From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bruno Marchal
Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 3:35 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Global warming silliness
On 14 Nov 2013, at 04:47, meekerdb wrote:
On 11/13/2013 7:26 PM, LizR wrote:
On 14 November 2013 16:18, Chris de Morsella <cdemorse...@yahoo.com> wrote:
But as Telmo points out we can't just wait till fossil fuel runs out and
then switch. It takes energy to build nuclear power plants and solar panels
and wind tubines. In principle they could bootstrap themselves, but not on
the time scale we need to make the transition.
Who's suggesting we wait and then switch?
A lot of the FUD campaign is to say the science is uncertain; we need to
wait until we're sure.
>>That's why it would help if people understand that science, by its very
nature, is uncertain, and so "being uncertain" is NOT a reason for not
taking decision.
Exactly. Speaking in terms of probability makes for poor headlines. People
can easily be fooled by the uncertainty that science couches just about
everything it states (probabilistic outcomes) and convinced by clever
well-funded propagandists who can amplify their messaging across all media
channels, injecting doubt (the "junk science" strategy perfected by the
tobacco lobbyists) and therein succeed in paralyzing the public space into a
study it to death default mode.
The counter-argument I propose to people who have been swayed by the "the
science is unsure, so we need to study it more before doing anything"
argument is to use the example of insurance, which almost everyone gets.
If you take out fire insurance on your house (or are even required to do so
by law) it is not because you know your house will burn down (well, unless
you are about to commit insurance fraud that is). But it is quite
uncontroversial & accepted by almost all people that it is a very good idea
to do so. While the actuarial probability of your particular house burning
down is very low, the event would be catastrophic and so getting coverage is
a good idea.
Even if we cannot be certain global climate change could have such
unimaginably catastrophic effects (in the case of a massive methane hydrate
release triggered by the inexorable rise of the deep sea water temperatures
as heat transfers into this massive heat sink. The costs of reducing our
carbon footprint should be viewed as an insurance policy, and we insure
ourselves everyday against stuff we hope never happens to us.
Besides we need to start building other energy infrastructures now. What not
many people realize is how we have probably passed the global peak of
recoverable carbon fossil energy. This is hard to see in the US now - in the
middle of a shale play bubble that has created a short term unsustainable
gas supply surplus in this country which has lowered market prices. But coal
reserves globally and also in the USA are far below the commonly cited
figures and new reserves reports are down grading reserves - this is a
highly politically charged figure as literally hundreds of billions of
dollars of fortunes ride on these reserves (and the perception of these
reserves) A large part of what had been counted as reserves cannot be
recovered - it is under far too much overburden. Global oil supply has
already peaked; as has traditional gas. Now for the shale play - the Eagle
Ford, Bakken, Marcellus. yeah it sure smellslike boom times now. And the
drillers are getting rich for sure. The entire supply chain that supports
the drilling, supplies the poppants, the witches brew of chemicals, that is
all booming now - and sucking in a huge portion of the available energy
capital as well by the way.
What is not mentioned by the bubble boosters is the high decline rates for
fracked wells. Right now everything is being sustained by a huge river of
new capital investment driven by this speculative bubble. But once investors
begin to come back down to earth and privately begin to figure things out
they will realize that far from being engines of future profit what they own
are money pits.
What they are realizing is that fracked fields also reclose up. In other
words the poppants and the noxious surficants and solvents that have been
pumped down in a slurry mix also requiring vast quantities of water.. After
a few years salts and other deposits clog up the micro-fissures and the flow
gums up. So just to keep the wells operating they will require more water,
more poppants, more noxious chemical proprietary secret sauces - all of
which bite into the bottom line.
The Bakken, for example is sucking SD dry - the fracking operations there
are buying out farmers and ranchers to pump the water into the shale
formations below.
Chris
The use of science by government of science is of the type of
pseudo-religion abuse.
Bruno
We can't take action that will have negative economic effects on the basis
of imperfect climate models.
Brent
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