Author Topic: Climate Change  (Read 28613 times)

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guest7

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #135 on: October 30, 2018, 11:20:57 pm »
I have read that China is phasing out fossil fuels.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.COMM.FO.ZS?locations=CN

This graph seems to support that.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45640706

Posted elsewhere but I thought it was appropriate here too.
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Offline TimG

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #137 on: October 31, 2018, 12:01:43 am »
I mean, really?  Do we even deserve to survive?
I am honestly not certain whether the problem with the link were the supposed harms caused by bitcoin narrated by someone who has no clue how the energy system works or if the problem was yet another hyperbolic prediction of climate doom.

guest7

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #138 on: October 31, 2018, 12:06:15 am »
I am honestly not certain whether the problem with the link were the supposed harms caused by bitcoin narrated by someone who has no clue how the energy system works or if the problem was yet another hyperbolic prediction of climate doom.

Well when you figure it out let me know.  I could do with cheering up.

Of course, I won't believe you, but still, it's worth a shot.
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Offline TimG

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #139 on: October 31, 2018, 12:07:18 am »
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45640706

Posted elsewhere but I thought it was appropriate here too.
Numbers provided by the Chinese government are fiction. The only reliable data comes from external sources like the satellite that caught the Chinese dumping CFCs into the atmosphere decades after people declared the international treaty a "success".

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/07/10/Chinese-foam-industry-responsible-for-rise-in-CFC-11-emissions/1601531150702/

Offline TimG

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #140 on: October 31, 2018, 12:11:46 am »
Well when you figure it out let me know.  I could do with cheering up.
Well, something has to produce the power that bitcoin miners consume and these things need to be built and that costs a lot of money. The economics of bitcoin may work when they can access pockets of cheap excess power but I doubt they would hold up if the bitcoin miners had to start funding their own power stations. This implies the bitcoin boom will be self limited and the claims in the paper are implausible (some less polite words would also be appropriate).
« Last Edit: October 31, 2018, 12:18:20 am by TimG »

guest7

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #141 on: October 31, 2018, 08:50:18 am »
Well, something has to produce the power that bitcoin miners consume and these things need to be built and that costs a lot of money. The economics of bitcoin may work when they can access pockets of cheap excess power but I doubt they would hold up if the bitcoin miners had to start funding their own power stations. This implies the bitcoin boom will be self limited and the claims in the paper are implausible (some less polite words would also be appropriate).

Possibly.  I read somewhere that Bitcoin currently uses as much power as Ireland.  Maybe some of the coal fired plants that China is hiding will be used for Bitcoin as well.  Why would these people worry about who was paying the bills?
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Offline TimG

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #142 on: October 31, 2018, 09:45:20 am »
Why would these people worry about who was paying the bills?
If they draw so much power that locals are facing blackouts then they will be forced by local governments to care. Bitcoin mining is a simple profit-cost calculation. If the costs go up bitcoin mining becomes unprofitable and bitcoin miners stop expanding. There is no way bitcoin could expand in the way suggested by the paper without major investments in power generation and those investments would increase costs. Right now bitcoin is an arbitrage play: miners find places where power is cheap an turn it into money. The trouble is such places are finite and do not allow exponential expansion so the paper is just another example of bogus catastrophe **** which alarmists can get enough of.
« Last Edit: October 31, 2018, 09:47:04 am by TimG »

guest7

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #143 on: October 31, 2018, 08:02:56 pm »
If they draw so much power that locals are facing blackouts then they will be forced by local governments to care. Bitcoin mining is a simple profit-cost calculation. If the costs go up bitcoin mining becomes unprofitable and bitcoin miners stop expanding. There is no way bitcoin could expand in the way suggested by the paper without major investments in power generation and those investments would increase costs. Right now bitcoin is an arbitrage play: miners find places where power is cheap an turn it into money. The trouble is such places are finite and do not allow exponential expansion so the paper is just another example of bogus catastrophe **** which alarmists can get enough of.

If you like.  It seems to me that if Bitcoins are worth as much as they say the power will be found. 
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guest7

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #144 on: October 31, 2018, 08:05:59 pm »
Numbers provided by the Chinese government are fiction. The only reliable data comes from external sources like the satellite that caught the Chinese dumping CFCs into the atmosphere decades after people declared the international treaty a "success".

https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2018/07/10/Chinese-foam-industry-responsible-for-rise-in-CFC-11-emissions/1601531150702/

Yeah, I heard they're going back to allowing their crackpot quacks to fool people into thinking they're being cured with eye of newt. 

Sorry, I mean rhino horn and tiger bones.
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guest7

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #145 on: October 31, 2018, 08:48:24 pm »
just another example of bogus catastrophe **** which alarmists can get enough of.

Here, fill your boots...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46046067

I know, I know.  If that's how much of a clue these scientists have...
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Offline TimG

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #146 on: November 01, 2018, 04:55:07 am »
I know, I know.  If that's how much of a clue these scientists have...
Scientists are human. They are not immune to the hyper partisanship that has gripped the rest of society. In fact, the climate science helped create the hyper partisan political environment today because some climate scientists were way to willing to attack scientists who expressed doubt about some of the alarmist claims being made. i.e. dividing what should be a heterogeneous scientific community with a wide range of views into "believers" and "deniers" was pure politics and it should come as no surprise that people who don't share the "believers" politics now don't trust a word they say.

FWIW - the is a debate in the literature today about why the climate models were so wrong over the last 20 years. The article you linked takes the approach that the climate models are infallible oracles and the explanation must come from some other phenomena that cancelled out the warming that did not appear. The other approach asks whether the climate models are wrong about the strength of CO2 induced warming and whether the risk is much less than previously stated. Each camp obviously says the other camp is full of crap but only the side that produces alarmist **** gets reported in the media.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2018, 04:57:38 am by TimG »

guest7

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #147 on: November 01, 2018, 09:25:40 am »
Scientists are human. They are not immune to the hyper partisanship that has gripped the rest of society. In fact, the climate science helped create the hyper partisan political environment today because some climate scientists were way to willing to attack scientists who expressed doubt about some of the alarmist claims being made. i.e. dividing what should be a heterogeneous scientific community with a wide range of views into "believers" and "deniers" was pure politics and it should come as no surprise that people who don't share the "believers" politics now don't trust a word they say.

FWIW - the is a debate in the literature today about why the climate models were so wrong over the last 20 years. The article you linked takes the approach that the climate models are infallible oracles and the explanation must come from some other phenomena that cancelled out the warming that did not appear. The other approach asks whether the climate models are wrong about the strength of CO2 induced warming and whether the risk is much less than previously stated. Each camp obviously says the other camp is full of crap but only the side that produces alarmist **** gets reported in the media.

I don't pay the blindest bit of notice to the models.  They've always been dodgy at best.  I just look at the stuff that's finite, land, fresh water, etc, and the stuff that's increasing, population, and realise it really can't be any other way.

Unless, as stated before, we come up with cold fusion or something equally as remarkable. 

I forgot the stuff that's useless.  Politicians and world leaders.

Of course, this is one argument I'd be happy to lose.
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Offline Omni

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #148 on: November 01, 2018, 12:54:45 pm »
Scientists are human. They are not immune to the hyper partisanship that has gripped the rest of society. In fact, the climate science helped create the hyper partisan political environment today because some climate scientists were way to willing to attack scientists who expressed doubt about some of the alarmist claims being made. i.e. dividing what should be a heterogeneous scientific community with a wide range of views into "believers" and "deniers" was pure politics and it should come as no surprise that people who don't share the "believers" politics now don't trust a word they say.

FWIW - the is a debate in the literature today about why the climate models were so wrong over the last 20 years. The article you linked takes the approach that the climate models are infallible oracles and the explanation must come from some other phenomena that cancelled out the warming that did not appear. The other approach asks whether the climate models are wrong about the strength of CO2 induced warming and whether the risk is much less than previously stated. Each camp obviously says the other camp is full of crap but only the side that produces alarmist **** gets reported in the media.

So you're still convinced that what 97% of publishing climate scientists conclude is "alarmist ****"? I guess they phonied up the sat. pics of all that missing ice in the arctic as well eh.
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Offline TimG

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Re: Climate Change
« Reply #149 on: November 01, 2018, 02:05:45 pm »
I just look at the stuff that's finite, land, fresh water, etc, and the stuff that's increasing, population, and realise it really can't be any other way.
What does one have to do with the other? There are lots of real environmental issues that we can actually do something about but the chattering classes can't stop talking about CO2 and pushing policies that waste resources and accomplish nothing remotely useful. Meanwhile the real environmental issues fall by the way side.
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