his “carbon- credits” on the Chicago exchange, go figure.
Motivemagus almost 14 years ago
harley - Roy Spencer is indeed a climate scientist, but he’s taking one approach and overplaying it a bit according to the folks at RealClimate.org. I quote: “There is some merit in using databases of high resolution temperature data instead of the monthly means available via WMO or GHCN. However, there are no panaceas, and no reason to expect that these data are less affected by inhomogeneities than the monthly data. AFAIK Spencer has not looked at that, and so claims that everyone else has got it wrong are very likely to be somewhat premature. Once he has a proper paper outlining exactly what was done, and how the known issues have been dealt with, we might be in a better position to judge - but for now, this is merely curious, not definitive. - gavin” They also have a comment on a previous paper which is quite interesting to indicate how Spencer gets his results - and skews his graphs to make them look better.
Motivemagus almost 14 years ago
harley wrote: “CO2 is opaque to infra-red radiation which remains trapped in the atmosphere. That raises the average atmospheric temperature. “wrong”
Sorry, harley, YOU are categorically wrong. CO2 is opaque to infrared but transparent to visible light, just like most glass, so light gets in, gets converted to heat, and has a hard time getting out. This is high school science at most. (Actually, I think I saw a project on this at my fifth-grader’s science fair.) If Dr. Spencer questions this, I say in all seriousness that he is either a complete moron or has managed to miss the most basic science on the way to his PhD. But he doesn’t say that. The article you linked to does not deny this, it questions the magnitude of the heat trapped, which is a completely different and far more difficult question, having to do with things like absorption spectra, reradiation, etc.
Dtroutma almost 14 years ago
Wow! Denier mythology. It must mean that guy that brought me a turkey last Thanksgiving really was Jesus!
Loco80 almost 14 years ago
1981? That was global cooling. I would be looking at winter wheat for a nice crop.
Gee motive- trout, I thought that CO2 was what supported plant life. Silly me. Also, I know that the fjords of Greenland supported much agriculture at recently as the 1500’s. Much of Canada and the northern hemisphere now populated by other vegetative growth could easily support crops. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the rest of humanity could adapt as well. Maybe not the liberals, but humans could.
SuperGriz almost 14 years ago
“1981? That was global cooling. I would be looking at winter wheat for a nice crop.”
Global cooling was an issue in the late 60’s & 70’s because, it was thought, increasing levels of dust and other particulate matter might be blocking the amount sunlight reaching earth’s surface.
We are in an interglacial period, which may be nearing its end.
http://www.ace.mmu.ac.uk/eae/climate_change/older/Interglacials.html
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit2.html
We are truly entering unknown territory regarding climate change.
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html
http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/lite/
Motivemagus almost 14 years ago
Loco, you seem to be being deliberately obtuse. Of course CO2 is what plants “breathe.” That doesn’t mean it isn’t ALSO a major cause of global warming. Or for that matter fatal to humans in large doses. Or something that preserves shipped food when frozen. And if you read my posts carefully, I never claimed that humanity would be exterminated or any nonsense like that – the only people saying that are the deniers, and they are pretending that those of us following the science are saying that. What I say is that a shift in climate will have a detrimental impact on our civilization, which is far more fragile than life on Earth. Sure, some people will survive even if the polar ice caps melt completely. But in that case you can kiss New York, Miami, Charleston, Los Angeles, Seattle, London, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sydney, etc., goodbye. I like civilization. I would prefer not living like Mad Max, thanks. As for a more realistic near-term scenario, if the growing regions north of the Equator shift further northwards due to warming, so that the Midwest becomes more akin to Mexican desert and Canada and Siberia become the new breadbaskets, and the US can no longer support itself as a consequence, do you think that might have an impact on geopolitics? Let’s try not to oversimplify here. Our species can adapt, so can life on Earth. But between now and then we could have any number of disastrous changes to our lives. Most wars in human history have come about over resources – the Vikings started colonizing during that Medieval Warm Period the deniers so love, because a warmer climate led to a population explosion. But they didn’t have nukes, missiles, or planes. As usual, we are our own worst enemy. I worry about that more than I do about the survival of the species. If we really want to destroy the Earth, we can do that (there are plans), but global warming isn’t about that.
nerdhoof almost 14 years ago
Multiple spams on each strip. Does flagging them really do any good? Does gocomics care? Or are they making money from the spammers?
myming almost 14 years ago
GREAT -
something else to worry about.
SuperGriz almost 14 years ago
There’s no point in worrying about it.