Today's Environmentalists Are Really Luddites (5 Viewers)

[The_Doc_Man]

if we had actually policed ourselves, meaning each other.

And you think that our objections to your comments in a now-deleted thread were NOT attempts at policing each other? Seriously?

 

[Thales750]

That's something that would happen in a perfect world. The friend would call out another friend and that second friend wouldn't be offended, might say something like "thanks for reminding me to stay within the guidelines" with no offense taken - But you're talking about a perfect world that doesn't exist. I can understanding wanting it though.


That's kind of what I'm doing at this point. I'm policing myself to the extent that I will avoid topics that light my own fire, or topics where I struggle to back out once in the middle of a good debate! which is politics for the most part.

It's sad really, that we have to avoid talking about all the stuff that really matters, but necessary to keep our friend safe from any kind of problems

Perhaps we should all start a subreddit where we can 'get it out' LOL. I always call Reddit the 'toilet of the internet' but it does serve a purpose

Here's a prime example Isaac Angel who does nothing but like some of the most outrageous right wing crap on this whole entire forum liked what you said and did not like what I said and yet what you were saying was pretty much the same thing I said so there's a good example right there.

And you think that our objections to your comments in a now-deleted thread were NOT attempts at policing each other? Seriously?

Sure doc it was and it was in the absolute absence of any effort on any of you conservatives parts to police anyone that you agreed with time and time again so please having a completely biased referee system obviously is not what is in the best interest of facilitating the increase in intelligence and learning and the people who are participating

Sorry Guys, I was talking to my tablet on this. I need to practice a bit I've been using it to talk to the gpt and I need to readjust for human reading

 

[Thales750]

And you think that our objections to your comments in a now-deleted thread were NOT attempts at policing each other? Seriously?

I had to respond twice to that doc it proves my point so completely and perfectly I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[Cotswold]

Australia is winding back on its NetZero plans. Retaining some coal fired power stations and planning gas powered generators.
Reason is cost and the wisdom of not wanting to be waste money on being leader. This is a land of sun and wind.
In 2018 Google used more electricity as a company than some of the Baltic states. That is before the huge expansion of data centres that is in motion all over the World. One hundred searches require the same amount of energy to boil a cup of water. It isn't just cars that cause the problems.

 

[GaP42]

Australia is winding back on its NetZero plans. Retaining some coal fired power stations and planning gas powered generators.
Reason is cost and the wisdom of not wanting to be waste money on being leader. This is a land of sun and wind.
In 2018 Google used more electricity as a company than some of the Baltic states. That is before the huge expansion of data centres that is in motion all over the World. One hundred searches require the same amount of energy to boil a cup of water. It isn't just cars that cause the problems.

You are wrong about Australia winding back on net zero - don't know where you got that from.

 

[DickyP]

... nearer to the truth than you'll get from Al Gore ....

I have somewhere a copy of an article that was written at the time of Al Gore's 'inconvenient truth' which showed that not necessarily he was wrong but the data he had used to prove it was methodologically totally flawed. Described as:

"Taking the temperature in the fridge in July and in the oven in January and concluding that winters are warmer than summer."

 

[AccessBlaster]

When it comes to climate change, the only thing that changes is money.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

We come back to the simple realization that, despite lofty ideals, those ivory tower academicians need to eat, too, and therefore will publish studies that are more likely to get them research grants based on biased viewpoints. And so for quite a while, we had a lot of research papers in the topic of "climate studies." The problem with targeted grants is that not enough pure research gets done - "pure" in this context meaning politically neutral and with no hidden agenda. But when we gut those open research programs, we get studies on the "mating habits of garden-based nematodes" or the "philology of prehistoric Egyptian temple inscriptions." Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana has a name for some of these research subjects and project - "spending porn" - and he may be joking sometimes, but here he is using the term for shock value to wake up folks about wasteful government spending.

Sadly, this environment that favors research targeted to "hot topics" means that climate activists have a huge library of biased research to which they can point when discussing anthropogenic climate issues. The truth is that it takes a certain minimum amount of breathing for this world's population to live, which means they add CO2 to the atmosphere with every breath they take. It takes a few more external calories for cooking food enough to sterilize it and make it palatable, and not every person in poorer countries will have electricity in sufficient quantity to do this cooking - so they combust some kind of fuel, thereby adding more CO2. A natural result of food consumption is flatulence, which adds methane to the atmosphere - another "evil" gas.

The real solution is that the next time we have a pandemic, allow nature to do what it normally does to thin out the herd. But then, many among us will complain that we have no compassion for the ill and the elderly, two favorite targets for disease. Whether those greenhouse gasses are the bug-a-boo or not, our REAL problem is thinking that we are capable of fighting off the results of nature being what it is... relentlessly apply "survival of the fittest" conditions despite our occasional ability to skirt the worst effects. The REAL solution is population control, but tell THAT to people whose religions tell them to "go forth and multiply."

 

[Cotswold]

You are wrong about Australia winding back on net zero - don't know where you got that from.

I read about it in "The West Australian" a Perth WA newspaper, in the last fortnight. (maybe do a search?)
From memory the Liberal Party will extend dates. I think that the Liberal Party is not in power but these things change, as they will in Britain in 2019. The coal fired power stations from memory were in NSW and Queensland where operation has been extended by two years. But maybe more of them? Also in The West Australian, gas powered generation is planned, or in motion. How anyone in OZ can drive any distance in an electric car I do not know as chargers are sparse outside main towns. Whilst the distances huge. Plus it is my understanding that batteries are less efficient in hot climates.

Whilst solar power on houses seems popular here, I've not seen any EVs on major highways during the two months I've been here Just warming up after a poor spring and I'm off back to Blighty to miserable weather and a worse economic outlook than when I left.

If you are in OZ then it's my guess that you are more likely to have to prove who you are and over 16 on the 10th of December than see NetZero by 2050. Hydrogen is simply not a practical solution, or financially viable at present but they are throwing money away on it. Don't know where the water is coming from though. Water and electricity are a necessity in data centres as well but nobody seems bothered here either.

It is my opinion that if the money wasted on removing fossil fuels was spent on improving the efficiency of existing machines it would have been money well spent. My gas boiler uses way less gas that the one I had 20 years ago. I never thought I'd buy a car less than 2,000cc but I have a car with a 1,100cc engine which in sport mode will out accelerate just about any electric car and give me 60MPG.

Much more could be done. Then given time new power units could be developed. The big trouble we all have is politicians who do not understand any science and in particular thermodynamics and never will.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The big trouble we all have is politicians who do not understand any science and in particular thermodynamics and never will.

You are not quite correct. Politicians fully understand an ASPECT of thermodynamics - the three laws of thermodynamics as explained in "The Crows' Song" from The Wiz.

1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't get out of the game.

Politicians KNOW they've got you by the short & curlies so they'll soak you for everything they can every chance they've got, and you can't get away from them.

 

[Cotswold]

The NetZero fanatics and green anarchists never mention the internet, or their phones when it comes to pollution and global warming.
The cost and power required for a windfarm in concrete, steel, manufacture, erection and maintenance is so high that it will take around 20 years to break even. Which is about the life of a windmill and when it will need to be replaced with a new one. We have no safe method of disposing of solar panels, or car batteries. At present you can sell a petrol powered car for a small amount for scrap. When you buy new tyres you pay a disposal cost for the old ones. For an EV you will need to pay maybe thousands to dispose of the EV's batteries alone, never mind anything else in the car itself. The pollution from disposal of these green devices will, over time will make asbestos and Teflon look like nothing at all. When all motor vehicles in the UK are replaced with EVs, then we will require towards three times the power generated today to replace the fossil fuel energy currently used.

In 2018, Google as a company used as much electricity as Latvia. For one hundred Google searches as much power is required as you need to boil a mug of water. Lord knows how much power is required for one order from Amazon, for phones, crypto, or Netflix. But they are all fine according to the green brigade and not worthy of mention as part of the problem. As long as it is cheaper on Amazon and they can afford their phone, nothing else matters.

The UK is on the way to having the highest number of datacentres per capita to anywhere in the World. None of them to my knowledge need to provide their own electricity. Which means the taxpayer is paying for it. Why we need them can only be increased surveillance and control. Very little of the personal admin we have to do daily, or weekly, is faster and more efficient today than it was in the last century.

Most internet software is badly designed, inefficient and appears to be designed frustrate and waste the time of the user. The days when computers made us more efficient started to dwindle over fifteen years ago.

It all makes perfect sense.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The problem is the same for your point about inefficient software as it is for terrible entertainment scripts for plays and movies. The demand for content has grown; perhaps geometrically, perhaps even exponentially. There are more and more places that need people to provide content, whether we are talking web pages or scripts. And the number of people capable of provided good content of either kind has not even grown geometrically. So people "roll their own" hoping that it works but not knowing whether it actually will. The problem is dilution of talent as the demand is growing radically faster than the supply. If we look at the gas laws, the volume is going up but the number of atoms / molecules is not going up nearly as much. The density of good content is decreasing as a natural side-effect of dilution.

Kind of obscure, but it's the way I think.

 

[Cotswold]

Here in the UK we have a government hellbent on bankrupting us for an unplanned and un-costed dream of NetZero.
Now we are proceeding with huge windfarms and agreeing to buy more electricity from Europe basically because we shortly will be unable to provide enough electricity ourselves. No matter that some of those countries are generating from coal. We may use the electricity from coal power stations but only if they aren't our power stations. As if in some way this makes us the goodies.

One problem I see is that if and it may well be a big if. If there is another war. All the enemy need to do is to use drones to destroy windmills and the huge solar panel generators with drones. Then they would cut the undersea cables supplying us from Europe. Any oil and gas rigs can also be destroyed but by then our government will have decommissioned them anyway. Within weeks we will grid to a halt with huge power cuts and will need to surrender. In WWII we couldn't produce enough food and relied on imports. That situation will be worse.

p.s. Does a windfarm have a farm shop?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

All the enemy need to do is to use drones to destroy windmills and the huge solar panel generators with drones

You mean, attack the power infrastructure like Russia is doing to Ukraine?

 

[Cotswold]

Yep. Did the Russians think of that before the Ukrainians cut the underwater gas pipe in the Baltic?
It must be cost effective though. First destroy all of the major power sources, then send in the troops when convenient some time later.

 

[Isaac]

This is truly a disturbing scenario. I can't see it being any 'less' likely with other scenarios, necessarily, but the threat of modern warfare is truly something that can get under your collar easily if you dwell on it. I like Trump's general "peace through strength" thing, although I disagree with just about every individual act he's been taking recently

 

[RogerCooper]

Here in the UK we have a government hellbent on bankrupting us for an unplanned and un-costed dream of NetZero.
Now we are proceeding with huge windfarms and agreeing to buy more electricity from Europe basically because we shortly will be unable to provide enough electricity ourselves. No matter that some of those countries are generating from coal. We may use the electricity from coal power stations but only if they aren't our power stations. As if in some way this makes us the goodies.

One problem I see is that if and it may well be a big if. If there is another war. All the enemy need to do is to use drones to destroy windmills and the huge solar panel generators with drones. Then they would cut the undersea cables supplying us from Europe. Any oil and gas rigs can also be destroyed but by then our government will have decommissioned them anyway. Within weeks we will grid to a halt with huge power cuts and will need to surrender. In WWII we couldn't produce enough food and relied on imports. That situation will be worse.

p.s. Does a windfarm have a farm shop?

Wind farms are actually less vulnerable than fossil fuel and nuclear plants as you need to knock out each turbine. Solar farms are even less vulnerable as each pane would need to be taken out.

Many wind turbines in the United States are on actual working farms.

 

[AccessBlaster]

They’re highly specialized and expensive to repair.

 

[RogerCooper]

They’re highly specialized and expensive to repair.

Solar panels are easy to replace if damaged. Wind turbines are expensive to repair and maintain.

Fossil fuels have a complex and expensive infrastructure to extract and refine the fuels. Oil refineries have been a major target of both sides in the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Wind turbines are expensive to repair and maintain.

Exactly, turbines like solar can be part of the solution, just not the entire solution.

As far as fossil goes, we're already tooled up, same thing for Hydro.