At 06:11 27/06/2011, Natalie wrote:
Way too much credit to Darwin here, Keith.
Biology is big, but I doubt it will come close
to the industries this planet must quickly act
upon to save itself. I believe that eliminating
the carbon output is the first priority--like by
2020, or the oceans will die. Biology will
contribute to that end, but the world just simply has to stop the emissions.
Your point is taken about why Islamic countries
seem rather stuck, but they are keen to hold on
to their control of the energy markets, and are
seriously hoping to install renewables to 10% of
total output by 2020, and up to 80% by 2050 (--
unfortunately, not urgent enough). They know
that oil has seen its day. They have so much
solar potential alone that they envision energy
exports to Europe and Africa in the near future.
Perhaps sustainables, if they can stay away from
nuclear, will help them out of the stagnation
far sooner than what Western influences have in mind for them.
The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland produced
in four days more CO2 than all the CO2 saved by
Carbon emission controls have achieved in the
last four years. When Mount Pinatubo erupted in
1991 it spewed out more CO2 than the entire human
race has emitted in its entire existence on
earth. We have 200 volcanoes active every day.
Because all of this CO2 is being extracted (via
bacteria, etc) every day in the form of
carbonates in spent sea-shells on sea bottoms
then it keeps the atmospheric CO2 pretty small.
The famous hockey-stick graph produced by the
IPCC some years was, of course, retracted because
it was an artificial gluing together of entirely
different graphs and designed to scare the
punters. The IPCC has reduced its dire forecasts
so many times and so significantly over the past
few years that it's risible (in my opinion
Pachauri is a fraud if ever there was one -- a
multi-millionaire now, crying all the way to the
ban). But what the same IPCC computers and graphs
are still not showing are the Little Ice Age
(when the Thames used to freeze over) or the
previous Medieval Warm Period (about as hot as
now, perhaps a little warmer) or the Bronze Age
Warm Period when it was much hotter and the
Shetland islands and Iceland were covered in farms.
Until the IPCC can produce an adequate theory of
why our present warm period is no more than one
of the usual blips that occur every few hundred
years, then I remain a sceptic. I take counsel
from the minority of eminent climatologists and
meteorologists who await more evidence on this
hugely complex matter before deciding.
Further to my mention of the murderous schisms
within the Islamic faith between the Sunnis and
Shias I learned even only yesterday the
undelightful fact that even the Shias are divided
between the 'Seveners' and the 'Twelvers'. Don't
ask me what these mean. Something to do with
genealogical succession from Mohammad I imagine.
(Or it might be to do with fertility! In which
case, the Twelvers ought really to become
converted to Judaism because the Hasidic Jews of
Israel aim for at least twelve children in their
families because they receive sizeable state
welfare benefits -- more than enough to live very
comfortably, thank you. The father, anyway. I pity the poor mother.)
Keith
Natalia
BU DHABI, United Arab Emirates: Renewable
sources such as solar and wind could supply up
to 80 per cent of the worlds energy needs by
2050 and play a significant role in fighting
global warming, a top climate panel concluded Monday.
But the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change said that to achieve that level,
governments would have to do more to introduce
policies that integrate renewables into existing
power grids and promote their benefits in terms
of reducing air pollution and improving public health.
Authors said the report concluded that the use
of renewables is on the rise, their prices are
declining and that with the right policies, and
they will be an important tool both in tackling
climate change and helping poor countries use
the likes of solar or wind to develop their economies in a sustainable fashion.
The report shows that it is not the
availability of the resource but the public
policies that will either expand or constrain
renewable energy development over the coming
decades, said Ramon Pichs, who co-chaired the
group tasked with producing the report.
Developing countries have an important stake in
this future this is where 1.4 billion people
without access to electricity live yet also
where some of the best conditions exist for renewable energy deployment.
Governments endorsed the renewable report Monday
after a four-day meeting. The nonbinding
scientific policy document is to advise
governments as they draw up policies and to help
guide the private sector as it considers areas in which to invest.
Activists said Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two
oil-rich states that dont have an interest in
alternatives, successfully watered down the
reports language on the cost benefits of
renewables a charge the Saudis denied, saying
they only were arguing to stick with the
science. Brazil, a major ethanol producer,
opposed language on the negative effects of
biofuels and hydro as well as the economic potential of other renewables.
The report reviewed bioenergy, solar energy,
geothermal, hydropower, ocean energy and wind.
It did not consider nuclear, so Pachauri said
the recent nuclear accident in Japan was not
discussed nor did it have any impact on the reports conclusions.
The IPCC has said swift, deep reductions in use
of non-renewables are required to keep
temperatures from rising more than 3.8 degrees
Fahrenheit (2 Celsius) above preindustrial
levels, which could trigger catastrophic climate impacts.
Stephan Singer, director for Global Energy
Policy at WWF International, welcomed the report
but said the IPCC should have gone further. He
said its studies have found that the world could
be fueled 100 per cent by renewables by 2050.
IPCC delivers a landmark report that shows the
rapid growth, low-cost potential for renewable
energy but unfortunately does not endorse a
100 per cent renewable energy pathway until 2050, Singer said in a statement.
We need to be fast if we want to tackle
pressing issues as varied as energy security and
efficiency and at the same time keep climate
change well below the danger threshold of 2 degrees.
<http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dawn.com%2F2011%2F05%2F09%2Frenewable-energy-key-in-climate-change-fight-un.html&title=Renewable%20energy%20key%20in%20climate%20change%20fight%3A%20UN&description=Dawn.com%20is%20your%20source%20for%20the%20latest%20breaking%20news%2C%20current%20events%20and%20top%20stories%20from%20Pakistan%2C%20South%20Asia%20and%20the%20world.>http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/09/renewable-energy-key-in-climate-change-fight-un.html
<http://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dawn.com%2F2011%2F05%2F09%2Frenewable-energy-key-in-climate-change-fight-un.html&title=Renewable%20energy%20key%20in%20climate%20change%20fight%3A%20UN&description=Dawn.com%20is%20your%20source%20for%20the%20latest%20breaking%20news%2C%20current%20events%20and%20top%20stories%20from%20Pakistan%2C%20South%20Asia%20and%20the%20world.>
On 6/25/2011 12:34 AM, Keith Hudson wrote:
The basic reason why the populations of Islamic
countries in the Middle East have little hope
of improving their way of life for many decades
to come is that their religious leaders are
increasingly opposing Western science as a
whole (although supportive of military
technology). They've actually been doing this
for two or three centuries or more, but it is
now becoming rampant. Even imams in Western
mosques dare not support Darwinism in their
Friday sermons for fear of being hounded out of office.
The fact is that Darwinian evolution is not, as
it were, a quaint (and slightly old-fashioned)
sub-set in the history of science but the very
basis of the fastest-growing area of science
today -- biology. Continuing progress within
the fields of medicine, neurophysiology,
agriculture, education and human behaviour has
no chance at all without evolutionary genetics
as the explanatory key and the basis of all
experimentation and subsequent development. And
it is in these fields, rather than yet more of
the consumer goods and mass entertainments of
the last 300 years, that economic growth in the
Western countries has a chance of resuming.
There are many Muslims -- even biologists -- in
the Islamic world who know this, but they're in
a very small minority -- microscopic even --
within their countries. Goodness knows when
they'll ever be allowed to practise more freely
and also to influence public opinion. If
politicians in the Western countries genuinely
want to bring the Islamic countries out of
medievalism then they ought to be applying
themselves as to how to encourage science
education in those countries and not in fanning
the flames of social protest, when they occur,
with abstract notions such as 'democracy' --
procedures which, even now, are still pretty fragile in the West.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/06/
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/06/
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