Poll: How much of your own money would you be willing to personally spend each month to reduce the impact of climate change?

[jderimig]

Thank you for the reply. I do not agree 100% with your angle but I appreciate and enjoy the discussion and thanks for keeping things lively!

Thanks Alex. There are many opinions expressed here, we all know they all cannot be right. I always try and be respectfull to those who disagree with me respectfully.

 

[jderimig]

I get that, but do we stop burning fossil fuels at some point? If we don’t ramp down now, when and why?

I don’t think an overnight change is possible, and if it were it’d be near impossible to implement… but dragging our feet longer also seems less than ideal. I think the solution isn’t going to be simple and the implementation even less so. It’s a hard problem that isn’t purely solved by science. The social and political aspects are just as difficult, if not the hardest part.

Yes we do stop burning fossil fuels because its a limited resource. But replacing fossil fuel with unreliables should be done with critical thinking not low resolution thinking.

 

[KC3KNM]

Yes we do stop burning fossil fuels because its a limited resource. But replacing fossil fuel with unreliables should be done with critical thinking not low resolution thinking.

That’s rather vague… how do you define a solution implemented using critical thinking? How long do you allow a technology to be developed before writing it off as a low resolution solution?

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Among the predictions:
https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/50-years-of-predictions-that-the-climate-apocalypse-is-nigh/
* Major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas

That’s not what I was replying to. I was replying to this:

And coastal cities are not flooding. All events these folk that are "knowledgable in their respective fields" predicted, yet the events are not happening.

Coastal cities are flooding. Sea levels have risen, and that’s been measured.

The article you posted from the very respectable tabloid rag New York Post about wacko predictions no one ever took seriously that did not come true does not change the fact that climate change is happening right now in measurable, verifiable ways, and it’s happening pretty much as predicted 30 or so years ago.

 

[jderimig]

That’s rather vague… how do you define a solution implemented using critical thinking? How long do you allow a technology to be developed before writing it off as a low resolution solution?

Warning might be TLDR...
Example, I am originally from NY so I follow the wacky net zero plans from the NY governor's office. Here is an example of low resolution thinking.
From the scoping plan: https://climate.ny.gov/-/media/project/climate/files/Chapter-1.-Executive-Summary.pdf

[The Scoping Plan] requires that the State install:
6,000 megawatts (MW) of distributed solar by 2025

3,000 MW of energy storage by 2030

9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035.
The EIA gives the total annual amount of electricity consumed in New York State for 2021 as 141,423,778 MWh. Divide by 8760 (hours in the year) and you get average demand of 16,144 MW. 9,000 MW starts off sounding like more than half of that. Not bad!

But of course wind turbines only generate at about 35% of capacity averaged over the year. So this 9,000 MW of offshore wind turbines will at best give us an average of about 3,000 MW, so well under 20% of our electricity demand for the year. Oh, and they’re planning to double electricity demand by electrifying cars and home heat, so make that 10%. And peak demand is as much as about 25,000 MW, 50,000 MW after doubling. When the peak hits you can’t count on the 9,000 MW of offshore wind for anything,. So why are we doing this again?

Undoubtedly, if this were being done competently, there must be a working demonstration project to show how the offshore wind will be built and then integrated into the existing system? Wrong. Rather, the plan appears to be to let some gigantic subsidized contracts and then hope that something gets built some day.

And what if well-funded environmental opposition emerges to these projects? That is almost inevitable. As an example, there have already been lawsuits by wealthy homeowners seeking to prevent cables from these windfarms from making landfall in their areas. Here is an example of one such brought in 2021 in the Town of East Hampton.

Is there any offshore wind project farther along than these from which we can get an idea how things might develop? Yes, there is the Commonwealth Wind project in Massachusetts, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. That one was approaching the start of construction, when in September the contractor told the state that it would need to “rewrite the contracts” because of a sharp increase in costs. On Friday (December 16) the contractor gave up on renegotiation efforts, and said it wants out of the contracts altogether. James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal has the story in his Best of the Web column today, relying on reporting from Jon Chest of the Boston Globe:

The state’s nascent offshore wind industry suffered a big setback on Friday when Avangrid told state regulators it wants to end its contracts with three major utilities to build a massive wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard... In September, chief executive Pedro Azagra said Avangrid would postpone construction of Commonwealth Wind, which could eventually provide enough power for up to 750,000 homes, by pushing its completion date out to 2028, and would need to rewrite the contracts because of a sharp increase in commodity costs. With Friday’s move, Avangrid has given up on those renegotiation efforts.

For those who hung in there and made it to this point congrats! You may actually have the attention span to take a critical look at some of these projects. CA is even more wacky.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

I thought this forum was about rocketry. But let’s get something straight: after all the cows are corked, and all the coal and NG plants are shut down and we all have solar panels on our foreheads… they will come for our hobby.

Lol. Nope.

 

[Bravo52]

It is rather interesting that all the fear about sea level changes coincides with the ability to measure it. It can only be compared to the past (prior to 1860s) by basically guessing. There were few reliable records back to around 1800 (those were just sticks in the sand). Now the scientist like to say that the sea rise is outpacing the "variabilities" of the past sea level rise and falls.

 

[Bravo52]

Warning might be TLDR...
Example, I am originally from NY so I follow the wacky net zero plans from the NY governor's office. Here is an example of low resolution thinking.
From the scoping plan: https://climate.ny.gov/-/media/project/climate/files/Chapter-1.-Executive-Summary.pdf

...
For those who hung in there and made it to this point congrats! You may actually have the attention span to take a critical look at some of these projects. CA is even more wacky.

"Low Resolution Thinking" equates to "feel good measures"...

 

[KC3KNM]

Warning might be TLDR...
Example, I am originally from NY so I follow the wacky net zero plans from the NY governor's office. Here is an example of low resolution thinking.
From the scoping plan: https://climate.ny.gov/-/media/project/climate/files/Chapter-1.-Executive-Summary.pdf

[The Scoping Plan] requires that the State install:
6,000 megawatts (MW) of distributed solar by 2025

3,000 MW of energy storage by 2030

9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035.
The EIA gives the total annual amount of electricity consumed in New York State for 2021 as 141,423,778 MWh. Divide by 8760 (hours in the year) and you get average demand of 16,144 MW. 9,000 MW starts off sounding like more than half of that. Not bad!

But of course wind turbines only generate at about 35% of capacity averaged over the year. So this 9,000 MW of offshore wind turbines will at best give us an average of about 3,000 MW, so well under 20% of our electricity demand for the year. Oh, and they’re planning to double electricity demand by electrifying cars and home heat, so make that 10%. And peak demand is as much as about 25,000 MW, 50,000 MW after doubling. When the peak hits you can’t count on the 9,000 MW of offshore wind for anything,. So why are we doing this again?

Undoubtedly, if this were being done competently, there must be a working demonstration project to show how the offshore wind will be built and then integrated into the existing system? Wrong. Rather, the plan appears to be to let some gigantic subsidized contracts and then hope that something gets built some day.

And what if well-funded environmental opposition emerges to these projects? That is almost inevitable. As an example, there have already been lawsuits by wealthy homeowners seeking to prevent cables from these windfarms from making landfall in their areas. Here is an example of one such brought in 2021 in the Town of East Hampton.

Is there any offshore wind project farther along than these from which we can get an idea how things might develop? Yes, there is the Commonwealth Wind project in Massachusetts, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. That one was approaching the start of construction, when in September the contractor told the state that it would need to “rewrite the contracts” because of a sharp increase in costs. On Friday (December 16) the contractor gave up on renegotiation efforts, and said it wants out of the contracts altogether. James Freeman of the Wall Street Journal has the story in his Best of the Web column today, relying on reporting from Jon Chest of the Boston Globe:


For those who hung in there and made it to this point congrats! You may actually have the attention span to take a critical look at some of these projects. CA is even more wacky.

Yeah, I’d absolutely agree with that. It seems this is a politically driven blunder, forcing things never seems to work out.

I think what frustrates me is when technologies are lumped in with bad implementations of them. I love electric cars, but the forced push might not be the best route. We need to clean stuff up quick, but if the blowback socially sets you back 10 years are you really better off?

 

[jderimig]

Yeah, I’d absolutely agree with that. It seems this is a politically driven blunder, forcing things never seems to work out.

I think what frustrates me is when technologies are lumped in with bad implementations of them. I love electric cars, but the forced push might not be the best route. We need to clean stuff up quick, but if the blowback socially sets you back 10 years are you really better off?

Frame the problem correctly.

Frame the need to transition off fossil fuels because of climate change then the debate is forever poisoned.

Frame the problem as someday we are going to run out of petroleum and if that happens before we have deployed a reliable alternative that will be a catastrophe. Then it may be more universally considered.

Not enough people will be moved to action over the threat that global temperature will be 1.5C higher 80 years from now.

 

[Zeta]

Global warming and climate change are two connected things, but not exactly the same. Global warming is the increase in global temperatures due to increased greenhouse gasses trapping more heat. And climate change is the change in weather patterns that is caused by the increased temperatures that come with global warming. Global warming results in climate change.

It’s like accusing your doctor of flip-flopping, “Hey, you dumb quack! You used to tell me I had high blood pressure, but now you say I’m having a stroke!”

Prove to me that humans could accurately measure the temperature of the earth and extrapolate the data out.... I doubt it. Anyone notice how global warming was first suppose to alarm us into action over a half a degree of change. That didn't work so they just keep upping the ante. Further more all this talk about sea level rise ???? Haven't seen it.... Why ...physics. Put ice and water in a glass and mark the side of the glass where water line is. Wait for the ice to melt... check the water level....guess what ..no change ... why? Physics.

 

[KC3KNM]

Frame the problem correctly.

Frame the need to transition off fossil fuels because of climate change then the debate is forever poisoned.

Frame the problem as someday we are going to run out of petroleum and if that happens before we have deployed a reliable alternative that will be a catastrophe. Then it may be more universally considered.

Maybe, but that’s making a lot of assumptions that the other side isn’t going to warp your message. Or that vested interests won’t do their best to muddy the waters. Look at COVID, you can present the same data to multiple people and each will have a different interpretation, typically flavored by their own interests.

I just think we’re going do our best to make everything a lot more difficult than it needs to be for the foreseeable future.

 

[boatgeek]

Prove to me that humans could accurately measure the temperature of the earth and extrapolate the data out.... I doubt it. Anyone notice how global warming was first suppose to alarm us into action over a half a degree of change. That didn't work so they just keep upping the ante. Further more all this talk about sea level rise ???? Haven't seen it.... Why ...physics. Put ice and water in a glass and mark the side of the glass where water line is. Wait for the ice to melt... check the water level....guess what ..no change ... why? Physics.

The worry about sea level rose isn’t from the ice already floating in the water. As you say, when that melts there’s no change in sea level. However, there are very large sheets of ice out of the water on Greenland and Antarctica, and those glaciers are rapidly headed toward the sea. That will raise sea levels.

 

[jderimig]

Maybe, but that’s making a lot of assumptions that the other side isn’t going to warp your message. Or that vested interests won’t do their best to muddy the waters. Look at COVID, you can present the same data to multiple people and each will have a different interpretation, typically flavored by their own interests.

I just think we’re going do our best to make everything a lot more difficult than it needs to be for the foreseeable future.

Probably but it kind of a pro-fossil fuel slant.

 

[jderimig]

The worry about sea level rose isn’t from the ice already floating in the water. As you say, when that melts there’s no change in sea level. However, there are very large sheets of ice out of the water on Greenland and Antarctica, and those glaciers are rapidly headed toward the sea. That will raise sea levels.

Caterpillar will do really well.

 

[Zeta]

The worry about sea level rose isn’t from the ice already floating in the water. As you say, when that melts there’s no change in sea level. However, there are very large sheets of ice out of the water on Greenland and Antarctica, and those glaciers are rapidly headed toward the sea. That will raise sea levels.

Well it's going the wrong way then... and for the last 10,000 years according to NASA!

"A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers."

quote taken from :

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddar...ns-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

 

[smstachwick]

Well it's going the wrong way then... and for the last 10,000 years according to NASA!

"A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers."

quote taken from :

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddar...ns-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses

There’s also this:



Basically they have measurements indicating a certain amount of sea level rise, they were just wrong about the source. And no wonder, Antarctica is dry land, a huge polar desert at that, so it’ll take a while for future ice loss events in the interior of the continent to contribute to sea level rise. Coastal areas may still contribute when they’re taken in isolation, however, as outlined in the article.

Unfortunately these findings probably also mean that the contribution of Arctic (northern) pack ice, alpine snow, and more temperate areas’ runoff to sea level rise is also larger than expected, which could spell disaster for those ecosystems to a greater degree than we expected.

 

[Zeta]

There’s also this:

View attachment 552198

Basically they have measurements indicating a certain amount of sea level rise, they were just wrong about the source. And no wonder, Antarctica is dry land, a huge polar desert at that, so it’ll take a while for future ice loss events in the interior of the continent to contribute to sea level rise. Coastal areas may still contribute when they’re taken in isolation, however, as outlined in the article.

Unfortunately these findings probably also mean that the contribution of Arctic (northern) pack ice, alpine snow, and more temperate areas’ runoff to sea level rise is also larger than expected, which could spell disaster for those ecosystems to a greater degree than we expected.

over what time period do you think these "disasters" will happen ? and why is "change" so scary and bad ? .....I'll give it another 10,000-20,000 years

 

[Bravo52]

Just to add perspective and cause we're on the imperial system, .27mm per year of sea rise would take 100 years to increase one (1) inch.

 

[gdjsky01]

This is a bunch of fools (and politics) vs science thread. And in this hobby, you would think the science of the hobby would attract critical thinkers. People who understand science. Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, and Geology... Alas more often than not it attracts people such as "I like boom!".
And could care less about science or how the scientific method proves or denies a claim.

Again get your facts from nature.com and not redstate.com. Otherwise you are just an id... never mind.

 

[Zeta]

For those offering $100 or more per month....how would you spend it to save the world ?

 

[gdjsky01]

For those offering $100 or more per month....how would you spend it to save the world ?

To save the world? $1000. If everyone else did and it was a science proven fact... heck $10,000. But then I'd be saving your kids and grandkids... so I am revising that to $1 as I don't want to contribute to propagating defective genes.

 

[Bravo52]

This is a bunch of fools (and politics) vs science thread. And in this hobby, you would think the science of the hobby would attract critical thinkers. People who understand science. Physics, Chemistry, Astronomy, and Geology... Alas more often than not it attracts people such as "I like boom!".
And could care less about science or how the scientific method proves or denies a claim.

Again get your facts from nature.com and not redstate.com. Otherwise you are just an id... never mind.

So stunning...So Brave... Nice cat picture

 

[smstachwick]

over what time period do you think these "disasters" will happen ?

If the data is any indicator, as long as a couple of centuries (which is quite small in geologic time and in terms of timescales for speciation) or as short as a few decades.

and why is "change" so scary and bad ? .....I'll give it another 10,000-20,000 years

I don’t think most people realize that the effects are no longer theoretical or predicted, they are practical and ongoing. Example: the first mammalian species to go extinct due primarily to anthropogenic global climate change and failure to act on it.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ies-wiped-out-by-human-induced-climate-change
Others will follow, in that class and in others, if they haven’t already. Species in other phyla, kingdoms, and domains are not immune either.

 

[gdjsky01]

Brave? No. It is the climate deniers descendants that will curse the ignorance of the people that believed in politics rather than science.

 

[DTRocket]

Zero, nada, zilch, not One Red Cent !

View attachment 552014

Dito

 

[Zeta]

Just to add perspective and cause we're on the imperial system, .27mm per year of sea rise would take 100 years to increase one (1) inch.

yep and if the earth's temperature went up by 10 degrees the ice in Antarctica would still be frozen ...

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Just to add perspective and cause we're on the imperial system, .27mm per year of sea rise would take 100 years to increase one (1) inch.

The .27 mm figure in that report is the amount attributed by other sources to Antarctica, not global sea level rise. The average global rate of sea level rise since satellite tracking started in 1992 is larger than that by more than a factor of 10. So not 1 inch in 100 years, more like an inch in 8 years. Sea level has risen globally by about 10cm total since 1992, and the rate is accelerating, so it’s currently around 4mm per year.

Also, sea level rise is not uniform around the globe, like you might intuitively expect. It varies. So if sea level has risen 8 inches on average in 100 years, that could be 12 inches on one coast and 4 on another. During the last hurricane in Florida, I remember a TV news report about the storm making a point that sea level rise on one of the Florida coasts has exceeded the global average, but I don’t recall the details.

 

[gdjsky01]

The .27 mm figure in that report is the amount attributed by other sources to Antarctica, not global sea level rise. The average global rate of sea level rise since satellite tracking started in 1992 is larger than that by more than a factor of 10. So not 1 inch in 100 years, more like an inch in 8 years. Sea level has risen globally by about 10cm total since 1992, and the rate is accelerating, so it’s currently around 4mm per year.

Also, sea level rise is not uniform around the globe, like you might intuitively expect. It varies. So if sea level has risen 8 inches on average in 100 years, that could be 12 inches on one coast and 4 on another. During the last hurricane in Florida, I remember a TV news report about the storm making a point that sea level rise on one of the Florida coasts has exceeded the global average, but I don’t recall the details.

You just keep thinking that way...

 

[jderimig]

I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned. —Richard Feynman