Dr StrangeHarpper or: How I Learned to Stopped Worrying (About Global Warming) and Love CO2

[brenthutch 384]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/will-happer-trump_us_58a384f6e4b094a129f01d6e?

"So you really do see global warming as a non-problem, not as something worth investing in?

Absolutely. Not only a non-problem. I see the CO2 as good, you know. Let me be clear. I don’t think it’s a problem at all, I think it’s a good thing. It’s just incredible when people keep talking about carbon pollution when you and I are sitting here breathing out, you know, 40,000 parts per million of CO2 with every exhalation. So I mean it’s shameful to do all of this propaganda on what’s a beneficial natural part of the atmosphere that has never been stable but most of the time much higher than now.

Is there a finding that could emerge related to, say, sea level that could get you more focused or thinking about the downside of the relentless buildup of this gas? Remember, the thing that’s the issue here is the long-lived nature of CO2. So it’s kind of like a ratcheting mechanism. It’s hard to reverse.

Well I think CO2 is good. I’m very happy that it’s long-lived. The longer the better. Look, I mean you can already see the Earth greening. [It is.] If you look at agricultural yields, they’re steadily going up. A lot of that is fertilizer, better varieties, but some of it is CO2. So I mean I can’t imagine why you would want to decrease CO2."

[gowlerk 1,916]

How nice for you. One who agrees with you. Out of many millions. You can probably find a few more Pollyannas. But the world is still going to march on and leave you behind.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[brenthutch 384]

gowlerk

How nice for you. One who agrees with you. Out of many millions. You can probably find a few more Pollyannas. But the world is still going to march on and leave you behind.

Pollyanna?

He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He received an Alfred P. Sloan fellowship in 1966, an Alexander von Humboldt award in 1976, the Herbert P.Broida Prize in 1997, the Davisson-Germer prize and the Thomas Alva Edison patent award in 2000.[2] In 2003 he was named the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

I don't think so.

[gowlerk 1,916]

brenthutch

***How nice for you. One who agrees with you. Out of many millions. You can probably find a few more Pollyannas. But the world is still going to march on and leave you behind.

Pollyanna?

He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He received an Alfred P. Sloan fellowship in 1966, an Alexander von Humboldt award in 1976, the Herbert P.Broida Prize in 1997, the Davisson-Germer prize and the Thomas Alva Edison patent award in 2000.[2] In 2003 he was named the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

I don't think so.


Pollyanna was able to ignore bad possibilities and focus on only the sunny good ones. Your highly educated friend, like you, seems to think that higher CO2 levels will only have good effects, and he ignores or discounts the negative ones.

Just like Pollyanna. Education and credentials are meaningful, but he is an extreme outlier among his peers. Pollyanna.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[gowlerk 1,916]

He is correct in one way. The Earth would soldier on, and indeed flourish with much greater atmospheric CO2 levels than it does now. Absolutely. That is not the issue for us. The issue for us is it's effect on our civilization. There the answers are fuzzy. But temperature increases, ocean acidification, and sea level rise are all negatives that can be counted on.

Runaway feedback loops are possible, but that is alarmist talk. But the worst effects are avoidable, we just need to clean up our act. Literally. The shift to renewables is already started and will only gather steam (cleanly). Renewable energy production will require more investment and create more jobs in maintaining systems than the coal miners and oil field workers who will be replaced.

I don't understand why the right wing fears this transition. Other than the fact that conservatism is all about maintaining the status quo. I like to think of people like that as alarmists. Fear of change and dragging their heels against progress while kicking and screaming that their world is ending. A little like Luddites.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[brenthutch 384]

gowlerk

temperature increases, ocean acidification, and sea level rise are all negatives that can be counted on.

Chicken Little

gowlerk

Renewable energy production will require more investment and create more jobs in maintaining systems than the coal miners and oil field workers who will be replaced.

Higher capital costs plus higher labor cost equals higher energy cost.

Who is a Pollyanna now?

[gowlerk 1,916]

brenthutch

***temperature increases, ocean acidification, and sea level rise are all negatives that can be counted on.

Chicken Little

gowlerk

Renewable energy production will require more investment and create more jobs in maintaining systems than the coal miners and oil field workers who will be replaced.

Higher capital costs plus higher labor cost equals higher energy cost.

Who is a Pollyanna now?


The effects I cite are all measurable and present right now.

Costs fluctuate all the time. It will not be hard to cope with them, compared to the costs of relocating parts of coastal cities. Dare to look forward and not backward.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[Phil1111 913]

gowlerk

I don't understand why the right wing fears this transition. Other than the fact that conservatism is all about maintaining the status quo. I like to think of people like that as alarmists. Fear of change and dragging their heels against progress while kicking and screaming that their world is ending. A little like Luddites.

On the issue of climate change I have come to the personal conclusion that Brent and I will just have to agree to disagree.The right doesn't want to recognize this for two main reasons. First there are vested interests in big oil. Viewing solar-conservation, etc. as liberal elitist nonsense.

Secondly is the issue of compensation to other countries for the effects of global warming.
"Some developing countries fall under the category of vulnerable to climate change. These countries involve small, sometimes isolated, island nations, low lying nations, nations who rely on drinking water from shrinking glaciers etc. These vulnerable countries see themselves as the victims of climate change and some have organized themselves under groups like the Climate Vulnerable Forum.( http://www.thecvf.org/These countries seek mitigation monies from the developed and the industrializing countries to help them adapt to the impending catastrophes that they see climate change will bring upon them.[13] For these countries climate change is seen as an existential threat and the politics of these countries is to seek reparation and adaptation monies from the developed world and some see it as their right."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_global_warming

"The US and other wealthy countries are inching towards a deal with poorer nations on one of the most divisive issues in UN climate change talks: dealing with the damaging impacts of global warming.

The question of how to help people displaced by the extreme weather that scientists say is likely to intensify as global temperatures rise has become a festering sticking point in UN climate negotiations over the past five years.

Some poorer nations insist rich countries, whose carbon pollution initially caused the climate change problem, should compensate them for weather-related losses that have risen to well over $100bn a year, according to the World Bank....

With only three months left before nearly 200 countries are due to strike a new legally binding UN climate accord in Paris, developing countries at preparatory talks in Bonn this week abandoned calls for direct compensation.

Instead, they want a “climate change displacement co-ordination facility” to be established under the Paris agreement. It would help relocate people and provide more reliable aid for countries most at risk from fierce storms and more gradual dangers such as rising sea levels.

“We need a permanent process to deal with the long-term damage caused by these events because it is going to be a growing problem,” he told the Financial Times.

Rich countries’ emergency relief was of no use to countries with economies flattened by weather disasters, added Lloyd Pascal, head of the delegation from the Caribbean island of Dominica, which was badly hit by torrential rains from Tropical Storm Erika last month.

We need a permanent process to deal with the long-term damage caused by these events because it is going to be a growing problem.

“They allow climate change to destroy you and then they provide you with tents and blankets,” he told the FT.

But the idea of setting up a new body to handle displaced victims of climate change is being resisted by the US and the EU, which is struggling to deal with the worst refugee crisis since the end of the second world war.

“Climate change poses an existential risk to many low-lying countries,” she said, adding the industries most responsible for climate loss and damage should pay for it."

In the end the EU came on board, China was on the fence and the US was the sole objector to having to pay compensation.

The idea that a quasi UN body would require the US to pay compensation to low lying countries for being wiped off the map by rising sea levels was a non starter. The fundamental right to have unlimited gas without a "carbon tax" is written in the US constitution.

Then there is the current anti-science policy of the trump administration:
"Yesterday, the official Twitter account of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology retweeted an interesting article to its 179,000 followers: “Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists.” The only problem is that global temperatures aren’t exactly plunging, according to an analysis of the underlying data by The Washington Post. The story, in Breitbart News, cribbed from an earlier Daily Mail story that reported Earth’s land temperatures had fallen at a record pace in 2016, and that human-caused climate change did not contribute to record-high temperatures from 2014–16. But both stories are based on incomplete data and flawed arguments, the Post reports. The relevant temperature records date back only to 1979, and they apply only to landmasses, not the world’s oceans. Add those in, and global temperatures did not drop. What’s more, the drop in land temperatures was expected, as the warm phase of the most recent El Niño weather event shifts to its colder twin, La Niña."
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/sifter/just-where-did-breitbart-get-its-climate-data

The above is bannon, not trump.

Hopefully clears that up for you.
https://www.ft.com/content/54528a78-52e0-11e5-b029-b9d50a74fd14

[airdvr 198]

And here we go. I've said all along man made climate change might be real but we'll never do the things needed to have a real impact. There's just too much money involved.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[Phil1111 913]

airdvr

And here we go. I've said all along man made climate change might be real but we'll never do the things needed to have a real impact. There's just too much money involved.

Thats kind of where the rubber meets the road with regards to all this. Who is going to pay when every Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese,Indonesian and heaven forbid African, gets a car. Poor countries and industrial development can send pollution levels off the charts.

In the end a long journey starts with one step.

[brenthutch 384]

Phil1111

***

I don't understand why the right wing fears this transition. Other than the fact that conservatism is all about maintaining the status quo. I like to think of people like that as alarmists. Fear of change and dragging their heels against progress while kicking and screaming that their world is ending. A little like Luddites.

On the issue of climate change I have come to the personal conclusion that Brent and I will just have to agree to disagree.The right doesn't want to recognize this for two main reasons. First there are vested interests in big oil. Viewing solar-conservation, etc. as liberal elitist nonsense.

No I view this through a lens of pragmatism. If one were to apply a cost benefit analysis to any of these silly programs there short comings would be self evident. I'm sorry I just can't get on board with "all pain and no gain."

Phil1111

Secondly is the issue of compensation to other countries for the effects of global warming.

This is nothing more than a left wing, globalist fantasy, an esoteric discussion that belongs in a philosophy class not wasting band width in the real world.

[kallend 1,635]

Happer’s own research focused on atomic physics and the interactions of light and matter and applications in optics and medical imaging.

Clearly makes him an expert on climate science.... NOT.

Meanwhile 97% of actual climate scientists disagree with him, along with the consensus of the National Academy of Sciences.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[gowlerk 1,916]

airdvr

And here we go. I've said all along man made climate change might be real but we'll never do the things needed to have a real impact. There's just too much money involved.

Yes, I largely agree with you. We are never going to be able to undo what has been done. Nor will we be able or willing to compensate those affected. (by "we" I mean those currently living in long time industrialized societies).

What we can, and are doing is shifting our energy use to try to limit future damage as much as possible. Hopefully it will be helpful to future generations. That does not mean wholesale disruptive immediate changes. Even if that would be the most prudent thing to do, it is not politically feasible.

What is most unhelpful is denying that the problem even exists and using that denial as an excuse for doing absolutely nothing. Or even going so far as to claim that increased CO2 is going to be a net benefit. We are evolved and adapted to the atmospheric and oceanic chemistry of the present era. Allowing significant changes to it is an extreme folly.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[billvon 2,406]

Quote

Who is going to pay when every Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese,Indonesian and heaven forbid African, gets a car.

We all are. We will pay less if that car they get runs on something other than fossil fuels.

[rushmc 18]

kallend

Meanwhile 97% of actual climate scientists disagree with him, along with the consensus of the National Academy of Sciences.

And the Bull Shit lie surfaces again

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[billvon 2,406]

>And the Bull Shit lie surfaces again

Again, feelings do not equal fact.

The fact is that >97% of active climate scientists agree with the tenets of AGW; this has been validated in at least four different studies. Almost every major science organization in the world agrees as well. You may not like how this makes you feel, but your feelings do not make it untrue.

[gowlerk 1,916]

rushmc

***


Meanwhile 97% of actual climate scientists disagree with him, along with the consensus of the National Academy of Sciences.

And the Bull Shit lie surfaces again


You keep on clinging to to this. As you watch the world pass you by. Sad.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[DJL 232]

I was doing hop and pops in Central Virginia in the middle of February wearing a T-shirt. I love CO2 and so should all of you!!

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[gowlerk 1,916]

DJL

I was doing hop and pops in Central Virginia in the middle of February wearing a T-shirt. I love CO2 and so should all of you!!

But how will you feel in July? ( I know, I keep pushing that "future" thing. I need to live in the moment more! )

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[DJL 232]

It's OK, brenthutch also said the combination of the greening affect and increased albedo because of increased snowfall will mean something something china conspiracy. It's on the internet, just have to poke around a little.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[airdvr 198]

Phil1111

***And here we go. I've said all along man made climate change might be real but we'll never do the things needed to have a real impact. There's just too much money involved.

Thats kind of where the rubber meets the road with regards to all this. Who is going to pay when every Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese,Indonesian and heaven forbid African, gets a car. Poor countries and industrial development can send pollution levels off the charts.

In the end a long journey starts with one step.

What should we do then? I read somewhere a while back that even if every fossil fueled vehicle in the US was taken off the roads it wouldn't have much of an effect.

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[DJL 232]

airdvr

******And here we go. I've said all along man made climate change might be real but we'll never do the things needed to have a real impact. There's just too much money involved.

Thats kind of where the rubber meets the road with regards to all this. Who is going to pay when every Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese,Indonesian and heaven forbid African, gets a car. Poor countries and industrial development can send pollution levels off the charts.

In the end a long journey starts with one step.

What should we do then? I read somewhere a while back that even if every fossil fueled vehicle in the US was taken off the roads it wouldn't have much of an effect.

And to touch on Africa, we haven't yet seen full-blown industrialization in any part of the continent and when we do you can bet-yet-ass it won't be clean unless there are serious global controls. The UN is working on something right now but they don't really have teeth.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[billvon 2,406]

>What should we do then?

Replace fossil fueled vehicles with alternatives - EV, PHEV, biofuels (sugar cane ethanol) biodiesel and natural gas.

Replace fossil fuel electrical generation with alternatives - solar, wind, nuclear and geothermal. Use natural gas in the interim since it is considerably lower carbon.

Install HVDC power transmission lines across the US. Support DC building power for data centers (at first) then commercial buildings and eventually homes.

Support the microgrid buildout in developing countries.

Support the research to enable all the above. Some examples are SIWG (smart inverters) the Smart Grid Regional Demonstration Initiative.

[gowlerk 1,916]

Quote

What should we do then? I read somewhere a while back that even if every fossil fueled vehicle in the US was taken off the roads it wouldn't have much of an effect.

While that may be true, it doesn't say much. It's commonly used as a excuse to do nothing. But the US automobile fleet, large as it is, is only a fraction of the CO2 sources. It is a worldwide effort and it involves far more than just cars. Transportation is only responsible for 22% of CO2 emissions worldwide. The biggest single thing that can be done now is being done. Less coal burning. Learn more here.

http://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/carbon-dioxide-emissions

That doesn't mean we don't need cleaner cars. But it does mean that are not the controlling factor. And that the task is not hopeless.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[Phil1111 913]

airdvr

******And here we go. I've said all along man made climate change might be real but we'll never do the things needed to have a real impact. There's just too much money involved.

Thats kind of where the rubber meets the road with regards to all this. Who is going to pay when every Indian, Pakistani, Vietnamese,Indonesian and heaven forbid African, gets a car. Poor countries and industrial development can send pollution levels off the charts.

In the end a long journey starts with one step.

What should we do then? I read somewhere a while back that even if every fossil fueled vehicle in the US was taken off the roads it wouldn't have much of an effect.

I personally just try to do my part without sweating the details. I was going to burn about a 1/2 acre bluff of trees but am going to chip the trees instead.