Climate change

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

Originally Posted by glenluceskies

Adrian, I appreciate your replies on my post.

1. Bushfires. It's bloody Summer, isn't it??? We've been having bushfires in.. Summer as long as I can remember, and I hazard a guess that bushfires generally hvae been occurring in Summer for millions of years. All of a sudden they are caused by climate change!

2. Regarding her comment "The world is running out of water" - perhaps a generalisation yes, but more a result of a politician reading from a party line, and not thinking for herself as to actually what she was saying. And I'll guess that most listeners to her interview weren't even absorbing the content of her statements.


There are obviously better experts on this forum than humble people like myself who do not proclaim to be either a climatologist, agronomist, or any expert in this field who can cite dozens of books and reference publications, so I'll leave this topic to the experts.

Well I didnt mean to have a go at you. If you know what I mean. But you had brought up all the right topics in one post... and I was like, well while Im here...

To be honest, Im very glad to see a thread like this. People talking about climate change and giving constructive oppinions on the subject and on polices to deal with it. Because this will effect us all. Thus I believe everyone should have their say.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Well, the planet is running out of water....good, clean water for drinking and such. But only because we waste so much of the stuff and what we do with the rest is pollute it. It's not that the actual amount of freshwater on the planet has changed, it's how it's being utilised that is the problem. It's what our usage of the freshwater does to the supplies and what we happen to add to it that makes the difference.

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Originally Posted by AG Hybrid

Well I didnt mean to have a go at you. If you know what I mean. But you had brought up all the right topics in one post... and I was like, well while Im here...

I didn't take it that way, mate, just replying to you. And as I said, everyone's a expert on climate change these days. Which is fine with me because I don't even proclaim to be an armchair expert.

[AG Hybrid (Adrian)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Actually, Claude, everyone in the know, knew that the design for the Chernobyl power plant's reactors was faulty right from the start. Even the designers of the plant knew it...it was purely a political decision which saw them built in the first place, despite what the engineers advised.

Those 4th generation powerplants are safe...a lot safer than the older style of plants and far safer than coal fired plants. They can't melt down because they're designed not to...the reactor vessels can't get hot enough to melt the uranium in the fuel rods, plus the fuel rods are designed not overheat (due to the design of the fuel pellets). If no one could guarantee the safety of anything just because of its design or what it used, you'd never be driving around in cars. You wouldn't even get out of bed in the morning.

Bet you didn't know that a lot of coal mines are actually loaded with radon gas...yes, radioactive gas. It seeps into the coal seams from the granites which invariably intrude into many of the coal basins. It gets trapped less porous layers of the sedimentary rocks and stays there until it's disturbed. Then you have the effects of all the other gases that seep from coal mines. And the effects of coal dust and silicate particles being breathed into people's lungs. Plus the results of burning the stuff.

Personally, I'd rather see a viable form of power generation via fusion come online as soon as possible, but until then, I'd rather take a chance on nuclear (fission) energy. Being backed up by your usual suspects (wind, solar etc).

Ahh see the information is there to be found.

Actually I hear sea wave power is very effiecient. I believe there is a large coastal town in Scotland or the UK that recieves nearly all its electricity needs from it.

Australia has alot of coastline!

[Peter Ward]

Adrian. Bravo! I could not have put it better!

A clear succinct and informative critique.

Popular solutions (eg no Nukes! ) are often poorly thought through.

Many issues we now face now require expertise and engineering, and what might be the most palatable to the general population is not by definition the best way to go.

Short of a benevolent dictatorship however, agents of change for the greater good might be thin on the ground.

Lord knows the're not in Canberra.

[stephenb (Stephen)]

I'm more than happy to believe in either side of the argument, and as I said, I do believe they're is an strong element of truth about climate change.

Originally Posted by AG Hybrid

All I'm saying, the people of Australia should go and do the research. Everyone has the internet now, they can all go and find out for themselves, instead of eating what politicians of different agenda feed them.

Good in theory, Adrian, but don't assume that people are stupid followers because the do not Google every single topic that is supposed to matter to them. My only issue is that it is now being clouded so much by elements from each side who are now pushing lies and false data (well, that's the perception in the media AND here on IIS). So what's the result for a lot of the population? They get tired of listening to it and move on to more pressing day-to-day issues. I have a dozen daily issues to deal with in our household before I even begin to contemplate sitting on the computer and Googling link after link after link of climate change information. And I'd guess that would go for a lot of the community.

What has to occur is all the so-called experts must provide 2 balanced viewpoints in a well-presented, easy to read format (not pages and pages or cited references and publications, such as on this forum), for the avarage person to absorb and understand. Only then will the average member of the public start supporting the cause. Because any climate change action is not going to occur at government levels.

And yes, Adrian, your comments do make a lots of sense, as do many others in this thread.

As I said, I'll leave this thread to all the experts.

[renormalised (Carl)]

They're not anywhere, Peter. Nothing will come from Copenhagen, and whatever decision is made, no one will take any notice of it. Kyoto was a joke and this little party will be no better.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by glenluceskies

I'm more than happy to believe in either side of the argument, and as I said, I do believe they're is an strong element of truth about climate change.

My only issue is that it is now being clouded so much by elements from each side who are now pushing lies and false data. So what's the result for a lot of the population They get tired of listening to it and move on to more pressing day-to-day issues.

What has to occur is all the so-called experts must provide 2 balanced viewpoints in a well-presented, easy to read format (not pages and pages or cited references and publications, such as on this forum), for the avarage person to absorb and understand. Only then will the average member of the public start supporting the cause. Because any climate change action is not going to occur at government levels.

And yes, your comments do make a lots of sense, as do many others in this thread.

As I said, I'll leave this thread to all the experts.

The danger in trying to simplify the science to put it into terms that the public can easily digest is that the science can lose its meaning and a lot of data which is crucial to explaining what's going on can be lost in the translation. It can also be open to further abuse. It's precisely what's happening in the media now.

The general public are not scientifically literate, most probably only barely passed science at school, if they did any at all in senior high. In most cases, trying to explain complicated subjects like global climate will be ignored for the most part because it's science and most people feel it's too hard to understand in any case. Plus, it's also attitude which is important...many people would rather deal with the immediate concerns of life, as you have said, rather than worry about what might happen in the future.

If you want to impress people with an idea, hit them where it will hurt the most...their finances and their families. How do you think the environmental lobbies do so well with their campaigns...they play on people's immediate concerns and emotions. In other words, a scare campaign. They know full well that people are generally ignorant of the nitty gritty, but they will make decisions based on an emotive response to a particular issue before they make a more considered response, from a position of knowledge. It's how pollies operate as well. It's an effective tool for social engineering, it's also one that's all too often abused.

[marki]

Originally Posted by avandonk

This is all just a load of inconsequential barely quarter truths and/or distortions I have ever seen. I give it a total fail.

If this is what any teacher thinks they are completely misinformed.

It looks like it comes straight out of the denialist cult bible.

I have googled the heading and it appears nowhere apart from here.

If anyone can point me to where this came from. Or will you fess up marki.

Or is it a joke as it is labelled " Secondary Students, Misconceptions about Climate Change"


Bert

Bert, although I was feeling a bit cheeky knowing the response it would get (yes I had you and Steven firmly in mind when I typed it up ) the statements I have posted are directly out of a science teaching journal (Current issue as a lit review) and are not my thoughts or words. I also posted a list of references that were cited in the article if you dig back down the posts a bit. I must say it was probably the most biased piece of writing I have laid eyes on for sometime (read propaganda) but it looks like the CO2 polluting industries are taking the tree huggers on at their own game (ie educate the kids). Do you think I should pass this information onto my students .

PS: The article came from SCIOS (Journal of the science teachers association of WA) authored by Dr John Happs (education expert and consultant).

PPS: I have sent the editor an email.

Mark

[marki]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Thanks Mark,

Some of the links didn't work so let me concentrate on one of your references "Bashkirtsev, V, S. and Mashnich, G, P., (2003). Will we face global warming in the nearest future? Geomagnetism and Aeronomy 43: 124 - 127." http://www.co2science.org/articles/V6/N37/EDIT.php

It encapulates the spirit of your previous post hence it provides a good example.

What I find particularly disturbing about publications like this is that they are easily refuted.

Are students taught to recognize the weaknesses of these alternative views or are they exposed to it simply because it flies against the mainstream view?

If it's the latter then it is a sad state of affairs as it doesn't promote critical thinking and leads to the inevitable illogical conclusions and conspiracy theories that abound in debates like this.

If on the other hand the former is true it allows one to also critically analyse mainstream theory without blindly accepting or rejecting it.

Steven

Steven I always teach from the perspective of the skeptic if that makes any sense. I do my very best to get students to be critical of all the information and concepts I expose them to. Unfortunatey I do not always succeed but can only do my best. I have never accepted anything as a done deal theory law or otherwise, they are just useful tools until we find something better. Would I expose my kids to the crap in this artical? Too right I will . How else will they learn to sort the excrement from the clay.

Mark

[FredSnerd (Claude)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Actually, Claude, everyone in the know, knew that the design for the Chernobyl power plant's reactors was faulty right from the start. Even the designers of the plant knew it...it was purely a political decision which saw them built in the first place, despite what the engineers advised.

Those 4th generation powerplants are safe...a lot safer than the older style of plants and far safer than coal fired plants. ...

Carl,

I think you make my point. Everyone it seems knew that Chernobyl was faulty yet they went ahead and built it; they went ahead and told everyone it was safe and they went ahead and built it for purely political reasons. All these factors (and billions of others we haven’t even thought of yet) can happen again and again in the next 10, 20, 50 etc years to bring about a nuclear disaster. To say its safe is like saying the concord aeroplane is safe. In another context that level of risk might be acceptable but in the context of the nuclear debate its not because the consequences of one disaster are just so devastating. Probability says something will go wrong esp when you consider how long the danger remains and the continuing proliferation of more reactors. And all the environmental benefits we might derive from nuclear power, say over a 50 year period can be undone in the space of an afternoon and whole continents can be affected as we saw in the case of Chernobyl. That’s why its meaningless to say its safe. In the context of nuclear power you got to say something more. You got to say its guaranteed, which ofcourse you cant. No instrument that man has created, NOT ONE can be guaranteed against mishap. And the consequences are too great to risk here.

Originally Posted by AG Hybrid

Pointing out chernobyl. What a surprise. You would think from such a comment that humans dont learn from their mistakes and improve on themselves.
.......
All I'm saying, the people of Australia should go and do the research. Everyone has the internet now, they can all go and find out for themselves, instead of eating what politicians of different agenda feed them.

Oh he mentioned Chernobyl. Not fair, that’s hitting below the belt.

Adrian, if my reply was touchy I apologise but I think you might not be correct in assuming that the touchiness was due to the subject matter. Indeed it may in fact have had something to do with your rudeness in suggesting that anyone who didn’t agree with you about nuclear power was ignorant and had not done their homework (oh and of course you have – what a joke).

Chernobyl needs to be screamed from the roof tops every time someone says lets go nuclear because no matter what systems you devise nuclear disaster will happen again. Oh and since we're here we may as well also mention Kyshtym, Three Mile Island, Windscale, and Church Rock to name a few more.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by marki

Bert, although I was feeling a bit cheeky knowing the response it would get (yes I had you and Steven firmly in mind when I typed it up ) the statements I have posted are directly out of a science teaching journal (Current issue as a lit review) and are not my thoughts or words. I also posted a list of references that were cited in the artical if you dig back down the posts a bit. I must say it was probably the most biased piece of writing I have laid eyes on for sometime (read propaganda) but it looks like the CO2 polluting industries are taking the tree huggers on at their own game (ie educate the kids). Do you think I should pass this information onto my students .

PS: The artical came from SCIOS (Journal of the science teachers association of WA) authored by Dr John Happs (education expert and consultant).

PPS: I have sent the editor an email.

Mark

What's the next step? Sneak Intelligent Design into the curriculum, teach it as a science subject and sack the science teachers.

Steven

[renormalised (Carl)]

I think you make my point. Everyone it seems knew that Chernobyl was faulty yet they went ahead and built it; they went ahead and told everyone it was safe and they went ahead and built it for purely political reasons. All these factors (and billions of others we haven’t even thought of yet) can happen again and again in the next 10, 20, 50 etc years to bring about a nuclear disaster. To say its safe is like saying the concord aeroplane is safe. In another context that level of risk might be acceptable but in the context of the nuclear debate its not because the consequences of one disaster are just so devastating. Probability says something will go wrong esp when you consider how long the danger remains and the continuing proliferation of more reactors. And all the environmental benefits we might derive from nuclear power, say over a 50 year period can be undone in the space of an afternoon and whole continents can be affected as we saw in the case of Chernobyl. That’s why its meaningless to say its safe. In the context of nuclear power you got to say something more. You got to say its guaranteed, which ofcourse you cant. No instrument that man has created, NOT ONE can be guaranteed against mishap. And the consequences are too great to risk here.

That being the case, we'd be better off going back to the caves. Give up technology altogether and go live it "au naturale", so to speak.

If anyone thinks that solar power and wind, at present, can "save" us, so to speak, is seriously deluded. The wind is unreliable, even where it does blow more consistently than elsewhere...and your solar power stations are at their best only run at 25% efficiency and what happens during inclement weather and at night. Then you need efficient storage methods, which as yet we don't have. The most promising of these two methods is solar, but if you expect it to provide the majority of you power needs, at an efficient and consistent rate, you're going to have to increase the conversion from sunlight to usable power dramatically and provide efficient storage of energy for off peak power generation and during times when power can't be generated. At present, the technology doesn't cut it. So, how long are you going to wait for them to develop the technology?? In the meantime, do we just keep going along as we are now, merrily polluting our atmosphere??

We need answers now, not in 10 or 20 years. We have to use what we have at our disposal and right now the present crop of nuclear technologies is the best bet we have. They are far more efficient and less likely to go south than previous technologies, but in any case we still need to have safeguards in place. It would be wonderful if we had working fusion reactors now. I wish we did, but you're looking at a lead time of some 15-30 years before we have a commercially viable fusion reactor. That's 15-30 years too long. Once we have them, then yes, get them up and running. Our energy problems will be pretty moot then.

What would be even better would be a solar technology that was 70-90% efficient in collecting and converting sunlight into energy. I suggest you look at quasicrystal for a possible answer.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by sjastro

What's the next step? Sneak Intelligent Design into the curriculum, teach it as a science subject and sack the science teachers.

Steven

They've done that in the UK already

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by FredSnerd

Chernobyl needs to be screamed from the roof tops every time someone says lets go nuclear because no matter what systems you devise nuclear disaster will happen again. Oh and since we're here we may as well also mention Kyshtym, Three Mile Island, Windscale, and Church Rock to name a few more.

Care to put a (global) number on coal industry workers who die every year?

[styleman333]

Alex Jones on Climategate: Hoax of all time a global Ponzi scheme





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2153PnMzS


Very Interesting...

[marki]

Originally Posted by sjastro

What's the next step? Sneak Intelligent Design into the curriculum, teach it as a science subject and sack the science teachers.

Steven

Yes and we will do the flying spaghetti monster to even things out . Seriously what concerns me about the article is that we have a number of primary school suscribers and there are a large number of non science trained teachers who are going to read it.

Mark

[Peter Ward]

Seems amazing to me how the anti-nuclear power advocates chant Chernobyl...yet don't seem quite as vocal in accepting the very real human (and environmental) cost of coal fired power:

Over 6000 coal miners killed in China in 2004 alone.

4000 new cases of black lung occur in USA mine workers every year, along with around 50 deaths. (isn't Wiki cool? )

Aussie stats are a little harder to find...but it seems Oz coal miners have a 1:28 chance of being killed (!!) from mining.

French (nuke) power reactor fatalities. Zero. Not bad after 40 years of operations.

Damed lies and statistics? I think not.

[FredSnerd (Claude)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

That being the case, we'd be better off going back to the caves. Give up technology altogether and go live it "au naturale", so to speak.

Carl, how does that follow. 60 years ago, just before nuclear energy, we didnt live in caves; we wernt living "au naturale". Not using nuclear energy does not mean not using technology.

You know, we dont live in a fairy tale world. Adjustments have to be made to the way we live so our demand on fossil fule genuinly reduces. Trying to fix the problem with something thats just going to be a much bigger problem in a few years time is not a fix at all. You say we cant wait 20-30 years but of course if we make some sacrafies on our demands then we can wait. But of couse at present that will never happen because the system is geared up to encouraging you to want and demand and buy until you drop. As they are saying in Copenhargen; to fix climate change we need system change.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

Seems amazing to me how the anti-nuclear power advocates chant Chernobyl...yet don't seem quite as vocal in accepting the very real human (and environmental) cost of coal fired power:

Over 6000 coal miners killed in China in 2004 alone.

4000 new cases of black lung occur in USA mine workers every year, along with around 50 deaths. (isn't Wiki cool? )

Aussie stats are a little harder to find...but it seems Oz coal miners have a 1:28 chance of being killed (!!) from mining.

French (nuke) power reactor fatalities. Zero. Not bad after 40 years of operations.

Damed lies and statistics? I think not.

Here here, coal is killing everyone slowly or just making us sick. Nuclear has it's risks but Chernobyl was poorly managed by a country that was not ready to take on the venture. I think a lot of people woke up when that happened and a lot more care is considered before putting in Nuclear. That event will never go away and maybe that is a good thing to remind us the need for good management, but it should not be condemned as a good power source.

With all the infomration put to the media , you here all the negatives put about nuclear about Chernobyl but never hear about the stats on coal mining.