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Thread: Commentary #6: Global Warming

  1. #81
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    Too many democrats in AZ, I suppose.
    Yes too many Democrats in Arizona, Texas, and in the entire USA. Also too many Californians, Canadians and other random liberal idiots are here too.

    I love Texas as much as you do. My life started there in 1950 and I have fond memories as a teen in Abilene, I attended both Madison Jr High and Cooper HS there. When I see the movie American Graffiti I think of those years in Abilene.

    If not for inertia and my fondness for life in AZ, I would live in Texas, but not further east than Abilene. Any closer to the DFW vortex or the Peoples Republic of Austin would not do for me. Those places are no longer the Texas that I knew growing up.

  2. #82
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    Let me go off a tangent for a second.

    I'll start by conceding on the main point; that is, let's assume an increase in CO2 does indeed result into increased temperature, and let's also assume that the increase in CO2 comes from human activity. Yes, this is contentious to say the least, there a huge debate on data and all that jazz but...just indulge me, and for a second pretend that the science is settled.

    From the premise above, it derives the well-known statement that humanity as a whole needs to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions. This means that CO2 emissions become a limited issue resource, something of which only a fixed amount is available every year. The question is: how do you divide up this limited resource among humans?

    I think there are three options (I assume there is a mechanism to precisely compute emissions, which might be far-fetched, but it's beside the point here).

    - The equal option. You take the total of permitted CO2 emissions, and divide it in equal parts. This means that people who currently emit a lot (think private jet owners), will have to considerably reduce their emissions, and probably lower their living standards. This seems fair and just, after all they are the biggest contributors to the current situation. It's also the application at a lower scale of the accepted principle that developed nations shoudl cut more than developing ones, because they have contributed more to the problem.
    Also, sharing CO2 emissions like this allows people who currently emit less to increase their activity and improve their life; this too seems fair and reasonable.

    - The equal reduction option. Everyone cuts current emissions by the same percentage, so that the total comes down to the required, permitted amount. This is not as fair as the previous solution. Crued example: if you have a 20-room mansion, and you are asked to cut emissions by 20%, turning off heating in four of your rooms is not a big deal, and won't affect your life much (unless you are used to throw gigantic parties). But if you live in a two-bedroom council house, a similar cut probably means your home will be cold for the whole winter.

    - The Market option. In this case, you fix a price for emissions, and let people buy permits to emit according to their needs. Economic theory says that the people who most need emitting will be willing to pay the price.


    As far as I can see, the only option considered by GW advocates (a horribly imprecise label, I know) is the third one. I think that's because of ideological reasons (the belief that The Market is the natural and best construct for social interactions) and some practical ones (how would you implement or police the other two options?), and these are valid point.
    But, at the same time, no-one seems to realise how deeply unfair this option is, and what kind of social consequences it brings. Using a price mechanism to allocate emissions means that very wealthy people, who by dint of their lifestyle are major contributors to the alleged dangerous levels of CO2, will simply outbid everyone else, and be allowed to continue emitting at will (subject to wallet capacity). At the same time, a lot of people might find themselves unable to meet basic needs because they won't have enough money. From a social justice point of view, this seems to be the opposite of what should happen, as the burden of adjustment, eventually, will mainly fall on the poor (and might end up killing a lot of them altogether).

    I think not many GW advocates have given much thought about this, and I also think it weakens their position considerably. I hear some of them shouting: "You are right, but we need to do something".
    This might be correct (I started by conceding on this right at the start), but doing something doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do any and whatever thing. And this seems particularly important if your solution is going to make the world a more unfair and more divided and unequal place. I don't think you can liquidate this sort of objection by simply saying that "An imperfect solution is better than no solution".

    Lastly, I think there might also be an underlying bigger issue here: how do you sit a proposal that calls for a limitation in the use of some energy sources, and therefore, ultimately, a limitation in economic activity, with a entire world view that is based on perpetual growth, and therefore, by definition, on the use and consumption of every possible resource? Especially when this world view, based on the absence of any reasonable limit to economic activity, is probably one of the main drivers behind the (alleged) critical situatoin you are trying to solve?

    I think here the risk is that you end up replacing one unsustainable, exploitative mode of development, based on cars / oil, with another equally unsustainable and exploitative one, this time based on Electrification and Lithium. This will call for gigantic rebuilding of all sort of infrastructure, and down the line it will probably run into another version of the 'limited issue resource' problem that we started from.
    The only certain result of this switch will be to spin one more time the same development machine that brought us into the current situation; and that, I suspect, is the point of the exercise.

    IPB

  3. #83
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    This is really a pretty damn good thread, you should read the whole thing. Bumping this so it doesn't get lost:

    Really, think about this: A 4.6 billion-year-old planet with an 8000-mile diameter, with a molten core (heat, etc.), with an atmosphere that is only 50 miles/240,000ft thick (being rather generous), that orbits a star only 93 million miles away with 330,000 times the earth's mass and that emits enough radiation to burn your naked ass in 30 minutes, is having its weather unalterably changed over the course of the next 5/10/15 years (whatever it is now) by the presence of a weak greenhouse gas, CO2, that happens to now be at its lowest level in damn near the entire history of the planet -- a history punctuated by global glaciations while that weak greenhouse gas was far higher than it is now -- and that also happens to be the basis of plant life (and therefore atmospheric oxygen), a gas whose greenhouse effect is dwarfed by that of water vapor (on a planet with a surface area that consists of 70% water), and that geologically is currently in an interglacial period. The models that generated this political bullshit have predicted nothing correctly -- not sea level change, polar ice cover, or weather.

    And everybody believes it anyway, to the extent that they are handing the management of the world's economy to elderly megalomaniacs with an agenda based on their own personal power. You're not even allowed to question it -- otherwise sensible people have agreed with the ridiculous premise that CO2 is a deadly poison that must be eliminated from the surface of the earth. Every August, everybody runs around like it's not supposed to be hot. Every time there's a drought, everybody acts like it's the very first time it's been dry too long. "Hurricane season" started in June, and how many hurricanes have devastated the coastlines already inundated by the molten ice caps? How many times over the past 20 years of this shit have the hurricane predictions been correct?

    Really, the children are in charge now, seeking validation for "caring about the planet," running around yelling about "carbon" -- the 4th most abundant element in the physical universe --being a deadly poison. Their managers are common criminals whose entire agenda is money and control, and we are letting it happen. It is the result of the shitty science education we received in the government schools, and it probably cannot be stopped.

    And in addition, the Government that brought you the flu from China, lockdowns, and vaccines that killed far more people than the flu, the Government in charge of "public education", the war(s) in Asia, the economy, and pronouns wants to also be in charge of the weather.

  4. #84
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    Quote Originally Posted by IlPrincipeBrutto View Post
    Let me go off a tangent for a second.

    I'll start by conceding on the main point; that is, let's assume an increase in CO2 does indeed result into increased temperature, and let's also assume that the increase in CO2 comes from human activity. Yes, this is contentious to say the least, there a huge debate on data and all that jazz but...just indulge me, and for a second pretend that the science is settled.

    From the premise above, it derives the well-known statement that humanity as a whole needs to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions. This means that CO2 emissions become a limited issue resource, something of which only a fixed amount is available every year.

    ,
    IPB
    Given your conditions it is an economic/ political problem not a scientific one. I think your options are interesting especially in terms of emission as a limited resource. Something that never occurred to me.

    It is possible that the genesis of GW alarm w.r.t CO2 emissions was treated the way you describe. Basically as a finite sum and linear cause and effect. But we know that climate, CO2 capture and production, and a million other factors are highly dynamic and treating these factors as finite sum and linear will never work. I think I have the chops to explain this if anyone is interested.

  5. #85
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    We are interested.

  6. #86
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    Linear parameters are things that go up or down in a plotted straight line. Adding 5lbs to your training weight every session is linear.

    Dynamic factors are things that are dependent on time. Rates like speed of the bar during a lift, or complex relationships like the equation of an explosion.

    CO2 does absorb light (mostly infrared or heat) on the way down from the sun and the way back up to space. In a laboratory, the temperature of CO2 goes up linearly with the concentration of CO2 when you shine “sun” light through it. It may be a good assumption to assume that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will increase the global temperature linearly like in the lab. It certainly makes calculations easier.

    But that is a bad assumption and demonstrably wrong. CO2 does not increase temperature linearly. Light is very variable. reflection from the ground, direction, intensity, other extreme greenhouse gases like water and methane, thermal sinks and source, etc. How CO2 is distributed and mixed is very complicated. It’s very dynamic in the real world.

    Does extra CO2 just fill up the atmosphere? It’s absorbed by plants and becomes food. It ends up in the soil and oceans. The amount of CO2 produced by a car can’t be tracked with simple accounting, it is not a finite sum problem, it is non-linear and it is highly dynamic.

  7. #87
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    Quote Originally Posted by IlPrincipeBrutto View Post
    Let me go off a tangent for a second.

    I'll start by conceding on the main point; that is, let's assume an increase in CO2 does indeed result into increased temperature, and let's also assume that the increase in CO2 comes from human activity. Yes, this is contentious to say the least, there a huge debate on data and all that jazz but...just indulge me, and for a second pretend that the science is settled.

    From the premise above, it derives the well-known statement that humanity as a whole needs to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions. This means that CO2 emissions become a limited issue resource, something of which only a fixed amount is available every year. The question is: how do you divide up this limited resource among humans?

    I think there are three options (I assume there is a mechanism to precisely compute emissions, which might be far-fetched, but it's beside the point here).

    - The equal option. You take the total of permitted CO2 emissions, and divide it in equal parts. This means that people who currently emit a lot (think private jet owners), will have to considerably reduce their emissions, and probably lower their living standards. This seems fair and just, after all they are the biggest contributors to the current situation. It's also the application at a lower scale of the accepted principle that developed nations shoudl cut more than developing ones, because they have contributed more to the problem.
    Also, sharing CO2 emissions like this allows people who currently emit less to increase their activity and improve their life; this too seems fair and reasonable.

    - The equal reduction option. Everyone cuts current emissions by the same percentage, so that the total comes down to the required, permitted amount. This is not as fair as the previous solution. Crued example: if you have a 20-room mansion, and you are asked to cut emissions by 20%, turning off heating in four of your rooms is not a big deal, and won't affect your life much (unless you are used to throw gigantic parties). But if you live in a two-bedroom council house, a similar cut probably means your home will be cold for the whole winter.

    - The Market option. In this case, you fix a price for emissions, and let people buy permits to emit according to their needs. Economic theory says that the people who most need emitting will be willing to pay the price.


    As far as I can see, the only option considered by GW advocates (a horribly imprecise label, I know) is the third one. I think that's because of ideological reasons (the belief that The Market is the natural and best construct for social interactions) and some practical ones (how would you implement or police the other two options?), and these are valid point.
    But, at the same time, no-one seems to realise how deeply unfair this option is, and what kind of social consequences it brings. Using a price mechanism to allocate emissions means that very wealthy people, who by dint of their lifestyle are major contributors to the alleged dangerous levels of CO2, will simply outbid everyone else, and be allowed to continue emitting at will (subject to wallet capacity). At the same time, a lot of people might find themselves unable to meet basic needs because they won't have enough money. From a social justice point of view, this seems to be the opposite of what should happen, as the burden of adjustment, eventually, will mainly fall on the poor (and might end up killing a lot of them altogether).

    I think not many GW advocates have given much thought about this, and I also think it weakens their position considerably. I hear some of them shouting: "You are right, but we need to do something".
    This might be correct (I started by conceding on this right at the start), but doing something doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do any and whatever thing. And this seems particularly important if your solution is going to make the world a more unfair and more divided and unequal place. I don't think you can liquidate this sort of objection by simply saying that "An imperfect solution is better than no solution".

    Lastly, I think there might also be an underlying bigger issue here: how do you sit a proposal that calls for a limitation in the use of some energy sources, and therefore, ultimately, a limitation in economic activity, with a entire world view that is based on perpetual growth, and therefore, by definition, on the use and consumption of every possible resource? Especially when this world view, based on the absence of any reasonable limit to economic activity, is probably one of the main drivers behind the (alleged) critical situatoin you are trying to solve?

    I think here the risk is that you end up replacing one unsustainable, exploitative mode of development, based on cars / oil, with another equally unsustainable and exploitative one, this time based on Electrification and Lithium. This will call for gigantic rebuilding of all sort of infrastructure, and down the line it will probably run into another version of the 'limited issue resource' problem that we started from.
    The only certain result of this switch will be to spin one more time the same development machine that brought us into the current situation; and that, I suspect, is the point of the exercise.

    IPB
    This sounds a lot like taxing the very existence of every human being, down to their own breathing.
    Is it really worth it to try and rationalize this?

  8. #88
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    Quote Originally Posted by Farmer View Post
    Do you believe climate change is happening? just not from CO2 emissions?
    FFS. "Climate change" is ALWAYS happening.

    "Global warming" has been happening since the last ice age. And you can bet your ass and last ten dollars that "global cooling" will happen as we head into the next one.

    Provided this star we're living on doesn't supernova.

  9. #89
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    This was posted yesterday on ZeroHedge: The Corruption Of Climate Science | ZeroHedge

    “We need to criticize the people who got us here,” says Alex Epstein, founder of the Center for Industrial Progress and author of Fossil Future.

    “We can’t keep treating these designated experts as real experts. They are not real experts, they are destroyers. They are anti-energy, non-experts. And that needs to be made clear.”

    Epstein is right, and his advice has never been more urgent—or as difficult to make people understand. It is no exaggeration that every major institution in America has now committed itself to the elimination of affordable and abundant energy. If it isn’t stopped, this commitment, motivated by misguided concern for the planet but also by a lust for power and money and enabled by moral cowardice and intellectual negligence, will destroy Western civilization.

    For over 50 years, with increasing frequency, corrupted, careerist scientists have produced biased studies that, amplified by agenda-driven corporate and political special interests, constitute a “consensus” that is supposedly “beyond debate.” We are in a “climate crisis.” To cope with this climate emergency, all measures are justifiable.

    This is overblown, one-sided, distorted, and manipulative propaganda. It is the language of authoritarians and corporatists bent on achieving even more centralized political power and economic wealth. It is a scam, perhaps the most audacious, all-encompassing fraud in human history. It is a scam that explicitly targets and crushes the middle class in developed nations and the entire aspiring populations in developing nations, at the same time as its messaging is designed to secure their fervent acquiescence.\

    What is actually beyond debate is not that we are in a climate crisis but that if we don’t stop destroying our conventional energy economy, we are going to be in a civilizational crisis.

    Energy is the foundation of everything—prosperity, freedom, upward mobility, national wealth, individual economic independence, functional water and transportation infrastructure, commercial-scale agriculture, mining, and industry. Without energy, it all goes dark. And “renewables” are not even remotely capable of replacing oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric power. It’s impossible.

    The only people who think renewables are capable of replacing conventional energy are either uninformed, innumerate, or corrupt. Period.
    And this is a very important summary from 2011 of the actual physical science regarding the largest hoax in human history, after the earth being flat: The Truth About Greenhouse Gases by William Happer | Articles | First Things

    The earth’s climate has always been changing. Our present global warming is not at all unusual by the standards of geological history, and it is probably benefiting the biosphere. Indeed, there is very little correlation between the estimates of CO2 and of the earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years (the “Phanerozoic” period). The message is clear that several factors must influence the earth’s temperature, and that while CO2 is one of these factors, it is seldom the dominant one. The other factors are not well understood. Plausible candidates are spontaneous variations of the complicated fluid flow patterns in the oceans and atmosphere of the earth—perhaps influenced by continental drift, volcanoes, variations of the earth’s orbital parameters (ellipticity, spin-axis orientation, etc.), asteroid and comet impacts, variations in the sun’s output (not only the visible radiation but the amount of ultraviolet light, and the solar wind with its magnetic field), variations in cosmic rays leading to variations in cloud cover, and other causes.

    The existence of the little ice age and the medieval warm period were an embarrassment to the global-warming establishment, because they showed that the current warming is almost indistinguishable from previous warmings and coolings that had nothing to do with burning fossil fuel. The organization charged with producing scientific support for the climate change crusade, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), finally found a solution. They rewrote the climate history of the past 1000 years with the celebrated “hockey stick” temperature record.

  10. #90
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    starting strength coach development program
    Perhaps the most important thing I learned from Rip has nothing to do with training. It is understanding long time scales. As in, time scales so long that is difficult for the mind to truly appreciate. But once it is understood, it is a game changer. I have not viewed climate change the same. It is viewed unfortunately in the shortest of time frames, since we only perceive the here and now. We are slaves to the temporal, unfortunately.

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