• Welcome, guest!

    This is a forum devoted to discussion of Wolverhampton Wanderers.
    Why not sign up and contribute? Registered members get a fully ad-free experience!

Climate Change Debate

Visage said:
Your message is all over the shop - you've repeatedly said that CO2 is just a trace element, yet now you're saying we should be concerned about how much of it India and China are emitting?

SO lets see if you can give a simple answer to a simple question: Do atmospheric CO2 levels affect global temperature or not?
Click to expand...

To some point carbon dioxide is an influence but the extent of that is highly dependent on feedbacks to water vapour, the sign and magnitude of which is speculative excluding all other climate drivers. The initial state of the models is likely inaccurate and due to error within the models the compound effects likely have wide errors in them. I do a lot of modeling myself but I know the limitations unlike some people I know. Verify by empirical evidence.
 
Right. So you concede that CO2 increases are manmade, and CO2 influences temperature.

Im glad we managed this before we reached the thousandth post in the thread.
 
Unfortunately now, we've waited too long to be able to do anything about it in a time frame that would have any short term benefit. The positive feedback loops from things like land-bourne glacial melting and ocean warming are already too far gone to stop them. Or at least stop them having negative effects on things like rising ocean levels or ocean salinity/acidity which is already having a harmful effect on sealife populations.

Just look at something like the Great Barrier Reef which continues to reduce at an alarming rate. Though admittedly continued waste dumpage can account for some of that.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
To some point carbon dioxide is an influence but the extent of that is highly dependent on feedbacks to water vapour, the sign and magnitude of which is speculative excluding all other climate drivers. The initial state of the models is likely inaccurate and due to error within the models the compound effects likely have wide errors in them. I do a lot of modeling myself but I know the limitations unlike some people I know. Verify but empirical evidence.
Click to expand...

Oh, and on water vapour.

Water vapour in the atmosphere is almost entirely natural - the normal consequence of evaporation and precipitation as we all learned about at school. Theres not much mankind can do about it directly. The problem is that CO2 amplifies the effect - warmer air causes more evaporation, causing more warming. But wheras water vapour changes on an hour by hour basis, atmospheric CO2 hangs around for literally centuries.
 
So Long Architect said:
Thankfully for mankind, the Institution of Engineering and Technology seems to have signed up to the consensus too. So much so that they're doing all they can to help out:

http://www.theiet.org/policy/collaboration/etf/infrastructure.cfm
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...ata/file/183536/infrastructure-rae-report.pdf

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers seems to be on board too - http://www.imeche.org/knowledge/the...-change/mitigation-adaptation-geo-engineering

And here's one of those mythical beasts, rarer than unicorns, a climatologist - http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/about-the-department/people/academic-staff/mark-maslin

And here's the same "climatologist" (yeah, like that's a real thing!) trying to talk sense into reticent engineers - http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2014/04/interview-mark-maslin.cfm


And yes, quiet day.
Click to expand...

My interpretation is that the IET is very arms length, there is plenty of debate within the membership at least. The editor of E&T seems to have his own agenda, frequently writing nonsense. Hydraulic fracturing and nuclear power are well supported within the organisation. Perhaps I have to better scrutinse the candidates the next time I vote for officers.
 
Visage said:
Oh, and on water vapour.

Water vapour in the atmosphere is almost entirely natural - the normal consequence of evaporation and precipitation as we all learned about at school. Theres not much mankind can do about it directly. The problem is that CO2 amplifies the effect - warmer air causes more evaporation, causing more warming. But wheras water vapour changes on an hour by hour basis, atmospheric CO2 hangs around for literally centuries.
Click to expand...

An assumption used in models. Water vapour dominates over the globe though will vary significantly locally. You likely have to consider whether the oceans net source or sink carbon dioxide.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
My interpretation is that the IET is very arms length, there is plenty of debate within the membership at least. The editor of E&T seems to have his own agenda, frequently writing nonsense. Hydraulic fracturing and nuclear power are well supported within the organisation. Perhaps I have to better scrutinse the candidates the next time I vote for officers.
Click to expand...

So I can't even rely on engineers any more? What is wrong with this world?
 
Visage said:
Right. So you concede that CO2 increases are manmade, and CO2 influences temperature.

Im glad we managed this before we reached the thousandth post in the thread.
Click to expand...

Carbon dioxide is one of many influences, likely a small one due to its low concentration and a logarithmic radiative effect with concentration.
 
HAzelGroveWolf said:
I think you are looking for certainty which I don't think you can get from a complex, chaotic, non-linear system. An engineer exploits what is known, exploiting incrementaly.
Click to expand...

No! I was looking for certainty from you and your brave rag-tag band of engineers, as you valiantly fight against the global conspiracy of science, governments and other people more stupid than yourselves. And now... Well... Now you tell me that you are split! Divided! Riven by in-fighting and agendas, some of you even known to "write nonsense"!

Your own institute - which you implied didn't appear on such a discredited list of scientiific organisations because it's way too rad and cool for that shit - it now appears.... well, I can hardly credit it... It's been colluding in the conspiracy to mitigate the effects of climate change. For shame!
 
I've had a look with regard to the IET - certainly there has been a policy shift that I hadn't picked up on with regard to energy (reminder not to work from memory and assume status quo). That needs reighing in. There is plenty of debate within the membership not least for this venture into politics:

http://www.theiet.org/policy/election2015/energy.cfm

From the forum:
Whateverengineers believe or claim to know about the effect CO2 and other greenhousegases is having on the climate, we definitely do know one thing...

...the the UK has committed itself in the 2008 Climate Change Act to a 2050 target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions (mostly CO2) by at least 80% from 1990 levels. If you include the expected UK population increase from 1990 to 2050 (i.e from around 57 million to 77 million)the per capita reduction works out at an eye watering 86% per capita reduction over this same time period.

86% per capita reduction in UK CO2 emissionsby 2050

UK Per capita GHG emissions (mostly CO2) in 1990 were around 14 tonnes.By 2050 according to UK law they will likely have to be under 2 tonnes per capita.

At these emission levels the law will not allow us to run a gas grid based on fossil fuels anymore, that is why DECC have secret plans in placeto decommission the gas grid at sometime before 2050.

The average house heated by natural gas in the UKemits around3.4 tonnes CO2 per year.The minimum for a well insulated 1930's solid walled house is probably a little less than 2 tonnes CO2per year.Civili Servants realise thatthey have toshutdown the gas grid,and thus effectivelyban the use offossil methane to heat homes to have any chance of meeting the legal targets we now have in place. They have no idea what else to do other than subsidise costly alternatives.Politicians and civil servants arefinding outit is mucheasier to relocate whole industries offshore, as well as destroy andbanthe businesses that remain here,than to build up new cost effective energytechnologies and associatedindustrial supply chains.

So far we've collectively spent7 years (from 2008) achieving very little apart from living with recession and bogus currency warfed growth. We havecontinued theprocessexporting our longstandingheavy energy intensive industries to China and elsewhere. According to the dodgy accounting rules used by the UKexporting jobs and industry isclassed as a net emissions saving and net benefit for the entire world. Ministers declare this a victory so farin the fight against "global warming"despite the fact that when net trade in goods and commodities is taken into account UK's total net GHG emissions may actuallyhave risen over the last 7 years,as Leeds University researchers have recently suggested. We are currently drowning in political hypocrisy.

The trouble isvery fewofpoliticians in power or in opposition understand the real engineering implications of what theyhavedemanded of all of usinvoting for the 2008 climate changeact.When did politicians start believing that they could solve the worlds problems by doubling down on brainless drivel and meaningless hypocrisy.
Click to expand...

Noteworthy: http://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2015/04/7_questions_with_john_christy.html

Measured document by IET http://www.theiet.org/factfiles/energy/energy-prin-page.cfm
 
Last edited:
Gatwick Oil:

Environmental group Greenpeace urged people to focus on clean technologies.

Greenpeace's chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said : “To gleefully rub your hands at a new fossil fuel discovery you need to turn the clock back to the 19th century and ignore everything we have learnt about climate change since. We already have more than enough coal, oil, and gas reserves to fry the planet".

:icon_biggrin:
 
He's right. These newly discovered reserves need to remain in the ground. You cant just sell off humanity's future to big oil.
 
arklowolf said:
Gatwick Oil:

Environmental group Greenpeace urged people to focus on clean technologies.

Greenpeace's chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said : “To gleefully rub your hands at a new fossil fuel discovery you need to turn the clock back to the 19th century and ignore everything we have learnt about climate change since. We already have more than enough coal, oil, and gas reserves to fry the planet".

:icon_biggrin:
Click to expand...

Seems a fairly reasonable comment.
 
Surely there's some way to make use of it?
 
Don't plastics still come after refinement?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top