Okay, all–this is a slow developing post. I hope you can stick with me to the end here.
If you’re reading this, the chances are better than even that you are a well-educated male who is either working full time or transitioning or in retirement. That’s if respondents to last year’s survey of WUWT visitors told the truth.
If it is true, it may surprise you to learn that there is a body of medical and sociological literature written specifically about you. The theme of the literature is how to shepherd you through your fifties and early sixties and get you to your next ‘life-stage’ in good shape.
It isn’t aimed directly at you, but at your wives, doctors and nurses, which is why you may never have heard of it. The literature is big on prevention–getting you to finally put down the cigarettes, lose the weight and lay off the hard liquor so you don’t keel over too soon.
Whatever man-made climate change turns out to be, it is not a permanent state. This is something that is not often discussed, but is very true. This is a ‘life stage’ the human race is going through–probably not late middle age, but late adolescent–but it is certainly a phase, not a permanent condition.
The UN estimates that our population will peak at about 9.1 billion souls around 2075. They, and almost everyone else, estimates that our GDP will grow at roughly 3% per year during that time. This means that all except the very poorest of this 9 billion will be richer than we are today. The textile workers in Vietnam making $84 a month? Their grandchildren will be making more than our national average today.
During the next 65 years the world’s energy consumption will skyrocket, both because of more people and because so many will be adopting western energy consumption patterns. It is going to be impressive, and scary, especially if coal turns out to be the fuel powering this growth.
But it won’t be permanent. Here in the US, our energy consumption per capita is already declining, and it is declining or very stable in most of the richer countries of the world. About 20 years after world population peaks, shortly before 2100, the world’s energy consumption will peak as well, and both will start to decline.
At that point (and maybe long before, if technology does what technology normally does), our impact on this planet and its atmosphere will begin to slowly decrease. We will have passed the crisis point, and will be moving into–what? Adulthood? Middle age? I guess they’ll come up with a cute name for it.
The two points I’d like to make is, first, that whatever we do on behalf of the planet can be looked at as our generation’s contribution to a future that is almost in sight already. 90 years? Kids being born today will see it.
Second, those who are trying to push apocalyptic scenarios for political reasons need to keep their story lines straighter than they have so far. There are far more reasons for optimism than pessimism.
While I am probably a stronger advocate for renewable energy and energy efficiency than many of you reading this, it may be because I’m looking at this as just part of our generational duty–a far lighter duty than previous generations had to shoulder.
Yes, I think we should commit more of our treasure and toil towards reducing pollution, including emissions of the non-polluting CO2. Yes, I believe that we should spend more of our money on researching energy efficiency and things like utility level storage of energy.
But like most of you, I am an optimist at heart. I am truly confident that we have the system in place to find the solutions that we need and to put them in place. If we’re wrangling about it now, it’s a combination of anger at those who have blown this out of proportion and sticker shock at what the solution may cost.
But I do believe we’ll get there, and without having the revolutionary upheaval so many think is the only way to get through this.
Okay, all–this is a slow developing post. I hope you can stick with me to the end here.
If you’re reading this, the chances are better than even that you are a well-educated male who is either working full time or transitioning or in retirement. That’s if respondents to last year’s survey of WUWT visitors told the truth.
If it is true, it may surprise you to learn that there is a body of medical and sociological literature written specifically about you. The theme of the literature is how to shepherd you through your fifties and early sixties and get you to your next ‘life-stage’ in good shape.
It isn’t aimed directly at you, but at your wives, doctors and nurses, which is why you may never have heard of it. The literature is big on prevention–getting you to finally put down the cigarettes, lose the weight and lay off the hard liquor so you don’t keel over too soon.
Whatever man-made climate change turns out to be, it is not a permanent state. This is something that is not often discussed, but is very true. This is a ‘life stage’ the human race is going through–probably not late middle age, but late adolescent–but it is certainly a phase, not a permanent condition.
The UN estimates that our population will peak at about 9.1 billion souls around 2075. They, and almost everyone else, estimates that our GDP will grow at roughly 3% per year during that time. This means that all except the very poorest of this 9 billion will be richer than we are today. The textile workers in Vietnam making $84 a month? Their grandchildren will be making more than our national average today.
During the next 65 years the world’s energy consumption will skyrocket, both because of more people and because so many will be adopting western energy consumption patterns. It is going to be impressive, and scary, especially if coal turns out to be the fuel powering this growth.
But it won’t be permanent. Here in the US, our energy consumption per capita is already declining, and it is declining or very stable in most of the richer countries of the world. About 20 years after world population peaks, shortly before 2100, the world’s energy consumption will peak as well, and both will start to decline.
At that point (and maybe long before, if technology does what technology normally does), our impact on this planet and its atmosphere will begin to slowly decrease. We will have passed the crisis point, and will be moving into–what? Adulthood? Middle age? I guess they’ll come up with a cute name for it.
The two points I’d like to make is, first, that whatever we do on behalf of the planet can be looked at as our generation’s contribution to a future that is almost in sight already. 90 years? Kids being born today will see it.
Second, those who are trying to push apocalyptic scenarios for political reasons need to keep their story lines straighter than they have so far. There are far more reasons for optimism than pessimism.
While I am probably a stronger advocate for renewable energy and energy efficiency than many of you reading this, it may be because I’m looking at this as just part of our generational duty–a far lighter duty than previous generations had to shoulder.
Yes, I think we should commit more of our treasure and toil towards reducing pollution, including emissions of the non-polluting CO2. Yes, I believe that we should spend more of our money on researching energy efficiency and things like utility level storage of energy.
But like most of you, I am an optimist at heart. I am truly confident that we have the system in place to find the solutions that we need and to put them in place. If we’re wrangling about it now, it’s a combination of anger at those who have blown this out of proportion and sticker shock at what the solution may cost.
But I do believe we’ll get there, and without having the revolutionary upheaval so many think is the only way to get through this.
Max Hugoson : “Sorry old boy, but renewable energy is a JOKE and a CRUEL ONE at best.”
I agree with you that nuclear energy is the (or at least a) way to go, but fossil fuels will still last for a century or two. I don’t agree that renewable energy is a cruel joke. Certainly it is mostly uneconomic at today’s level of technology, and certainly in countries like Spain it has proved to be a cruel joke, but at tomorrow’s level of technology the picture might change. I hope so, after all the amount of sunlight reaching the planet is something like 100 million gigawatts (from memory, correct me if I am out by a factor of 10^n), and economically tapping into a small fraction of that would do wonders for the world’s energy needs.
simpleseekeraftertruth
September 6, 2010 12:53 am
Mr. Fuller,
IMHO your analogue reasoning is not yet pertinent against unanswered digital questions;
Is there a temperature rise? Y/N
If yes, is any man-made? Y/N
If yes, is it significant? Y/N
If yes, is it malignant as oposed to benign? Y/N
If yes, is there an efficient way to deal with it. Y/N
If no, begin discussions to acquire concensus on actions.
You appear to be at stage 6, and somewhere on the periphery.
pete
September 6, 2010 12:57 am
Tom, do you actually read (or at least skim) all the articles on WUWT?
I can’t understand how anybody can be au fait with the posts here and still believe the modelled predictions could possibly be accurate.
“I think that emitting CO2 in the same fashion we are today will bite us in the hind end”
on what evidence base?
Blade
September 6, 2010 1:12 am
Thomas Fuller [Top Post] …
“While I am probably a stronger advocate for renewable energy and energy efficiency than many of you reading this, …”
Slightly offended I think. You should have said ‘I feel I am probably a stronger advocate …’.
What is renewable energy anyway? Leaving aside Hawking and M-Theory, energy cannot be created or destroyed, period.
Using petroleum is clearly recycling/renewing old energy, primarily solar, from long dead plants/animals/marine life. The use of oil plus all its by-products surely is a humanitarian accomplishment when you consider what it has replaced!
For example bio-fuels utilize energy from recently deceased plant life. In the not too distant past the long era of whale/seal/(mammal) oil which was far worse, is now too distasteful for most of us to contemplate. Growing plants and killing animals to burn is not a rational thought when we have already dead things for that.
Solar panels steal photons before they ever arrive at their destination robbing them of their chance to play a part in photosynthesis! photons + CO2 = Green 😉 Put them on roofs and things sure, but wiping out acres of land, no way. That would be truly anti-environmental.
Wind farms, in addition to slicing and dicing currently alive birds and flying mammals, have some effect on air flow that will no doubt be quantitized in the future. Many, including myself believe these things are anti-environmental.
Nuclear (well Steam really) was demonized by the eco-nuts to near the point of extinction, but may get pardoned by the eco-nuts at the last moment to avoid the evil oil. This reprieve will only be due to the relentless narcissistic obsessive-compulsive personality disorders of the neo-Luddite ‘progressive’ left who have focused their mental illness on petroleum now. As a general rule, if a progressive/statist/neocom hates it, then I am for it.
Anyway, wasn’t the first oil well only started in 1860? So we are barely a century (once it ramped-up) into the Oil Age. Considering the durations of previous identifiable technological ages, Wood/Stone/Iron/Bronze/etc, I’d wager we have quite a ways to go before the last oil well is capped. My guess several centuries at least
“The UN estimates that our population will peak at about 9.1 billion souls around 2075.”
That pre-supposes they all have souls 😉 I’d wager that at any point in time fully a third of the population are souless programmable eco-bots, natural born serfs forever seeking authority figures to coddle them and set limits on their meaningless lives.
Christopher Hanley
September 6, 2010 1:42 am
To this reader, a wee bit past that ‘life-stage’, well aware of the health risks mentioned and perfectly capable of looking after myself without being shepherded anywhere, the opening three paragraphs of this little essay are offensively condescending.
Others have pointed out the underlying assumptions of the writer like the conflation of CO2 emissions and pollution, ‘renewable’ energy and energy efficiency.
If wind and solar are so efficient, why do they have to be subsidized by governments?
It reads like ‘green’ soft-sell, using the all too easily accept the memes and vocabulary of the AGW creed.
simpleseekeraftertruth
September 6, 2010 2:00 am
Mike Jonas says:
September 6, 2010 at 12:41 am
“I hope so, after all the amount of sunlight reaching the planet is something like 100 million gigawatts (from memory, correct me if I am out by a factor of 10^n), and economically tapping into a small fraction of that would do wonders for the world’s energy needs.”
The output of a modern coal-fired station (Drax, UK) can be >26,000 W/m^2 of land occupied for every hour of the day. Isonification by the sun for the purposes of an average solar panel is 200W/m^2 over a 24 hr period. If you add in surface for dedicated supply lines and for coal mines, the huge disparity remains. The problem is a practical one of energy density. Solar and wind cannot get close. And speaking of getting close, if you use areas of frozen wastes or deserts, there are transport issues and losses associated to get to the consumers, not to mention impact on wilderness areas themselves. Of all renewables, only strategically sited hydro comes close which of course is why it was adopted as a competitor and others were not.
Vince Causey
September 6, 2010 2:01 am
Mike Jonas,
“amount of sunlight reaching the planet is something like 100 million gigawatts (from memory, correct me if I am out by a factor of 10^n), and economically tapping into a small fraction of that would do wonders for the world’s energy needs.”
Mike, did you ever stop and think that that solar radiation reaching Earth might be needed by the biosphere?
Vince Causey
September 6, 2010 2:07 am
Steven Mosher,
“Further, if we assume No forcing from C02 ( that it has no effect) Then the warming seen is not what one would predict. ( again see chapter 9).”
Save it for RC, Steve. That dog won’t hunt on this website for the reason that most people posting here are intelligent enough to recognise an Argumentium ad Ignoratium when they see one. The fact that chapter 9 gives a low level of scientific understanding to several forcings, (and those are only the ones they have considered) should be a dead giveaway.
Please see Gnomish (September 5, 2010 at 7:39 pm ) for more details.
Alexander Vissers
September 6, 2010 2:09 am
“Climate change is not a forever problem” sort of implies that it is a sometime / anytime or current problem. Of course the next ice age will be a real problem but I do not believe this is intended by Thomas Fueller as his time horizon is set in centuries rather than millenia. For the time being climate change appears to be more of a relief than a problem, most doomsday predictions of the IPCC 4 ridiculed: Himalaya melt down, malaria pandemic, Kilimanjaro glacier melt attribution to GHG etc. Human food supply and therefore prosperity of the billions appears to be benefitting from higher average global temperatures and CO2 concentrations. Polar bears are among the cutest animals on the planet but if feeding the world’s populations and fighting poverty results in their extinction, so be it, preserving a species may never justify the starvation and poverty of people. So as long as we have no clear understanding of the climate system, the impact of human behaviour including the emission of GHG thereon and the consequences thereof, let alone make a balance between benefits and burdens of any AGW we should refrein from drawing politically correct conclusions, or more accurately, drawing any conclusions at all.
Chris Wright
September 6, 2010 2:10 am
First, Thomas Fuller states that CO2 is not a pollutant, which is clearly true. But if so, why do we actually need to reduce it? The satellite data from NASA shows that the world has become more fertile (but that trend may be going into reverse, according to their latest data – just as global warming seems to have stopped or even gone into a mild decline).
All the data seems to suggest that the combination of higher CO2 and a slightly warmer world has been of great benefit to the world. I think we have been very lucky to have lived most of our lives during a mild warming period. History repeatedly tells us that mankind prospers when the world is warmer, and that mankind suffers when the world gets colder.
Actually, I think CO2 has a very small effect on climate, maybe close to zero, so CO2 and climate change are actually two different issues. The ice cores show clearly that CO2 changes follow temperature changes. To paraphrase Gore: when the temperature goes up, so does the CO2.
When you look at the history of life on Earth, CO2 is actually almost at record low levels. It seems likely that, as technology improves, CO2 emissions will get smaller. I hope that the second half of the century will be dominated by fusion power.
Meanwhile, probably the only real options are clean coal (assuming the real pollution associated with coal can be solved) and nuclear. I regard renewables as a complete waste of time, as they are too expensive and too unreliable. If you think wind power is a good idea I suggest you monitor the hourly and daily outputs of wind power for your country. Today’s UK 24 hour average is a bit over 4% – but four days ago it was just 0.1%. Occasionally it is actually zero %. Complete madness.
But hopefully common sense will prevail. I heard on the news this morning that the German government are going to extend the lifetime of their nuclear power stations by up to 15 years. They said the extension would be required until renewables were sufficiently developed. Of course, they will never be ‘developed’. If the wind doesn’t blow, the wind doesn’t blow – however well developed the wind turbines might be.
So, although I recognise that Thomas Fuller is not an alarmist, and deserves credit for that, I have two fundamental disagreements:
1. I believe that any future emissions cuts should come from the natural improvements in technology. To enforce emissions cuts as envisioned by many governments is simply deranged. Some aspects, such as the enforced use of biofuels, I regard as something close to a crime against humanity, as it takes food away from starving people in order to fill gas tanks. And all in the name of science that is almost certainly wrong, and that has been badly corrupted by money and politics.
2. I believe that renewables are mostly a complete waste of time and a pointless waste of enormous resources. Despite the thousands of wind turbines that disfigure our country side, they still generate less power than a single conventional power station. And that’s when the wind does blow.
Chris
Julian Braggins
September 6, 2010 2:20 am
Like many posts here I think the only way to guarantee the future of our ( in my case g-grand children) children is to educate our children to think for themselves.
Consider what would happen if a CME blew out national grids and transformers and every computer and computer controlled vehicle and device, or even a few neutron bombs that would have a more limited geographical effect. Big transformers are one off, and take months to build.
Scary if you think it through, slide rules and log tables to the fore, if there was time before chaos ensued. All services down for months if not a year or two.
Only the military have some fully hardened equipment to guard against a neutron blast, and once their fuel runs out? CO2 is a non problem.
John Marshall
September 6, 2010 2:22 am
Since climate change has been around for 4.6 billion years it would seem to me that it will continue without any help from man. Energy use is a function of development despite the fact that technology becomes more energy efficient. But we will in the next 30 years or so have discovered how to get energy from fusion. Liquid fuel, like diesel and petrol(gasoline to you Americans) will still be in use but we will be able to manufacture these by biodigesters using genetically modified algae. This is already being done on a small scale in America. Hydrogen power will become a curiosity because hydrogen requires too much power to produce and is very dangerous to handle. Hydrogen power sounds good and clean but it is low in efficiency. BMW’s hydrogen powered car travelled 200 miles on a tank on fuel. The same car using petrol traveled 600 miles. qed petrol,is far more efficient and far less dangerous.
Robin Kool
September 6, 2010 2:47 am
It is always a good idea to look at the underlying, ‘hidden’ narrative of a posting.
The underlying narrative here is that Fuller is so smart and knowledgeable that he can predict climate and human behavior over a century, while most of the readers are so incompetent, the efforts to keep them in good health by those around them are not even shared with them.
Yes you, most of the readers of this blog, you must be treated like children who are not even told what is done for their own good.
The implication: What do you think you are doing here, thinking for yourself and attributing to this blog. Better you listen to the superior people who guide you. And Thomas Fuller is capable and willing to magnanimously and verbosely do just that.
In my experience, people like him love hearing themselves so much, they will go on and on until you make them stop or walk away.
Prepare for many more installments of this posting.
Frank
September 6, 2010 3:13 am
Mike says:
“Extinction is forever. Those species that we wipe out – by whatever means – are unlikely to return. Ocean acidification will likely last tens of thousands of years.”
Ocean acidification is the fallback scare should the catastrophic global warming fail to manifest itself. It’s scientific base is even less substansial than the CAGW one.
Did a quick search on animal extinsion in the last century, there are no extinsions in the last century that can be attributed to changes in climate, none, nada, zip.
Larry
September 6, 2010 3:18 am
You can’t predict which technologies will be required to make the next generation of renewable energy, and the current generation are so inefficient they will be a liablity. scientic research has to be broad based, not specific as it will be an unrelated field which will give the breakthrough. They are using large amounts of rare earth metals and the like, and will be very difficult to recycle. In effect the price signal tells us that we are using rare stuff to replace abundant stuff.
The current solution appears to be to use large amounts of rare and difficult to recycle materials in order to infinitessimally reduce consumption of one of the most abundant materials on the planet – the byproduct of which is the easiest to recycle. This is done by hiring armies of beaurocrats to make sure it is done in the most inefficient and intrusive way imaginable.
It would make far more sense to spend the money on big ticket improvements to public transport, and potentially infrastructure. That way we get something for the money and the savings are more effective, and it doesn’t really matter whether the science is right or wrong.
Christoph Dollis
September 6, 2010 3:32 am
Walter Schneider asked:
“… how come you put no limit on exponential growth of the capabilities of AI and yet, you feel that there should be a limit to the growth of energy generating capacity?”
I never said that. I expect we will solve many of the energy challenges we now face. And I suspect what supplants humanity will benefit from this.
melinspain
September 6, 2010 4:04 am
Mr. Fuller:
Thanks very much for your posts.
But…..what is the reason you have not yet answered at least some of the many questions asked to you in this post and in the “We Talk About Politics Because The Science Is Uncertain” post?.
Regards
Shevva
September 6, 2010 4:07 am
At Thomas, I guess your detractors follow you around the interweb, well at least you brought them to an excellent site.
TinyCO2
September 6, 2010 4:10 am
K~Bob Yes, old equipment were energy hogs but :-
First people didn’t have a TV at all.
Then they had one which everyone watched (concentrating lighting and heating in one room). Sometimes even the neighbours came round.
The TV was only on for a short while because there was little on to watch.
Then there was more tv to watch and most people got their own set.
Then they got colour TV.
Then there were tv programmes for all the family on multiple channels.
Then they had a few small tvs around the house.
Then there was standby so that TVs never get turned off.
Then there was 24 hour TV.
Then there were video players, then DVD, then Blue Ray, etc. Many of these are powered 24/7, just in case you need them.
Now they’ve got many TVs including widescreen.
Then Add satellite and digi boxes.
There are multiple remotes that need batteries.
And finally, people aren’t just watching TV in multiple rooms using multiple sources of light and heat or cooling, they’re playing computer games and surfing the net.
Now tell me that watching the TV uses less energy than it used to. You can do similar time lines for other items and get a familiar pattern of energy inflation.
The phone is another good example, it’s not the energy that is used by a single item but the new options we now consider essential; mobile internal phones, mobile external phones, phones for all family members, modems, TV hook ups, fax, added network capacity, etc.
tallbloke
September 6, 2010 4:29 am
latitude says:
September 5, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Tom Fuller says:
September 5, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I think that emitting CO2 in the same fashion we are today will bite us in the hind end when we are using a lot more energy.
do we really want to use 3 times as much energy as today, all provided by burning coal? Just the conventional pollution from that will be tough to deal with.
=======================================================
Tom, with all due respect, you don’t seem to realize you are wetting the bed for the wrong reasons.
Not only that, he is contradicting himself. First he says co2 isn’t a pollutant, then he says it’s some kind of ‘unconventional’ pollutant.
Get it straight Tom, it isn’t any kind of pollutant.
Larry
September 6, 2010 4:44 am
Moore’s law has held for about 40 years and states something like processing power doubles every 18months. i.e. irrespective of the amount of money spent in semiconductor research you can expect procesing power to double every 18 months. Clearly research dollars are required, but it would strongly suggest that there is a limit to the effectiveness of that research, because if you wish to go faster than that you also need to speed up the advancement of other technologies.
Renewables are not a technology in their own right, they are interesting applications of a more general field. When you read about new technology in this area it is always application of something else. The breakthrough to make renewables cost effective is not predictable, it is likely to be a product of the interesting properties of an unknown compound, and no amount of research dollars focussed on renewables will find that compound.
To take it to an extreme example, if in roman times mankind had decided the only research it was interested in was a computer, we would not have a computer today we would have complex abacuses. The research required to develop the silicon chip would have been cut at birth. All that funds in research to renewables will do is hasten the application of current technology, and we are such a long way from break even that that is not money well spent.
TinyCO2
September 6, 2010 4:52 am
To continue to theme of energy escalation I started in my reply to K~Bob. The energy used in the home is not the whole TV story.
There is the manufacture of the equipment. Replacement of equipment as it becomes obsolete (accelerating). Disposal of old equipment. Transport of old and new equipment. Similar energy patterns in complementary TV equipment (DVDs, etc). Manufacture and launch of satellites. Even things as trivial as new wall sockets for all that extra equipment use energy.
There’s also the explosion in the TV programme industry. More cameras and other equipment. More travel. More special effects. Etc. Etc. Etc.
None of this is bad but it doesn’t point to efficiency winning the war against energy use
Gail Combs
September 6, 2010 5:25 am
Max Hugoson says:
September 5, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Sorry old boy, but renewable energy is a JOKE and a CRUEL ONE at best…..
_______________________________
Well said.
“Enemies” of the USA and commercial interests nave not want to see the conversion of the USA to all nuclear. Nuclear is by far the cheapest source of power therefore industry would have stayed in the USA giving the US a great advantage. This would have upset “the balance of power”
Consider: the three mile Island “accident” had a high probability of being sabotage. Investigators suspected sabotage at Three Mile Island
Consider: the Boston Globe in the mid eighties ran want ads for nuclear protesters at $10/hr (I was job hunting and probably have some of those ads stashed in the attic)
Consider: in April 1994 on a back page the Wall Street Journal had an article stating papers in the Kremlin showed activists groups in the USA were not only funded by but were lead by the KGB this is backed up by. http://www.savethemales.ca/150801.html
and The ‘Innocents’ Clubs’ “….During the 1920’s and most of the 1930’s Münzenberg played a leading role in the Comintern, Lenin’s front for world-wide co-ordination of the left under Russian control. Under Münzenberg’s direction, hundreds of groups, committees and publications cynically used and manipulated the devout radicals of the West.
Most of this army of workers in what Münzenberg called ‘Innocents’ Clubs’ had no idea they were working for Stalin. They were led to believe that they were advancing the cause of a sort of socialist humanism. The descendents of the ‘Innocents’ Clubs’ are still hard at work in our universities and colleges. Every year a new cohort of impressionable students join groups like the Anti-Nazi League believing them to be benign opponents of oppression, rather than the Trotskyite fronts they really are….”
More: http://www.sunray22b.net/antonio_gramsci.htm
The whole idea of hamstringing US development was even written up in a textbook by none other than John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar and the Ehrlichs. In their 1973 book: Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions they ” called for “a massive campaign … to de-develop the United States” and other Western nations in order to conserve energy and facilitate growth in underdeveloped countries. “De-development,” they said, “means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” “By de-development,” they elaborated, “we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.” The authors added: “The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”
Look at the timing:
1972: UN first Earth Summit: Maurice Strong“warned urgently about global warming, the devastation of forests, the loss of biodiversity, polluted oceans, the population time bomb. Then as now, he invited to the conference the brand-new environmental NGOs [non-governmental organizations]: he gave them money to come; they were invited to raise hell at home. After Stockholm, environment issues became part of the administrative framework in Canada, the U.S., Britain, and Europe.”
1973: textbook: Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions calling for “de-development of the USA.
1979: The Three Mile Island accident started at exactly 4:00:37am on March 28, 1979.
The “de-development of the USA, is shown by the US census figures.
1970 – 24.0% of the labor force
1996 – 10.2% of the labor force
As of June 2010 – 7.58% we lost 1,962,000 manufacturing jobs since 1996 and the ratification of the World Trade Organization.
Is it any wonder I think the US nuclear program (and industry) was deliberately sabotaged by traitors?
Gail Combs
September 6, 2010 5:36 am
Noelene says:
September 5, 2010 at 9:02 pm
_________________________________–
I believe progress will be delayed because some men believe…
A very realistic list of what is actually happening. The perpetual blindness of certain people continues to amaze me. I guess it comes from shielding our children from any contact with harsh reality.
Bruce Cobb
September 6, 2010 5:42 am
Tom Fuller says:
September 5, 2010 at 5:31 pm
“Now that I’ve ticked a few of you off, I’ll be trying to go after the other side in my next few posts. ”
Good. I look forward to it. Yes, you’ve raised quite a stir here, which I don’t see as a bad thing, as a few seem to. I know you are seeking a middle ground on this, but there really isn’t any. The minute you remove the “C” from CAGW/CC, you remove the idiotic notion that we “must do something” about our climate. The debate then can be about energy policy, and how to go about finding a sane one. Remember, it is wealthy societies who have the will and the means to clean up their environment, and also to innovate. Forcing energy prices up has the opposite effect, decreasing living standards, with all of the concomitant social and environmental ill effects.
Yes, by all means, we should continue to seek alternative energies, just not through government fiat.
Max Hugoson : “Sorry old boy, but renewable energy is a JOKE and a CRUEL ONE at best.”
I agree with you that nuclear energy is the (or at least a) way to go, but fossil fuels will still last for a century or two. I don’t agree that renewable energy is a cruel joke. Certainly it is mostly uneconomic at today’s level of technology, and certainly in countries like Spain it has proved to be a cruel joke, but at tomorrow’s level of technology the picture might change. I hope so, after all the amount of sunlight reaching the planet is something like 100 million gigawatts (from memory, correct me if I am out by a factor of 10^n), and economically tapping into a small fraction of that would do wonders for the world’s energy needs.
Mr. Fuller,
IMHO your analogue reasoning is not yet pertinent against unanswered digital questions;
Is there a temperature rise? Y/N
If yes, is any man-made? Y/N
If yes, is it significant? Y/N
If yes, is it malignant as oposed to benign? Y/N
If yes, is there an efficient way to deal with it. Y/N
If no, begin discussions to acquire concensus on actions.
You appear to be at stage 6, and somewhere on the periphery.
Tom, do you actually read (or at least skim) all the articles on WUWT?
I can’t understand how anybody can be au fait with the posts here and still believe the modelled predictions could possibly be accurate.
“I think that emitting CO2 in the same fashion we are today will bite us in the hind end”
on what evidence base?
Slightly offended I think. You should have said ‘I feel I am probably a stronger advocate …’.
What is renewable energy anyway? Leaving aside Hawking and M-Theory, energy cannot be created or destroyed, period.
Using petroleum is clearly recycling/renewing old energy, primarily solar, from long dead plants/animals/marine life. The use of oil plus all its by-products surely is a humanitarian accomplishment when you consider what it has replaced!
For example bio-fuels utilize energy from recently deceased plant life. In the not too distant past the long era of whale/seal/(mammal) oil which was far worse, is now too distasteful for most of us to contemplate. Growing plants and killing animals to burn is not a rational thought when we have already dead things for that.
Solar panels steal photons before they ever arrive at their destination robbing them of their chance to play a part in photosynthesis! photons + CO2 = Green 😉 Put them on roofs and things sure, but wiping out acres of land, no way. That would be truly anti-environmental.
Wind farms, in addition to slicing and dicing currently alive birds and flying mammals, have some effect on air flow that will no doubt be quantitized in the future. Many, including myself believe these things are anti-environmental.
Nuclear (well Steam really) was demonized by the eco-nuts to near the point of extinction, but may get pardoned by the eco-nuts at the last moment to avoid the evil oil. This reprieve will only be due to the relentless narcissistic obsessive-compulsive personality disorders of the neo-Luddite ‘progressive’ left who have focused their mental illness on petroleum now. As a general rule, if a progressive/statist/neocom hates it, then I am for it.
Anyway, wasn’t the first oil well only started in 1860? So we are barely a century (once it ramped-up) into the Oil Age. Considering the durations of previous identifiable technological ages, Wood/Stone/Iron/Bronze/etc, I’d wager we have quite a ways to go before the last oil well is capped. My guess several centuries at least
That pre-supposes they all have souls 😉 I’d wager that at any point in time fully a third of the population are souless programmable eco-bots, natural born serfs forever seeking authority figures to coddle them and set limits on their meaningless lives.
To this reader, a wee bit past that ‘life-stage’, well aware of the health risks mentioned and perfectly capable of looking after myself without being shepherded anywhere, the opening three paragraphs of this little essay are offensively condescending.
Others have pointed out the underlying assumptions of the writer like the conflation of CO2 emissions and pollution, ‘renewable’ energy and energy efficiency.
If wind and solar are so efficient, why do they have to be subsidized by governments?
It reads like ‘green’ soft-sell, using the all too easily accept the memes and vocabulary of the AGW creed.
Mike Jonas says:
September 6, 2010 at 12:41 am
“I hope so, after all the amount of sunlight reaching the planet is something like 100 million gigawatts (from memory, correct me if I am out by a factor of 10^n), and economically tapping into a small fraction of that would do wonders for the world’s energy needs.”
The output of a modern coal-fired station (Drax, UK) can be >26,000 W/m^2 of land occupied for every hour of the day. Isonification by the sun for the purposes of an average solar panel is 200W/m^2 over a 24 hr period. If you add in surface for dedicated supply lines and for coal mines, the huge disparity remains. The problem is a practical one of energy density. Solar and wind cannot get close. And speaking of getting close, if you use areas of frozen wastes or deserts, there are transport issues and losses associated to get to the consumers, not to mention impact on wilderness areas themselves. Of all renewables, only strategically sited hydro comes close which of course is why it was adopted as a competitor and others were not.
Mike Jonas,
“amount of sunlight reaching the planet is something like 100 million gigawatts (from memory, correct me if I am out by a factor of 10^n), and economically tapping into a small fraction of that would do wonders for the world’s energy needs.”
Mike, did you ever stop and think that that solar radiation reaching Earth might be needed by the biosphere?
Steven Mosher,
“Further, if we assume No forcing from C02 ( that it has no effect) Then the warming seen is not what one would predict. ( again see chapter 9).”
Save it for RC, Steve. That dog won’t hunt on this website for the reason that most people posting here are intelligent enough to recognise an Argumentium ad Ignoratium when they see one. The fact that chapter 9 gives a low level of scientific understanding to several forcings, (and those are only the ones they have considered) should be a dead giveaway.
Please see Gnomish (September 5, 2010 at 7:39 pm ) for more details.
“Climate change is not a forever problem” sort of implies that it is a sometime / anytime or current problem. Of course the next ice age will be a real problem but I do not believe this is intended by Thomas Fueller as his time horizon is set in centuries rather than millenia. For the time being climate change appears to be more of a relief than a problem, most doomsday predictions of the IPCC 4 ridiculed: Himalaya melt down, malaria pandemic, Kilimanjaro glacier melt attribution to GHG etc. Human food supply and therefore prosperity of the billions appears to be benefitting from higher average global temperatures and CO2 concentrations. Polar bears are among the cutest animals on the planet but if feeding the world’s populations and fighting poverty results in their extinction, so be it, preserving a species may never justify the starvation and poverty of people. So as long as we have no clear understanding of the climate system, the impact of human behaviour including the emission of GHG thereon and the consequences thereof, let alone make a balance between benefits and burdens of any AGW we should refrein from drawing politically correct conclusions, or more accurately, drawing any conclusions at all.
First, Thomas Fuller states that CO2 is not a pollutant, which is clearly true. But if so, why do we actually need to reduce it? The satellite data from NASA shows that the world has become more fertile (but that trend may be going into reverse, according to their latest data – just as global warming seems to have stopped or even gone into a mild decline).
All the data seems to suggest that the combination of higher CO2 and a slightly warmer world has been of great benefit to the world. I think we have been very lucky to have lived most of our lives during a mild warming period. History repeatedly tells us that mankind prospers when the world is warmer, and that mankind suffers when the world gets colder.
Actually, I think CO2 has a very small effect on climate, maybe close to zero, so CO2 and climate change are actually two different issues. The ice cores show clearly that CO2 changes follow temperature changes. To paraphrase Gore: when the temperature goes up, so does the CO2.
When you look at the history of life on Earth, CO2 is actually almost at record low levels. It seems likely that, as technology improves, CO2 emissions will get smaller. I hope that the second half of the century will be dominated by fusion power.
Meanwhile, probably the only real options are clean coal (assuming the real pollution associated with coal can be solved) and nuclear. I regard renewables as a complete waste of time, as they are too expensive and too unreliable. If you think wind power is a good idea I suggest you monitor the hourly and daily outputs of wind power for your country. Today’s UK 24 hour average is a bit over 4% – but four days ago it was just 0.1%. Occasionally it is actually zero %. Complete madness.
But hopefully common sense will prevail. I heard on the news this morning that the German government are going to extend the lifetime of their nuclear power stations by up to 15 years. They said the extension would be required until renewables were sufficiently developed. Of course, they will never be ‘developed’. If the wind doesn’t blow, the wind doesn’t blow – however well developed the wind turbines might be.
So, although I recognise that Thomas Fuller is not an alarmist, and deserves credit for that, I have two fundamental disagreements:
1. I believe that any future emissions cuts should come from the natural improvements in technology. To enforce emissions cuts as envisioned by many governments is simply deranged. Some aspects, such as the enforced use of biofuels, I regard as something close to a crime against humanity, as it takes food away from starving people in order to fill gas tanks. And all in the name of science that is almost certainly wrong, and that has been badly corrupted by money and politics.
2. I believe that renewables are mostly a complete waste of time and a pointless waste of enormous resources. Despite the thousands of wind turbines that disfigure our country side, they still generate less power than a single conventional power station. And that’s when the wind does blow.
Chris
Like many posts here I think the only way to guarantee the future of our ( in my case g-grand children) children is to educate our children to think for themselves.
Consider what would happen if a CME blew out national grids and transformers and every computer and computer controlled vehicle and device, or even a few neutron bombs that would have a more limited geographical effect. Big transformers are one off, and take months to build.
Scary if you think it through, slide rules and log tables to the fore, if there was time before chaos ensued. All services down for months if not a year or two.
Only the military have some fully hardened equipment to guard against a neutron blast, and once their fuel runs out? CO2 is a non problem.
Since climate change has been around for 4.6 billion years it would seem to me that it will continue without any help from man. Energy use is a function of development despite the fact that technology becomes more energy efficient. But we will in the next 30 years or so have discovered how to get energy from fusion. Liquid fuel, like diesel and petrol(gasoline to you Americans) will still be in use but we will be able to manufacture these by biodigesters using genetically modified algae. This is already being done on a small scale in America. Hydrogen power will become a curiosity because hydrogen requires too much power to produce and is very dangerous to handle. Hydrogen power sounds good and clean but it is low in efficiency. BMW’s hydrogen powered car travelled 200 miles on a tank on fuel. The same car using petrol traveled 600 miles. qed petrol,is far more efficient and far less dangerous.
It is always a good idea to look at the underlying, ‘hidden’ narrative of a posting.
The underlying narrative here is that Fuller is so smart and knowledgeable that he can predict climate and human behavior over a century, while most of the readers are so incompetent, the efforts to keep them in good health by those around them are not even shared with them.
Yes you, most of the readers of this blog, you must be treated like children who are not even told what is done for their own good.
The implication: What do you think you are doing here, thinking for yourself and attributing to this blog. Better you listen to the superior people who guide you. And Thomas Fuller is capable and willing to magnanimously and verbosely do just that.
In my experience, people like him love hearing themselves so much, they will go on and on until you make them stop or walk away.
Prepare for many more installments of this posting.
Mike says:
“Extinction is forever. Those species that we wipe out – by whatever means – are unlikely to return. Ocean acidification will likely last tens of thousands of years.”
Ocean acidification is the fallback scare should the catastrophic global warming fail to manifest itself. It’s scientific base is even less substansial than the CAGW one.
Did a quick search on animal extinsion in the last century, there are no extinsions in the last century that can be attributed to changes in climate, none, nada, zip.
You can’t predict which technologies will be required to make the next generation of renewable energy, and the current generation are so inefficient they will be a liablity. scientic research has to be broad based, not specific as it will be an unrelated field which will give the breakthrough. They are using large amounts of rare earth metals and the like, and will be very difficult to recycle. In effect the price signal tells us that we are using rare stuff to replace abundant stuff.
The current solution appears to be to use large amounts of rare and difficult to recycle materials in order to infinitessimally reduce consumption of one of the most abundant materials on the planet – the byproduct of which is the easiest to recycle. This is done by hiring armies of beaurocrats to make sure it is done in the most inefficient and intrusive way imaginable.
It would make far more sense to spend the money on big ticket improvements to public transport, and potentially infrastructure. That way we get something for the money and the savings are more effective, and it doesn’t really matter whether the science is right or wrong.
Walter Schneider asked:
I never said that. I expect we will solve many of the energy challenges we now face. And I suspect what supplants humanity will benefit from this.
Mr. Fuller:
Thanks very much for your posts.
But…..what is the reason you have not yet answered at least some of the many questions asked to you in this post and in the “We Talk About Politics Because The Science Is Uncertain” post?.
Regards
At Thomas, I guess your detractors follow you around the interweb, well at least you brought them to an excellent site.
K~Bob Yes, old equipment were energy hogs but :-
First people didn’t have a TV at all.
Then they had one which everyone watched (concentrating lighting and heating in one room). Sometimes even the neighbours came round.
The TV was only on for a short while because there was little on to watch.
Then there was more tv to watch and most people got their own set.
Then they got colour TV.
Then there were tv programmes for all the family on multiple channels.
Then they had a few small tvs around the house.
Then there was standby so that TVs never get turned off.
Then there was 24 hour TV.
Then there were video players, then DVD, then Blue Ray, etc. Many of these are powered 24/7, just in case you need them.
Now they’ve got many TVs including widescreen.
Then Add satellite and digi boxes.
There are multiple remotes that need batteries.
And finally, people aren’t just watching TV in multiple rooms using multiple sources of light and heat or cooling, they’re playing computer games and surfing the net.
Now tell me that watching the TV uses less energy than it used to. You can do similar time lines for other items and get a familiar pattern of energy inflation.
The phone is another good example, it’s not the energy that is used by a single item but the new options we now consider essential; mobile internal phones, mobile external phones, phones for all family members, modems, TV hook ups, fax, added network capacity, etc.
latitude says:
September 5, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Tom Fuller says:
September 5, 2010 at 2:01 pm
I think that emitting CO2 in the same fashion we are today will bite us in the hind end when we are using a lot more energy.
do we really want to use 3 times as much energy as today, all provided by burning coal? Just the conventional pollution from that will be tough to deal with.
=======================================================
Tom, with all due respect, you don’t seem to realize you are wetting the bed for the wrong reasons.
Not only that, he is contradicting himself. First he says co2 isn’t a pollutant, then he says it’s some kind of ‘unconventional’ pollutant.
Get it straight Tom, it isn’t any kind of pollutant.
Moore’s law has held for about 40 years and states something like processing power doubles every 18months. i.e. irrespective of the amount of money spent in semiconductor research you can expect procesing power to double every 18 months. Clearly research dollars are required, but it would strongly suggest that there is a limit to the effectiveness of that research, because if you wish to go faster than that you also need to speed up the advancement of other technologies.
Renewables are not a technology in their own right, they are interesting applications of a more general field. When you read about new technology in this area it is always application of something else. The breakthrough to make renewables cost effective is not predictable, it is likely to be a product of the interesting properties of an unknown compound, and no amount of research dollars focussed on renewables will find that compound.
To take it to an extreme example, if in roman times mankind had decided the only research it was interested in was a computer, we would not have a computer today we would have complex abacuses. The research required to develop the silicon chip would have been cut at birth. All that funds in research to renewables will do is hasten the application of current technology, and we are such a long way from break even that that is not money well spent.
To continue to theme of energy escalation I started in my reply to K~Bob. The energy used in the home is not the whole TV story.
There is the manufacture of the equipment. Replacement of equipment as it becomes obsolete (accelerating). Disposal of old equipment. Transport of old and new equipment. Similar energy patterns in complementary TV equipment (DVDs, etc). Manufacture and launch of satellites. Even things as trivial as new wall sockets for all that extra equipment use energy.
There’s also the explosion in the TV programme industry. More cameras and other equipment. More travel. More special effects. Etc. Etc. Etc.
None of this is bad but it doesn’t point to efficiency winning the war against energy use
Max Hugoson says:
September 5, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Sorry old boy, but renewable energy is a JOKE and a CRUEL ONE at best…..
_______________________________
Well said.
“Enemies” of the USA and commercial interests nave not want to see the conversion of the USA to all nuclear. Nuclear is by far the cheapest source of power therefore industry would have stayed in the USA giving the US a great advantage. This would have upset “the balance of power”
Consider: the three mile Island “accident” had a high probability of being sabotage. Investigators suspected sabotage at Three Mile Island
Consider: the Boston Globe in the mid eighties ran want ads for nuclear protesters at $10/hr (I was job hunting and probably have some of those ads stashed in the attic)
Consider: in April 1994 on a back page the Wall Street Journal had an article stating papers in the Kremlin showed activists groups in the USA were not only funded by but were lead by the KGB this is backed up by.
http://www.savethemales.ca/150801.html
and The ‘Innocents’ Clubs’
“….During the 1920’s and most of the 1930’s Münzenberg played a leading role in the Comintern, Lenin’s front for world-wide co-ordination of the left under Russian control. Under Münzenberg’s direction, hundreds of groups, committees and publications cynically used and manipulated the devout radicals of the West.
Most of this army of workers in what Münzenberg called ‘Innocents’ Clubs’ had no idea they were working for Stalin. They were led to believe that they were advancing the cause of a sort of socialist humanism. The descendents of the ‘Innocents’ Clubs’ are still hard at work in our universities and colleges. Every year a new cohort of impressionable students join groups like the Anti-Nazi League believing them to be benign opponents of oppression, rather than the Trotskyite fronts they really are….”
More: http://www.sunray22b.net/antonio_gramsci.htm
The whole idea of hamstringing US development was even written up in a textbook by none other than John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar and the Ehrlichs. In their 1973 book: Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions they ” called for “a massive campaign … to de-develop the United States” and other Western nations in order to conserve energy and facilitate growth in underdeveloped countries. “De-development,” they said, “means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” “By de-development,” they elaborated, “we mean lower per-capita energy consumption, fewer gadgets, and the abolition of planned obsolescence.” The authors added:
“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential if a decent life is to be provided for every human being.”
Look at the timing:
1972: UN first Earth Summit: Maurice Strong “warned urgently about global warming, the devastation of forests, the loss of biodiversity, polluted oceans, the population time bomb. Then as now, he invited to the conference the brand-new environmental NGOs [non-governmental organizations]: he gave them money to come; they were invited to raise hell at home. After Stockholm, environment issues became part of the administrative framework in Canada, the U.S., Britain, and Europe.”
1973: textbook: Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions calling for “de-development of the USA.
1979: The Three Mile Island accident started at exactly 4:00:37am on March 28, 1979.
The “de-development of the USA, is shown by the US census figures.
1970 – 24.0% of the labor force
1996 – 10.2% of the labor force
As of June 2010 – 7.58% we lost 1,962,000 manufacturing jobs since 1996 and the ratification of the World Trade Organization.
Is it any wonder I think the US nuclear program (and industry) was deliberately sabotaged by traitors?
Noelene says:
September 5, 2010 at 9:02 pm
_________________________________–
I believe progress will be delayed because some men believe…
A very realistic list of what is actually happening. The perpetual blindness of certain people continues to amaze me. I guess it comes from shielding our children from any contact with harsh reality.
Tom Fuller says:
September 5, 2010 at 5:31 pm
“Now that I’ve ticked a few of you off, I’ll be trying to go after the other side in my next few posts. ”
Good. I look forward to it. Yes, you’ve raised quite a stir here, which I don’t see as a bad thing, as a few seem to. I know you are seeking a middle ground on this, but there really isn’t any. The minute you remove the “C” from CAGW/CC, you remove the idiotic notion that we “must do something” about our climate. The debate then can be about energy policy, and how to go about finding a sane one. Remember, it is wealthy societies who have the will and the means to clean up their environment, and also to innovate. Forcing energy prices up has the opposite effect, decreasing living standards, with all of the concomitant social and environmental ill effects.
Yes, by all means, we should continue to seek alternative energies, just not through government fiat.