the great global warming swindle

[Anonymous]

Evening,

As the BBC reported, (I think it was last weekend,) the expectation that China's emissions wouldn't equal or overtake those of the USA until 2015, have now had to be revised. They now expect China to overtake the USA's total emissions by the end of 2008!

Except that population of China is slightly more than 4 times that of USA so they have a long way to go before they reach parity per capita - and can then be accused of being as bad as the USA, or Western Europe which is almost as bad in terms of excess consumption. We are the bad guys.

cheers
Jacob

 

[mrs. sliver]

I have to be honest and say right off that I did not see the program. but I think there are always going to be people passionately debating their opposing views on such important issues. and rightly so, but on this one?
no doubt we are not helping slow global warming with our high emissions,
though I doubt is is ALL down to us.
But either way, should we be using up all the earth's resources anyway? should we be polluting the air we breathe? regardless of the 'the end is neigh' brigade? I WILL continue to recycle all I can and do my minute bit, not because of what 'they' tell me, but because it makes sense! PLUS, if it makes world powers cut down pollution and resource wasting why complain?

 

[Nick W]

...in fact there are a number of so called hydrogen process which don't actually produce water as a waste product...

Please give an example.

 

[Slim]

PLUS, if it makes world powers cut down pollution and resource wasting why complain?

Because the world powers are forcing other undeveloped countrys to cut down aswell, with a side effect of preventing them from developing.

 

[MrJay]

Indeed, as can be currently witnessed in the way the "world powers" are forcing developing countries like China and India to cut down on power consumption.

Oh wait.

I'm sure you'll recall the cute little health centre in the swindle programme that could either run a fridge or a light bulb off the single solar panel and how it was all the fault of do-gooders. But I'm guessing there wasn't a gang of hippies lurking around the corner ready to accost the health centre worker if he wanted to nip down the shops and buy a petrol generator, or a gas powered fridge, or install a mains ring.

Solar power is common in remoter parts of Africa because it is portable; there are vast tracts of the continent that simply do not have the infrastructure and resources to supply power or fuel generated centrally. Substantially changing that situation is a generation away at the very best.

Solar power meant the health centre got to use a fridge. That's a win.

Modedit: Newbie_Neil

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Gentlemen and Ladies

I'll ask again, please keep politics out of this thread. If you don't, as a minimum your post will be edited.

This is an interesting discussion that deserves better.

Thanks
Neil

 

[engineer one]

well i have spent at least some of the day looking at what is posted on the web in relation to the by products of hydrogen combustion.

interesting, and although BMW and maybe Ford are aiming to have a hydrogen powered car on the market within 2 years, and i know that Honda have a fuel cell car they are positioning for the market place, there do seem many problems still to be solved, not least the ability of hydrogen powered units to be easily and cheaply made on a mass production basis.

much of the data on the web seems to be at least 4 years out of date, so either people are not posting for secrecy reasons, or funding for large scale research is difficult to find. that i think is particularly so.

however one major problem seems to be that in open combustion, the units produce NOx which is a nasty, and requires the expenditure of considerable sums to clean up. catalytic converters etc are required
and there so far seem to be no plans to retain the water by product for either re-use, or to stop waste. no where could i find accurate data that suggests that the water produced is "potable" ie drinkable.

although the research seems to suggest that the hydrogen engine is more efficient than a petrol or diesel one, the whole driving process is different and the range of the hydrogen unit seems to be as small at this time as that of a battery car.

BMW will i understand put the engine into a 7 series vehicle, but that means that it will not in the short term become a mass item, and you do wonder how many garages are going to be available to re-charge the tanks. or do you just go down to BOC for a fill up, if so what are the tax implications :twisted:

nowhere so far have i found any actual figures showing how efficient producing hydrogen from water, using it and then taking the water by product is.

and as you nick have said the initial process seems very expensive to produce enough product to work and replace gasoline in the immediate future. i also wonder how much expensive extra materials are needed to be used in the production engines to take advantage?

as an old fashioned engineer who learnt much about aerodynamics, and
car dynamics from practical experience, i do not mind being told i am ignorant. it is too easy to believe the computer models, and not to take account of practicality.

final thought for the day, the major problem wherever for solar and even wind power is the storage of the electricity produced, that is why the unit in the clinic is so useless. it may well be able to produce enough power to run the fridge and light bulb, but not if the power input cannot be stored and then re-processed. if solar power is so good, why are so many africans using the trevor bayliss wind up gadgets?

i am happy to have learnt more about areas of which i am ignorant or have less knowledge than i hoped. however the diversity of opinion shows that there is no one way to cure this perceived problem.

still say that denying the naysayers does the promoters of global warming any favours cause the costs of developing the new technologies will be so high, they will marginalise people, and probably cause more strife than we already have.

paul :wink:

 

[Slim]

Just come across this website about the program. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/#more-414. Its a long read, but there are some interesting points.

Edit: Comment #108 is very interesting

 

[Nick W]

... and as you nick have said the initial process seems very expensive ...

Errm, don't think I did.

With in-car hydrogen production there is no open combustion, even if it is used with an i.c. engine, so no NOx. Neither do fuel cells produce anything except pure water. That seems to be the way things will progress. The great advantage with in-car Hydgrogen generation is that you don't need to compress, store, or distribute pure Hydrogen, so there is never much of it around to be a fire hazard.

Anyway I'm out - getting a bit peeved with being misrepresented, like Prof. Wunsch in a very small way.

 

[andycktm]

Just before you go nick...Is it possible today to extract hydrogen from water cheaply enough and in enough quantity to be viable as fuel?.The progamme equinox i saw was year's ago, and then it couldn't be done!That's of course if the person who was doing it then was faking it.

on a side note people do get killed for pushing things to far :shock: .

 

[Nick W]

Andy,

Try these links - and the links that they contain - should be enough of a starting point for anyone's research.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fuel_cell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fuelled_car

 

[Gill]

I've visited quite a range of websites this weekend and even watched Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", but I haven't been able to find data which proves that global warming is due to CO2 production as opposed to more CO2 being naturally produced as a consequence of global warming. Can anyone tell me where to look?

Gill

 

[Anonymous]

I've visited quite a range of websites this weekend and even watched Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", but I haven't been able to find data which proves that global warming is due to CO2 production as opposed to more CO2 being naturally produced as a consequence of global warming. Can anyone tell me where to look?

Gill

There isn't any "direct" proof, it's about correlation and hypothesis.
What is known is that CO2 and other gasses do create the greenhouse effect in experiments, that CO2 in the atmosphere has increased roughly in proportion to it's generation by our burning of fossil fuels, that global temperatures have increased roughly in proportion to the CO2 increase (the famous "hockey stick" graph) and that climate change appears to be happening.
The climate change hypothesis is an attempt to explain and relate these phenomena.
What we should take note of is that the theory is supported by a very large majority of the scientific community.
There is no evidence of an international scientific conspiracy to save jobs and raise research money! That is perhaps the most hilariously silly idea to have come out of the whole debate.

cheers
Jacob

 

[Gill]

To my eyes, it appears that despite a lot of effort having been put into global warming research, cause and effect has not yet been established with regard to CO2 production and the earth's temperature. Yet we are being told that we need to reduce CO2 emissions to curtail the effects of global warming. I find this strange.

Gill

 

[Anonymous]

To my eyes, it appears that despite a lot of effort having been put into global warming research, cause and effect has not yet been established with regard to CO2 production and the earth's temperature. Yet we are being told that we need to reduce CO2 emissions to curtail the effects of global warming. I find this strange.

Gill

You will just have to read more of the research - there's plenty of it out there. You will get the idea eventually. Some good links in previous posts above.
If you don't think there is a correlation you would have to explain how CO2 in the atmosphere DOES NOT cause a greenhouse effect when it DOES in laboratory experiments, and also explain where all the CO2 from fossil fuel burning has gone, if not into the atmosphere, and also come up with a better explanation of why climate change is occurring.

cheers
Jacob

 

[Anonymous]

To my eyes, it appears that despite a lot of effort having been put into global warming research, cause and effect has not yet been established with regard to CO2 production and the earth's temperature. Yet we are being told that we need to reduce CO2 emissions to curtail the effects of global warming. I find this strange.

Gill

You will just have to read more of the research - there's plenty of it out there. You will get the idea eventually. Some good links in previous posts above.
If you don't think there is a correlation you would have to explain how CO2 in the atmosphere DOES NOT cause a greenhouse effect when it DOES in laboratory experiments, and also explain where all the CO2 from fossil fuel burning has gone, if not into the atmosphere, and also come up with a better explanation of why climate change is occurring.

cheers
Jacob
PS and while you are at it - come up with some better ideas about how to prevent worsening climate change.

 

[Gill]

Those links do not provide convincing data.

I'm open minded about this. Global warming is a fact - I just want reassurance that the actions being taken to deal with it will be effective. There's no point throwing vast resources into curtailing CO2 production if CO2 isn't responsible for global warming. If CO2 can be shown to be causing global warming, then I'll be very supportive of measures to curtail it. However, I have yet to see proof that CO2 is responsible. I see a lot of reports about the consensus of opinion and scientific models, but those simply do not establish the proof that I'm looking for.

Gill

 

[Anonymous]

Those links do not provide convincing data.

I'm open minded about this. Global warming is a fact - I just want reassurance that the actions being taken to deal with it will be effective. There's no point throwing vast resources into curtailing CO2 production if CO2 isn't responsible for global warming. If CO2 can be shown to be causing global warming, then I'll be very supportive of measures to curtail it. However, I have yet to see proof that CO2 is responsible. I see a lot of reports about the consensus of opinion and scientific models, but those simply do not establish the proof that I'm looking for.

Gill

What sort of proof would you want?

cheers
Jacob

 

[engineer one]

well, jacob as usual, you make pedantic statements, and then
conclude with the phrase that it is actually a hypothosis, well strike me down with a feather, that is not what we are being told by allegedly "the good and the great" we are told that categorically it is true.

laboratory tests are no more real than computer models, they can be biased to produce the results you want. we have all seen the claims of fresh air machines that work in a laboratory, but not in public view, and not in mass production.

50-60 years ago Dr Mengele was hunted throughout the world as a man who had undertaken awful experiments that were so against us that it was the first defined crime against humanity. today we have cloned sheep, and companies wishing to put human genes into our food to stop one thing,
but no research to show what else will happen. i remind us all of Thalidomide. scientists have no scruples once they get a bee in their bonnet, and they never consider the contrary side because it does not fit within their ideas of the progress they want to make. look at the recent "elephant man" tests at northwick park hospital. 6 guys nearly killed for a drug that was successfully tested on animals. and when you check the reports the test in volved feeding them the stuff more quickly than with the animals :roll:

every week foodstuffs that were safe, become unsafe, and then a couple of years later they are safe again. it happened to saccharin in the 70's
tea and coffee in the 80's. like all things you have to include ALL the variables, and not have an aim in mind that you wish to prove.

your contention about research funding not being related to the popularity of the subject shows how little you understand the process of getting either university or publically funded research grants.

final point to really consider. a massive amount of evidence now exists that around 1420-25 the chinese circumnavigated the world in a number of big fleets. amongst the KNOWN facts is the one that shows that then it was possible to go to the north of Greenland toward the end of the year, and using a sailing boat, get within 200 miles of so of the north pole. proper evidence exists to show that there were green fields in greenland at that time. forensic science has shown the development of various generations of flys which can only live in certain temperatures.

now no one can say that 1420 was a period when we were using hydro carbon fuels in mass producing co2. so what was the cause??????

without doubt we are a wasteful society, but cutting back on air travel, or car rides may well only be p*****g in the wind compared to other things we need to do. without a car, it takes me 3-4 hours to get to a hospital less than 10 miles away. with the car about 1-1.5 hours and those times include sitting in the hospital. the same goes for shopping. with all the out of town stores built if you do not have decent transport links and the ability to carry things then you are stuffed.

i am sure that in some of my comments i am as wrong as anyone, but i do not try to force my views down the hearts and minds of everyone by forceably promoting scare stories, i want cold hard real world facts.
lab tests frankly don't cut it. [-X

paul :wink:

 

[Gill]

What sort of proof would you want?

cheers
Jacob

I'd like to see a long term set of data that shows a correlation between CO2 levels and changes in global temperature. I'd like to see evidence that CO2 production leads temperature variation.

Gill