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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wherry who wrote (6868)	4/3/2009 5:24:27 PM
From: RetiredNow	1 Recommendation Respond to of 86356

Sounds sensible to me. However, I've seen some pretty nasty cheerleading by the oil and coal crowd as well. Nothing is debated with pure facts anymore. Most on both sides is so full of propaganda, that it's really hard to understand what is going on.

To: wherry who wrote (6868)	4/3/2009 7:32:01 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 86356

My own reaction (after lots of hard reading) is not to adopt any fixed positions for the moment, and keep studying. I hope this is not seen as a cop-out? Definitely concur with that statement. But when most folks stumble upon the truth, they quickly pick themselves up as if nothing had happened (to borrow from Churchill). Facts are stubborn things and science is based upon observed facts that reveal a logical truth. My own little "hard fact" that I discovered over a year ago had to do with how diminishing oceanic phytoplankton levels might be one of the causes of rising CO2 levels. CO2 is a critical element of botanical flora, terrestrial and oceanic. Given sufficient other elements required, such as nutrients, light, water, and acceptable temperatures, botanical growth should utilize any excess CO2 emissions. And since most of the botanical life on the planet exists in the oceans as phytoplankton, we should be immediately looking there to see if anything has changed in the "baseline" gaseous exchange equation in th oceans. It's pretty evident from the evidence that not only has phytoplankton levels decreased over the past 30-40 years, but also the marine fisheries dependent upon that foundation of the food chain have also become depleted. Some of this might be due to overfishing, but when it's compounded with loss of food supply, we need to be taking some very hard looks at what is going on. The late Dr. John H. Martin, and others, did this. They theorized that lack of windborn nutrients into the oceans could possibly be to blame for phytoplankton "dead zones" that might be rehabilited by external fertilization. Although he died before any such experiments could be carried out, his theory was proven by later researchers and it's become quite controversial due to the moral arguments against "geo-engineering". But other researchers, primarily by the now defunct company, Planktos, theorized that we'd ALREADY geo-engineered to the point that our soil conservation efforts were hampering replenishing ocean nutrients carried by the wind, resulting in loss of phytoplankton populations. But despite how implicitly logical this argument, or the facts that bear it out, none of this receives any REAL attention in the GW media stream. They only focus upon MAN-MADE CO2 emissions and come with technological "get rich shcemes" of pumping CO2 underground and windmills and solar cells abounding from sea to shining sea (never mind the CO2 that is emmitted manufacturing them). Or they offer us a vision of electric cars powered by batteries manufactured with lithium, another resource mined from the soil of an very unstable foreign nation. All of these whiz-bang solutions, but only the tiniest and most grudging resources to be dedicated to researching how our other geo-engineering efforts might have grievously damaged the natural system for maintaining CO2 levels to the expected norms. Nor do we hear much about the very promising arena of algae bio-fuel production, probably the most promising and cost-effective renewable resource once the process is refined and put in mass production. But that's a nasty hydrocarbon too and doesn't fit the alternative energy plan for electric cars. There's no political "sexiness" in feeding phytoplankton and it doesn't cater to the alternative energy politics of the day. I'm a pragmatist about all of this and get sick of the politicizing of hard science. And contrary to some people's accusations, I'm not wed to fossil fuels. But I also can't ignore the existing infrastructure that exists to service it. Change much come over time, deliberately, and seamlessly. The only thing I'm wedded to is "whatever works bests" for the American people. Hawk

To: wherry who wrote (6868)	4/4/2009 11:27:41 AM
From: teevee	3 Recommendations Respond to of 86356

I confess to a "common sense" bias towards the sun and its cyclical variability as the principal climate forcer of record. I too am swayed by papers indicating the sun as the principal agent in climate change, directly and indirectly. Other than major volcanic eruptions having pronounced global cooling effects, not only does global cooling fit well with sun spot minimums, but the cyclic frequency of major glaciations appears to correspond with the earth's travel through spiral arms of the milky way galaxy and the variation of cosmic radiation that hits the planet. The theory is that cosmic radiation affects cloud formation, hence the amount of solar radiation that gets to the planet. Getting back to the sun, when there are lots of sun spots, the solar wind reduces the amount of cosmic radiation hitting the planet, making less cloud formation, along with an small increase in direct solar radiation, resulting in warming. Another factor may the variation in the gravitational constant as earth travels around the galaxy, affecting the distance we are from the sun.