Fighting the new defeatism on climate change

The wind resource off the Mid-Atlantic coast could supply the energy needs of nine states from Massachusetts to North Carolina, plus the District of Columbia--with enough left over to support a 50 percent increase in future energy demand...

Wind resources in the waters of the Great Lakes are also extremely good.

The technology allows for storage of energy in chemical form overnight - eg Ammonia is fractionated to hydrogen and nitrogen and then recombined, the process releases energy for driving the turbines when the sun isn't shining.

Yet our Australian government is in bed with coal and uranium as it (not without justification from past and current economies) sees mining as the source of Australia's relatively easy wealth.  The PM, John Howard, says he doesn't believe in climate change alarmism and wants to "preserve Australia's natural economic advantages" (namely coal and uranium).  

But what is our biggest natural advantage if not sunshine?  Some of our best scientists certainly thinks so.

But these media guys are not looking for solutions.  For some reason they think global warming is political.   Some old people do suffer from dementia.  Let them go home and pull the bed covers over their heads.  The young can fix the global weirding problem.  Don't let these dim old farts get in the way.  Doing nothing is the stupidest thing I've heard yet.

Inherit the Wind

The Gulf Coast is littered with the carcasses of unused oil equipment. Now those structures are being repurposed to build the first offshore wind farm in the United States.

... Schellstede called Schoeffler, and they drew up a plan to bring offshore wind power to the oil patch. The key was to take advantage of existing oil-industry infrastructure. To save the expense of designing and building specialized offshore wind equipment, they would mount conventional windmills on decommissioned oil platforms. Hurricanes could be a problem, so they decided to outfit their windmills with hydraulic lifts scavenged from oil-industry machinery; the system would lower the turbines in the event of a squall.

WEST is convinced there is potential for 1,000 turbines to be installed on abandoned oil rigs in the Gulf, which would generate about 3,000 megawatts of energy. By comparison, the eleven TXU coal plants combined are projected to generate 9,000 megawatts of electricity.

What is going to happen?  Well the 2008-2012 milestones for the Kyoto Protocol come into effect, even though not ratified, and only a few dinky countries are going to be able to make a 7% reduction from the 1990 baseline.  The few countries that do meet the targets must do so by cooking the books.

This is important because 2012 is within our 5-year planning horizon.  And it bums me out.  I suppose I should feel better that some scientists are more hopeful in the long run, like 2050.

Yippee. Onward through the fog

LOL, you guys make me puke.

You can not, and should not do anything until y'all know what you are talking about.

So far on this site, and so many others, y'all are sheep following some delusion created by Big Oil with the help of client scientists.

STOP, and look squarely at the science and the observations.  Then instead of praying to the heavens, start examining the sea.

Chickens with their heads bitten off will never be able to be effective in their survival prospects.

for those newbies seehttp://www.omegafour.com/forum/

As I wrote in J'accuse! Distorting reality in "Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth", a piece discussing one of Samuelson's pieces last summer,

Samuelson's "Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth" has factual errors, misleading statements and conclusions, and provides a counterproductive path for thinking about and achieving change for a better future.

...

And, we all need to remember -- there is no magical silver bullet.  I agree with Samuelson that we must have a much stronger R&D program in energy issues.  I am in violent disagreement, however, that we should simply sit on our hands, watching the world decay around us, placing at risk the entire concept of a future for ourselves and future generations, with a blind hope that those research investments will come up with that non-existent silver bullet that will magically restore the world to pre-industrial age carbon dioxide levels and will bring back to life all the species that became extinct in the interim.

Robert J. Samuelson:  J'accuse! You are using your pulpit to mislead and deceive.  You seek to perpetuate the problem rather than solve it.

The Washington Post is Romancing the Skeptics. Its editorials, recently, are strong re Global Warming and the need for action. The reporters, in stories, all too often show an ignorance, quoted meteorologists telling us why GW is just natural phenomena, and they strive to balance their OPEDs and LTEs.  I had a LTE attacked Skeptics one Saturday, responding to a skeptics letter the week before. Soon afterwards, I open the letters section to see a BS LTE from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) attacking Gore.  

AHHH!!!!

Great Lakes floating wind/wave power platforms could power the northern midwest.  From far enough offshore so NIMBYs would not see them.

What I want to know is if HVDC (high voltage direct current, industry standard is 500,000 volts)power cables could bring all the power to where it is needed, underwater and buried underground.  With the wind/wave power systems supplying the HVDC directly.

I think that HVDC transmission lines can be buried, eliminating the overhead powerline NIMBYism.  The problem with burying AC transmission lines is capacitance losses to ground.  DC will not have that drawback.

Plus there is a possibility that by enhancing the capacitance effect, HVDC transmission lines can act as storage as well as transport power with very low losses.

Any actual utility engineers have any comments on these wild speculations?  Thanks.  Feel free to be brutally honest, I can take it.  Hehehey.http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

If you start it up, I think we will all join in.

Or I will later here and on my blog.  Gotta go for now.  http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

You'll hear the same basic message from Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson, Newsweek columnist George Will, and a number of other mandarins of center-right establishment opinion. >>

Fareed Zakaria does not deserve to be thrust into the Gloomosaurish company of Robert Samuelson and George Will.  That latter pair of mandarin ducks may quack away, along with FZ, from the pages of Newsweek; but they are a good bit further to the right than he.

FZ seems to have assessed the IPCC statement very reasonably.  He does not accept anything like a simple choice, to the effect of, "Either we mitigate or we adapt, but we cannot do both."  But in this essay, he emphasizes that certain dangerous consequences of global warming seem inevitable, because the out-of-balance GHGs are up there now in great quantities, and are not likely to go away any time soon.  Therefore it is prudent to get ready for trouble.  But I do not understand him to mean that attempts at mitigation ought not to be pursued.

I found the essay well-written and reasonable, as well as gratifying, since FZ has pretty much ignored global warming till now.Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

A megawatt is not a unit of energy..

Laurence Aurbach wrote: By comparison, the eleven TXU coal plants combined are projected to generate 9,000 megawatts of electricity.

A megawatt is a unit of power. If the coal plants operate at capacity factors of 70%, their energy production would be equivalent to that of 6,300 megawatts of power capacity operating all of the time.

If the 1,000 wind-mining plants operate at a combined capacity factor of 10%, their energy production would be equivalent to that of 300 megawatts of power capacity operating all of the time. Therefore, more than 20,000 wind-mining plants of 3-megawatt capacity would be needed to replace the 11 coal-fired plants..

Generally, the power capacity of coal-fired plants is more reliable than that of the wind-mining plants. More-reliable power is more-valuable power.

I agree with Dave that there is plenty we can do to prevent catastrophic climate change, and the two reports he mentions are examples of the potential out there. We need to adopt policies at all levels of government that get us on this track asap.

But we are already experiencing climate change impacts and will do so regardless of changes to our energy policy so we can't ignore preparations for those impacts. Besides much of what we should do to increase are preparedness has other environmental benefits, like restoring wetlands in coastal areas, limiting further development in the coast, better preparing for the inevitable droughts especially in the west and midwest, etc.

As with most things there is potential to use adaptation as an excuse for inaction or to build things that actually make things worse, like some levees I can think of on the Gulf Coast. But if you couple preparedness with a strong program to reduce emissions, I think you can avoid that. Sens. Kerry and Snowe have included language in their recently introduced global warming bill (S. 485) that would help communities assess their climate change vulnerabilities and better prepare for them. The major part of the bill is a cap and trade program, but by including some impact assessment in their bill they have struck a good balance.

Our major effort certainly needs to be intransforming our energy system, but we can't ignore preparation for impacts, especially when they have other environmental benefits as well. As Zakaria says in his final sentences: "Mitigation and adaptation complement each other. In both cases, the crucial need is to stop talking and start acting."

Scientists estimate that simply to keep greenhouse gases at their current levels, we would need to slash carbon-dioxide emissions by 60 percent.  Given current and foreseeable technology, that would require cutting back on industrial activity across the globe on a scale that would make the Great Depression look very small.

Nice comfortable safe routines will continue while the same rotting meat is available to the flies.  Remove the meat and the files will take risks to find something new.  Remove carbon from our economy and significant new industrial activity will occur creating new energy, not the cutting back on industrial activity prescribed by Zakaria.

Solar energy (and all its variants) is a global opportunity resource.  Invest in solar energy and use solar profits to help the global poor find new solar jobs and adapt to changing climates.   We are running out of precious time on mitigation.  We have more time to adapt than we have to mitigate.

Adaptation before mitigation is like "live and let die".

(The Pew Foundation was created from the family profits of Sun Oil.)

If the environmentalist position is simply a binary- zero CC or catastrophic CC- I think that gravely simplifies the issue and may do real harm. We need serious policies for mitigation, disaster relief, resettling of large populations, etc. that are likely to be needed EVEN IF we have a successful long-term framework.

I hope you and others can take a moment to realize this.

J.S.J.S. htt://voicesofreason.info

I completely support reduction in all air contaminants including CO2.  That said, most of my clients I work for are actually increasing their GHG inventories, since they are in fact burning more fuel.  It is very difficult to look the client in the eye, after they invested a few million smackers, and say "your GHG levels went up 2-3 percent last year" even though VOC, CO, NOx, PM, and SOx held steady or went down.

This is NOT being skeptical; it is telling the facts based on IPCC and EPA methods to measure the stuff.  If I had lied, I would be fried right out of the business.

Can we work on new technologies?  Sure, I am all for it.  I am not an R&D scientist or engineer, and to date little looks like a magic bullet, but I have the same hopes as anyone does.  Saying that we should turn off all the non-nuclear powerplants in the US so somebody might put up some solar and wind power units is ludicrous in the extreme though, wouldn't you agree?  /sammieOnward through the fog

So what is "global warming"?  Global Warming is a tax of the most sinister type.   It's a tax on the fact that the Sun is responsible for Heat.   What's next?   Will the bureaucrats and politicos start to tax us for the wind blowing things or the flowers blooming?

As far as "doing something"...there is nothing we can do or should do to stop it.   The environmental issues that have been there are no more nor less affected by natural climate change.  

Should we make cars that pollute less?  Sure -- but we need to concentrate on the really heinous gases like sulphur and radicals and stop worrying about vapor and CO2 that aren't as harmful.  

Should we use less energy, or use it more efficiently?   No one would argue with that...but that will come from the lab, not from a lot of people screaming.   I am heartened, for example, by recent improvements in fuel cell membranes, and by sonofusion.  What is that did you say?   See, it takes a lot of reading to understand science and where its going.  Screaming won't get you there.

But how about this:  How about planning for a better future?   Why does effort always have to be directed towards "fighting something bad"...how about getting ready and wanting to take advantage of all the great benefits of Global Heating?   How about thinking about a resource richer world with more free land, healthier crops, longer lives, more water, less pollution (because the solution is dilution), more energy, less use of fossil fuels (because it's hotter), more opportunities to capture and use the increased energy hitting the earth.

How about if "doing something" is less like standing there with a shield trying to fight it, and more like standing there with a bucket, trying to capture some of it?

The issue from the beginning has been a search for The Truth.   The Truth is what the real scientists are telling us.   The Truth is painful, as pet theories, suppositions, and human proposals will always be hit with a wall of Reality.

Reality is the Sun making the Earth hotter.The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.

Where did you come up with a 10% capacity factor for wind turbines? In Europe, offshore wind capacity factors are in the 25%-30% range.

I made an educated guess, based on the high-maintenance experiences of other offshore wind-mining ventures...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_Rev

...and also the fact that any power produced would be taxed directly by undersea transmission, and indirectly by the need to continuously draw power from the grid to service the mining machinery (thus reducing that mining-machinery's net power contribution to the grid).

Large wind turbines require a large amount of energy to operate. Other electricity plants generally use their own electricity, and the difference between the amount they generate and the amount delivered to the grid is readily determined. Wind plants, however, use electricity from the grid, which does not appear to be accounted for in their output figures.[...]It may be that each turbine consumes more than 50% of its rated capacity in its own operation.[...]Whatever the actual amount of consumption, it could seriously diminish any claim of providing a significant amount of energy.

Yes it is inevitable now...Don't worry, the seas will not rise much, soon they will fall.  

Your country will become dry as a bone and...

You thought sun tans were in, but soon ice blocks will be the rage.

and when industry has ground to a halt, the whole world will turn a whiter shade of pale..... but hey no one will be there to see such beauty.

and you though greenhouse gases were the bogeyman, think again

Oil is the horseman of the Apocalypse

I mean jeez, add up the power and energy used to get coal, natural gas, or oil to a conventional powerplant, start it up, and get it going.  For example, to start up a coal powerplant you might need a large generator bank of diesels, a natural gas boiler, and some rather massive blowing pumps, not to mention electrical power for the conveyor belts and all that upstream material stuff.  

Issues regarding grid control are three steps beyond the conventional wisedom, I would suspect, since when wind energy is needed it is routed just fine and when it is not, the rotors are idled and braked.  Why do people have to BS about things they don't know about?  

We're waiting on the technology on submerged tidal turbines as well, especially with regard to durability.  This too could be a major source of alternative power.  Since over 50% of Americans live within 50 or 100 miles of the coast and the tides are dependible a clockwork, this could be a great way to diversify the US power grid - and maybe complement the wind farms.

Just because a technology has massive failures in the beginning does not make it inherently bad.  I can recall the days when jet turbine aircraft were falling out of the sky like rocks (c. 1960's) but today it is safer than driving a car down the highway, statistically.  

One of the biggest threats to implementing wind turbines is a new move by the US Department of Defense, which claims that radar and perhaps the electromagnetic interference can compromise their security systems.  Interestingly, 15 proposed wind farms were blocked in the Mid-West for this very reason.  Go figure, but driving by any large electric transmission system with a satelite radio (such as XM) can and will make it sound horrible because of the interference.

But let's not shut down the discussion of wind power just because it has its own difficulties.  Onward through the fog

"And human activity appears to be one important cause."

He doesn't do anything direct with this observation, but it sets a certain tone of uncertainty.

That tone leads straight to ignoring the many immediate mitigation steps that can be taken and focuses on big-ticket items that will require major subsidies (to many of the same entities that caused the problem) and/or not have much immediate impact:

"I state these facts plainly not to induce fatalism or complacency. It's scandalous that we're not weaning ourselves off dirty fuels. Perfecting just two new (and almost workable) technologies--clean coal and hybrid cars--would be a giant leap forward. We could be experimenting with hundreds more technologies and techniques."

Everyone here has been exposed to all of these ideas so I won't go into detail, but I see the immediate mitigation steps as divided into two general categories:  One, things that are being done now that make the problem worse with every new federal budget (e.g., federal transportation policies that facilitate continued sprawl development, direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies) and the low-hanging fruit (e.g., CAFE, conversion to CFCs, a federal efficiency standard for new construction and to retrofit exisitng buildings).  These could all be law within a year and make a huge difference immediately, and Zakaria mentions none of them.  Indeed, that last sentence implies that nothing is ready for immediate implementation.

Then he emphasizes the contradiction:

"(Cairncross) points out that adaptation programs could move forward fast. Unlike plans to slow down global warming, which require massive and simultaneous international efforts, adaptation strategies can be pursued by individual countries, states, cities and localities."

I kind of wonder if that last point was really made by Cairncross rather than Zakaria, but it ignores some realities that are very much within Zakaria's foreign policy expertise:

Can a serious international regime to stabilize the climate be instituted without the U.S. being seen to implemment a serious mitigation program?  In a word, no.

What country will redirect its vast public/private national scientific research establishment toward developing new energy technologies so that, e.g., China and India have options that don't include massive dirty coal?  Er, sorry, for a moment I forgot that only one country actually has such a research establishment.  Hint:  It's not Bangladesh.

Speaking of Bangladesh, possibly the most cynical unstated conclusion in Zakaria's piece is to imagine that there will be significant help for Bangladesh and the other poor countries that will bear the brunt of climate change.  For them,  mitigation action now to keep the problem from getting worse is essential.  

In sum, I completely agree with Dave's concluding point, and think it applies just as much to Zakaria as the other two.  Zakaria's rhetoric was different, but the practical political upshot is the same.  

Wind-mining is especially susceptible to costs of all kinds since wind energy is especially diffuse..

phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter14.html

since winds are driven by forces generated by the sun's heat, wind power is often classified as solar energy[...]the energy in sunlight is spread so diffusely that we must collect it from large areas with correspondingly large collectors in order to obtain appreciable amounts of power.

My main objection is this: Scientists estimate that simply to keep greenhouse gases at their current levels, we would need to slash carbon-dioxide emissions by 60 percent.  Given current and foreseeable technology, that would require cutting back on industrial activity across the globe on a scale that would make the Great Depression look very small.That's just the core assumption he shares with Samuelson and Will, and it needs to be forcefully and repeatedly countered.

Also: I don't object to adaptation. It will happen regardless. But as Steve said, even if we can survive reasonably well with adaptation, does anyone think the world's developing countries are going to get aid sufficient to allow them to prepare? In today's political reality, focusing on adaptation is in keeping with the essential conservative message: we've got ours, screw everybody else.www.grist.org

Also, the developing countries are not hapless victims and they can work alongside other countries to build a better international framework for climate change mitigation.

J.S.J.S. htt://voicesofreason.info

Adaptation cannot happen without enough power capacity -- the latter something that some activists are lobbying to prevent the world from having..

David Roberts wrote: does anyone think the world's developing countries are going to get aid sufficient to allow them to prepare?

What would be the relevance of that? Please be explicit.

Have you considered that there might be a higher purpose to existence and growth than mere basking in comfort and pleasure? Wouldn't it be just as corrupt to act in coalition to mitigate -- rather than adapt to -- a climate challenge, as it would for a group of corporations to mitigate an economic challenge (via collective price-fixing, and other illegal trust practices, among companies that should be competing with each other)? Would baseball be quite the same if every team helped each other to all qualify for the World Series? (From each baseball team, according to its ability. To each baseball team, according to its need.)

Would you consider it adapting to the challenge of doing pull-ups if you gave yourself "sufficient aid" in the form of a bungee-cord-mounted pull-up bar that you could pull under your chin while keeping both your feet flat on the ground?

Regarding the ability of developing countries to drive international action on mitigation in the face of lack of leadership on the part of the U.S., China and India, I would have to say:  Are you kidding?  And do you think there is any chance that China and India can be persuaded to act without the U.S. leading?  If so, you're one of the more optimistic people I've run into lately.

This is a widely used talking point against wind power.  The  way to deal with it is to compare kwh produced instead of capacity factors.

There is a convenient graph on the  GE wind power site that provides the necessary data.

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/e ...

It's the "Average energy yield: 3.6 mw" graph.

Find the average windspeed for the area.   For example 8.5 m/s on an offshore platform in the gulf.  That would correspond to 12 million kwh for this 3.6 mw machine.

A 1.37 mw generator operating continuously for one year (8760 hours) would produce 12 million kwh.

A source that runs for 80% of the time, like a coal or nuclear plant (they have downtime for maintenance), would have to be somewhat larger, 1.71 mw.

So to equal the annual kwh output of a standard 1000 mw coal or nuclear plant would take 585 of these 3.6 mw GE machines mounted on the offshore platforms.

 1000 wind machines of this size would equal the output of 1700 mw of coal or nuclear generating capacity.

To get to the 3000 mw generating capacity that was mentioned in  Laurence's link would take slightly larger wind machines than the 3.6 mw GE model.  The blade diameter would need to go from the 104 meters of the 3.6 mw model to around 136 meters.

Not that diificult a task given mass production and installation.

Increasing the scale of the wind machines to around 312 meters  would  increase the power output to equal 25,000 mw of coal or nuclear generating capacity.  

Adding wave power could double that output.

Electric power equivalent to 50 nuclear reactors or coal plants from 1000 offshore wind/wave power installations.  It's sci-fi now, but it doesn't have to remain so.  Communications satelites were sci-fi a few decades back too.

Hurricane protection can be obtained by mounting the wind/wave power installations on floating platforms that are submersible during severe storm  conditions.

The whole electric generating capacity of the US is around 1 million mw.  That would take 20,000 wind/wave power systems of the 312 meter scale.

With conservation saving 40% of current power use, plugin vehicles could be supplied as well, with that same generating capacity.

A mix of offshore wind/wave power, say 5000 installations, and large scale wind on the great plains, say 10,000 units, biogas generation from manure,waste, and garbage used in fuel cell/turbines, and solar cogeneration on every suitable roof space and over parking lots, and natural gas from coal and tar sand reserves used in the same fuel cell/turbines as the fossil fuel emergency backup of last resort.  

I think it's becoming clear that this really is a practical way to go.http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

EliRabett tries cutely to discredit FZ.  But the link to the Huffington Post piece by Steve Clemons does nothing at all to support the Prophetic Lagomorph's sarcastic shot, that FZ had a hand in getting "the public" behind the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.  What Clemons writes about is a meeting in late November 2001, not long after 9/11, a time of unusual cooperation, organized by Donald Wolfowitz, the subject of which was what to do about Afghanistan and the Middle East -- nothing about Iraq specifically.  And FZ, a friend of Clemons, describes it as a "brain-storming" session, and is surprised that the proceedings were written up and presented as a unilinear policy recommendation.

Steve Bloom, who obviously has made a great personal commitment to the matter of coping with the climate crisis, for which he deserves great praise, writes this confusing passage:<<I see the immediate mitigation steps as divided into two general categories:  One, things that are being done now that make the problem worse with every new federal budget (e.g., federal transportation policies that facilitate continued sprawl development, direct and indirect fossil fuel subsidies) and the low-hanging fruit (e.g., CAFE, conversion to CFCs, a federal efficiency standard for new construction and to retrofit exisitng buildings).  These could all be law within a year and make a huge difference immediately, and Zakaria mentions none of them. >>This is mighty puzzling.  Did something syntactically significant get lost somewhere?  Anyway, I can make no sense of this.

As I suggested above, I agree that FZ has been presenting himself as a "Beltway Centrist," and that is regrettable.  And I join Steve in denouncing the limited political-mindedness of DC.  Nevertheless, I see no evidence that FZ shares the warm affection for big American capitalist interests of Grumposaur Samuelson and Mr. Bow-Tie Will.  FZ really wants to help, only he has not yet got himself free of his ambitions, and of DC seductions.

David Roberts, a master of rhetorical one-upmanship, whose blade of unapology is edged and polished nearly as keenly as that of W. himself, chooses to blockquote what I acknowledge is a very weak point in FZ's essay.

To give FZ the benefit of the doubt, we should say that the essay is necessarily brief, that he does not know too much yet about these issues, and that "given current and foreseeable technology" in fact suggests a conservatively tempered optimism.  Steve Bloom is extremely generous in assuming that all of us readers of Gristmill know all about the mitigation options.  I think it would also be generous to think that FZ must be as up-to-date, out-of-the-box, over-the-edge, as some of our more brilliant Gristmill correspondents.  This is not his field, you know; and I think he deserves a bit of pity, as he pedals hard to catch up.

DR last closed with this:<<I don't object to adaptation. It will happen regardless.>>That insousiance strikes me as remarkably "dangerous," to borrow from DR's vocabulary.  Of course, adaptation only makes sense if it is coordinated globally.  Within the US, Ana Unruh Cohen makes excellent recommendations.

DR again:<<But as Steve said, even if we can survive reasonably well with adaptation, ...>>Not to be too disgracefully alarmist, but I think a lot of us are expecting for some real tough times ahead.  "Surviving reasonably well" sounds rather like Dick Cheney's expectation of how the Iraqis would love us Americans, one and all, following the capture of Baghdad and the overthrow of Saddam.

DR again:<<... does anyone think the world's developing countries are going to get aid sufficient to allow them to prepare?>>OK, excellent point, but logically a later point in the discussion.  FZ and Steve Bloom have done well to refer to Bangladesh, among the poorest of the most vulnerable countries, with the largest population near sea level.  But then there are the other Southeast Asian countries, with deltas of rivers rising in the Himalayas, from Myanmar around to China.  And then there are the Pacific island countries.  And then there is Southern Nigeria.

The Dutch are in the same predicament, but seeing that they are among the richest people in the world, we should expect their solution to be spectacular.

Anyway, this is an excellent point, and must be kept high on the agenda.

Cf. the piece by Nicholas Kristof in today's NYTimes, praising Jimmy Carter for expanding the sense of what "human rights" includes.  Kristof is talking about horribly painful tropical diseases, caused by parasites, which are not that difficult to prevent and cure, once the poverty of their victims is overlooked.  Carter has done a great deal to help eliminate these diseases.  

So why should not "delivery of the world's poorest from effects of the climate crisis" be included among "human rights"?

DR again, finally, for now:<<In today's political reality, focusing on adaptation is in keeping with the essential conservative message: we've got ours, screw everybody else.>>OK, now this is a meta-sentence.  That is, the meaning of "adaptation" is secondarily narrowed, with prejudice in favor of some and at the disadvantage of others.

I entirely agree with DR, of course, in deploring the "conservative message."  But I am not so cynical as to suspect that that is what FZ is secretly preaching.Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

In today's political reality, focusing on adaptation is in keeping with the essential conservative message: we've got ours, screw everybody else.

So lets see if I have this straight:

Those of us calling for rich countries to invest more money in adaptation are in fact contributing to the political agenda of those who say "screw everybody else"?  Right, that makes sense.  It seems to me that Dave Roberts and his conservative straightmen are the ones who agree that we should not be investing in adaptation.

Pretty ironic in a post about defeatism. They surely won't get any aid with defeatists simply giving up on the billions of people around the world who are suffering today.  But it is a lost cause anyway, eh, Dave?  Lets talk about Republicans instead! ;-)

Note: Tongue firmly in cheek in the above, but there is a message too.

One billion poor suffer from neglected diseases: WHO

Last Updated: 2007-02-14 9:44:10 -0400 (Reuters Health)

JAKARTA (Reuters) - One billion people in tropical countries are still suffering from debilitating and disfiguring diseases associated with poverty, but many remain untreated due to official neglect, health officials said on Wednesday.

Despite the existence of inexpensive and safe treatment, those who suffer from diseases such as leprosy, elephantiasis and yaws remain untreated due to a lack of resources and political will, said Jai Narain, South East Asia director of communicable diseases at the World Health Organization (WHO).

"These tropical diseases have been neglected by policy makers, by the research community and also by the international community," Nairan told a news conference at the start of an international meeting to tackle tropical diseases.

I'd suggest that we should be doing more for these folks, but Dave Roberts might then accuse me of giving aid and comfort to the true enemy, which is of course not unconscionable poverty, but U.S. conservatives! ;-)

You could feed, clothe, house, and medicate everyone in poverty, but without those rights, the rise in population will make it physically impossible to continue.  It's the power of compound growth.

Besides the libertarian corporate freemarketeer political faction is more interested in killing as many people in poverty with wars over oil and other resources than really helping them.

The sudden interest in the well being of those in the under developed world is really all about that infamous talking point.  Your comment being simply a repitition of it.  It's we environmentalists that are killing the poverty stricken by opposing unlimited growth, pollution, use of toxins like DDT, chemical agribizz, nuclear power, unregulated corporate power, genetically engineered crops, and all of your other pet causes?  Right?http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I'm all for empowering women, it should be center in any adaptation agenda.  But you lost me with this:

It's we environmentalists that are killing the poverty stricken by opposing unlimited growth, pollution, use of toxins like DDT, chemical agribizz, nuclear power, unregulated corporate power, genetically engineered crops, and all of your other pet causes?  Right?

Where in the world do you come up with that nonsense?  It seems common practice on this site to argue by completely misrepresenting other people's views . . .

Roger Pielke, Jr.University of Colorado

Amen, Roger, amen!

Afew have done that to me on forest management issues, as well as still blaming us foresters for stuff that happened DECADES ago. Luckily, people learn......eventually. And then, they have to deal with their conscience. Otherwise, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. All I can do is continue to do my job, using science, sweat and an artistic eye, to the same excellence I've been doing for 20 years, learning each and every year.

Lurk Mode=/ONScenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com

Its one of the most popular talking points from the anti-environmental side.  You never heard of it?  Or used it?

Well that would be very different then.

All the corporate kissup libertarians are using it.  They blame liberal environmentalists for killing the poor by opposing growth.  Evidently our attempt to ban DDT alone is tantamount to genocide, according to the foxnews, talk radio crowd.

Are you shunning those good folk in terms of political philosophy?  Good for you.

"Why don't you get with the program and come on in for the win with us?"  (To paraphrase "Full Metal Jacket")http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Any scientist has to be skeptical about any thesis, so I guess that one hit home a little close.  We don't accept urban myths, bloggy knowledge, or political panhandling.  So far, the overwhelming evidence is that global warming is indeed factual, and if there are skeptical scientists, it concerns hurricane intensity, the Atlantic Oscillation, and impacts from aerosol (just three items from the top of my head).  This is a healthy discussion and by no means do any one or a combination negate the central tenets of the global warming phenomena.

As I mentioned earlier, there seemed to be some prevailing wisedom (my aluminum hat is all a-twitter now) that our civilization can radically change from fossil fuels to renewable, nuclear, or solar power as if overnight.  Such profound changes take years if not decades, and it is doubtful that a single cathartic moment such as "peak oil" would trigger such a revolution.  My suspicion is that the smarter planners would diversify, diversify, and then diversify again, the European model.

Special handouts such as the recent Energy Bill to prop up the cost of ethanol fuel production is a case where many scientists remain doubtful.  Indeed, most the the ethanol production will go into use as an oxygenate for regular old gasoline, called E10 (10% by volume).  That is mainly because cheaper MTBE was proven to cause underground pollution from years of leaks.  True, some vehicles may be produced to run on E85, but the majority is simply a gasoline additive similar to octane boosters, de-hazers, detergents, and anti-knock compounds.  

It's the gasoline, stupid!

Well that's not diversification in my mind.  In fact, E10 blends raise VOC-related ozone formation potential and is not clear as to any benefite for reduction of CO2, as it is quite marginal at best.  One of the problems we have is that people tend to think that a new fuel can solve all out ptoblems, when in fact it is how the fuel is used to convert BTU content into power.  That is why CNG engines can actually make more aerosol than diesel engines, or why E10 can cause more air pollution than using an ether-based oxygenate.  

Finally, many of the improvements to cleaning up the exhausts from industrial and transportation fuels has actually lowered fuel economy and increased fuel consumption on a per-gallon basis.  That's right, the new diesel engine standards come along with a fuel penalty of 1-5%.  Folks, this is the WRONG DIRECTION, since CO2 emissions are a function of carbon mass balance.  Peace,/SammieOnward through the fog

Internal combustion in cars is 14% efficient.  Fuel cell/microturbines are 75% efficient.  Plugin serial hybrids using these fuel cells could reduce fuel use to 10% of present levels.

Wind, solar, and water power use no fuel.  Biogas digestion of waste and manure to generate electricity  using  fuel cells eliminates nitrogen runoff that causes huge releases of methane from wetland carbon sinks.  And provides organic fertilizer that can turn cropland into carbon sequestering organic farms.

The biogas fuel cells provide backup power for wind. solar, and water power.http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Next question:  would the country change its air pollution abatement policies to put GHG on top of ozone and particulate regulations?  That is a tough nut to crack.  What think ye?

/sammieOnward through the fog

A 25% growth of PV per year, as happened from 1979 through 2000, until Bush crowd took over, projected into the future shows three FREEDOM DAYS.

A 19% price decrease every time the installed PV base doubles, as happed from 1979 through 2000, until the Bush crowd took over, shows the price of each FREEDOM DAY. Doubling occurs every 3 years at 25% compounded annual growth.

Spreadsheets are online to provide the details of the increases and decreases from any arbitrary price point chosen by changing the master price cell.

http://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/scenario_2b.htmlhttp://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/scenario_2b.sxchttp://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/scenario_2b.xls

FREEDOM DAY #1 is the date that the PV watts installed equals the whole country consumption of electricity. Other sources are still needed for off-hours power.

FREEDOM DAY #2 is the date that the PV doubles and the extra PV goes to storing energy at 50% round trip efficiency or better, like power is now stored in pumped reservoirs at 50% efficiency electricity to electricity round trip.

FREEDOM DAY #3 is the date when PV surplus is sufficient to power all electricity and make hydrogen sufficient to fuel all 200,000,000 cars and light trucks in America.

THE COST OF NOTHING is also computed. This is the costs of paying for electricity at the meter forever and ever, changing NOTHING, doing NOTHING.

http://hydrogentruth.info/page_4a2.htmlFreedom Day

http://hydrogentruth.info/page_4a3.htmlThe Cost of Nothing

DO THE MATH$10,667,790,000,000     Utility Bills-$10,031,886,000,000     H2-PV========$635,904,000,000     H2-PV Savings

That's $635,904,000,000(BILLION with a B)

Do it YOUR WAY, Nothing, and spend $10.668 TRILLION, just get electricity and more bills every month forever.

Do it the H2-PV RIGHT WAY and get all your electricity and all your car fill-ups, plus save $635 BILLION for other things. Only pay $200 per person once every 20 years thereafter for replacement PV.

http://hydrogentruth.info/Villains/Debunking_Robert_Zubri ...

Store 10,000,000,000 kilograms of Hydrogen in a nationwide pipeline grid by just increasing the pressure one atmosphere (14.5 psi).

http://hydrogentruth.info/page_07a.htmlHydrogen Pipelines

More spreadsheets:http://hydrogentruth.info/spreadsheets/http:ecosyn.us PALACES for the People, H2-PV, PV-Breeders acres of PV, tons of Hydrogen

As an alternative I believe the better approach is to convert existing AC lines to DC.  The worst transmission areas in the USA is in the New York to Washington DC area and Southern California.  Studies are underway to determine how to best address these transmission needs, however, no one seems to be looking at DC with a serious eye.

I think DC should be considered.

In any case, federal regulations require that wind generators use FERC accounting standards and EIA requires that energy reporting be according to uniform standards.  Failure to report such energy production is now subject to regulatory fines and even criminal charges under the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Wind generation output is that electrical output after all auxilary loads and waving shaping losses are taken into account.  I am very familar with the energy metering associated with power plants including wind farms.

Imagine a conductor in the form of a thin sheet instead of a cable.  The sheet rolled up like a capacitor is, with a sheet connected to ground, and a nanotech insulating layer between them that could withstand 500,000 volts.  A supercapacitor 1000s of miles long, that doubles as a conductor.

Yep sammie,amazin' is ok.  Better than some nicks.http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

 Things government does to make things worse:  A major example is federal policy on highway construction, which allows (and effectively encourages) continued sprawl development by approving "congestion relief" projects that make long-distance car commuting more feasible.  Another example is direct fossil fuel subsidies.

I am extremely suspicious of the motives of those who discuss policy in terms of long-term adaptation steps while skipping over the low-hanging mitigation fruit.   

Let's ask world industry take the challenge. For example, there is a compressed air technology for automobiles. Let's see Detroit, China, Germany hop on that opportunity!

Information on the Air Car (which does not seem to be in production yet-- but might be with a little competition beating down the door): http://www.theaircar.com/

In short, a dollar short and a day late.

Sure, the discussion of new technology is way-cool, but anything short of a 200 billion dollar program, less than we've spent on the Battle of Iraq, sure would have been a good start.  [Imagine if we had a tillion dollars with all the current and requested funding, direct and indirect, for the so-called "war on terrorism."]

So if you see if in those terms, we've already blown our proverbial "national credit card" way over limit aleady, and simply don't have an extra fraction of a trillion bucks to spend on fighting global warming and greenhouse gases.

So the next logical thing is to impose a carbon tax on consumers.  Great, there goes the great middle class, an endangered species, and if you think that Big Industry is going to pay these nice VAT-like carbon taxes out of their profit because they are nice corporate citizens, well, that just isn't going to happen.  

So in one sense, we're whupped, beat, and stomped; we lost.  Show me the money, is what I say.  The only thing I know if that if Halliburton and KBR end up the the contract to collect a carbon-based value added tax there would probably be rioting in the streets.  Maybe that is the cathartic moment we really need.  /sammieOnward through the fog