What does it mean to "believe in climate change"?

[unbeliever]

Renewable energy the cheapest option for off-grid power

 

Read more: http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/renewable-energy-the-cheapest-option-for-off-grid-power_100009276/#ixzz3i9qO6GMu

 

I would question the bias nature of my own link, but it is probably true for most really poor people, or anyone off grid.

 

---------- Post added 07-08-2015 at 20:09 ----------

 

I did put in a FIO to the BBC weather men, but I am unsure if it will make any difference.

 

You're talking about applications where a continuous supply is not needed.

There's a place for this technology, but not where a continuous supply is needed.

[Mikes10]

I still don't understand why you think a starting point is so crucial to these matters.

The physics is quite clear that if you double CO2 levels from 150ppm to 300ppm, you get the same effect as if you double it from 300ppm to 600ppm. Why then is the starting point so crucial that you think it undermines the poll question? Clearly it doesn't.

 

 

You are completely missing the point.

 

Imagine you have an ice-cube at say minus 8 Celsius, you warm it by 2 degrees. A change in the ice-cube will NOT be easily observable.

Now imagine the ice-cube at minus 1 degree Celsius, you warm it by 2 degrees. A change will be obvious.

 

 

Imagine you are on walking along a road its perfectly flat, after fifty or so miles it begins to rise to a new flat surface. So you decide to measure the height

of this new surface. Where are you going to measure from? Some arbitary point on the slope? or from a known flat surface? or as Cartographers do - sea level?

 

 

Your poll just poorly conceived.

[unbeliever]

You are completely missing the point.

 

Imagine you have an ice-cube at say minus 8 Celsius, you warm it by 2 degrees. A change in the ice-cube will NOT be easily observable.

Now imagine the ice-cube at minus 1 degree Celsius, you warm it by 2 degrees. A change will be obvious.

 

 

Imagine you are on walking along a road its perfectly flat, after fifty or so miles it begins to rise to a new flat surface. So you decide to measure the height

of this new surface. Where are you going to measure from? Some arbitary point on the slope? or from a known flat surface? or as Cartographers do - sea level?

 

 

Your poll just poorly conceived.

 

More false analogies.

Climate sensitivity is measured in temperature rise in ºC per CO2 doubling.

It's a logarithmic relationship.

It doesn't matter what CO2 concentration you start from, doubling the concentration increases the temperature by a fixed number of ºC.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity#Sensitivity_to_carbon_dioxide_forcing

"Climate sensitivity is often evaluated in terms of the change in equilibrium temperature due to radiative forcing due to the greenhouse effect. According to the Arrhenius relation,[11] the radiative forcing (and hence the change in temperature) is proportional to the logarithm of the concentration of infrared-absorbing gasses in the atmosphere. Thus, the sensitivity of temperature to gasses in the atmosphere (most notably carbon dioxide) is often expressed in terms of the change in temperature per doubling of the concentration of the gas."

 

Therefore the phrasing of the question in the poll and the explanation in the OP are perfectly valid and this discussion of what starting point to use is moot.

 

If you're not questioning the Arrhenius relation, then you have no basis to say that the poll is "poorly conceived" and you either don't understand logarithmic relationships or you're just causing trouble.

 

---------- Post added 08-08-2015 at 09:56 ----------

 

If as I suspect the CO2 sensitivity of global temperatures is approximately 1ºC per doubling, then in order to get a temperature rise of 2ºC relative to the late '90s onwards, it would take the addition of 1200ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere to cause this. At current fossil fuel consumption rates, that would take six hundred years.

 

Even at a sensitivity of 4ºC per doubling, which is extraordinarily unlikely, it would take 140 years. Why on earth are we running ourselves ragged trying to decarbonise within 35 years at astronomical cost?

 

---------- Post added 08-08-2015 at 13:40 ----------

 

The cost of renewable energy doesn't need to fall significantly for it to become cheaper than fossil fuel generated electricity. All that is required is for fossil fuels to become more expensive as they become harder to find and extract.

 

Problem is still storage. Renewables are unavoidably intermittent and storage technology depends on limited natural resources as well. In the case of modern batteries, you're dependent on a supply of Lithium. In the case of pumped storage it's mountains in the right location, with the right shape and features, that you don't mind defacing.

 

In the unlikely event that fossil fuels do become genuinely scarce before we move on naturally to something else which hasn't been invented yet, we're left with nuclear as the cheapest option by far. Why? Because it doesn't require storage.

 

Any electricity generation technology that depends on non-existent or unaffordable energy storage technology is a dead-end. Anybody who quotes the cost of renewables without including the cost of storage is being extremely dishonest. At current battery prices, the cost of energy storage is at least 6 times the cost of fossil.

Edited August 8, 2015 by unbeliever

[Cyclone]

Interesting story in the news today about renewable power...

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11799573/Why-your-kettle-could-take-longer-to-boil-when-the-wind-isnt-blowing.html

[El Cid]

Melting ice sheets changing the way the Earth wobbles on its axis, says Nasa.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/09/melting-ice-sheets-changing-the-way-the-earth-wobbles-on-its-axis-says-nasa?CMP=fb_gu

[nomoney]

climate change has been happening since the world began,its the way of things.

[El Cid]

climate change has been happening since the world began,its the way of things.

 

Do you believe in science?

[unbeliever]

Do you believe in science?

 

Believe it exists?

Believe it should not be questioned?

Do you even know what the IPCC predictions are?

[Cyclone]

Do you believe in science?

 

Science is just a description of a way of investigating the world. A methodology.

It doesn't require belief.

[retep]

Melting ice sheets changing the way the Earth wobbles on its axis, says Nasa.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/09/melting-ice-sheets-changing-the-way-the-earth-wobbles-on-its-axis-says-nasa?CMP=fb_gu

 

"

On top of that, West Antarctica loses 124 trillion kgs of ice and East Antarctica gains about 74 trillion kgs of ice yearly, helping tilt the wobble further, Ivins said."

 

Merkels plan to move everyone to the West will never work.