On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 6:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > > 2014-03-21 17:59 GMT+01:00 Telmo Menezes <[email protected]>: > > >> >> >> On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 5:24 PM, Quentin Anciaux <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> >>> 2014-03-21 17:19 GMT+01:00 John Clark <[email protected]>: >>> >>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 10:50 AM, Quentin Anciaux >>>> <[email protected]>wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>>> The thing I most want to know about RCP4.5 is what RCP stands for, >>>>>>> Google seems to think it's "Rich Client Platform" but that doesn't sound >>>>>>> quite right. It must be pretty obscure, Wikipedia has never heard of RCP >>>>>>> either. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> For your information, that means "Regional Climate Prediction" >>>>> >>>> >>>> I'm pretty sure it's not "Russian Communist Party" but are you sure >>>> it's not "Representative Concentration Pathways"? >>>> >>> >>> I'm pretty sure you must be dumb as dumb if you really think this... As >>> I see we are in a thread talking about climate... >>> >> >> This thread seems to be mostly about politics. To be fair, John seems to >> be in the minority here in wanting to discuss this from a scientific and >> technological perspective. >> >> He raises a number of points that I have raised myself in previous >> discussions. Instead of focusing on such issues, pop culture distractions >> (Fox News etc.) and political tribalism seem to get all of the attention. >> > > The thing is that I don't know much in climate and I prefer to let persons > in the field handle that, by default I would believe them in these matters, > they have more knowledge than me on these. > I agree, and it would take years of study for a non-expert to be able to have an informed opinion. But scientists are humans, and unfortunately we have seen over and over again that they can fall prey to group think, confirmation bias and other -- very human -- tendencies. One contemporary exemple is nutrition science -- more and more, we are seeing that the consensus here was pseudo-scientific and influenced by lobbies. The food pyramid probably killed more than cigarettes. In the case of climate science, there are a number of red flags. For me, the major ones are: - claims of 100% consensus: never a sign of serious, rigorous science; - claims of certainty over the behaviour of a highly complex system -> I don't have to be a climatologist to raise my eyebrows at this; - scientists using emotional, loaded terms like "deniers"; - so many models that any correct predictions don't appear to have statistical significance; - retroactive cherry picking of models; - there doesn't seem to be any amount of falsification that will lead the mainstream of the field to reconsider their hypothesis; Again, I admit I may be completely wrong. But there are red flags. > > I do not believe in conspiracy either... > I don't understand this position. In human history, conspiracies seems to be a very frequent event. Recently we learned of a vast conspiracy by western governments to implement total surveillance. Here I see another red flag -- the ridicule surrounding any suggestion of conspiracy seems to benefit precisely the ones in power. > and all the comments about the "all or nothing" are complete BS... I don't > see any point why we couldn't transition slowly to more sustainable source > of energy... > I hope we do. Unless you are suggesting we do it by coercion. I witnessed the industry and economy of my home country (Portugal), being destroyed by a state-enforced transition to wind power. Meanwhile, more and more people are falling below the poverty line while not even the middle class can afford to remain warm in winter (energy is too expensive because 80% of the energy bill subsidises the wind mills). > I don't see here in europe the kind of group anouncing doomsday and having > a discourse like spudboy is saying... what he believe is just that > beliefs... not facts. The green parties in europe certainly don't advocate > such policies... > > and certainly not in my country (belgium) can't talk much for other > countries, but they seems to be more or less the same views... No one is > advocating to transition tomorrow (as in tomorrow tomorrow) to a full solar > power (or other) and shut down all nuclear power plants... > Germany is scaling down its nuclear energy production and plans to shut down all of it's nucler power plants in the next two decades. This is due to political pressure from the green party amongst others. Meanwhile, it is reactivating coal power plants (renewable sources are just not enough) and air pollution in Berlin is already measurably higher. In Portugal, the green party will oppose any means of producing energy on principle, be it renewable or not. These are the cases I know. > they are even people (green or not) considering the LFTR reactor we were > talking about... climate and policies arount the mitigation of the global > warming are not binary... either we do everything or nothing.... even if we > were really doomed, that's not a reason not to try to mitigate things... > even slowly, slow extinction seems better than dying tomorrow... and > starting today even if today we thing we're doomed, doesn't mean tomorrow > (and because we started today) we won't find a solution escaping this > predicted doom... so I can't agree with an argument saying we should do > nothing just because new form of energy production cannot currently totally > replace the current form of production. > So, instead of forcing us to do things, why not encourage us to invest in renewable energy tech companies? If the tech is viable, it will generate a lot of revenue. No need to force anyone to do anything. Do you think that capitalists prefer oil money to other types of money? If you can't even get investors (because the tech is not viable yet), then this might be a good indication that doing it by coercion will only serious human problems. Doing it slow will only lead to misery slower. Telmo. > > Quentin > > > > >> >> - Given the number of climate models and the fact that the majority of >> them failed to predict the climate of the last decade, how confident can we >> be in further predictions? >> >> - With current technology, how much would we have to shrink the global >> energy budget to transition to sustainable sources? What would the human >> impact of that be? This is too serious an issue for wishful thinking. >> Theres 7 billion of us and counting. We need hard numbers here, that take >> into account the energy investment necessary to bootstrap the renewable >> sources, their efficiency and so on. >> >> - What is the probability that a climate catastrophe awaits us vs. the >> probability that an abrupt attempt to convert to sustainable sources would >> create a human catastrophe itself? >> >> - Given that environmentalists are claiming that it might even be too >> late to advert disaster, why aren't we seriously considering geoengineering >> approaches, as the one proposed by Nathan Myhrvold, which can be easily and >> cheaply tested and turned off at any moment? >> >> Also this: >> >> http://theenergycollective.com/robertwilson190/328841/why-germanys-nuclear-phase-out-leading-more-coal-burning >> >> Telmo. >> >> >> >>> using google correctly and not as an asshole... you would have found >>> what you were looking for (if you genuinely were looking for it... but you >>> weren't, you were trolling as usual). So blabla as usual... no point >>> arguing with you. >>> >>> >>>> Wikipedia lists 21 possible meanings of the acronym "RCP" and that's >>>> the only one that has anything at all to do with the environment. Wikipedia >>>> has never heard of "Regional Climate Prediction". >>>> >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCP >>>> >>>> >>>> > (And I didn't know it before doing the search) >>>>> >>>> >>>> Who did? >>>> >>>> > 0.5 second of searching on google... and the great John was unable >>>>> to do it >>>>> >>>> >>>> And still is. >>>> >>>> John K Clark >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to [email protected]. >>>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy >>> Batty/Rutger Hauer) >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > > > -- > All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy > Batty/Rutger Hauer) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
