Author Topic: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday  (Read 5135 times)

Firethorn

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #75 on: March 04, 2019, 06:25:36 PM »
This too. I take exactly zero people seriously who push "ZOMG we have to do something!" but refuse to say "nuclear".

Put me in as somebody who has been pushing for nuclear for decades.

That said, global climate change is actually easy to explain.

The Earth heats up at the equator from solar radiation, and giant convection cells form to distribute the heat towards the poles, which are net radiators.  Add in coriolis effects from the earth's rotation, things like continental and you get our weather.

The earth IS getting warmer.  However, higher temperatures equals more energy.   Which means that those convection cells become larger, faster, and longer lasting.

In the north, you get hot high air cooling near the pole, as it does so the air drops, forcing the cold air currently there to move south.  More energy means that this still cold air moves faster and further.

Net effect?  Higher highs, lower lows, more and more violent storms.

Coastal cities are hit by a double whammy.  Ice melting off of Antarctica and northern glaciers raises the sea level, costing them their buffer even as storm surges grow in intensity, drastically increasing flood risk.

Hawkmoon

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #76 on: March 04, 2019, 06:38:07 PM »
Put me in as somebody who has been pushing for nuclear for decades.

That said, global climate change is actually easy to explain.

The Earth heats up at the equator from solar radiation, and giant convection cells form to distribute the heat towards the poles, which are net radiators.  Add in coriolis effects from the earth's rotation, things like continental and you get our weather.

The earth IS getting warmer.  However, higher temperatures equals more energy.   Which means that those convection cells become larger, faster, and longer lasting.

In the north, you get hot high air cooling near the pole, as it does so the air drops, forcing the cold air currently there to move south.  More energy means that this still cold air moves faster and further.

Net effect?  Higher highs, lower lows, more and more violent storms.

Coastal cities are hit by a double whammy.  Ice melting off of Antarctica and northern glaciers raises the sea level, costing them their buffer even as storm surges grow in intensity, drastically increasing flood risk.

But this effect is (or can be) cyclical, as well. I'm sure I have commented previously (although perhaps not in this thread) that the Vikings had a viable, agrarian society flourishing in/on Greenland for almost 500 years, from the 900s to the 1400s. They ultimately abandoned Greenland (now why would they have named it "Green"land, I wonder?) because it became too cold, and there was too much sea ice during the winters. A simplistic view (and I'm a simple sort of guy) might hold that unless and until it becomes too hot to farm on Greenland, we're only seeing a cylcical variation.

Even if we accept the mechanics of your explanation ... does that in any way support the true believers' contention that THIS time around it's all caused by mankind, and that we can reverse it if we stop driving cars and eating the meat of farting cows?

I'll also note that at one time parts of North America (and the United States) were covered by glaciers. The Finger Lakes in upstate New York are glacial in origin, as is Soames Sound in Maine, the only natural fjord in North America. Many years ago I drove along U.S. Route 202 from Holyoke, MA, to Maine. Going east along 202 in MA I noticed a number of small, round-ish hillocks. Subsequent research informed me that they are glacial drumlins -- the line of small hills is made up of glacial deposits, and represents the line along which the advance of the glaciers' advance stopped.

Should we be advocating for the return of glaciers to northern New York and New England?
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Ron

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #77 on: March 04, 2019, 07:12:54 PM »
Regarding earths climate we don’t know nearly as much as we pretend to know.

A lot of folks are confusing probabilities based on dubious methods with reality.

If it wasn’t observed, cannot be measured and cannot be tested for falsifiability is it actually science?

Climate scientists are more like economists, at least when it comes to predicting the future.

For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse. Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

Firethorn

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #78 on: March 04, 2019, 08:08:29 PM »
But this effect is (or can be) cyclical, as well. I'm sure I have commented previously (although perhaps not in this thread) that the Vikings had a viable, agrarian society flourishing in/on Greenland for almost 500 years, from the 900s to the 1400s. They ultimately abandoned Greenland (now why would they have named it "Green"land, I wonder?) because it became too cold, and there was too much sea ice during the winters. A simplistic view (and I'm a simple sort of guy) might hold that unless and until it becomes too hot to farm on Greenland, we're only seeing a cylcical variation.

First up, consider that while I said that the earth is getting warmer, I didn't mention any harmful effects from just that.  I mentioned sea level rise and more severe weather primarily.  That it was warmer in Greenland over 600 years ago doesn't matter when all the cities were built(or completely rebuilt) since then.  

I've also recently read up a bit more on Greenland.  First, it wasn't really an agrarian society from what I read, they were heavily dependent upon livestock and sea life for their food.  They were living more like Inuit.  Second, the theory for the warming has more to do with the gulf stream than the entire earth being warmer then.

The "it's only cyclical" has problems:
1.  We more or less know the cycles, and this ain't one of them.
2.  Modeling of our climate doesn't work unless we include forcings for human based emissions.
3.  We know the chemistry of the earth now, and we know the concentrations, emissions, and chemical properties of CO2 and various other chemicals, and we see those effects happening in the atmosphere.

And a bar of "too hot to farm in Greenland"?  Are you serious?  That would indicate that everything south of Greenland would be a wasteland.  How about something like "suitable for warmer weather crops than the Barley the Vikings grew"?

How about things like we're predicting that the Arctic Sea will be passable for at least part of the year very shortly?

Quote
Even if we accept the mechanics of your explanation ... does that in any way support the true believers' contention that THIS time around it's all caused by mankind, and that we can reverse it if we stop driving cars and eating the meat of farting cows?

You're picking ONE data point, and not a good one.  The "true believers" have things on their side like satellite observation data, ice and rock cores, sediment observations, and more on their side.  

Also, only the idiots are trying to get you to stop driving and eating meat.  More realistically, you're looking at stuff like more non-fossil fuels.  Coal power plants are a big one, as coal is pretty much pure carbon.  So if we stop burning coal, in favor of nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal and all the others, we cut down our carbon dioxide emissions substantially.  Of course, I call the greenies idiots for opposing nuclear power.  Next up would be vehicles, but we're getting the batteries to the point that we might be able to create a battery powered passenger plane that is economical.  

And it isn't cow farts driving bovine based global warming.  It's their belches that actually contains more NG.  For that, they're working on changing up the cow's gut fauna, with the bonus that done right, it actually reduces the feed requirements for them.

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Should we be advocating for the return of glaciers to northern New York and New England?

No, more that we don't warm things up so much that we lose most of Florida.

Quote from: Ron
If it wasn’t observed, cannot be measured and cannot be tested for falsifiability is it actually science?

What does that have to do with climatology?  It can be observed, and is observed.  We measure it all the damn time.  And yes, we do test it. 

Ron

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #79 on: March 04, 2019, 08:37:58 PM »
What does that have to do with climatology?  It can be observed, and is observed.  We measure it all the damn time.  And yes, we do test it.  

The models are all junk.

They cannot accuraterly predict the past let alone the future.

If there was no hubris there would be acknowledgment that “we” really don’t know *expletive deleted*it.

Instead we get true believers who confuse their models with reality.

Pompous asses who are intellectual yet idiots (present company excluded).

By the way, the Arctic Sea was passable in the past, in the 1800’s, before worldwide industrialization.

Climate science is about as reliable as the social sciences.



For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse. Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

Hawkmoon

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #80 on: March 04, 2019, 08:52:01 PM »
The models are all junk.

They cannot accuraterly predict the past let alone the future.

If there was no hubris there would be acknowledgment that “we” really don’t know *expletive deleted*it.

Instead we get true believers who confuse their models with reality.


And then fudge "adjust" the data to fit the models ...
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Ron

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #81 on: March 04, 2019, 09:14:04 PM »
What I should have said is “government sponsored climate science based on consensus is about as reliable as the social sciences”.

Without a doubt there is plenty of real observation and actual science taking place by real scientists.
For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that they may be without excuse. Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.

MechAg94

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #82 on: March 05, 2019, 10:13:26 AM »
From what I have seen in the past, storms are not getting worse, more numerous, or more violent.  That is the perception as any serious storm is sensationalized in the media and there is more population in the path of storms these days.  That comes up every year with Hurricanes as well, but there has been no substantial increase in number or severity.  Also, the cycles mentioned are known now, but I was thinking the knowledge of decades long cycles is pretty recent.  Not to mention that when I was a kid they told us we were near the warm end of the ice age cycle that covers thousands of years.  I think we were still approaching the warmest point of that.  There may be more recent info on that.

My idea is just that we don't know enough by far to go blaming anything on CO2 or Global Warming in general.  That is very premature.  It is telling that the "solutions" put forth are not solutions at all, but just political power grabs. 

As far as nuclear power, I am all for that.  I think it would make a great base line power generation tech and is probably the only technology that could effectively replace many of the large coal plants.  As far as wind and solar, I think those will always be on the fringe and just supplemental power without some major change in the tech.  They are not cost effective and require too much real estate to get anywhere near the same power.  They also don't generate consistent amounts of power (daily or hourly) requiring other forms of power generation (natural gas) to ramp up and down and make up the difference.  Hydro power is great, but limited to certain areas.  I don't know much about geothermal and how it stacks up to the others. 
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Ben

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #83 on: March 05, 2019, 10:22:41 AM »


As far as wind and solar, I think those will always be on the fringe and just supplemental power without some major change in the tech.  They are not cost effective and require too much real estate to get anywhere near the same power.  They also don't generate consistent amounts of power (daily or hourly) requiring other forms of power generation (natural gas) to ramp up and down and make up the difference.  Hydro power is great, but limited to certain areas.  I don't know much about geothermal and how it stacks up to the others. 


While I think those technologies still have potential, I've always looked at them as "on site" energy tech. Thinks like solar roofs since they don't take up extra real estate, small home power generation setups, etc. I would look at any of it for supplemental home power. 

Grid solar is inefficient and probably will be for some time to come. They're even getting sick of how much land it uses in CA. A nuclear plant in this location would provide 1000 times the electricity using 1/10th the land:

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-san-bernardino-solar-renewable-energy-20190228-story.html
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230RN

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #84 on: March 05, 2019, 10:40:20 AM »
I've always wondered about the ecological effects on the ground shaded by the photocells or the mirrors.



« Last Edit: March 05, 2019, 05:52:55 PM by 230RN »

Hawkmoon

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #85 on: March 05, 2019, 03:26:54 PM »
Here in my corner of the U.S. of A, several companies are pushing hard to sell solar electric generation to homeowners. I know one building inspector who had a side job inspecting solar installations for other towns where the local building inspector either didn't have time to do it, or wasn't up to speed on what to inspect. But ...

There's a house on one of the main roads through town that has the entire side of the roof facing the road covered with solar panels. I drive that road frequently and I always seem to notice that one house, because of the solar panels. I drove by it this morning on the way to my dentist. Sunday night and Monday morning we received between 8 and 12 inches of snow, and it has been cold enough that it's not melting. Sure enough, when I drive by the house with the solar roof, there was maybe 5 percent of the panel array exposed, up near the peak of the roof. The rest of the panels were under several inches of snow. Since it won't get above freezing until Friday (maybe), my guess is that those solar panels won't be generating anything for at least a week.
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Perd Hapley

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #86 on: March 05, 2019, 05:25:32 PM »
Quote
Violating personal property rights and free association rights looked a whole lot different, when black people were having a hard time finding a decent place to eat, or a room to sleep in. Perhaps it was excusable then. Today, forcing business owners to serve anyone, in any fashion they want? No, there's no excuse for it. It can't be justified.

Would you clarify that?  It sounds like you would be OK with, today, a hotel had a policy that refused to rent rooms to black people.

In short, morally no; legally yes.

In charby's example of the homosexual hotelier, and the religious convention against homosexuality, I stand for the right of the hotelier to refuse service. To again borrow from charby, "I tow [sic] a pretty hard line" on this. Ideally, of course, such intolerance would be an expensive proposition for any business, so few would be willing to do such a thing. Ideally. As it stands today, of course, socially-conservative people like me stand to lose from the kind of freedom I advocate. So it's not hard for me to say this is a principled stand; not simply arguing for my own self-interest.
 
We have a raft of evidence that racism (at least racism against non-whites) is expensive for any business or institution that's even suspected of it. It should be self-evident, then, that we don't need the government to go about curtailing the rights of white racists to own businesses or property. Anyone that's suspected of not serving, or even under-serving non-whites will pay a steep price, even if the government does nothing. When white racism was respectable enough to allow for a significant degree of discrimination (the kind that would keep a black family from finding decent food, lodging, or other goods or services), it was difficult to get government to counteract it. In fact, government often required discrimination. Now that nearly all Americans are opposed to white racism, government stands ready to crush what is no longer anything but an attenuated, localized threat. And like most gun control laws, it's more of a problem for the law-abiding than for the true bad actors.

I specify white racism for a reason, of course. Anti-white racism has achieved, in the most influential circles, the status of a positive good. Once again, it's people like me that stand to lose the most.
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Perd Hapley

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #87 on: March 06, 2019, 11:05:10 AM »
If you are open to the public, you are obligated to serve all members of the public, unless it is illegal by law.

The dogma lives loudly within you.
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dogmush

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #88 on: March 06, 2019, 11:20:56 AM »
If you are open to the public, you are obligated to serve all members of the public, unless it is illegal by law. Such as serving am intoxicated person more drinks, or tattooing a 12 year old.


Unless the State is rude and dismissive of your sincere religious beliefs precluding you from providing that service. 

https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/opinion-analysis-court-rules-narrowly-for-baker-in-same-sex-wedding-cake-case/

A very narrow decision to be sure.  I suspect we'll see more litigation on this.


griz

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Re: Global warming: Passengers stranded on west coast Amtrak since Sunday
« Reply #89 on: March 07, 2019, 01:16:20 PM »

In short, morally no; legally yes.



I agree with you on the morally part, and my libertarian side begrudgingly agrees in principle that it's not the governments place to dictate with whom you do business.  The begrudging part is because I think if the government hadn't stepped in initially the transition to accepting everybody would be glacial.  Mostly I agree that today a company that openly refused service to somebody would be done for.  I think there would be a few diehards and probably small localities where such a business could survive.  But then again it's messy the way we do it now, as evidenced by this thread.
Thanks for the reply.
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