Real news, MSM news, and faux news
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, April 19, 2026 14:49
VIEWED: 7882
PAGE 6 of 8
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
All thoughts welcome, solutions not required!
Saw a piece on the "Soccket Ball" yesterday, and was intrigued.
http://unchartedplay.com/soccket/#give
That doesn't solve all the world's problems. It's at best a one percent solution, solving one tiny problem. Okay, maybe two, since it brings light and power to out-of-reach areas AND encourages playing and physical fitness at the same time.
And the thing is, if this is dropped into places like sub-Saharan Africa, you're not asking anyone to give up a single thing in return. They're not sacrificing anything for it, but they're getting a leap forward in technology. Now children have light to study after dark, families have a lamp to gather around in places without electric service, etc.
I've also seen small, child-portable solar-powered water purifiers (fill it with sea water, set it out in the sun, and you get pure drinking water out of it), bicycle-powered water filtration systems, etc.
These are things that move people forward without increasing their carbon footprint while doing so.
Places in the EU are building "solar tunnels" - solar panels above the tracks for their bullet trains - which will produce power to help run the trains, the stations, the signals, and the surrounding towns and villages.
As mentioned before, India has a project going to put the same kinds of structures over its irrigation canals to help power irrigation pumps and sprinkler systems as well as producing power for nearby homes and businesses, AND cutting down on evaporative losses at the same time.
These things are being done. WE can be doing them and other things here and elsewhere.
"I supported Bush in 2000 and 2004 and intellegence [sic] had very little to do with that decision." - Hero
"I was wrong" - Hero, 2012
Mitt Romney, introducing his running mate: "Join me in welcoming the next President of the United States, Paul Ryan!"
Rappy's response? "You're lying, gullible ( believing in some BS you heard on msnbc ) or hard of hearing."
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The bars to this are: Well, people like Geezer just don't like the government doing ANYTHING.
Quote:
Originally posted by Geezer:
#1 could be doable, but probably not at the pace and rate of decrease that KIKI has proposed. Obama's plan is a good start.
You seem to think I'm against reducing carbon emissions in the U.S., but I'm not, and I'll tell you why.
Fossil fuel is a finite resource, and it's getting used up fast. A move to remove greenhouse gasses, even if if will not reduce global carbon one bit (And I've stated why I don't think it will) will have the benefit of reducing energy consumption and bringing online more renewable energy sources. Once we get over the unreasonable fear of nuclear energy and get some well-designed and safe plants up and running(Yeah. I know. Just take it as read for the sake of argument.), in concert with renewables, hydropower, and reductions in consumption, we'll be in a better position when the coal, oil, and natural gas run out.
If you're going to actually have a discussion, it's usually good manners to read what the other person posts, instead of just making up stuff to fit your preconceptions.
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
So you're sticking to your libertarianism, even though you've already admitted that not one country on Earth has ever used it as a foundation of government, you admit it's unlikely ever to happen, you've got zero plan to try to convince people or push your agenda...
... but you just still like talking about it?
Huh. So I have to ask at this point...
Why are you busting Kiki and Signy's chops for bringing up climate change?
Are you the only one who's allowed to daydream about an ideal world, or suggest that maybe we should be pushing towards such a thing?
I mean, how do you expect libertarian beliefs to win out if China, India, the EU, and others aren't on board?
Apparently you choose your unwinnable battles based purely on a whim.
Look. A red herring.
And I don't think Libertarianism will never work, just not for a while. Democracy didn't work so well in the 1400s.
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Geezer seems to have fallen into the age-old trap of looking for someone to come up with The One Magic Solution. He's looking for someone to come up with a single step that solves 100% of the problem. That's like thinking that you can begin your thousand-mile journey be starting at your destination.
Well, no.
I've been saying that for some problems, there are no solutions.
As noted for the fifth or sixth time, I have no problem with the U.S. working to reduce our carbon emissions, reduce energy usage, and move to renewables. I just don't think it'll solve the global increase in greenhouse emissions. I don't think ANYTHING (Aside from the Alien Deus ex Machina mentioned above) will do that until the world runs out of fossil fuel to burn.
Looks like you're in SignyM's boat of responding to what you think I'd say, rather than actually reading what I post.
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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I just read through the entire thread and I don't get the aggression toward Geezer. I mostly agree with him.
People care and momentum to reduce emissions and implement many big and small solutions is going to build over the coming decades. In developed and in developing countries. People in China care. People in India care. People in Africa probably care, too.
But I find his stance very reasonable. Looking at a world that's struggling to solve any of its major problems in a timely fashion, you cannot count on reducing at a rate fast enough to compensate for damage done already. It doesn't hurt to work toward that goal, sure.
But I find it weird attacking someone who would rather focus on a less favorable scenario by thinking about dealing with the outcome of not achieving that goal. Preparing for changing climate and weather extremes, food supply and safety for coastal areas, etc.
Why can't these conversations be happening parallel to each other?
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If you read what I wrote, you'll see that more than half of what I suggested are mitigations against the effect of climate shift: rebuilding wetlands (to retain water, purify runoff and store carbon), better fire prevention using hand-crews to thin stands and create biochar, pre-planting heat-resistant plants further north to act as nuclei for biome migration etc.
The problem with Geezer is that his entire approach is "but... but...". You point out one goal, he tells you another is more worhtwhile. You shift to THAT goal, he adds nothing to the discussion. With that kind of approach, NOTHING gets done: not even mitigating climate shift effects.
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AR,
The problem with Geezer's posts is he doesn't seem to read anyone else's and then either respond to them at all, or respond to the topic. For example, I went to great lengths to calculate the amount of CO2 reduction (mass, not percent) the US could arguably reach in 12 years. I then compared it to the amount of CO2 generated by China and India, and the decrease of CO2 achievable by the US is THREE TIMES the amount of the increase by China and India. I backed all of this up with links, quotes, and graphs.
So let's say that the US CAN technically achieve an emissions reduction of 1/3 over the next 12 years (0.5 PgC), and the EU can reduce their emissions by another 1/5 (0.2 PgC). That's a 0.7 PgC per year reduction after 12 years between the two of them.
"Contributions to global emissions growth in 2011 were largest from China (0.226 PgC above 2010 levels, 9.9% growth) and India (0.043 PgC, 7.5%)."
Between the US and the EU, achievable reductions are roughly 3 TIMES the increases due to China and India. So yes, in fact, the US and the EU COULD solve the problem all on their own, at least when it comes to balancing emissions from China and India. In fact, the US could solve the problem without any contribution from anyone else.
A post he has yet to respond to except with more dishonest whining about RATES of increase. The problem with rates is, if you start at very, very, very low levels, you could double or triple your output, and still be at very very very low levels. But if you start at high levels you could reduce your output by a fractional rate and reduce a very large absolute amount.
I read his posts, and what I read was - why should the US do ANYthing??? It's not FAIR b/c EVERYONE ELSE doesn't HAVE TO!!!!!
A whine he keeps whining despite the numbers that show his assumptions to be untrue. The US COULD solve the problem of global warming - albeit slowly - on its own, even if China and India increase their output, even at increasing rates.
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Thanks for responding both of you.
I guess, reading the thread frustrated me, because I loved reading those ideas, but the discussion always veered off into angry exchanges. It's kind of silly, I've been here long enough to know the general tone of the board.
My instinct is all "Wetlands, yes! I love those!" or "I had no idea that EU/US reductions could buffer so much of India/China's emissions! How awesome!" It's supremely motivating. And then I get all bummed out why everyone else isn't all "Fantastic! What can I do to make it so?" and instead there's name-calling.
Really, just ignore me. I have a Pollyanna moment every once in a while.
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
A post he has yet to respond to except with more dishonest whining about RATES of increase. The problem with rates is, if you start at very, very, very low levels, you could double or triple your output, and still be at very very very low levels. But if you start at high levels you could reduce your output by a fractional rate and reduce a very large absolute amount.
But you're not starting at very low levels. China produces more carbon emissions than the U.S. India produces about 30% of U.S. amounts.
Then again, the U.S. has held pretty much the same level of emissions since 2000, while China's has DOUBLED and India's has increased by 30% or so. Using your own figures, China increased emissions 9.9% in the year 2011, and India 7.5%.
Quote:
I read his posts, and what I read was - why should the US do ANYthing??? It's not FAIR b/c EVERYONE ELSE doesn't HAVE TO!!!!!
Then you haven't been reading my posts, just what you think I'd post.
I've never said the U.S. should do nothing, in fact I've said reducing energy use and emissions, and developing renewable energy sources is definately a good idea for the U.S.. Never said anything about "fair" either. It's just a fact that developing economies are gonna be less likely to reduce emissions.
Quote:
A whine he keeps whining despite the numbers that show his assumptions to be untrue. The US COULD solve the problem of global warming - albeit slowly - on its own, even if China and India increase their output, even at increasing rates.
Once again, China now produces more carbon emissions that the U.S., and is increasing them (per your figures) at 9.9% a year. Let's use CDIAC's latest (2011) figures for tons of carbon emissions.
U.S. = 1.473 trillion tons
China = 2.484 trillion tons
U.S./China total = 3.957 tons
Now lets say that the U.S. reduces it's carbon emissions 9.9% a year (and this is quite an assumption, because I can't find any similar one-year drop - let alone such a sustained drop - by a major industrial country in CDIAC records). The figures will run like this.
2012 = 1.340 trillion tons
2013 = 1.243 tt
2014 = 1.123 tt
2015 = 1.012 tt
2016 = 911 Billion tons
So in 2016 the U.S. will be producing 560 billion tons less a year of carbon than in 2011.
Now let's try China's figures, using the 9.9% increase you cited, and that is shown as being pretty consistant per CDIAC figures.
2012 = 2.729 trillion tons
2013 = 3.000 tt
2014 = 3.297 tt
2015 = 3.623 tt
2016 = 3.982 tt
So in 2016 China will be producing 1.498 TRILLION tons MORE carbon than in 2011.
the U.S./China total in 2016 will be 4.893 trillion tons, a 936 billion ton increase over 2011.
I could run the figures for India as well, but you get the point.
So until you can show actual figures indicating that China and India are substantually reducing their carbon emissions, your supposition that the U.S. alone can "solve the problem of global warming" is kind'a bogus.
And insulting me, accusing me of "whining", making up fantasies about my motives, and dismissing anything that shows you wrong, won't change the numbers. Just makes you look like a poor loser.
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Quote:I love wetlands too, even more than I love forests... and that's saying something! Although the ideas may sound a little "out there", theyre actually field-proven, or concatentations of field-proven ideas, for example
My instinct is all "Wetlands, yes! I love those!" or "I had no idea that EU/US reductions could buffer so much of India/China's emissions! How awesome!" It's supremely motivating. And then I get all bummed out why everyone else isn't all "Fantastic! What can I do to make it so?" and instead there's name-calling. Really, just ignore me. I have a Pollyanna moment every once in a while.
Forest fire prevention and biochar. OUr old forests used to be about 60-100 trees per acre: pretty light on fuel. Fire would race through, but stay mostly on the ground and do little damage because the understory was usually pretty light- a few shrubs and some grasses, it would flare up but burn out quickly.
Our new forests (since the advent of effective fire prevention= suppression circa 1940) are chock-o-block full of small trees, at about 600 per acre. That's a lot of fuel! Unfortunately, by the time forest scientists realized that stopping EVERY forest fire was a problem too, and changed policy course to "let it burn" in the 1970s, the forests has already built up so much fuel that the resulting fires were catastrophic. They turned into "crown fires", and burned so hot and so long that the soil was sterilised. Everything was killed: Trees, shrubs, root crowns from which some plants resprout, seeds, animal- even soil fungi, which are a hugely important part of tree and shrub health. The Yellowstone fire of 1988 was a huge fire which shed light (so to speak) on the consequences of "let it burn".
http://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0912/aburn.html
Yellowstone is still recovering to this day
http://www.space.com/17183-yellowstone-still-recovering-from-fires-lan
dsat-reveals-video.html
Some time later (some of the items I'm referring to are archival, and can't be found online anymore) the CA Forest Service, along with a CA univerity (prolly Davis) were conducting fire-prevention experiment in the Sierras. They divided up approximately one-square mile of land with roughly uniform topography into four parts: no management, thinning only, controlled burns only, and thinning plus controlled burn. As luck would have it, an uncontrolled forest fire raged through, and they got a chance to study the results: the "no management" area burned to a crisp in a crown-fire, both single-strategy areas burned on the ground but the trees survived, but the dual-strategy area stopped the fire cold.
Since climate shift is going to make our forests drier and more prone to fire, it would be good to create fire-breaks to keep forest fires from raging out of control. Looking at the average size of the catastrophic fires, this would require approximately 1-mile-wide (sparks can fly that far) fire breaks approximately every 15 miles, in a wind-and-topography-sensitive grid pattern.
This would require hand-thinning, and lots of people. But we have a lot of people out of work, right? We have an army that we should bring home, and they're going to need jobs too, right?
At the same time they're thinning trees, you have to do something with the refuse. This is where biochar comes in.
BIOCHAR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar
Mulching the refuse on-site will help prevent fires, but mulch tends to be decayed right back into CO2 in 6-12 months. (If you mulch your garden with chipped arborist trimmings, you know you have to re-mulch at least every year.) So, good for fire suppression but not much good as carbon sequestration. Biochar, OTOH, is stable for centuries. As a carbon sequestration medium, it's great. It also improves soil fertility and acts as a sponge to help soak up and retain water, which will be more and more useful as snowpack stops accumulating and rainfall becomes mo
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