Let's Pretend AGW is a Thing

a reply to: TheRedneck

I find it interesting that all of your ideas (which do sound practical) are beyond the ability of individuals to implement. The only people who have the power to implement them are those who are crying for taxation and doing nothing else.

Bingo was his name.

They aren't looking to fix the problem they are looking to make money on it. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

They are automatically jumping on things that punish the middle class (carbon tax) and not things that could help the middle class and help AGW as well.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: interupt42

I find it interesting that all of your ideas (which do sound practical) are beyond the ability of individuals to implement. The only people who have the power to implement them are those who are crying for taxation and doing nothing else.

Personally, I hate the cold. Al Gore promised me Global Warming, and I expect him to follow through!

TheRedneck

climate change due to global warming doesn't mean it gets warmer everywhere. In fact, some areas will see dramatic cooling due to changes in the ocean currents

a reply to: syrinx high priest

I'm pretty sure he was making a Funny.

I think something nearly everyone can get behind is simply coming up with the most advanced technology we imagine, coupled with creative and clever implementation.

Hell, we could even stop arguing about whether or not AGW exists altogether and instead discuss all the cool inventions, and methods to implement them.

Honestly seems pretty simple to me, but I'm silly enough to also feel that both sides should find "solving" this with taxes and increased costs completely ridiculous.

Seems like one of them there division tactics when there are actual solutions that everyone can not only support, but actually get excited about and participate!

Who cares if one person does it to "save the world," and the other just because "its cool stuff?"

No need to convert everyone to the same religion at the cost of actually making a difference, eh?

One way to reduce energy use dramatically is converting to LED lighting. Not just those expensive direct bulb replacements either. Getting some LED strips, some wire, a power supply, and some switches is a really fun project and since it is low voltage, safety concerns are minimal.

It can be a ton of fun finding all kinds of ways to use the strips, since most can be cut down to an inch or two. Pretty extreme customization options

Proper lighting: Saving your eyes, shins, and the whole world at the same time!

originally posted by: Greven
The only thing that can truly be done about it is to immediately stop emitting greenhouse gases.

All in favor of hundreds of millions of deaths say Aye!

a reply to: interupt42

Personally, I simply do not believe the hype, but even if I did, I would expect more from our leaders than a tax. I would expect them to embrace CO2 scrubber technology instead of ignoring (or defunding and burying) it. I would expect them to consider plans to use plant life to absorb the extra carbon dioxide instead of pooh-poohing it. I would expect them to open the floodgates for research into alternate energy development instead of pouring all the cash into trying to 'prove' Global Warming exists. I would expect them to lead by example, not by demands and mandates.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Anthropogenic Global Warming.

TheRedneck

a reply to: syrinx high priest

Well, that's sort of obvious. If it gets colder, it has to be a sure sign of too much heat.

Not.

TheRedneck

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: interupt42

Personally, I simply do not believe the hype, but even if I did, I would expect more from our leaders than a tax. I would expect them to embrace CO2 scrubber technology instead of ignoring (or defunding and burying) it. I would expect them to consider plans to use plant life to absorb the extra carbon dioxide instead of pooh-poohing it. I would expect them to open the floodgates for research into alternate energy development instead of pouring all the cash into trying to 'prove' Global Warming exists. I would expect them to lead by example, not by demands and mandates.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Anthropogenic Global Warming.

TheRedneck

Agreed and that is why you can't blame people for not believing in AGW as a real thing even if it is. The hypocrisy and the conflict of interest are to great to be overlooked by the masses.

a reply to: Serdgiam

One way to reduce energy use dramatically is converting to LED lighting.

That's one step I have already taken. Both my house and shop are 100% LED now.

The CFLs were a poor substitute, especially for me. They put out poor quality light, dim with age, and the high frequency ballasts put off EM fields that can build up static fields and damage sensitive electronics (especially CMOS, which I work with a lot). LEDs are just as efficient, do not significantly dim with age, contain no mercury, are almost unbreakable, and will probably outlast CFLs. I started replacing bulbs as soon as they hit $5, and finished up with some on sale for $2.50 each.

I don't need Global Warming to see a good deal. The bulbs save me money and give me just as good light as incandescent. Done deal.

The bulbs are just about as efficient as low-voltage lighting, BTW. The regulators built into them are seriously efficient.

TheRedneck

a reply to: ColdWisdom

Despite being told repeatedly that the science is settled on AGW, no one on the side of AGW can actually explain the casual efficacy that we have over our planet.

Assuming that you mean 'causal effect', the answer is "Anthropogenic Climate Change".

AGW causes Anthropogenic Climate Change.

The resources available to you via the internet to explain Anthropogenic Climate Change are almost endless.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Yup, my whole point is that its a step that anyone can take, benefit from it, and some might even find it pretty cool and adopt some new hobbies. And one person moving to LED probably has orders of magnitude more impact than some vague tax that will be spent on vague things based on a premise not everyone agrees on. We don't need to agree on anything in regards to AGW to take such steps, or even get excited about 'em.

I wasn't arguing about efficiency in regards to the bulbs. Its more about cost (though the bulbs have become much more comparable in the last couple years), "safety," and.. lets call it creative opportunities. A 5m strip can be had for $5-$10, allows an inexperienced user to only have a single node of exposure to mains voltage, and can be cut, shaped, and placed anywhere imaginable.

A bulb just gets plopped into a socket. Boring! Its like I'm paying for the privilege of less customization

Truth be told, I don't really have any issue with them and even use them in some of my installations, I just prefer the other options.

When you can wire an average to smaller size house with LEDs for under $100, its hard to argue against it. My own uses an average of 43w, and you can't actually see a single light source outside of my workbench (which I find cool in the geekiest way). I probably could have gotten clever there.. but stuff like SMDs need light.

Anyway, getting back on topic, I think these are the things we can spend time discussing instead of trying to convert others to one side of AGW or the other. Sure, the motivations behind things might differ, but is that so important that we should focus on it instead of helping each other adopt new tech that is "agnostic?"

a reply to: Metallicus

So, let's pretend that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a thing for a moment. I have a question for all of you true believers out there...what do you propose to do about it? What do you want ME to do about it?

The simple answer is that there is nothing you can do to stop it. The damage that has already been done has been done and no matter what we do TODAY cannot stop the effects being felt for the next several hundred years minimum.

The more robust answer involves mitigating the damage, keeping it as small as possible. Had we gotten to work on this back in the 80's when the problem was first pointed out, we could have kept it to a minimum that would have been much easier to live with and would have quite possibly paid for itself just through the efficiencies of day to day living.

So the whole point of all these carbon reduction targets is 'harm minimization'. The longer we take to implement them and the lower the challenges we set for ourselves means worse conditions for our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.

It is impossible to roll back the damage, and it is too late to prevent a lot of damage. That CO2 will stay in the atmosphere for a LOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG time.

The story of life on earth is 3.5 to 4 billion years of sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere. Life converted the 'original' methane atmosphere to the current nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. That is what a tree does, for example, and why some people get 'carbon credits' for planting trees (of course other people just cut or burn down 10 time as many trees so it just continues to get worse).

Humans are putting a big chunk of that carbon right back into the atmosphere in a few centuries. It is simply not credible that that cannot have a detrimental effect on all life on the planet.

a reply to: rnaa

Humans are putting a big chunk of that carbon right back into the atmosphere in a few centuries. It is simply not credible that that cannot have a detrimental effect on all life on the planet.

It's not all detrimental, stop being so alarmist.
The C02 fertilization effect is leading to increased biomass on planet earth, crop yields are up.
Amongst the benefits of global warming include: fewer winter deaths; better agricultural yields; probably fewer droughts; maybe richer biodiversity. It is a little-known fact that winter deaths exceed summer deaths

a reply to: Serdgiam

And one person moving to LED probably has orders of magnitude more impact than some vague tax that will be spent on vague things based on a premise not everyone agrees on.

In fact, that is incorrect. Personal efficiencies are magnificent, but they do not make up for inefficiencies in the rest of the economy.

The Australian Cap and Trade Scheme (which the opposition called a 'Carbon Tax' at the time but now admit was never any such thing, but just a political tag that they could use as a sledge hammer) was in effect for just over 3 years I believe, before the polluters got it shut off. It was just starting to get some traction, industries of all kinds, auto plants, timber mills, aluminum smelters, mines, shops, everything, even electricity generators were being encouraged to reduce their carbon foot print and they were doing so at a great rate of knots due to market pressure (though it had its issues, for example an unrealistic price on carbon to begin with).

It takes more than 3 years to transform an economy like that however, and as soon as the scheme was shut down, progress halted as if it ran into a brick wall. Its funny, 'conservative' governments usually like to let market forces make changes to the economy, which is exactly what the Cap and Trade Scheme was designed to do, but they shut it down to replace it with something they call "direct action" which is nothing more than big government corporate welfare using taxpayer dollars to pay big polluters to continue polluting. The mind boggles.

a reply to: rnaa

It is impossible to roll back the damage, and it is too late to prevent a lot of damage. That CO2 will stay in the atmosphere for a LOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG time.

It becomes part of the carbon cycle, gets taken up by photosynthesis and turned into biomass. I don't understand you saying it stays in the atmosphere for a long time, please explain.

a reply to: rnaa

It was hyperbole. I was hoping the language used would make that clear, but.. c'est la vie. Of course, that one remark is nearly irrelevant to the overall point being made.

Would you rather be "right" or work towards widespread changes that individuals with a plethora of motivations can participate?

Its easy to say one is for the latter, but actions make it more clear than any statement on the subject. If all the time, effort, and resources were spent on encouraging that rather than attempting to convert, I'd be willing to bet we'd make more headway in six months than any AGW-centric attempts at simply changing peoples minds.

This, of course, making the assumption you have already taken all these steps yourself. One person may not individually make a massive impact, but those nickels and dimes add up quite quickly.

LEDs are a good, basic first step. But, we can also do things like use 3d printers to help build alternative energy systems. Even just scrap sheet metal can be formed into rather effective, small footprint windmills (like the Archimedes). As you probably know, each part of such a system greatly enables further efficiency.

You can even salvage 18650s in order to build small (and even large) battery banks. These are normally things that just get thrown away.

I'd love to hear what you have done! It might give me (and others) some new ideas, and the reverse might be true too.

a reply to: Metallicus


Ummm...who the eff cares...we're all going to be exterminated anyway...Our AI and robotic overlords sure as hell won't have any use for breathable atmosphere or waves of grain...They'll just nuke the planet and use the radioactive hot spots as energy sumps...

So...globally warm...hot...or cold...matters not a whit...

Besides...sapience seems to have a built in species suicide trigger...might as well chillax as that none too distant day rolls round...we might even get to see that final demise in our lifetime...




YouSir

a reply to: D8Tee

It's not all detrimental, stop being so alarmist.


I did not say it was all detrimental, stop putting words in my mouth. But anything good is going to be completely swamped by the bad stuff.

The C02 fertilization effect is leading to increased biomass on planet earth

Any such CO2 driven biomass increase is more than compensated by the land clearing. Deserts are expanding not shrinking.

, crop yields are up.

That depends on what you mean by 'yield'. Crop vegetation may indeed be increased by the presence of high concentrations of CO2, but the nutritional value of those crops is actually lowered. You will have to eat much more to get the same benefit. On balance it is a lose - lose situation.

Amongst the benefits of global warming include: fewer winter deaths;

So you think that freezing blizzards are going to disappear because the average global temperature goes up by, say 2 degrees? That is such a absurd idea that it borders on the moronic. More energy in the atmosphere (i.e. a warmer atmosphere) means more energy in storms - whether winter storms or summer storms. Winter storms will, on average be colder and more deadly, cyclones and hurricanes will, on average be stronger and contain lower low pressure centers.

better agricultural yields;

Completely false for the reason cited above: greater mass, but lower nutritional value. Also floods and droughts are not helpful for maintaining consistent agricultural yields.

probably fewer droughts;

Completely false. Droughts are already increasing both in frequency and severity.

maybe richer biodiversity.

That is a completely silly idea. Biodiversity is crashing and the main cause is loss of habitat. How is accelerating the loss of habitat by coastal flooding, human migrations, and other reactions to climate change going to reverse the downward trend of biodiversity?

It is a little-known fact that winter deaths exceed summer deaths

And fewer people realize that the 'excess' winter deaths occur more in balmy Australia than in freezing Sweden. It isn't the cold per se that is the culprit, it is the preparedness for the cold. Swedes expect the cold and deal with it, Queenslanders don't think it exists.

originally posted by: D8Tee
a reply to: rnaa

Humans are putting a big chunk of that carbon right back into the atmosphere in a few centuries. It is simply not credible that that cannot have a detrimental effect on all life on the planet.

It's not all detrimental, stop being so alarmist.
The C02 fertilization effect is leading to increased biomass on planet earth, crop yields are up.
Amongst the benefits of global warming include: fewer winter deaths; better agricultural yields; probably fewer droughts; maybe richer biodiversity. It is a little-known fact that winter deaths exceed summer deaths

It will also lead to more intense and frequent heat waves, regional changes in floods, droughts wildfires, an overall increase of extreme weather events.

Global warming is awesome.

a reply to: Serdgiam

Haha, you sound a lot like me... I tend to think way outside that box as well, and yeah, there's no limit to customization using discrete components or even the prefabbed strips. I would love to see what you've come up with.

My 'holy grail' is to completely remove all incoming power lines from my property, without giving up the conveniences of being able to plug the latest gizmo in and let it run. If I were building a new structure, I might consider low-voltage lighting, but it can be a major pain to rewire something that is already there. The upside for me is that a lighting system running on, say, 12 or 24 volts is much simpler to power: solar cells on the roof, a wind turbine, even a water wheel all become reasonable when the desired output is low-voltage DC.

A classmate of mine has a large pond on his property fed by a small spring. We're talking about doing exactly what you are talking about: lighting the whole thing at night using discrete LEDs powered by a lead-acid battery (or maybe a li-ion bank) charged by a water wheel. The numbers work, and the results would be awesome.

Incidentally, you might want to look at a couple of surplus dealers I use regularly: All Electronics and Electronic Goldmine. You can find some awesome deals if you look regularly, especially on higher-cost components like high-power LEDs, transformers, solar cells, rechargeables, etc. I use them all the time.

I firmly believe that it's going to take a combination of power generation technology and optimization to accomplish my goal, but just imagine if every home could be economically retrofitted to operate electrically independently. The lowering of electric rates from the surplus, the lack of widespread blackouts, and the removal of all those ugly wires, and the reduced decency on fossil fuels would be wonderful...

And no tax involved.

TheRedneck