Downvote away, but the fearmongering is so tiresome (and has been for 30 years). The carbon emitters they want to eliminate are people.
On geologic time scales the CO2 level has been way way higher than it is today and the planet was still teeming with life.
Hey, speaking of tipping points, wasn’t climate change supposed to mean a constant stream of cat 5 hurricanes crashing into the eastern seaboard? And yet we just had a very quiet start of our hurricane season. Ah, but that’s weather, not climate. And yet whenever a bad weather event occurs, that’s evidence of climate change. Absence of bad weather is also evidence I guess. Almost like the whole thing is unfalsifiable. The climate changed before we ever got here and it will continue changing well after we’re gone.
Just as the petrochemical lobby has an interest in downplaying effects, there are plenty of other people with a profitable interest in the fearmongering as well. Their salaries depend on you being terrified and they’re doing a great job of it. They use your tax money to fly to climate conferences in Bali, Singapore, Paris, Rome. I’d take them more seriously if the conferences were held via Zoom or in places like Cleveland or Houston.
The politicians who keep telling me that this is a huge problem still fly their private jets everywhere and still own plenty of beachfront property. I’m more worried about a True Believer funding some kind of bioweapon to “heal the planet” and kill us all.
I'm sick of armchair climatologists like yourself. It's amazing people who have just read maybe a book or two and some youtube videos think they know better than an entire scientific community full of people doing this full-time for their entire adult lives. Get your ego checked.
Michael Shellenberger is a Time Magazine "Hero of the Environment," Green Book Award winner, and the best-selling author of San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities (HarperCollins 2021) and Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (HarperCollins 2020).
He’s been called an “environmental guru,” “climate guru,” “North America’s leading public intellectual on clean energy,” and “high priest” of the pro-human environmental movement for his work.
Michael has broken major stories on crime and drug policy; homelessness; Amazon deforestation; climate change; eco-anxiety; fracking; and California’s fires.
He is a leading energy expert who testifies and advises governments around the world including in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.
He is founder and president of Environmental Progress, an independent nonprofit research organization that incubates ideas, leaders, and movements. Michael And he is cofounder of the California Peace Coalition, an alliance of parents of children killed by fentanyl, parents of homeless addicts, and recovering addicts.
Michael is currently writing two books. In Spring 2023, Carus Books will publish The War on Nuclear: Why It Hurts Us All. In Fall 2023, HarperCollins will publish the third and final book in the trilogy Shellenberger is writing about threats to civilization from within.
He has been a climate and environmental activist for over 30 years. He has helped save nuclear reactors around the world, from Illinois and New York to South Korea and Taiwan, thereby preventing an increase in air pollution equivalent to adding over 24 million cars to the road.
In the 1990s, Michael helped save California’s last unprotected ancient redwood forest, inspire Nike to improve factory conditions, and advocate for decriminalization and harm reduction policies. In the 2000s, Michael advocated for a“new Apollo project” in clean energy, which resulted in a $150 billion public investment in clean tech between 2009 and 2015.
Dr. Bjorn Lomborg researches the smartest ways to do good. With his think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus, he has worked with hundreds of the world’s top economists and seven Nobel Laureates to find and promote the most effective solutions to the world’s greatest challenges, from disease and hunger to climate and education.
For his work, Lomborg was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. He is a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media, for outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, CNN, FOX, and the BBC. His monthly column is published in many languages by dozens of influential newspapers across all continents.
He is a best-selling author, whose books include "False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet", "The Skeptical Environmentalist", "Cool It", "How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place", "The Nobel Laureates' Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World 2016-2030" and "Prioritizing Development: A Cost Benefit Analysis of the UN's SDGs".
He previously served as the U.S. Department of Energy’s second Senate-confirmed Under Secretary for Science from May 19, 2009 through November 18, 2011. As Under Secretary for Science, Dr. Koonin functioned as the Department’s chief scientific officer, coordinating and overseeing research across the DOE. He led the preparation of the Department’s 2011 Strategic Plan and was the principal author of its Quadrennial Technology Review. Dr. Koonin particularly championed research programs in High Performance Simulation, Exascale Computing, Inertial Fusion Energy, and Greenhouse Gas Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification. He also provided technical counsel on diverse nuclear security matters.
He joined the California Institute of Technology’s faculty in 1975, was a research fellow at the Neils Bohr Institute during 1976-1977, and was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow during 1977-1979. He became a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech in 1981 and served as Chairman of the Faculty from 1989-1991. Dr. Koonin was the seventh provost of Caltech from 1995-2004. In that capacity, he was involved in identifying and recruiting 1/3 of the Institute’s professorial faculty and left an enduring legacy of academic and research initiatives in the biological, physical, earth, and social sciences, as well as the planning and development of the Thirty-Meter Telescope project.
As the Chief Scientist at BP from 2004 to early 2009, Dr. Koonin developed the long-range technology strategy for alternative and renewable energy sources. He managed the firm’s university–based research programs and played a central role in establishing the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of California Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. Koonin is a member and past chair of the JASON Study Group, advising the U.S. Government on technical matters of national security. He has served on numerous advisory committees for the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense, including the Defense Science Board and the CNO’s Executive Panel. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a former member of the Trilateral Commission. In 1985, Dr. Koonin received the Humboldt Senior U.S. Scientist Award and, in 1998 the Department of Energy’s E.O. Lawrence Award for his “broad impact on nuclear many-body physics, on astrophysics, and on a variety of related fields where sophisticated numerical methods are essential; and in particular, for his breakthrough in nuclear shell model calculations centered on an ingenious method for dealing with the huge matrices of heavy nuclei by using path integral methods combined with the Monte Carlo technique.”
These three authors (among many others) are critical of the concept of a "climate catastrophe". Are they people who have just read maybe a book or two and some youtube videos as well? I guess you would not given the mountain of evidence against such a claim. Now image one of them had posted a critical reply to this thread, what would your response be? 'Get your ego checked'?
Imagine making this post in the middle of China being in historic drought conditions. Historic flooding in Pakistan. Drought in the American west. Historic flooding in Kentucky. All of this in the past month.
Also, please cite that Hurricane study. Your strawman private jet flying climate scientists should also be named. Two faced politicians aside, you do realize that people like Joe Biden have been riding the train for years to get to and from DC? Bernie Sanders doesn't own a private jet. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn't own a private jet, heck she was vilified in the media for upgrading to first class once.
From that paper, which doesn’t talk about 2022 at all:
In summary, despite new research that challenges one aspect of the AR5 consensus for late 21st century-projected TC activity, it remains likely that global mean tropical cyclone maximum wind speeds and precipitation rates will increase; and it is more likely than not that the global frequency of occurrence of TCs will either decrease or remain essentially the same. Confidence in projected global increases of intensity and tropical cyclone precipitation rates is medium and high, respectively, as there is better model consensus. Confidence is further heightened, particularly for projected increases in precipitation rates, by a robust physical understanding of the processes that lead to these increases. Confidence in projected increases in the frequency of very intense TCs is generally lower (medium in the eastern North Pacific and low in the western North Pacific and Atlantic) due to comparatively fewer studies available and due to the competing influences of projected reductions in overall storm frequency and increased mean intensity on the frequency of the most intense storms. Both the magnitude and sign of projected changes in individual ocean basins appears to depend on the large-scale pattern of changes to atmospheric circulation and ocean surface temperature (e.g., Knutson et al. 2015 ). Projections of these regional patterns of change—apparently critical for TC projections—are uncertain, leading to uncertainty in regional TC projections.
There are other ways to get places than private jet or ferry. Obviously you can’t convene a global panel in walking distance if everyone in the world.
I don't know that they've accepted the harmlessness of it as much as raised the white flag on the fact that it's too widespread to be shut down, even if they wanted to.
Maybe I'm cynical, but I see "increase competition," but then see "put stronger safeguards in place" and assume that the regulations will be written in such a way that no upstart competitors can possibly abide by them, concentrating even more power in the hands of the incumbents and reducing competition.
Is that any less reason to think this isn’t a good idea? How many latent, otherwise-benign disorders might become manifest if people experiment with these drugs?
Vetted custodial staff with security clearances exist! As far as custodial pay goes, having a TS/SCI is probably going to put you in the top tier, it pays to stay out of trouble sometimes.
The security risk is a good reason to follow the advice of the article though - know your people. Also, badging and physical security.
The book Windup Girl [0] is a SciFi novel set in a universe where climate change has completely altered the world. Fossil fuels are no longer available, so production is limited by genetically engineered products or human/animal labor to charge in-universe batteries. Calorie cost of items becomes front and center to many activities.
Really interesting book -- in part because the "calories as currency" isn't even its primary focus, rather merely one part of the backdrop. Recommended, for sure.
Paolo Bacigalupi is fantastic if you're into eco-disaster sci-fi. The Water Knife[1] is also excellent, and with the extreme drought in the western US, feeling more and more prescient.
The word sacrifice suggests a religious connotation that seems worth exploring...
Indeed, sooo much energy is utterly wasted; but there's no getting through to the followers. You can scream and roar, wheedle and persuade, but they won't give up the idea that their sacrifices are necessary for the cosmic wheel to keep turning.
BTC (and other PoW) maxis are the priest class; bag holders are the wealthy funders getting the temples built. Missionaries get rewarded for bringing new acolytes into the fold.
Will the brutal religion survive? Or will it fall to a New Testament upstart?
Yes, but more like power than energy. The main problem is that energy can't really be stored, so energy cannot be saved like money can (sort of). So it is really power that money buys, not energy, and only supposing power is available.
This is yet another reason that proof-of-work schemes are a disaster for society: they waste its most precious material asset!
There are other options as well. Stored work-product (e.g., banking heat or cold when possible for later use, materials fabrication). Potential-storage mechanisms (batteries, pumped hydro, kinetic, or others). Demand-side rather than supply-side dispatch --- varying activity rather than generation or energy provision to match available capabilities.
You don't get energy and materials back out of building things for which there is no demand.
There is no way to store natural gas to meet one year's demand.
There is no way to store electric power to meet one year's demand. Not even one month's.
There is no way to store wind or solar power (see above).
Nuclear fuels, of course, can be stockpiled, but you can't demand more power than the nuclear plants that exist can produce, so having 100 years' worth of enriched uranium alone wouldn't help you produce extra power in any particularly hot summer / cold winter. Fuel is not the form in which we want energy when we turn an electric light on!
> Demand-side rather than supply-side dispatch --- varying activity rather than generation or energy provision to match available capabilities.
That's not possible. You've paid too much attention to Holdren.
You cannot make people alternate sleep/wake cycles so that we can have steady base load and no peak load. Or whatever else you have in mind for "varying demand" to match supply, unless that's rolling power outages.
Electric energy cannot be saved in any significant amount, full stop. Excess supply can be sent to ground, but excess demand cannot be met except with power generation using fuels that can be throttled very quickly (and that's essentially only natural gas). That means that electric power supply has to match demand or we must constantly run base power generation at peak demand rates and send excess to ground -- a tremendous waste!
There's no way around this.
Even if we did have batteries that were a) small, b) cheap, c) had enormous capacity, those would essentially be -when charged- coulombic bombs that have to be kept from exploding. Indeed, there are physical limits to electric energy store density where you can trivially get that energy back as power. For example, we've all seen that smartphone batteries are small explosives (recall the Samsung Galaxy fiasco), so now scale that way up and imagine what that would mean.
Energy storage can be challenging. It is far from impossible.
And of course, all energy conversions involve losses.
Most generally, excess electrical generation can be stored as fuels. The round-trip efficiency is low (~15--20%), but the storage time is proved to multi-hundred-million-year duration.
I've looked into the literature on one variant of this which dates to the early 1960s:
Your other assertions are ... similarly flawed. Again, yes, challenges, but not outright impossibilities, and there are a number of other alternatives (flow batteries, molten-salt and other batteries, pumped-hydro, CAES) which you fail to consider at all. Several of those are already implemented at grid scale, others ... are at least technically possible, and may well prove viable.
Storing a year's worth of U.S. electric production in a way that one could then get it back in a similar time span is not merely challenging. It is infeasible. For one, because of the efficiency issues you mention, we'd need a lot more than a year's worth of electric production to "charge" the "battery", and since we can't dedicate all our energy production capacity to charging that battery, we can't charge it in a reasonable amount of time. Further, we'd need to have the production capacity that could consume that battery, if that battery were fuels made from CO2, say, and we'd have to have it idle except when we need it on an emergency basis -- that or we'd have to use the same kind of fuel as our primary source of electric power under normal conditions, but we're not really allowed to. Moreover, we cannot re-create fissile fuel, so this wouldn't be very dense fuel -- it would have to be chemical fuel meant to be oxidized with atmospheric oxygen. Chemical fuels are not dense enough that we wouldn't notice the storage facilities for them -- they would be enormous, consuming enormous amounts of materials and labor to build. The economic cost of all of that would be staggering -many many times the cost of equivalent amounts of energy that we currently produce-, and that cost is what makes it infeasible.
There's no need to store a year's worth of electrical production. In most cases, a few hours is more than sufficient. Widespread shortfalls are better addressed via grid supply than storage. It might be necessary to have bridging power for a few days, possibly a few weeks, but this is still far from annual-scale in either fraction of production or duration of utilisation.
Synfuels (petroleum analogues), again, though round-trip inefficient are sufficiently energy-dense and long-term storage stable that they might serve for emergency long-term standby capacity. It's useful for other needs (industrial feedstocks and transportation fuels in aviation and marine shipping) so that some supply would likely be necessary regardless. Having standby / idle generation plant would be a capital and maintenance factor, but not impossible. There's well over a century of experience in storing strategic reserves of petroleum in both artificial and naturally-occurring storage facilities.
I'd first encountered the notion of currency-as-energy in Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth (1975). You'll also find it in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy. Clarke seems all but certainly to have encountered the idea in the work of his own hero, H.G. Wells, where it is a major theme in The World Set Free (1914).
My own view is that this is attractive and occasionally useful but ultimately something of a mirage. Money is in fact a notional record of claims on production, a social creation (with legal and economic underpinnings). The fact is that money can be transacted for many things. Ultimately, though, those demands must be secondary to the actual productive capability of an economic system, and a fixed peg to anything (gold, silver, Joules, MWh, bushels of wheat (among several original bases, see the shekel), cryptographic hashes/second, whatevs, will run up against reality when the notional value is out of step with the actual available resource. At such times, useful monetary systems must have the capacity to deflate (that is, the currency deflates and prices inflate) to bring the financial and real economies back into balance, as well as to distribute sufficient purchasing power amongst the population. Such inflations are a feature of such systems and a symptom of greater issues rather than a bug or failure of themselves.
Again, my own view, and one not widely shared though elements are beginning to appear in concepts such as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
