Climate change could mean the extinction of our species

[buttslinger]

....Pessimism is not an excuse for bad action.

If this is a Star Trek future, we're OK.
But if it's a Twilight Zone, we're fucked.

[trish]

It's a wind turbine but better!

Interesting concept: go to the elevation where the wind is. I'm wondering if the developers imagine fields of these "blimps". If so, is entanglement a foreseeable problem? And how are these less of a threat to migrating birds?

I am inclined to think we can milk more energy from the temperature gradient between high and low elevations. A space elevator might be both a cheap way out of the gravity well and a conduit of power.

[martin48]

Well, they are fictional characters

I do hate having to discipline you again, but they are fictional numbers (not even imaginary ones)

I stand corrected. Or kneeling if you prefer.

Kneeling for starters

Exactly. We agree on the crucial point.

Apparently some among us prefer to govern blind as well.

The analogy to evolution is apt, yet often libertarians will even bring up survival of the fittest as if that concept vindicates free market idiot-ology. Too often the lay population fails to realize that evolution is not the unfolding of a story of progress, but simply the blind zigs and zags of self-reproducing populations responding to immediate selection pressures.

The concept of "survival of the fittest" is often misunderstood. It is not the Wolf of Wall Street, but the best fit to the environment for long term survival. If we properly used Darwin's term, the survival of the fittest would give a very different capitalist system - we would survive. Many of us and not just a very few, as at present.

Martin

[dderek123]

Interesting concept: go to the elevation where the wind is. I'm wondering if the developers imagine fields of these "blimps". If so, is entanglement a foreseeable problem? And how are these less of a threat to migrating birds?

I am inclined to think we can milk more energy from the temperature gradient between high and low elevations. A space elevator might be both a cheap way out of the gravity well and a conduit of power.

There was a discussion on another site about these things that pointed out a few potential weaknesses. First, the gas they use for levitation is helium which there is a limited supply globally. Prices of helium have been rising pretty steadily. So the cost of creating each one of these, in theory, will keep going up. Hydrogen would be a cheaper option. But you know it's kind of dangerous unless the thing is engineered properly. Also, the power output is rumored to be 30kW which is not that much for wind turbines. Therefore the cost per kw wouldn't be very attractive. A diesel generator would be a much cheaper alternative for remote power generation. And finally, the video puts out a kickstarter vibe with very few details offered to the public. Everything is a bit vague which could make most people suspicious that it's a sham. But this is all just speculation on the internet take it for what it's worth.

http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comme...urbine_brings/

[trish]

I do hate having to discipline you again, but they are fictional numbers (not even imaginary ones)

Fictional characters sometimes make up fictional numbers, but the point of the fiction is not the numbers but to present the idea that "correct" is a relative notion. Is it correct to treat the Earth's surface as a sphere? It depends on the purposes of the treatment. Is it correct to criticize (judge) industry and government when they ignore the problems of climate change? Yes, if you want to minimize that change and the costs it will incur down the road in money and lives. No, if you don't care so much about things that far down the road. (Next time, I won't just use real numbers, I'll use realistic numbers.)

The concept of "survival of the fittest" is often misunderstood. It is not the Wolf of Wall Street, but the best fit to the environment for long term survival. If we properly used Darwin's term, the survival of the fittest would give a very different capitalist system - we would survive. Many of us and not just a very few, as at present.

Well said.

[trish]

Addendum: The above is not meant to endorse wild, laissez-faire, post-modern relativism. It is merely a concession that claims about the world are at best approximations and one expects each to have a limiting range of application. This doesn’t make it unreasonable to assert that some claims can be correct and other claims wrong. It shouldn’t prevent a reasonable person from judging that some of the behaviors of our government leaders and leaders of industry to be near sighted, profit driven and greedy. It is a refreshing counter to the straight-jacketed view (seemingly made by at least one of our number) that no claim is correct because it cannot address every detail and consequently no one can in good conscious judge the actions of another.

[martin48]

Reminded of Charles Babbage's letter to Lord Tennyson - the value of approximation.

Sir:

In your otherwise beautiful poem "The Vision of Sin" there is a verse which reads – "Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born." It must be manifest that if this were true, the population of the world would be at a standstill. In truth, the rate of birth is slightly in excess of that of death.

I would suggest that in the next edition of your poem you have it read – "Every moment dies a man, Every moment 1 1/16 is born."

The actual figure is so long I cannot get it onto a line, but I believe the figure 1 1/16 will be sufficiently accurate for poetry.

I am, Sir, yours, etc.,

Charles Babbage


(Too much culture on this site)

Addendum: The above is not meant to endorse wild, laissez-faire, post-modern relativism. It is merely a concession that claims about the world are at best approximations and one expects each to have a limiting range of application. This doesn’t make it unreasonable to assert that some claims can be correct and other claims wrong. It shouldn’t prevent a reasonable person from judging that some of the behaviors of our government leaders and leaders of industry to be near sighted, profit driven and greedy. It is a refreshing counter to the straight-jacketed view (seemingly made by at least one of our number) that no claim is correct because it cannot address every detail and consequently no one can in good conscious judge the actions of another.

[Ben]

Charles Eisenstein: Living Without Economic Growth...

[Stavros]

The Daily Telegraph today published a book review article by Charles Moore -former editor of the paper and most recently the biographer of Margaret Thatcher -I won't copy and paste the whole review and it starts with such a howler I would expect even the anti-science deniers to be embarrassed:

Most of us pay some attention to the weather forecast. If it says it will rain in your area tomorrow, it probably will. But if it says the same for a month, let alone a year, later, it is much less likely to be right. There are too many imponderables.

The theory of global warming is a gigantic weather forecast for a century or more. However interesting the scientific inquiries involved, therefore, it can have almost no value as a prediction.

The review is of a book written by an associate of the Centre for Policy Studies, a think-tank created in 1974 by Keith Joseph, also known as the 'mad monk' who converted Margaret Thatcher to monetarism (as it was known in those days), and who set up the CPS because he believed, as Margaret came to believe, that his own party's Research Office was intellectually bankrupt.

The author of the book chooses various historical moments and claims to prove that predictions often go wrong, and the tone is set with this:

The origins of warmism lie in a cocktail of ideas which includes anti-industrial nature worship, post-colonial guilt, a post-Enlightenment belief in scientists as a new priesthood of the truth, a hatred of population growth, a revulsion against the widespread increase in wealth and a belief in world government.

Thus a man who has no interest or expertise in the science of climate change reinvents it as a political movement which by definition is against everything he believes.

I think these people almost want to see a sequence of catastrophic events take place to prove Global Warming is happening, whereas I think the reality is going to be localised but incremental changes taking place over the next 50-100 years, by which time the actual impact of 'global weirding' will be more evident.

The review is here...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/b...believers.html

[buttslinger]

My furnace and hot water heater and stove and car engine are basically all powered by "FIRE" ....serving mankind faithfully for over ten thousand years. If scientists can develop the atomic bomb in two years, I don't see why we can't take some military money and come up with some frightening new source of energy that is CLEAN like sunshine.
Although even the Sun is fire now that I think of it.

What scares me more than an inability to predict the weather in 100 years is the inability to predict the cost of a movie with popcorn and a coke in 100 years,
or the price of 4 years of college,
or any of the thousand calamities that might occur in that time.
One giant earthquake in California and the economy of the USA is toast.