Re: Ch 4 - 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'

On 16 Mar, 12:49, Tim Woodall <devn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 16 Mar 2007 11:45:57 -0700,
whitely...@xxxxxxxxxxx <whitely...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On 14 Mar, 09:42, Scott <blackh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Cynic wrote:
On Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:45:37 +0000, Scott <blackh...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Cynic wrote:
On 14 Mar 2007 07:53:13 -0700, goo...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

In the early 1970s climate scientists knew that aerosols would cause
cooling and CO2 would cause warming but didn't know which would be the
dominant effect.
So if aerosols are a counter-measure to CO2 warming effects, why not
simply pump some into the atmosphere?

It has been suggested, but acid rain has its draw backs.

Do CFLs cause acid rain?

Sulfate aerosols created by the burning of coal and oil cause acid rain. People
with asthma and bronchitis also tend to object.

But, correct me if I am wrong, but global warming is supposedly the
most important
issue facing humanity.

So that would be a relatively small price to pay. There are plenty of
coal
reserves. Not to mention that the biggest pollution facing many in
the
developing world is indoor pollution: a coal fired station making
electricity centrally
would be a leap forward. And it would apparently help stop global
warming..!

The sulphate aerosols don't stay in the atmosphere for long compared to
the CO2. So you're onto a losing bet if you use burning of coal to put
them there.

No problem. Nuclear power it is.


But, like CFCs, the damage due to acid rain was readily and immediately
visible (eventually) and so the political will was found to do something
about it.

People can, and do, still claim that the CO2 from burning fossil fuels
defies all known physics and doesn't cause an enhanced greenhouse
effect.

Well I think they claim the effect is smaller part of a more complex
picture which
includes much larger natural variability as seen by the historical
record. And that it
is wrong to assume warming is always a bad thing (the fact it is man-
made is
irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant that humankind could be wiped
out by an asteroid
which would be an 'act of nature').

Many claim the sun is a much stronger factor. I can easily see why
they do this: if I
was asked to draw up a list of suspects of what could heat up the
earth, that great
ball nuclear fire in the sky would be near the top of my list. I can
easily see why
many would put it above CO2 which is still at very small
percentages.

I just don't know whether we will have run out of oil before
governments are forced to admit there is a problem and take (short term)
unpopular decisions.

Well we were supposed to run out by the year 2000. You may remember
in
the 70s we apparently faced a stark future of global cooling and no
more fossil fuels.

If we only used it up faster, then there would be a better incentive
to
develop alternatives.

But like CFCs, stopping the emitting of fossil CO2 is going to take
worldwide concensus - any we're unlikely to make much progress on
getting China and India to reduce their emissions until we get our
emissions down to a similar per-capita level or wait for them to catch
up with us.

(And based on population density, the US can reasonably argue that the
EU needs to half its emissions before the US needs to do anything, and
the UK needs to half its emissions before the EU needs to do anything.
I've grabbed the population density figures from Wikipedia - 31 per km^2
for the US, 112 for the EU, 246 for the UK and relying on memory for the
US using about twice as much energy per head as the EU. For comparison,
India is 336 and China is 137)

The problem is that the 'precautionary principle' is a not a low or
no cost option.
We have to hang a lot on a theory, which may be wrong (conveniently
meaning that
the theory will never be really tested).

The cost will be massive, mostly felt by the developing world. If it
costs >3 x
more to produce energy in 'green' ways there will be massive
retardation of
development. As this will be largely hidden we will probably not
even notice
this cost in the developed world. We may even envy the rural
idyll free of industrial pollution where people live where they work,
when the reality is people choking to death on indoor fires because
of the lack of centrally generated electricity.

The developed ecomies will also be stifled, future generations will
pay the cost. True, some business will prosper: but we will all pay
for that collectively.
















Tim.

--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://tjw.hn.org/ http://www.locofungus.btinternet.co.uk/- Hide quoted text -

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