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The latest on Global warming.

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Grumblenuts

Member
We’ve all been there: The perfectly innocuous conversation you’ve been having at a friend’s party or your kid’s soccer game devolves into an argument about climate change. Suddenly, you realize you’re talking to a climate change skeptic.

You want to help your acquaintances see the light. But how?

We asked climate scientists and communicators how to have constructive discussions about climate change. They offered both general advice about how to engage and specific information to rebut doubters’ claims...
 

Grumblenuts

Member
A colorful cast of characters has made a living out of denying the science of climate change. These so-called “experts” often start out their statements with “I’m not a climate scientist, but…” before launching into a series of carefully rehearsed talking points meant to confuse the public on the climate change issue. Many of them are well-paid operatives of organizations like The Heartland Institute, CFACT, and Americans for Prosperity, which take contributions from fossil fuel corporations — including ExxonMobil,the Koch Brothersand their company Koch Industries — who seek to delay or block any substantial government policy initiatives meant to curb fossil fuel emissions or hasten the rapid growth of cheaper, cleaner sources of energy like wind and solar power.
Sounding familiar yet? Like a broken record? Those are the stars of the movie Before the Flood. Billionaires spending millions daily, programming us to remain dumb, compliant workers, just smart enough to keep the wheels turning and no more.
 

DeletedUser29510

well, I'm no scientist and well, truthfully, what can anyone believe in the news anymore - each side is full of propaganda and financed threw-the-nose by companies or organizations with motives to persuade people into following their own interests which is always financially driven. And little to no debate is communicated anymore without emotional outbursts of those uneducated crowd followers...

What I do know is; how can I believe the globe is warming when I open my front door and I'm slapped in the face with record setting cold and snow in November, heck Winter is not even here yet...
 

Freshmeboy

Well-Known Member
The term "Global warming" is no longer used..it's actually climate change..and yes, we are changing our climate by varying degrees....My argument has always been that people aren't thinking straight in the first place by believing that our climate has always been like this (warm) and should remain static for the rest of time. The history of our planet is a never ending series of climate changes with changes that occur rapidly (comet or meteorite impacts, huge volcanic eruptions) causing intense pressure on animal and plant species throughout the world, ie. extinction events. That aside, the IPCC does good science but trying to extropolate future weather models from short term evidence is a fool's errand and their previous models show this time and again. It's unfortunate that modern media is focused on sensationalism rather than real reporting turning every finding from the IPCC into a cry of impending doom..it sells newspapers and creates viral streams of revenue but it does little but create a state of fear rather than a state of understanding and cooperation. Again, my only hope is that it will lead to alternate energy supplies being used en masse versus petroleum or coal...But that won't happen without hard legislation from our governments...
 

Grumblenuts

Member
The term "Global warming" is no longer used.
Le sigh.. Wrong.
it's actually climate change
No, the terms are quite distinct, each with its own useful meaning. However, global warming easily remains the most accurate, appropriate term for describing the actual problem we all now face due to our overuse of fossil fuels since the beginning of the industrial revolution. UScentric corporate "news" outlets (Fox, NBC, CNN, NPR, etc, many of our educational institutions even..) have obviously done us no favors by mushing it all together while also making it seem extremely abstract and questionable, all obviously to serve and protect the fossil fuel establishment. Here's news: none of it is rocket science. The average voter could easily grasp the general works given half a chance. But no, can't have that can we! Must keep drilling, baby, drilling!
won't happen without hard legislation from our governments...
Yeah, which requires a progressive, active, and informed electorate. We are a highly misinformed bunch of mealy mouthed lemmings headed straight off a cliff.
 

DeletedUser31440

Or because the US government and populace went anti-nuclear in the 60's based on an economic model that showed nuke plants were too clean and efficient and they would offset a rising population. Some people over at the good 'ol Sierra Club jumped on the bandwagon and pushed hard on the anit-nuke side and now we build coal plants again.
 

Emberguard

Well-Known Member
Climate Change has been happening since the beginning of time. That's why we get summer, autumn, winter, spring..... Ice Ages etc

But yes overall the temperature of the Earth is getting hotter. And yes we do need to do something about the amount of chemicals/smoke/fossil fuel/etc that is released into the atmosphere and hold ourselves responsible both on how we manage our resources and dump the waste. Doesn't entirely matter what the exact problem fossil fuels are causing, just matters that using it causes a problem. It's still going to kill us if we have too much carbon released into the air. It's still going to kill us if we cut down every tree regardless of the temperature
 

RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...ns-rise-after-paris-climate-agreement-signed/

From the article:
Asia accounted for two-thirds of the increase in global carbon emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions also climbed in the European Union.

Those increases stood in contrast to the United States, which posted the largest year-over-year decline in carbon emissions of any advanced economy. The decline was all the more notable given President Trump’s outspoken opposition to global attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and his plans to withdraw from the Paris deal.
 

Grumblenuts

Member
Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time. Climate change may refer to a change in average weather conditions, or in the time variation of weather within the context of longer-term average conditions. Wikipedia

It ain't simply a change of season or weather. When "summer, autumn, winter, spring" get knocked out of whack for sustained periods - then there's climate change. Ice Ages furshur.

One more note about nukes..
the US government and populace went anti-nuclear in the 60's based on an economic model that showed nuke plants were too clean and efficient

As Harry Shearer so often says "Clean, safe, too cheap to meter!" So,... little dollop of Chernobyl on your pancakes this fine morning anyone?
 

DeletedUser31440

As Harry Shearer so often says "Clean, safe, too cheap to meter!" So,... little dollop of Chernobyl on your pancakes this fine morning anyone?

Yes stoke the fear by bringing up a test reactor site, used almost solely for weapons grade uranium production, that had at almost all times 5 locked in and overridden alarms, and Soviet safety measures.

Edit: To clarify Soviet safety measure, they had a positive temperature coefficient of reactivity for the moderator. This means that as the reactor got hotter it became more reactive causing a positive feedback loop. This is in contrast to US commercial reactors that use a moderator with a negative temperature coefficent of reactivity, so as the moderator gets hotter the total reactivity in the core goes down.
 
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DeletedUser36624

You know, having been alive at the time, my recollection is that Three Mile Island was the thing that stopped the rise of the nuke plant, not some economic model from the 60's. Nuclear share of electricity generation in the United States was on the order of a few percent in 1970, rose to around 12% by 1980, and has been steady at around 20% since 1990.

That said, thorium yo!
 

DeletedUser31440

You know, having been alive at the time, my recollection is that Three Mile Island was the thing that stopped the rise of the nuke plant, not some economic model from the 60's. Nuclear share of electricity generation in the United States was on the order of a few percent in 1970, rose to around 12% by 1980, and has been steady at around 20% since 1990.

That said, thorium yo!

Thorium can't be weaponized, unfortunately that's why there aren't thorium plants in the US. 3 mile hurt but the damage was done well before that by anti-nuclear groups. The rise in plants even with the anti-nuclear groups was mostly TVA in the south where there wasn't as much push back.
 

RazorbackPirate

Well-Known Member
Thorium can't be weaponized, unfortunately that's why there aren't thorium plants in the US. 3 mile hurt but the damage was done well before that by anti-nuclear groups. The rise in plants even with the anti-nuclear groups was mostly TVA in the south where there wasn't as much push back.
It also did not help that the movie The China Syndrome starring Jane Fonda (me, not surprised) Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas premiered just 12 days before the 3 Mile Island incident.
 

DeletedUser31440

It also did not help that the movie The China Syndrome starring Jane Fonda (me, not surprised) Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas premiered just 12 days before the 3 Mile Island incident.

It also didn't help that the general public has no idea how much radiation you receive on a daily basis. Below is the health impact excerpt on the NRC's breakdown of the TMI incident.

The NRC conducted detailed studies of the accident's radiological consequences, as did the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services), the Department of Energy, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Several independent groups also conducted studies. The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the usual background dose. To put this into context, exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem and the area's natural radioactive background dose is about 100-125 millirem per year for the area. The accident's maximum dose to a person at the site boundary would have been less than 100 millirem above background.

In the months following the accident, although questions were raised about possible adverse effects from radiation on human, animal, and plant life in the TMI area, none could be directly correlated to the accident. Thousands of environmental samples of air, water, milk, vegetation, soil, and foodstuffs were collected by various government agencies monitoring the area. Very low levels of radionuclides could be attributed to releases from the accident. However, comprehensive investigations and assessments by several well respected organizations, such as Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh, have concluded that in spite of serious damage to the reactor, the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment.
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/3mile-isle.html
 

Grumblenuts

Member
And the current price of tea in China? I gather the answer is a resounding "NO!" - you don't want any Chernobyl (not to mention Fukushima - heaven's no!) on your pancakes. Wise choice.
 

DeletedUser31440

And the current price of tea in China? I gather the answer is a resounding "NO!" - you don't want any Chernobyl (not to mention Fukushima - heaven's no!) on your pancakes. Wise choice.

I worked on reactors a couple hundred feet below the surface of the ocean for 6 years, put whatever you want on my pancakes. I've been around the zoomies, I've cleaned up the zoomies, I've used the zoomies to push the metal can across the oceans, and I ain't worried by your fear mongering. But that same fear mongering is why nuclear plants aren't as prevalent as they should be and they are the cleanest and most energy dense power source currently available to us that can be utilized on a massive scale. Unfortunately it's too late for that now, we'd have to average building about three 5 MW reactors a month to keep up with rising energy demands. But yes, by all means continue to fear monger.
 

Grumblenuts

Member
Fascinating gas. Hey, congratulations, you had a job once! And the connection of all this meandering chest thumping, non sequitur ad hominem, and tomfoolery to "The latest on Global Warming" ?
At least try making a coherent, fact checkable argument for a change.
cleanest and most energy dense power source currently available
Explain what's "clean" about all that nuclear waste no one has yet figured out how to responsibly remove or convert into anything actually "clean"? It's certainly dense. Want "fear mongering"?

On 5 July 2012, the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC) found that the causes of the accident had been foreseeable, and that the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company(TEPCO), had failed to meet basic safety requirements such as risk assessment, preparing for containing collateral damage, and developing evacuation plans. On 12 October 2012, TEPCO admitted for the first time that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants. - Wikipedia
Oh, real facts. Snore! Cheer up. Just keep singing "Clean, safe, too cheap to meter!"
 

DeletedUser31440

I honestly don't know what side you're on here, and I'm not going to take the time to read enough of your stupidity to find out. If you ever want to, feel free to do a search for number of deaths in each different power generation field. The nuclear field includes any civilian deaths as well, it is still of a magnitude lower than any others. There also are uses for spent fuel and there are more coming out, check out nuclear batteries if you're interested in actually learning something.
 
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