Must see video....

[Ghost of Electricity]

I shall reiterate: let's hire the Danes

[Guest Jules]

This is what i have to say about that: If you're not willing to do anything to make the earth a better place for your kids, then you're a gigantic asshole, regardless of your political beliefs. it has nothing to do with a taxing scam, it has everything to do with changing behaviors--keep more crap out of the landfill, recycle more, drive less, don't use chemicals if you don't have to, get more energy efficient appliances and vehicles, invest in alternative energies that don't poison people, and use less water. Is it really that hard? Is it really that hard to believe? Honestly?

How do you feel about disposable diapers?

 

I started turning off the water while I shave.

[ikol]

Regardless of whether it's bunk or not, fossil fuels are known to be limited in quantity and harmful. Why not research renewable, less harmful energies?

 

I agree...

 

The point of my argument is that there are upsides to getting away from oil that have nothing to do with global warming and everything to do with geopolitics, the wars we fight, the countries we invade, the pipelines we try to build and protect, etc.

 

And I agreed with that point, but we don't have to use fear to accomplish that. When you base laws on fear, you get things like the Patriot Act.

 

I don't know about anyone who is calling for a complete halt of oil usage, either. You may be the first - congratulations.

 

I don't know about anyone unfamiliar with the concept of hyperbole.

[Guest Speed Racer]

How do you feel about disposable diapers?

 

From the research I've read, they are equally as bad as cloth diapers, which require huge amounts of energy to clean and distribute (the latter, obviously only if you use a service). Claims about the horrible impact of diapers on the environment are largely overblown, and I think they take up something like less than 0.1% of landfill space.

[Guest Jules]

From the research I've read, they are equally as bad as cloth diapers, which require huge amounts of energy to clean and distribute (the latter, obviously only if you use a service). Claims about the horrible impact of diapers on the environment are largely overblown, and I think they take up something like less than 0.1% of landfill space.

Thanks. I could have used this information a couple months ago.

[bleedorange]

Thanks. I could have used this information a couple months ago.

 

I would use disposable diapers regardless. Much more convenient.

[Guest Speed Racer]

Thanks. I could have used this information a couple months ago.

 

I recently read Rubbish: The Archaeology of Garbage. It was published in 1984, but a new edition has updated a lot of the studies.

 

My parents tried cloth with my sister, until she got sick in Milwaukee over the weekend and they had to drive the diapers home.

[bjorn_skurj]

Some things you can legislate, but the shifting of, oh, the entire power infrastructure of human society is not one of them. That's just too big for anything but the Invisible Hand. We'll stop using fossil fuels when alternate sources become the cheaper solution. Now, one can debate the morality and practicality of trying to bring that day a little earlier by carbon taxes and incentives for renewable energy ...

[Guest Jules]

I would use disposable diapers regardless. Much more convenient.

Oh, I do.

[Guest Speed Racer]

Some things you can legislate, but the shifting of, oh, the entire power infrastructure of human society is not one of them. That's just too big for anything but the Invisible Hand. We'll stop using fossil fuels when alternate sources become the cheaper solution. Now, one can debate the morality and practicality of trying to bring that day a little earlier by carbon taxes and incentives for renewable energy ...

 

Exactly. I think that legislating the economic feasibility of alternative sources is a perfectly legitimate way to go about it, ultimately punishing those hurting our environment and using that money to reward those that help it. The U.S. does this with tons of taxes and fees, to varying degrees of success.

[Ghost of Electricity]

Exactly. I think that legislating the economic feasibility of alternative sources is a perfectly legitimate way to go about it, ultimately punishing those hurting our environment and using that money to reward those that help it. The U.S. dabbles with this method with a few paltry taxes and fees, to varying degrees of success.

fixed that for you.

[ikol]

I would use disposable diapers regardless. Much more convenient.

 

I just try to hold it.

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

]Some or most of this may seem crazy to some, but I'm going to research it later on. Anyone familiar with this type of energy (the tides not wireless)?

Bear with me. Let me explain that yes this does come from a movie, but it is quite interesting. The concept at least.

OK. This comes from Southland Tales directed by Richard Kelly.

 

"The term fluid karma is used to refer to two things in the movie. First, it refers to an "organic compound" that the Treer company discovered while drilling off the coast of Israel, which exists under the Earth's mantle, and circles the world like a "serpent." Second, fluid karma is the name used by Treer for the "hydroelectric energy field" produced by their Utopia tidal generators. As the movie explains, the compound is being used by the Baron to power his energy plants, hence the energy field produced is named after it."

 

Richard Kelly stated in his interview with EMPIRE Magazine...

 

"The idea of wireless electricity and tides being a source of energy, and there being a potentially world-altering energy source under the ocean, is based on real scientific theory. Many people think wireless electricity is the thing that could rescue us from our dilemma as we reach the end of the petroleum era. Tide power, and the wireless transmission of electricity, are scientific realities. "

 

Ocean Energy Systems

 

Did you see Southland Tales? Fun flick.

 

Edit: I was somewhat confused by the stray bracket and/or I'm a moron.

[u2roolz]

Did you see Southland Tales? Fun flick.

 

Edit: I was somewhat confused by the stray bracket and/or I'm a moron.

 

Yeah, I think I didn't notice it when I posted that. (the stray bracket that is)

Yes, I did see it. 2 years to the day today.

One of my favorites of all time. The graphic novel helps to understand some more of what's going on.

 

Or this could read: What was more confusing the stray bracket or Southland Tales?

[Sparky speaks]

Putting aside all that pesky evidence in favor of AGW, could someone please explain why pretty much the entire scientific community is perpetrating a hoax, and to what end?

 

Best I can find in the few minutes that I have to try and answer your question. I know there are better articles about this but this is a quick read. The first few paragraphs attempt to answer your question.

 

http://www.commodityonline.com/news/People-behind-the-great-global-warming-hoax-23205-3-1.html

 

Here's another site with multiple articles which I know you won't agree with because some of them mention the desire for global governance as the main reason behind it. I don't know if that is the ultimate reason but many of these articles are interesting and provide info you won't get in the corporate controlled media.

 

http://www.wnho.net/global_warming.htm

 

No matter the facts or non facts about global warming I agree alternative energy sources are desirable and and we need to cut pollution. But most of the financial burden will be placed on the middle class and not the industrial polluters who will be making the rules. They will provide themselves all sorts of loopholes in their cap and trade policies and we (the little people) will end up paying for it in increased carbon taxes at the pump, on our home energy bills and on mandatory home inspections that will require that you spend thousands on upgrading your home before you will be granted a certificate to allow you to sell your house. These are all part of the proposed climate bill backed by Obama. If the basis for such policies are built on a lie then I think it is an important issue for us all to reconsider. I have no intention to pick fights with anyone here. Believe what you wish but lets have an insult free discussion so we all can learn something. My opinions are not set in stone. I hope I am learning all the time no matter what the source of the information I am considering. Hearing one side of an issue all the time is no way to broaden ones' knowledge. I like to be challenged and I like to challenge others to see things through a different prism.

 

For the hell of it...

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/24/the_climate_change_hoax_99281.html

[Good Old Neon]

Best I can find in the few minutes that I have to try and answer your question. I know there are better articles about this but this is a quick read. The first few paragraphs attempt to answer your question.

 

http://www.commodityonline.com/news/People-behind-the-great-global-warming-hoax-23205-3-1.html

 

For the hell of it...

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/24/the_climate_change_hoax_99281.html

 

...for whom global warming was the open sesame to achieving a one-world-government by scaring nations into signing a treaty that would control their use of energy...

 

I stopped right there.

 

http://www.realclimate.org/

[cryptique]

I've been staying away from this thread for the most part, but I didn't see this posted by anyone else, so...

 

The tone of this article isn't helpful, but the information is.

 

See original article for links to supporting material.

 

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense

 

Evidence for human interference with Earth's climate continues to accumulate

 

By John Rennie

 

On November 18, with the United Nations Global Warming Conference in Copenhagen fast approaching, U.S. Senator James R. Inhofe (R-Okla.) took the floor of the Senate and proclaimed 2009 to be "The Year of the Skeptic." Had the senator's speech marked a new commitment to dispassionate, rational inquiry, a respect for scientific thought and a well-grounded doubt in ghosts, astrology, creationism and homeopathy, it might have been cause for cheer. But Inhofe had a more narrow definition of skeptic in mind: he meant "standing up and exposing the science, the costs and the hysteria behind global warming alarmism."

 

Within the community of scientists and others concerned about anthropogenic climate change, those whom Inhofe calls skeptics are more commonly termed contrarians, naysayers and denialists. Not everyone who questions climate change science fits that description, of course—some people are genuinely unaware of the facts or honestly disagree about their interpretation. What distinguishes the true naysayers is an unwavering dedication to denying the need for action on the problem, often with weak and long-disproved arguments about supposed weaknesses in the science behind global warming.

 

What follows is only a partial list of the contrarians' bad arguments and some brief rebuttals of them.

 

Claim 1: Anthropogenic CO2 can't be changing climate, because CO2 is only a trace gas in the atmosphere and the amount produced by humans is dwarfed by the amount from volcanoes and other natural sources. Water vapor is by far the most important greenhouse gas, so changes in CO2 are irrelevant.

 

Although CO2 makes up only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, that small number says nothing about its significance in climate dynamics. Even at that low concentration, CO2 absorbs infrared radiation and acts as a greenhouse gas, as physicist John Tyndall demonstrated in 1859. The chemist Svante Arrhenius went further in 1896 by estimating the impact of CO2 on the climate; after painstaking hand calculations he concluded that doubling its concentration might cause almost 6 degrees Celsius of warming—an answer not much out of line with recent, far more rigorous computations.

 

Contrary to the contrarians, human activity is by far the largest contributor to the observed increase in atmospheric CO2. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, anthropogenic CO2 amounts to about 30 billion tons annually—more than 130 times as much as volcanoes produce. True, 95 percent of the releases of CO2 to the atmosphere are natural, but natural processes such as plant growth and absorption into the oceans pull the gas back out of the atmosphere and almost precisely offset them, leaving the human additions as a net surplus. Moreover, several sets of experimental measurements, including analyses of the shifting ratio of carbon isotopes in the air, further confirm that fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are the primary reasons that CO2 levels have risen 35 percent since 1832, from 284 parts per million (ppm) to 388 ppm—a remarkable jump to the highest levels seen in millions of years.

 

Contrarians frequently object that water vapor, not CO2, is the most abundant and powerful greenhouse gas; they insist that climate scientists routinely leave it out of their models. The latter is simply untrue: from Arrhenius on, climatologists have incorporated water vapor into their models. In fact, water vapor is why rising CO2 has such a big effect on climate. CO2 absorbs some wavelengths of infrared that water does not so it independently adds heat to the atmosphere. As the temperature rises, more water vapor enters the atmosphere and multiplies CO2's greenhouse effect; the IPCC notes that water vapor [pdf] may “approximately double the increase in the greenhouse effect due to the added CO2 alone.”

 

Nevertheless, within this dynamic, the CO2 remains the main driver (what climatologists call a "forcing") of the greenhouse effect. As NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt has explained, water vapor enters and leaves the atmosphere much more quickly than CO2, and tends to preserve a fairly constant level of relative humidity, which caps off its greenhouse effect. Climatologists therefore categorize water vapor as a feedback rather than a forcing factor. (Contrarians who don't see water vapor in climate models are looking for it in the wrong place.)

 

Because of CO2's inescapable greenhouse effect, contrarians holding out for a natural explanation for current global warming need to explain why, in their scenarios, CO2 is not compounding the problem.

 

Claim 2: The alleged "hockey stick" graph of temperatures over the past 1,600 years has been disproved. It doesn't even acknowledge the existence of a "medieval warm period" around 1000 A.D. that was hotter than today is. Therefore, global warming is a myth.

 

It is hard to know which is greater: contrarians' overstatement of the flaws in the historical temperature reconstruction from 1998 by Michael E. Mann and his colleagues, or the ultimate insignificance of their argument to the case for climate change.

 

First, there is not simply one hockey-stick reconstruction of historical temperatures using one set of proxy data. Similar evidence for sharply increasing temperatures over the past couple of centuries has turned up independently while looking at ice cores, tree rings and other proxies for direct measurements, from many locations. Notwithstanding their differences, they corroborate that the earth has been getting sharply warmer.

 

A 2006 National Research Council review of the evidence concluded "with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries"—which is the section of the graph most relevant to current climate trends. The report placed less faith in the reconstructions back to 900 A.D., although it still viewed them as "plausible." Medieval warm periods in Europe and Asia with temperatures comparable to those seen in the 20th century were therefore similarly plausible but might have been local phenomena: the report noted "the magnitude and geographic extent of the warmth are uncertain." And a new research paper by Mann and his colleagues seems to confirm that the medieval warm period and a “little ice age” between 1400 and 1700 were both caused by shifts in solar radiance and other natural factors that do not seem to be happening today.

 

After the NRC review was released, another analysis by four statisticians, called the Wegman report, which was not formally peer reviewed, was more critical of the hockey stick paper. But correction of the errors it pointed out did not substantially change the shape of the hockey stick graph. In 2008, Mann and his colleagues issued an updated version of the temperature reconstruction that echoed their earlier findings.

 

But hypothetically, even if the hockey stick was busted... what of it? The case for anthropogenic global warming originally came from studies of climate mechanics, not from reconstructions of past temperatures seeking a cause. Warnings about current warming trends came out years before Mann’s hockey stick graph. Even if the world were incontrovertibly warmer 1,000 years ago, it would not change the fact that the recent rapid rise in CO2 explains the current episode of warming more credibly than any natural factor does—and that no natural factor seems poised to offset further warming in the years ahead.

 

Claim 3: Global warming stopped a decade ago; the earth has been cooling since then.

 

1998 was the world's warmest year in the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre’s records; recent years have been cooler; therefore, the previous century's global warming trend is over, right?

 

Anyone with even a glancing familiarity with statistics should be able to spot the weaknesses of that argument. Given the extended duration of the warming trend, the expected (and observed) variations in the rate of increase and the range of uncertainties in the temperature measurements and forecasts, a decade's worth of mild interruption is too small a deviation to prove a break in the pattern, climatologists say.

 

Recently, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein asked four independent statisticians to look for trends in the temperature data sets without telling them what the numbers represented. "The experts found no true temperature declines over time," he wrote.

 

If a lull in global warming continues for another decade, would that vindicate the contrarians' case? Not necessarily, because climate is complex. For instance, Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Germany and his colleagues published a paper in 2008 that suggested ocean circulation patterns might cause a period of cooling in parts of the northern hemisphere, even though the long-term pattern of warming remained in effect. Fundamentally, contrarians who have resisted the abundant evidence that supports warming should not be too quick to leap on evidence that only hints at the opposite.

 

Claim 4: The sun or cosmic rays are much more likely to be the real causes of global warming. After all, Mars is warming up, too.

 

Astronomical phenomena are obvious natural factors to consider [pdf] when trying to understand climate, particularly the brightness of the sun and details of the earth's orbit, because those seem to have been major drivers of the ice ages [pdf] and other climate changes before the rise of industrial civilization. Climatologists, therefore, do take them into account in their models. [pdf] But in defiance of the naysayers who want to chalk the recent warming up to natural cycles, there is insufficient evidence that enough extra solar energy is reaching our planet to account for the observed rise in global temperatures.

 

The IPCC notes that between 1750 and 2005, the radiative forcing from the sun increased by 0.12 watts/square-meter—less than a tenth of the net forcings from human activities [pdf] (1.6 W/m2). The largest uncertainty in that comparison comes from the estimated effects of aerosols in the atmosphere, which can variously shade the earth or warm it. Even granting the maximum uncertainties to these estimates, however, the increase in human influence on climate exceeds that of any solar variation.

 

Moreover, remember that the effect of CO2 and the other greenhouse gases is to amplify the sun's warming. Contrarians looking to pin global warming on the sun can't simply point to any trend in solar radiance: they also need to quantify its effect and explain why CO2 does not consequently become an even more powerful driver of climate change. (And is what weakens the greenhouse effect a necessary consequence of the rising solar influence or an ad hoc corollary added to give the desired result?)

 

The most recent contrarian fad is based largely on work by Henrik Svensmark of the Technical University of Denmark, who argues that the sun's influence on cosmic rays needs to be considered. Cosmic rays entering the atmosphere help to seed the formation of aerosols and clouds that reflect sunlight. In Svensmark's theory, the high solar magnetic activity over the past 50 years has shielded the earth from cosmic rays and allowed exceptional heating; but now that the sun is more magnetically quiet again, global warming will reverse. Svensmark claims that, in his model, temperature changes correlate better with cosmic ray levels and solar magnetic activity than with other greenhouse factors.

 

Svensmark's theory has so far not persuaded most climatologists, however, because of weaknesses in its evidence. In particular, there do not seem to be clear long-term trends in the cosmic ray influxes or in the clouds that they are suppose to form, and his model does not explain (as greenhouse explanations do) some of the observed patterns in how the world is getting warmer (such as that more of the warming occurs at night). For now, at least, cosmic rays remain a less plausible culprit in climate change.

 

And the apparent warming seen on Mars? It is based on a very small base of measurements, so it may not represent a true trend. Too little is yet known about what governs the Martian climate to be sure, but a period of heavy dust storms on the planet that made its surface relatively dark might have increased the amount of absorbed sunlight and raised temperatures.

 

Claim 5: Climatologists conspire to hide the truth about global warming by locking away their data. Their so-called "consensus" on global warming is scientifically irrelevant because science isn't settled by popularity.

 

It is virtually impossible to disprove accusations of giant global conspiracies to those already convinced of them (can anyone prove that the Freemasons and the Roswell aliens aren't involved, too?). Let it therefore be noted that the magnitude of this hypothetical conspiracy would need to encompass many thousands of uncontroversial publications and respected scientists from around the world, stretching back through Arrhenius and Tyndall for almost 150 years. (See this feature on “Carbon Dioxide and Climate,” by Gilbert N. Plass, from Scientific American in July 1959.) It is also one so powerful that it has co-opted the official positions of dozens of scientific organizations including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Institute of Physics and the American Meteorological Society.

 

If there were a massive conspiracy to defraud the world on climate (and to what end?), surely the thousands of e-mails and other files stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and distributed by hackers on November 20 would bear proof of it. So far, however, none has emerged. Most of the few statements that critics claim as evidence of malfeasance seem to have more innocent explanations that make sense in the context of scientists conversing privately and informally. It is deplorable if any of the scientists involved did prove to manipulate data dishonestly or thwart Freedom of Information requests; however, it is currently unclear whether that ultimately happened. What is missing is any clear indication of a widespread attempt to falsify and coordinate findings on a scale that could hold together a global cabal or significantly distort the record on climate change.

 

Climatologists are frequently frustrated by accusations that they are hiding their data or the details of their models because, as Gavin Schmidt points out, much of the relevant information is in public databases or otherwise accessible—a fact that contrarians conveniently ignore when insisting that scientists stonewall their requests. (And because nations differ in their rules on data confidentiality, scientists are not always at liberty to comply with some requests.) If contrarians want to deal a devastating blow to global warming theories, they should use the public data and develop their own credible models to demonstrate sound alternatives.

 

Yet that rarely occurs. In 2004 historian of science Naomi Oreskes published a well-known analysis of the peer-reviewed literature on global warming, "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change." Out of 928 papers whose abstracts she surveyed, she wrote, 75 percent explicitly or implicitly supported anthropogenic global warming, 25 percent were methodological or otherwise took no position on the subject—and none argued for purely natural explanations. Notwithstanding some attempts to debunk Oreskes' findings that eventually fell apart, her conclusion stands.

 

Oreskes' work does not mean that all climate scientists agree about climate change--obviously, some do not (though they are very much a minority). Rather, the meaningful consensus is not among the scientists but within the science: the overwhelming predominance of evidence for greenhouse-driven global warming that cannot easily be overturned even by a few contrary studies.

 

Claim 6: Climatologists have a vested interest in raising the alarm because it brings them money and prestige.

 

If climate scientists are angling for more money by hyping fears of climate change, they are not doing so very effectively. According to a 2006 Government Accountability Office study, between 1993 and 2004, U.S. federal spending on climate change rose from $3.3 billion to $5.1 billion—a 55 percent increase. (Total federal nondefense spending on research in 2004 exceeded $50 billion.) However, the research share of that money fell from 56 percent to 39 percent: most of it went to energy conservation projects and other technology programs. Climatologists' funding therefore stayed almost flat while others, including those in industry, benefited handsomely. Surely, the Freemasons could do better than that.

 

Claim 7: Technological fixes, such as inventing energy sources that don't produce CO2 or geoengineering the climate, would be more affordable, prudent ways to address climate change than reducing our carbon footprint.

 

Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, Bjørn Lomborg and other critics of standard policy responses to climate change often seem to imply that environmentalists are obsessed with regulatory reductions in CO2 emissions and uninterested in technological solutions. That interpretation is at best bizarre: technological innovations in energy efficiency, conservation and production are exactly what caps or levies on CO2 are meant to encourage.

 

The relevant question is whether it is prudent for civilization to defer curbing or reducing its CO2 output before such technologies are ready and can be deployed at the needed scale. The most common conclusion is no. Remember that as long as CO2 levels are elevated, additional heat will be pumped into the atmosphere and oceans, extending and worsening the climate consequences. As NASA climatologist James Hansen has pointed out, even if current CO2 levels could be stabilized overnight, surface temperatures would continue to rise by 0.5 degrees C over the next few decades because of absorbed heat being released from the ocean. The longer that we wait for technology alone to reduce CO2, the faster we will need for those solutions to pull CO2 out of the air to minimize the warming problems. Minimizing the scope of the challenge by restricting the accumulation of CO2 only makes sense.

 

Moreover, climate change is not the only environmental crisis posed by elevated CO2: it also makes the oceans acidic, which could have irreversibly harmful effects on coral reefs and other marine life. Only the immediate mitigation of CO2 release can contain those losses.

 

Much has already been written on why schemes for geoengineering—altering the earth's climate systems by design—seem ill-advised except as a desperate last-chance strategy for dealing with climate change. The more ambitious proposals involve largely untested technologies, so it is unclear how well they would achieve their desired purpose; even if they did curb warming, they might cause other significant environmental problems in the process. Methods that did not remove CO2 from the air would have to be maintained in perpetuity to prevent drastic rebound warming. And the governance of the geoengineering system could become a political minefield, with nations disagreeing about what the optimal climate settings should be. And of course, as with any of the other technological solutions, reducing the emission and accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere first would only make any geoengineering solution easier.

 

All in all, counting on future technological developments to solve climate change rather than engaging with the problem straightforwardly by all available means, including regulatory ones, seems like the height of irresponsibility. But then again, responsible action on climate change is what the contrarians seem most interested in denying.

[IRememberDBoon]

I see nothing wrong with the tone of that cryptique and thank you. Were only talking about the future of the planet and mankind here.

Anyone who buys the thing about "well the earth hasnt warmed in ten years" or whenever the highest temp was is so frikking ignorant that they will never come around. braindead and brainfed. they just believe what theyre told and dont ever ask why.

[Good Old Neon]

What would be shocking to me, is, if after burning through half of the earth’s “easily” accessible fossil fuel in roughly 100 years, over 1 trillion + (trillion?) barrels, not including coal, and pumping millions of years worth of stored co2 into the atmosphere in such short period of time, well, it would be shocking if we didn’t experience some negative repercussions.

 

I’m about three quarters of the way through James Kunstler’s The Long Emergency, and unless we come up with some sort of miracle energy source to replace petroleum, like, yesterday, our civilization is pretty well fucked.

[Winston Legthigh]

The simple answer: Solar Energy

The not so simple answer: Battery capacity/technology isn't where it needs to be to make this a viable solution yet, but it's getting there.

 

Solar energy technology, in its current state, is sufficient enough to take every house out there off the grid. The problem is that it's still expensive to do so in the short term.

 

To power a nation would require vast solar energy panel fields in places like utah/arizona/new mexico, and the irony is that there are environmental activists against such fields because they would ruin the landscape!

 

The truth is that the sun sends the earth more energy than we know what to do with. Once the battery technology gets to where it needs to be, and electronic cars get to where they need to be, the sun will power everything. That will eliminate most of the man-made CO2, which in turn will let the earth naturally process the excess CO2, which will take a lot of time.

 

I think the solar energy problem will be feasible within 100 years, but it will take an extra 200 years to get the CO2 levels to normal.

[u2roolz]

Ocean Energy Systems

[Good Old Neon]

 

 

I think the solar energy problem will be feasible within 100 years, but it will take an extra 200 years to get the CO2 levels to normal.

 

Unfortunately, if peak oil proponents are correct, and we've reached peak within this decade, we don't have hundreds of years.

[Winston Legthigh]

Unfortunately, if peak oil proponents are correct, and we've reached peak within this decade, we don't have hundreds of years.

Big deal. Gas will price itself out of the market and people will buy more bikes and investors in solar technology will become rich.

 

We got by on not using shitloads of fossil fuels 100 years ago. We adapt. It's what we do.

[bjorn_skurj]

Yeah. Running out of cheaply obtained fossil fuels is what it will take to make a permanent switch to renewable.

[Good Old Neon]

Big deal. Gas will price itself out of the market and people will buy more bikes and investors in solar technology will become rich.

 

We got by on not using shitloads of fossil fuels 100 years ago. We adapt. It's what we do.

 

Our entire civilization, everything we do, rests upon access to affordable energy – primarily, fossil fuels. Civilization’s entire infrastructure is built and predicated upon the continued availability of cheap oil – and as the gas prices of the last few years have reflected, gas as low as $4 a gallon can throw our economy into turmoil. At some point, gas will price itself out of the market, possibly within 10 to 20 years. And as gas prices itself out of the market, food will soon follow.

 

Presently, there are 6 billion people living on this planet – it has been estimated that the carrying capacity of the earth prior to the industrial age stood at roughly 1 billion. Our entire agricultural system is also reliant on access to cheap oil – our agricultural system, and the subsequent population explosion, resulted from the discovery and manipulation of nonrenewable energy.

 

Do you see where I’m going with this?

 

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy released a report entitled “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management – otherwise known as the Hirsh Report. The summary of the report warns:

 

as peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.

 

A later paper by Hirsch recommends the world urgently begin spending 1 trillion dollars in crash programs for at least a decade, preferably two, before peaking. Obviously, nothing like the kind of efforts envisaged have yet begun. Hirsch was not asked to speculate on when the peak was likely to occur – possibly because of the panic it might spread throughout the world’s markets.