Planet Rugby Forum

Bring back particulate pollution, and block the sun.

Im incredibly optimistic for tye engineering. We have the technologies to solve 50% plus of our carbon emmissions.
Also, anyone suggesting current nuclear technology is the solution is mad. Its just not viable financially.
Solar and wind, mixed with pumped storage, displaced by batteries as the technology arrives, is the future.

Mahoney wrote:Perhaps we've found another Great Filter - for intelligent life to advance further than us there has to be both sufficient fossil fuels to power an industrial revolution AND sufficiently small amounts to force a gradual move away from fossil fuels before the climate changes too much. And we're unlucky to be just the wrong side of the filter.

It's got nothing to do with "force". It's about having a viable alternative. Right now, there isn't one.

zzzz wrote:

Mahoney wrote:Perhaps we've found another Great Filter - for intelligent life to advance further than us there has to be both sufficient fossil fuels to power an industrial revolution AND sufficiently small amounts to force a gradual move away from fossil fuels before the climate changes too much. And we're unlucky to be just the wrong side of the filter.

It's got nothing to do with "force". It's about having a viable alternative. Right now, there isn't one.

If there were no viable alternative and fossil fuels were simply running out then alternatives which were merely not economically viable, because fossil fuels were cheaper, would become economically viable as scarcity & cost to extract increased the price of fossil fuels, which would in turn lead to economies of scale and improvement in production of the alternatives and so on and so forth. And if even with all that the alternatives were simply not physically able to meet our energy requirements then huge investment would go into finding other alternatives, because the need would be immediate and obvious.

If even then no alternatives were found then at least the steady rise in price of fossil fuels would make the transition to a pre-industrial economy a gradual one.

My basic view is that humans are good at handling gradual change and good at making economic decisions where the costs and benefits are immediately obvious; but are bad at handling sudden change and making economic decisions involving taking cost now to mitigate downsides in the relatively far future. Fossil fuels running out would be the former case, climate change looks to me like the latter.

Stop buying products from countries that pollute the most might be a good start.

Uthikoloshe wrote:

BillW wrote:Once we can thermostatically control the sun, I think we'll be well on the way.

Dump post
What we need to do is just widen the earths orbit.

What they need to do is reverse the direction the wind farms are blowing. Things are getting so warm that they're surely pushing us into the sun. Flip the switch and push us out towards Mars, ya greenies!

Nolanator wrote: Yep, but the problem of pollutants is still unsolved, which is the issue regarding climate change.
One of the merits of article linked above is that the raw material for synthesising fuels is found in the air, rather than in the ground. You're scrubbing CO2 from the air, converting to fuel, combusting it, and returning it to the air. With fossil fuels it's a non-stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere from where it's trapped in the ground.

How do you scrub carbon from the atmosphere?

Mahoney wrote:

zzzz wrote:

Mahoney wrote:Perhaps we've found another Great Filter - for intelligent life to advance further than us there has to be both sufficient fossil fuels to power an industrial revolution AND sufficiently small amounts to force a gradual move away from fossil fuels before the climate changes too much. And we're unlucky to be just the wrong side of the filter.

It's got nothing to do with "force". It's about having a viable alternative. Right now, there isn't one.

If there were no viable alternative and fossil fuels were simply running out then alternatives which were merely not economically viable, because fossil fuels were cheaper, would become economically viable as scarcity & cost to extract increased the price of fossil fuels, which would in turn lead to economies of scale and improvement in production of the alternatives and so on and so forth. And if even with all that the alternatives were simply not physically able to meet our energy requirements then huge investment would go into finding other alternatives, because the need would be immediate and obvious.

If even then no alternatives were found then at least the steady rise in price of fossil fuels would make the transition to a pre-industrial economy a gradual one.

My basic view is that humans are good at handling gradual change and good at making economic decisions where the costs and benefits are immediately obvious; but are bad at handling sudden change and making economic decisions involving taking cost now to mitigate downsides in the relatively far future. Fossil fuels running out would be the former case, climate change looks to me like the latter.

It doesn't work that way. Yes - alternatives struggle to be competitive on pricing. But higher oil prices doesn't mean everyone charges off to use alternatives. It means millions of people in energy poverty which impoverishes and kills.

_fatprop wrote:Are we going to solve climate change? Unlikely

But we will work out ways to alleviate some of it

It's been solved mate. We will however concentrate on ways to alleviate some of it. Like a child digging a moat around his sandcastle as the tide comes in. It will work at first.

Anonymous. wrote:

_fatprop wrote:Are we going to solve climate change? Unlikely

But we will work out ways to alleviate some of it

It's been solved mate. We will however concentrate on ways to alleviate some of it. Like a child digging a moat around his sandcastle as the tide comes in. It will work at first.

And then we are doomed I tell ya doomed.

zzzz wrote:

Mahoney wrote:

zzzz wrote:

Mahoney wrote:Perhaps we've found another Great Filter - for intelligent life to advance further than us there has to be both sufficient fossil fuels to power an industrial revolution AND sufficiently small amounts to force a gradual move away from fossil fuels before the climate changes too much. And we're unlucky to be just the wrong side of the filter.

It's got nothing to do with "force". It's about having a viable alternative. Right now, there isn't one.

If there were no viable alternative and fossil fuels were simply running out then alternatives which were merely not economically viable, because fossil fuels were cheaper, would become economically viable as scarcity & cost to extract increased the price of fossil fuels, which would in turn lead to economies of scale and improvement in production of the alternatives and so on and so forth. And if even with all that the alternatives were simply not physically able to meet our energy requirements then huge investment would go into finding other alternatives, because the need would be immediate and obvious.

If even then no alternatives were found then at least the steady rise in price of fossil fuels would make the transition to a pre-industrial economy a gradual one.

My basic view is that humans are good at handling gradual change and good at making economic decisions where the costs and benefits are immediately obvious; but are bad at handling sudden change and making economic decisions involving taking cost now to mitigate downsides in the relatively far future. Fossil fuels running out would be the former case, climate change looks to me like the latter.

It doesn't work that way. Yes - alternatives struggle to be competitive on pricing. But higher oil prices doesn't mean everyone charges off to use alternatives. It means millions of people in energy poverty which impoverishes and kills.

But can't they build windmills as well ?

bimboman wrote:

Anonymous. wrote:

_fatprop wrote:Are we going to solve climate change? Unlikely

But we will work out ways to alleviate some of it

It's been solved mate. We will however concentrate on ways to alleviate some of it. Like a child digging a moat around his sandcastle as the tide comes in. It will work at first.

And then we are doomed I tell ya doomed.

Not you and I mate. We won't pay the price for our wastefulness. We will be dead by the time the shit hits the fan

Anonymous. wrote:

bimboman wrote:

Anonymous. wrote:

_fatprop wrote:Are we going to solve climate change? Unlikely

But we will work out ways to alleviate some of it

It's been solved mate. We will however concentrate on ways to alleviate some of it. Like a child digging a moat around his sandcastle as the tide comes in. It will work at first.

And then we are doomed I tell ya doomed.

Not you and I mate. We won't pay the price for our wastefulness. We will be dead by the time the shit hits the fan

How about my kids, should I buy them a boat n stuff ?

bimboman wrote:

Anonymous. wrote:

bimboman wrote:

Anonymous. wrote:

_fatprop wrote:Are we going to solve climate change? Unlikely

But we will work out ways to alleviate some of it

It's been solved mate. We will however concentrate on ways to alleviate some of it. Like a child digging a moat around his sandcastle as the tide comes in. It will work at first.

And then we are doomed I tell ya doomed.

Not you and I mate. We won't pay the price for our wastefulness. We will be dead by the time the shit hits the fan

How about my kids, should I buy them a boat n stuff ?

It's for you to give a shit about your kids and grand kids. If you don't it's not my problem

I agree, I like libertarian Anon.

Mahoney wrote:Perhaps we've found another Great Filter - for intelligent life to advance further than us there has to be both sufficient fossil fuels to power an industrial revolution AND sufficiently small amounts to force a gradual move away from fossil fuels before the climate changes too much. And we're unlucky to be just the wrong side of the filter.

I think the great filter here might be more of a general principle about the way biological systems use resources.
Contrary to what most people think, most biological systems are incredibly wasteful.
The need to consume the resource before another organism does trumps the need to use it carefully.

Imagine the level of technology required for an intelligent life form to attain complete global dominance is a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10.
A species with technology at such a level will dominate, multiply, and consume readily available resources at an increasing rate.
While they are doing this their level of technology increases perhaps also exponentially.
Imagine though that the level of technology requires to leave the planet in any meaningful way is a 10.
Do we reach that level of technology before we reach the point where we n longer have sufficient resources to sustain civilization let alone make the attempt?

yeah, we're fùcked.

worried, but as powerful people of this world don't give a shit, i am patiently waiting for them near the guillotine.

also, if things go exponential, the free for all party might happen sooner than later.

fùcked... and i have a daughter, so pretty sorry for her, and will do my best to keep her safe.

We should send more female construction workers into space.

..and confiscate Biden and everyone else who tells us not to use fossil fuels' private jets

Zakar wrote:If we are, it will be via engineering a solution rather than reduction in consumption.

This. The idea that a middle class person in a westernised democracy can "recycle-their-way" out of impact on the world is an absolute non-starter. The science isn't totally solid, but something like the Ecological Footprint calculator gives a you a good idea as to the issues at hand...simply put, just being a normal person in a developed country means you are using more of the earth than is your 'fair share' (i.e. if you consider that there is a wedge of the planet surface required to produce all the food, materials and energy, and then deposit of all your waste, for you to live your lifestyle, that area would be considerably larger than if you just took every person on earth and equally divided the surface up between all of us).

https://wwf.panda.org/get_involved/live ... alculator/

Diego wrote:

Theflier wrote:

Diego wrote:

Theflier wrote:And the sum total of all this CO2, the world is becoming more fertile

That would be amazing if CO2 rise happened in isolation. Unfortunately temperatures also rise which has a massive negative impact on photosynthesis and so biomass accumulation, yield etc. Climate change is not good, however you spin it.

How does temperature increase have a massive effect on photosynthesis?
From my experience, a warm bright summer has always been fantastic for plants.

And CO2 rise =/=climate change

Ok, I research this for a living so I'll keep it short. Plants have an optimum temperature point for photosynthesis. Once that point is passed it drops off rapidly due to several interacting cell processes. This is not compensated for by rising CO2.

Here's a couple of papers to look at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 011830176X
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26279285

Don't you think basing the efficiency of the Calvin cycle of one plant species is a poor point when making generalisations about the plant kingdom? For example, why can I not grow a banana plant in the U.K?
Using two citations, from the same research group, with low peer acknowledgement doesn't cry reproducibility.
At best your post says increased temperature is detrimental to a single uniform population of plants optimised for certain growth, and at worst it says in either standards conditions or raised temperature, CO2 enrichment is directly responsible for higher yield.

I'm not saying the world isn't getting warmer, I'm saying its probably not a big issue. Our grains and crops are all clones of our best, its really not difficult to grow another plant with a phenotype optimised for a small temperature increase, if I may make it clear to see, if you change the yard stick for an organism that has adapted to certain conditions you will yield worse results(temperature in this case) but this does not mean that change is negative across all organisms, and life is more than capable to coping.

Read this article, it has been citated 370 times, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... 07.01682.x it clearly outlines how plats will need to adapt and how c3 and c4 plants will suffer and proper respectively, it also shows that, as expected, global warming will be noticeable in cool areas and high latitudes and how this can be further taken advantage of by humans.

The mark of Eyghon has just appeared on the bored.

Turbogoat wrote:

comets wrote:Anyone ele just realized that THANOS was right all along?

Thinking about that, we are at 7.7Billion people on the planet right now.
Click your fingers, and reduce the number to 3.85Billion, and that's like winding the clock all the way back to about 1973.

Is buying our selves another 45 years before we find ourselves in the same situation worth having to wear this again?

Well, I'm keen. I'd love to wear these like a confident young go-getter.

The guy on the right appears to have lent all of his body hair to young George Clooney.

Zakar wrote:If we are, it will be via engineering a solution rather than reduction in consumption.

Or a combination of both, perhaps?

The Five Stages of Climate Change Denial

Stage 1: Deny the Problem Exists
Stage 2: Deny we are the Cause
Stage 3: Deny It's a Problem
Stage 4: Deny we can Solve It
Stage 5: It's too late

Are we wired to this thinking with current style of living, political climate, and the manufacturing and food production practices we follow?

terangi48 wrote:The Five Stages of Climate Change Denial

Stage 1: Deny the Problem Exists
Stage 2: Deny we are the Cause
Stage 3: Deny It's a Problem
Stage 4: Deny we can Solve It
Stage 5: It's too late

Are we wired to this thinking with current style of living, political climate, and the manufacturing and food production practices we follow?

See my post above. I don't believe there is a means to reduce consumption to a sustainable point while also maintaining the trappings of a 'developed country' lifestyle. What science there is on the subject would tend to back up that assertion.

The most sensible thing I've heard to date on the issue of climate change is:

Change is required urgently and it is our will/or not, to make that change.

If we were serious about climate change, who on this board would:

1. Be prepared to change their lifestyle if it meant cleaning up the planet? Voluntarily or enforced?

2. Vote for national political policies that were targetted to clean up the planet, even if those policies forced change in current practices.

3. Who currently makes a living in a way that would/should change if the planet was to be cleaned up?

4. Who on the board are planning to trade their current car for: a bike, public transport, a hybrid or EV as their next vehicle?

5. Who would invest in a bank of solar panels ($25,000) that would make them almost self sufficient for power?

zzzz wrote:

Mahoney wrote:

zzzz wrote:

Mahoney wrote:Perhaps we've found another Great Filter - for intelligent life to advance further than us there has to be both sufficient fossil fuels to power an industrial revolution AND sufficiently small amounts to force a gradual move away from fossil fuels before the climate changes too much. And we're unlucky to be just the wrong side of the filter.

It's got nothing to do with "force". It's about having a viable alternative. Right now, there isn't one.

If there were no viable alternative and fossil fuels were simply running out then alternatives which were merely not economically viable, because fossil fuels were cheaper, would become economically viable as scarcity & cost to extract increased the price of fossil fuels, which would in turn lead to economies of scale and improvement in production of the alternatives and so on and so forth. And if even with all that the alternatives were simply not physically able to meet our energy requirements then huge investment would go into finding other alternatives, because the need would be immediate and obvious.

If even then no alternatives were found then at least the steady rise in price of fossil fuels would make the transition to a pre-industrial economy a gradual one.

My basic view is that humans are good at handling gradual change and good at making economic decisions where the costs and benefits are immediately obvious; but are bad at handling sudden change and making economic decisions involving taking cost now to mitigate downsides in the relatively far future. Fossil fuels running out would be the former case, climate change looks to me like the latter.

It doesn't work that way. Yes - alternatives struggle to be competitive on pricing. But higher oil prices doesn't mean everyone charges off to use alternatives. It means millions of people in energy poverty which impoverishes and kills.

Why do alternatives struggle on pricing and what do you mean there isnt a viable alternative?

terangi48 wrote:The most sensible thing I've heard to date on the issue of climate change is:

Change is required urgently and it is our will/or not, to make that change.

If we were serious about climate change, who on this board would:

1. Be prepared to change their lifestyle if it meant cleaning up the planet? Voluntarily or enforced?

2. Vote for national political policies that were targetted to clean up the planet, even if those policies forced change in current practices.

3. Who currently makes a living in a way that would/should change if the planet was to be cleaned up?

4. Who on the board are planning to trade their current car for: a bike, public transport, a hybrid or EV as their next vehicle?

5. Who would invest in a bank of solar panels ($25,000) that would make them almost self sufficient for power?

I think it's great discussion to have, the real problem is that we need specific solutions that would actually help.
4 and 5 are actual suggestions, but not all of them are actually useful.

Good suggestions
- Bike, EVs
(but you might consider buying a smaller car and hiring a car when requiring extra space for family holidays etc)

OK
- Rooftop Solar (would probably be better to have a large solar power plant with current distribution network)

Not going to work
- Public transport is on average no greener than private vehicles.

Of Course transport is only 1 source of CO2 pollution.
Others you might be able to do something about:
- construction, concrete production emits large quantities of greenhouse gas.
- Consumer goods, don't buy as much crap.
- Meat, eat less.

Farva wrote:Im incredibly optimistic for tye engineering. We have the technologies to solve 50% plus of our carbon emmissions.
Also, anyone suggesting current nuclear technology is the solution is mad. Its just not viable financially.
Solar and wind, mixed with pumped storage, displaced by batteries as the technology arrives, is the future.

No love for Hydrogen?

Brumbie_Steve wrote:

Farva wrote:Im incredibly optimistic for tye engineering. We have the technologies to solve 50% plus of our carbon emmissions.
Also, anyone suggesting current nuclear technology is the solution is mad. Its just not viable financially.
Solar and wind, mixed with pumped storage, displaced by batteries as the technology arrives, is the future.

No love for Hydrogen?

Yeah, about 5 kilotons up Trump's arse.

Jeff the Bear wrote:

terangi48 wrote:The Five Stages of Climate Change Denial

Stage 1: Deny the Problem Exists
Stage 2: Deny we are the Cause
Stage 3: Deny It's a Problem
Stage 4: Deny we can Solve It
Stage 5: It's too late

Are we wired to this thinking with current style of living, political climate, and the manufacturing and food production practices we follow?

See my post above. I don't believe there is a means to reduce consumption to a sustainable point while also maintaining the trappings of a 'developed country' lifestyle. What science there is on the subject would tend to back up that assertion.

You are right but so is terangi48. We do know the solution. We are just not prepared to do what it takes.

Brumbie_Steve wrote:

Farva wrote:Im incredibly optimistic for tye engineering. We have the technologies to solve 50% plus of our carbon emmissions.
Also, anyone suggesting current nuclear technology is the solution is mad. Its just not viable financially.
Solar and wind, mixed with pumped storage, displaced by batteries as the technology arrives, is the future.

No love for Hydrogen?

That's not a generation technology, it's conversion and storage for redistribution away from central generator sites. The hydrogen economy still requires solar, hydro, wind etc to generate power in the first place.

Liked this analogy about how to lessen climate change.........

Its a monkey trap. The cunning monkey has found the bottle of nuts and got his fist inside and has a fistful but cannot withdraw from the bottle and as the hunter approaches to whack its head, despite knowing the danger to be mortal refuses to let go the nuts and escape.

Monkey = human nature. Hunter = Mother nature. Monkey trap = lifestyle. Nuts = everything to fight for, eat, desire, need and strive for.

terangi48 wrote:Liked this analogy about how to lessen climate change.........

Its a monkey trap. The cunning monkey has found the bottle of nuts and got his fist inside and has a fistful but cannot withdraw from the bottle and as the hunter approaches to whack its head, despite knowing the danger to be mortal refuses to let go the nuts and escape.

Monkey = human nature. Hunter = Mother nature. Monkey trap = lifestyle. Nuts = everything to fight for, eat, desire, need and strive for.

That's clearly a banana. You don't seem to know the difference between nuts and bananas, therefore your opinion is dismissed.

Meanwhile, the UK Government, having announced lofty "Road to Zero" plans to pivot to electrification of transport, been defeated multiple times in Court on the inadequacy of its air pollution plans and in the face of the IPCC Report, decides to cut the EV grants by £1k for full EVs and completely for PHEVs.

Good

zzzz wrote:Good

Why?