Thread: Environment problems

OK silentc, so you are now a true believer, great. But what are you doing about it, or more importantly what can we all do about it?

I am not being cynical here, nor am I playing the man, as some are, but I am asking this question in all sincerity.

I think one of the most important things any government can do is help their citizens make informed decisions when buying appliances, use energy etc.

What I would like to see is a star system, like the energy and water using stars, but that address the whole environmental cost of buying and using a particular appliance.

For instance, in Bob's example above, what is the cost to the environment of producing that battery operated lawnmower, what is the cost to the environment of using it.

Would be good if we could make an informed choice on whether that Toyota Prius is really more environmentally friendly than that Jeep Cherokee, whether that solar panel actually will produce more energy in its' projected lifetime than it cost to produce and so forth.

I would venture to suggest that sales of plasma screens would plummet overnight

(Oh and it would be nice if someone could calculate the tons of CO2 produced by the Bali Conference, both by the millions of airmiles to get the candidates there and back, and by the hot air produced at the conference. I bet all those candidates had their aircons going flat out, and there seemed to be a million notebooks switched on!)

I don't dismiss the view point of the scientists. I just believe they are too quick to make it a conclusive irrefutable fact.

Their attempt to put down or stifle any view contrary to AGW "The debate is over" etc is simply wrong and discredits their claims. As does making false claims as to the possible effects of AGW.

I don't have any credentials, nor do I need them to form a view based of both sides of the argument.

There are many with vested interests in both sides of the argument including the media. That does'nt make them right or wrong.

I don't need to produce anything nor prove anything to have a point of view as nor do you. However, no evidence will change your point of view I feel. Where as if someone came up with some conclusive evidence rather than opinions then I may be swayed to agree with AGW.

I just refuse to be swayed by hype and false claims.
I have watched the videos and have seen nothing yet that would change my view. My view is really very simple, I don't claim to have any irrefutable evidence to dissprove AGW I simply don't believe there is any to prove there is and that on the balance of evidence produced by both sides it is least likely warming is caused by Co2. The shrillness of the AGW lobby and their refusal to look at the science of the other side plays a large part of my forming that view.

I never said I was a true believer. I'm an agnostic - I don't believe anything

All I said was that, until I watched those videos, I was debating the wrong issue. I think he has a good point and it comes down to acceptable level of risk. As he said, you don't buy car insurance believing you will have a crash, you buy it so that IF you have a crash, you don't go broke.

So yes, I think we need to do something about it, in case they are right, because the consequences if they are right and we do nothing are too severe. As for what I'm doing, well, I've only just come around to that viewpoint, so give me time

G'day,

Regarding the Prius, it's all bulltish when you look at the figures of when the engine runs petrol of from the battery depending on speed and acceleration. I'll post up the stats when I find them.

Really it's a car for people who want/think to look good but the numbers don't stack up. Top Gear and others have dubunked it.

Remember the hole in the Ozone??
Well its stilll there, but it is shrinking.
We saw that CFCs were causing it some damage, so we made some changes. And Guess what? ... we still have airconditioners, refrigerators and yes we still have hairspray(not that I need it).

I'm not saying that fixing the AGW problem is as easy, but there are some very simple changes that we can make to ease the problem.

We don't have to kill our economy to tackle global warming. While some people see obstacles, I can certainly see opportunities. How you handle the challenges(or percieved challenges) ahead are depends on your own attititude towards life.

Yes the under developed countries also see benefits. Billions of dollars from developed countries paid in fines without a single drop in emissions. In fact emissions continue to rise because the UDC's are not under any pressure to reduce emissions.

Just a shift in wealth?

I wonder.

Go SilentC and BobL
Its a favorite trick of junk scientists and their devotees to introduce red herrings when the Science gets tough.
I note there have been no comments on Bobs "outing" of the backers of the junk science site.

Do we have an ostrich icon?
Astrid

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

The very fact that the science is not conclusive means the debate is well and truly NOT OVER.

Unfortunately very few things, including science, are ever conclusive - you can never prove anything right - you can only prove something wrong. yes the debate is not over, but my reading is we are 20 minutes into the last quarter and the team in the lead has a 40 point margin. Worst still the outcome is not a game but significant changes to how we live and 100 million+ refugees lining for a place to live.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

The outlandish claims of 100m sea rises etc are complete bull **** and designed to scare people into believing something that has not been proven (just like your claim of houses falling into the Swan River).

None of the models I have seen predict a 100m rise in sea level. What is well established is when sea levels rise 1m, about 100m of land on average is lost by coastal erosion. A 1m rise in sea level will be very serious for areas like Busselton and parts of Mandurah. What I said was that some people will not pay any attention to any of this until their houses fall into the swan river.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

Even if the world warms by 2 deg there will be many that benefit from warming. 2 deg rise will not melt the poles. The effects of AGW are grossly over estimated to scare people into action.

Grossly over-estimated - no - if anything they are being underestimated or suppressed by powerful interest groups. Every intermediate prediction made about global warming in the last few years has been an underestimation. The initial estimates about the life of coral reefs was that they would be OK for the next 50 years - now the latest serious research says they will collapse in 20 years. Qld tourism operators should think seriously about any long term investment this minute - not next year! BTW the link is not to some two bit news paper or a single persons opinion but one of THE worlds most respected scientific journals where a panel of experts review the articles that are published.

I have been to a conference in the US where US government scientists are not permitted to work on or discuss GW - for a start they have to call it Climate Change. At the end of the conference half a dozen senior US government scientists took me and a group of other scientists from around the world out to one of their private homes - here they read to us a prepared private statement how they deplored the US governments position on GW and how they feared for their jobs if they spoke publicly about it. Tell me again how this is the "Land of the free?" This is the level of vested interest we have to deal with.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

If the AGW believers were more open to view and debate the science and be more realistic in there estimates etc. they would have more credibility in my book. Until then it is just a theory yet to be proved or demonstrated to be anything other than a normal natural event.

No problem, feel free to quote any scholarly researched article from a respected peer reviewed scientific source. This is how science works.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

See this http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164002

I could very well post a vast amount of links to global drought even right here in our own country.

What is interesting is that your link actually supports the theory of Global Warming. Something that most people don't know about global warming is that the number of extreme weather events are increased. Predictions are for more wilder weather - both colder, hotter, wetter and dryer. Cyclones will on average be wilder, snow storms will be fewer but wilder. Insurance companies working on property insurance risks are taking a very keen interest in this matter. The have actuaries working "hell for leather" on this as we speak but they won't tell us about it. If it wasn't a serious risk do you think they would bother?

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Biofuel? Have you seen what is happening to the world price of corn? Shot through the roof because we are using it to produce ethanol, in the mean time poor people can't afford to eat. Where's the ethics in that?

Corn is far too water, fertilizer and energy hungry crop for making biofuels. You only get about twice the amount of energy out of that is put into a corn crop so its the wrong thing to use. Acacias grown in wind rows in between pastoral or grain is a much better way to go. No water needed, they survive and grow on very little natural precipitation. You get something like 4 times more energy from acacias - and you get some nice timber out of it as well.

10% of the arable land in Australia could provide all our biofuel. BUT we don't need to use arable land. We could use pastoral stations in the northern part of Australia. What we lack is infrastructure and investment incentives.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

I don't dismiss the view point of the scientists. I just believe they are too quick to make it a conclusive irrefutable fact.

if you call 40 years too quick then that's how long they have been discussing this.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

Their attempt to put down or stifle any view contrary to AGW "The debate is over" etc is simply wrong and discredits their claims. As does making false claims as to the possible effects of AGW.

Debate is never over but how long do we wait till we do anything?

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

I don't have any credentials, nor do I need them to form a view based of both sides of the argument.

I suppose you ay that to the surgeon as you are about to go in for an operation? Do you expect the surgeon to debate the finer points of plaster installation with you.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

There are many with vested interests in both sides of the argument including the media. That does'nt make them right or wrong.

Everyone has vested interests, including the scientists, but now that a whole generation of scientists have come and gone and are still saying the same thing, the record is broken for long enough. There are plenty of other problems for scientists to work on.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

I don't need to produce anything nor prove anything to have a point of view as nor do you. However, no evidence will change your point of view I feel. Where as if someone came up with some conclusive evidence rather than opinions then I may be swayed to agree with AGW.

Sure you can have an opinion - but as the Papua and New Guinean representative said to the USA, please stand out of the way while we attend to the urgently need environmental surgery.

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

I just refuse to be swayed by hype and false claims.

Me too - I have a very finely tuned scientific crap detector - I train people to develop factual crap detectors. The smelliest crap I can smell on this issue is coming firstly from the complete deniers of global warming, followed by those with interests in maintaining an excess CO2 generation status quo while the worlds sewers are backing up.

Well, there is no debate eh! I guess its all done and dusted (NOT).

Asdrid, there is no need whatsoever to respond to your post Bobs put down of others opinions. It would not matter who or what was put forward to argue against AGW some people will just not consider the posibility that they have it wrong nor consider other opinions.

This is exactly why I will not fall into the fold and accept what people say without proper debate or due consideration to other opinions. I note that opinions against AGW are written off as worthless by degrading the person putting it forward and not by assessing the argument and comming up with an alternative science to argue the point. This only strengthens my view people are being had by a ruse.

Like I said time will tell.

Originally Posted by BobL

I suppose you ay that to the surgeon as you are about to go in for an operation? Do you expect the surgeon to debate the finer points of plaster installation with you.

LOL got a laugh out of that one.

You obviously feel very strongly that this is all some sort of conspiracy. I find that attitude to this sort of debate strange but I suppose it can be an interesting line of enquiry. You use words like 'ruse' or 'fraud' as if some multi-national conspiracy of scientists is working together to coerce mankind into something - what, I'm not clear on.

To have an opinion like that, you must have some reason to believe it, otherwise it's just irrational. So what is it? Can you give us a brief run down on the nature of this fraud and what it is supposed to achieve.

Have you had a look at any of those videos I linked to? I suspect not. I really think you should at least take a look at this one (there are three parts about 10 minutes each):

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A58X73GnzE"]YouTube - How It All Ends: Nature of Science (pt 1 of 3)[/ame]

Originally Posted by rod@plasterbrok

Well, there is no debate eh! I guess its all done and dusted (NOT).

No - debate about whether its real or not will never be over - scientists are still looking (desperately) to see if there is way out. The debate about whether we should start to do something can continue but I don't think we can risk losing any more time and something should be done.
Every scientist would dearly love to say - hey I found this, and this and this and it points the other way. If they find it I am very keen to apply my crap detector to it and if necessary will change my mind.

I have changed my mind on such issues before. I used to be strongly anti-nuke, then after studying the issues in detail I changed my mind and became pro nuke, then, largely on economic grounds, I became less pro nuke, and now with 4th Generation reactor technology and threat of GW I'm swinging the other way again and reckon that nuclear has a significant contribution to make.