23 replies to this topic

[eds]

As a society, we are engaging in mindless behavior,
. . . we are destroying the climate that makes this world livable.

There aren’t many planets out there that have a climate in which life can exist,
. . . actually, we’re yet to find a single one.
But we are altering ours in such a way that it's climate could disintegrate, and
. . . become unlivable.

The good news is that we already have the solutions we need to solve this problem.
. . . Just cut the global warming pollution created from using fossil fuels.

Follow the Money, search were you pay for fossil fuels
. . . (directly (Transportation, Heat) and indirectly(Electricity, Lights, air conditioning, appliances)
. . . . . . Reduce, the amount of fossil fuels you use directly
. . . . . . Replace, lights that waste most of their energy as heat, with LED's.
. . . . . . Insulate, to reduce the amount of energy needed to heat and air condition.
Renewable energy, doesn’t create any global warming pollution.

2014-04-01 Source:  Climate   Change

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[Besoeker]

eds, on 01 April 2014 - 08:05 AM, said:

As a society, we are engaging in mindless behavior,
. . . we are destroying the climate that makes this world livable.

There aren’t many planets out there that have a climate in which life can exist,
. . . actually, we’re yet to find a single one.
But we are altering ours in such a way that it's climate could disintegrate, and
. . . become unlivable.

The good news is that we already have the solutions we need to solve this problem.
. . . Just cut the global warming pollution created from using fossil fuels.

Yes, we know what to do. Being able to do it on a scale that could/ would eliminate our use of fossils is, in my opinion, not there. Yet.

Many of the measures are already being taken. Reduce, reuse, insulate..........stop cutting down CO² absorbing plants.Turn down/off the heating. Wear more layers.

I've posted before that much of my professional life has been producing engineering solutions that drastically reduce energy consumption mostly for industrial applications.

At home, we use energy saving light bulbs, energy star appliances, We reuse, shopping bags. Our groceries are delivered by a van that does 20-30 drops each trip. The plastic bags are taken back for recycling. We recycle everything we can recycle - glass, paper, board, beer cans, plastic, fabric.....
Collect rain water for plants etc...our garden lights are solar. They work quite well in the summer.

We try. But, despite that, getting off fossils isn't happening. We don't have enough roof space in the right orientation to make solar a viable option. Erecting a significantly sized wind turbine in my back won't fly. Space for storage batteries is another constraint. So we depend on natural gas for cooking and electricity for lighting, television, computers......

And fossil for the car. I now drive a car that has amazing fuel consumption compared to the blue one in my avatar. Yesterday, I filled the tank. Today I had a 370-mile round trip and still had enough to do another 696 miles by the time I got home according to the car computer. Not EV territory.

So, I think we have a way to go still. Developing storage is a key part of that.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

A massive step would be IF (and it's a humongous IF) the congress/senate set up mandates, new laws,
policies...............
something; democrats too, we can't blame it all on the repugs.
But they're in the pockets of big industry (oil, pharmaceuticals, banks) -the status quo of keeping it the way
it is.
And it's worldwide, not just in the states.
Governments have the power to change it drastically, but they sit on their hands. Sigh

[Besoeker]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 01 April 2014 - 05:15 PM, said:

A massive step would be IF (and it's a humongous IF) the congress/senate set up mandates, new laws,
policies...............
something; democrats too, we can't blame it all on the repugs.
But they're in the pockets of big industry (oil, pharmaceuticals, banks) -the status quo of keeping it the way
it is.
And it's worldwide, not just in the states.
Governments have the power to change it drastically, but they sit on their hands. Sigh

The UK Government has set targets. Whether they will be met is debatable.
http://www.theguardi...issions-targets


The picture in the article is highly misleading typical media crap sepia tinted for effect,. I've been to the place probably a dozen times.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

From the article-
"The rise (emissions) was owing to the cold winter and more power coming from coal, which is currently cheap."

That's a forehead slap governments should realize. With climate patterns changing, winters in some area's
will be more brutal.
We need grids built, so solar and wind can be tied together, and get off fossil fuels. Plenty of wind in Texas,
or solar coming from Arizona, for instance, but that's not doing Connecticut any good at the moment.
Or solar in Germany and Spain isn't transmitted to other countries in the area.

Coal may be "cheap" but considering all the long term effects on the environment and all the lifeforms
on the planet, it's cost is very high indeed.

[eds]

Germany's power export surplus with France widened to
. . . 9.8 terawatt-hour (TWh) in 2013 from
. . . 8.7 TWh in 2012, when the German surplus first appeared.

Germany's large and growing renewable power output,
. . . which has priority access to the electricity grid,
. . . spills over into France through power interconnections,
. . . which RTE said were increasingly pushed to their capacity limits.

"Our country's interconnections are more and more in demand,
. . . at some moments being near saturation,"
. . . RTE chief Dominique Maillard told a news briefing,
. . . adding that interconnection capacity limits between France and Germany
. . . had been reached about half of the time in 2013,
. . . four times as much as in 2009.

He said that the average spot power price in France
. . . is lower than in all neighboring countries except Germany,
. . . where prices are lower essentially because of
. . . renewable energy produced at a marginal cost that is close to zero.

The current interconnection capacity between the 2 countries is about 4.2 giga-watts per hour.
. . . One giga-watt per hour, roughly corresponds to the capacity of one nuclear plant.

2014-01-23 Source:  Reuters

[Besoeker]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 02 April 2014 - 04:22 AM, said:

We need grids built, so solar and wind can be tied together, and get off fossil fuels. Plenty of wind in Texas,
or solar coming from Arizona, for instance, but that's not doing Connecticut any good at the moment.
Or solar in Germany and Spain isn't transmitted to other countries in the area.

The existing grids can be used. I know that France  and Germany are interconnected and there are interconnectors between UK, France, the Netherlands, and Ireland so the means of getting the power around the place exists.

Currently, as in the last hour, the French interconnector is running at its rated capacity of 2.0GW and the Dutch, also at rated 1.0GW, both being imported by the UK.

Perhaps ironically, France is bout 70% nuclear. Part of the reason the UK network is now in such a parlous state is a result of nuclear power stations reaching the end of their operating life and being taken out of service. And no new capacity being built to replace them.

Successive governments sat on their hands. Nuclear was deeply unpopular in this country. Not a vote winner - probably the reverse. So no government was going to give the go ahead for new build projects that would take far longer than their term in office to come on line.  And no benefits seen as a result of what would have been perceived as a bad move.

The tide has turned and gradually the seriousness of our situation got through. New build projects have been given the green light but the lengthy gestation period will mean they are unlikely to come on line in time to avert shortages.

We have a lot of wind turbine capacity. Currently it is providing about 5.5%. The French and Dutch ICTs are providing 7.5% between them.

There are dribs and drabs from other sources but 80% is coal, nuclear, and CCGT.

[eds]

Maybe France is buying German renewable energy and
. . . re-selling it to England?

[Besoeker]

eds, on 02 April 2014 - 04:43 AM, said:

The current interconnection capacity between the 2 countries is about 4.2 giga-watts per hour.
. . . One giga-watt per hour, roughly corresponds to the capacity of one nuclear plant.

2014-01-23 Source:  Reuters

A small correction if I may.
I think the writer means gigawatts (GW), not giga-watts per hour*.
One GW capacity is typical capacity for a nuclear plant.

Sizewell B in UK is 1.195 GW for example.
There are a few other around that capacity, a couple at 0.8 GW and one at 0.5 GW.

The GW is a multiple of the watt and the watt is a rate at which work is none. A rate like mph in your car.
Miles per hour per hour wouldn't make a lot of sense.

[Besoeker]

eds, on 02 April 2014 - 05:39 AM, said:

Maybe France is buying German renewable energy and
. . . re-selling it to England?

It might look like that but once you push it into the grid along with other sources you don't know which source you are using - electricity isn't colour coded......................

[Shortpoet-GTD]

#Climate is still trending on Twitter and I found this piece on exxon's arrogance on drilling.

Falls under the heading of - "let em' eat cake" - we'll drill forever and look for more to boot. They don't care
about the emissions, green house gases or people.

"The company said that government restrictions that would force it to keep its reserves in the ground
were “highly unlikely,” and that they would not only dig them all up and burn them,
but would continue to search for more gas and oil — a search that currently consumes about $100 million
of its investors’ money every single day.
“Based on this analysis, we are confident that none of our hydrocarbon reserves are now or will
become ‘stranded,’” they said."
http://www.theguardi...as-fossil-fuels

[Shortpoet-GTD]

The level of CO-2 is discussed in this video via Climate Central.
http://www.climatece...n-1-video-17398

[Dustoffer]

Here is one on human CO2;
https://www.youtube....h?v=SAhZ1fA1AJs
and another whole compilation;
Compilation: Catastrophic Arctic 'Death Spiral' Meltdown / Imminent Mass Methane (Super Potent Greenhouse / Heat-trapping Gas) 'Time Bomb' Release and the Global Climate EMERGENCY

Glenn MacIntosh | Posted: January 30, 2014 | Updated: February 27, 2014




Best of blogSanity
Compilations
Arctic Meltdown
Methane Time Bomb

http://www.ecosanity...-bomb-emergency

[Shortpoet-GTD]

I know this is all true but often I get tired of being beat over the head with this, no offense. I appreciate the link
but it's hard to read.

[Dustoffer]

That is also an effect of AGW, like shell shocked trench troops.  Still have a big battle to go and probably more.




A Call to Arms: An Invitation to Demand Action on Climate Change

When world leaders gather in New York this fall to confront climate change, tens of thousands of people (and maybe you) will be there to demand they take action before it's too late







"Global warming is already wreaking havoc on human civilization.
Henrik Egede Lassen/Alpha Film/Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme

By Bill McKibben
May 21, 2014 9:00 AM ET
This is an invitation, an invitation to come to New York City. An invitation to anyone who'd like to prove to themselves, and to their children, that they give a damn about the biggest crisis our civilization has ever faced."
http://www.rollingst...change-20140521

[Shortpoet-GTD]

#climate (and now #sustainability) are trending almost every day on Twitter.

People are waking up to the reality of it. Now, if we can eliminate the do-nothings in congress in the next
several elections, maybe we can make a dent in the emissions problems; worldwide, not just in the US.
Ever hopeful..................

[Dustoffer]

We will have enough data by late September to know whether we have X number of years to reduce emissions X amount.  
We had Hansen's 2006 TV special which said a decade for 90% reduction in fossil fuel use, then The UN conservative 80% total emissions reduction by 2040, and 350.org's 2024 for 90% of all emissions.  Others 2020, and others that we are already too late.
It would sure be nice to have enough time to decarbonize and peacefully reduce population, enough to stop the malevolent processes triggered by HGHGs.....

[Dustoffer]

Here is one of the ways of rapid human change;
https://www.youtube....h?v=U9VQWvTpBHY
Make Me Care: How does tech turn citizens into climate scientists?

By Grist staff

"Welcome back to Make Me Care, where Grist writers and editors talk about stuff they care about that they think you should care about, too. This time around, Amelia Urry hosts Grist fellow Samantha Larson to talk about the big wide world of collective intelligence a.k.a. crowdsourcing a.k.a. citizen science.
You know what they say: With a smartphone in every pocket and a laptop on every desk, the world is your research lab and supercomputer. (Well, we said it.) Climate scientists are using the new tools of collective brainpower to sort signal from noise, wresting meaning from the mob by collecting huge amounts of data and then processing it with a huge amount of volunteer RAM. Some groups are even using crowds to focus on finding climate solutions. Watch to hear more!"

[Shortpoet-GTD]

C itizens
L ackadaisical
I gnore
M ethane
A nthropogenic
T emperature
E mission/Extremes.

[Dustoffer]

Worsening Hurricanes Pushed Toward Poles By Climate Change

Ilissa Ocko, Environmental Defense Fund | June 3, 2014 11:33 am | Comments

"The hurricane season of 2014 just kicked off, and with two devastating storms wreaking havoc along the northeastern U.S. coast over the last few years, it’s no wonder everyone’s on edge. A satellite image of Irene, a Category 1 hurricane, as it made landfall in North Carolina, Aug. 2011. Photo credit: NASA/NOAA
We’re concerned about hurricanes becoming more frequent and intense, and about the worsening storm surge caused by a rise in sea levels. But flying under the radar is a fourth link between hurricanes and climate change: how climate change affects the location of hurricanes.
A new study led by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Princeton University found that hurricanes have been shifting pole-ward at a rate of 30 to 40 miles per decade over the last 30 years.
It means they are moving closer to major population centers such as Washington, New York and Boston.
The likely cause? Human-caused climate change."
http://ecowatch.com/...climate-change/

Well, isn't it like one great bad effect after another?  Fossil fuel profit protection from the government(s) is against human moral standards, IMHO.
Regulators Ignore Fracking Earthquakes, Protect Big Oil Profits Over People

Joshua Frank, CounterPunch | June 4, 2014 4:37 pm | Comments

"When one thinks of earthquakes, what comes to mind is usually the vast fault line straddled lands of southern California or the great subduction zones off the coasts of Chile and Japan. Surely, it isn’t the cattle fields of Texas or the rolling plains of Ohio and Oklahoma. Natural disasters in the central and southern U.S. typically blow in with the winds in the form of deadly tornadoes and storms. Yet, thanks to the insatiable rush to tap every last drop of oil and gas from the depths of the Earth’s crust, earthquakes are fast becoming the new norm in “fly-over country.”"
http://ecowatch.com/...rotect-big-oil/
It is almost impossible for me to comprehend their not caring about the destruction of our planet's biosphere.  It is like the most evil possible.