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Post by noons on Nov 6, 2012 14:18:39 GMT
I've heard this before, almost always promoted by oil lobbyists and politicians in their pockets. And I have to wonder, since when do people who promote the burning of fossil fuels which pollute the air suddenly care about the birds that fly in it?
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Post by sankari on Nov 6, 2012 15:56:53 GMT
I've heard this before, almost always promoted by oil lobbyists and politicians in their pockets. And I have to wonder, since when do people who promote the burning of fossil fuels which pollute the air suddenly care about the birds that fly in it? There is a compelling logic in what you say.
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Post by noons on Nov 6, 2012 16:17:06 GMT
Thanks. Also, having looked up the statistics, it seems like wind turbines have a negligible impact on the bird population when compared to glass windows, power lines, cars, domestic cats etc.
So what I want to know (I've done some searching but haven't found an answer with sources) is, do wind farms have a disproportionate impact on endangered or protected species, such as bats and eagles?
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 6, 2012 17:48:33 GMT
Thanks. Also, having looked up the statistics, it seems like wind turbines have a negligible impact on the bird population when compared to glass windows, power lines, cars, domestic cats etc. So what I want to know (I've done some searching but haven't found an answer with sources) is, do wind farms have a disproportionate impact on endangered or protected species, such as bats and eagles? That's what the Nature article and some wind turbine opponents claim, but I have not seen very persuasive figures of it. To be fair though, if you build a wind turbine on a flight route of endangered species, that will likely raise the risk of killing them. Now the article I linked to (which did seem to support wind power in general and careful and didn't seem biased, though it relied on some assumptions) did mention wind turbines killing rare birds like eagles, referring to other research. The article itself was about windmills right next to a breeding site of protected (but worldwide labeled "least concern") birds leading to relatively high numbers of kills if the rotor blades were orientated perpendicular to the flight direct of the migration route of these birds. Other windmills a little further away caused way fewer deaths. But it did not mention whether those were a disproportional cause of death. In any case the Nature article also claims that wind turbine operators have improved on site selection, so bird deaths will likely decrease.
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Post by eckadimmock on Nov 7, 2012 5:48:22 GMT
I've heard this before, almost always promoted by oil lobbyists and politicians in their pockets. And I have to wonder, since when do people who promote the burning of fossil fuels which pollute the air suddenly care about the birds that fly in it? I wasn't aware that Nature magazine was in that category. But the oil magnates (if your accusation is correct) don't have much to worry about from wind at present.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 8, 2012 14:44:46 GMT
It's reported that Tokelau has become the first territory to generate all their electricity from solar energy: www.solardaily.com/reports/Pacifics_Tokelau_in_world_first_solar_switch_999.htmlThe remote Pacific islands of Tokelau have become the first territory in the world to generate their electricity entirely from solar energy, in a project hailed as an environmental milestone.
Before the solar power grid was completed, the New Zealand-administered grouping of three coral atolls, with a population of just 1,500, relied on diesel generators for electricity.
Project coordinator Mike Bassett-Smith said the diesel was not only environmentally unfriendly, it also cost the islands, which lie about halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii, around NZ$1.0 million ($825,000) a year.
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Post by sandwiches on Nov 8, 2012 17:26:42 GMT
It's reported that Tokelau has become the first territory to generate all their electricity from solar energy:
Well done and congratulations to Tokelau.
Let's hope that the US has enough sense to start following such an example. Admittedly, not an overnight task, but from "small acorns" etc.
An excellent opportunity for the US President in his second term (to the relief of most of the world) to set an agenda?
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Post by sandwiches on Nov 8, 2012 19:48:25 GMT
How sobering, though not surprising: www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/nov/08/climate-change-severe-modelsClimate change 'likely to be more severe than some models predict'Scientists analysing climate models warn we should expect high temperature rises – meaning more extreme weather, soonerThe analysis by the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that climate model projections showing a greater rise in global temperature were likely to be more accurate than those showing a smaller rise. This means not only a higher level of warming, but also that the resulting problems – including floods, droughts, sea level rise and fiercer storms and other extreme weather – would be correspondingly more severe and would come sooner than expected.
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Post by James Hannam on Nov 20, 2012 21:24:23 GMT
The latest from the World Bank: www.worldbank.org/en/news/2012/11/18/new-report-examines-risks-of-degree-hotter-world-by-end-of-centuryIt starts: "The world is barreling down a path to heat up by 4 degrees at the end of the century if the global community fails to act on climate change, triggering a cascade of cataclysmic changes that include extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks and a sea-level rise affecting hundreds of millions of people, according to a new scientific report released today that was commissioned by the World Bank." There's a lot more in a similar vein. I hope we can agree that this hyperbole is a million miles from anything remotely scientific. It makes James Delingpole read like a model of calm rationality. So I'm afraid this is an excellent example of why it is so hard to take environmentalist millennialism seriously. I'm not going to be debating this matter or this report, and I'm not really interested in excuses like "oh well, this shows how desperate they are that we wake up to the apocalypse". As far as I'm concerned, it just shows that the climate debate on both sides is dominated by people who think shouting the loudest is a substitute for argument. Best wishes James
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Post by unkleE on Nov 21, 2012 0:35:45 GMT
I agree with you James that discussing, worse arguing, about this is neither productive nor pleasant. So as you have stated your view, I will simply make a comment, and depart as you have done.
You say "I hope we can agree that this hyperbole is a million miles from anything remotely scientific." But I don't know that this is necessarily "a million miles from scientific" in its conclusions, though it may be unscientific in its expression. The scientific predictions are quite dire, although of course they may not be totally accurate.
I note that the report you quote is much more specific after that rather breathless opening, for example:
I'm not sure that there's any hyperbole there.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Nov 22, 2012 22:09:51 GMT
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Post by fortigurn on Nov 23, 2012 2:05:11 GMT
No, that's just the press release, not the report. Here are some key phrases from the actual report. * A 4 degree warmer world can, and must be, avoided * The Earth system's responses to climate change appear to be non-linear * If we venture far beyond the 2 degrees guardrail, towards the 4 degrees line, the risk of crossing tipping points rises sharply To assess the extent to which this is hyperbolic as opposed to scientific, we would have to actually look at the science. To date I've seen no evidence that you're particularly interested in the actual science. There is no 'environmentalist millennialism' in this report, and your refusal to address the scientific evidence it contains on the basis of a few cherry picked phrases from a press release, indicates a disinterest in the entire scientific basis of climate change. Firstly there is no 'climate debate'; that phraseology is used only by denialists cut from the same cloth as those who speak of the 'smoking debate'. Secondly scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the scientific consensus on climate change. Thirdly the scientists comprising the consensus provide rational arguments and hard data; those who dispute their conclusions simply use rhetoric such as 'environmentalist millennialism'.
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Post by himself on Nov 23, 2012 15:51:31 GMT
Actually, Drs. Lindtzen, Curry, Spenser, Svalgaard, Pielke, et al. frame hypotheses, collect, data, make inferences, write scientific papers, etc. The current models cannot account for the decreasing temperatures between the 1940s (the last time the Arctic was ice-free) and the 1970s (when there were world conferences on the problem of global cooling), nor for the similar pattern developing today, as the solar max appears to have passed and we have had an unprecedentedly dead sun for several years now and no net increase in terrestrial temperatures since the 1998 El Nino. There's a reason why the astrophysics community is more skeptical than the computer modelers. This is especially so in Scandinavia and Russia, who will suffer first and worst in the coming cooling. See for example: nextgrandminimum.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/abduss_apr.pdfThe rebound from the Little Ice Age plus the Multi-Decadal Oscillation seems to account for matters fairly well, and it is vain to explain with more entities what can be explained with fewer. To ascribe everything to "climate change" would be like ascribing motion to "location change." It confuses effect with cause.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Dec 3, 2012 16:25:41 GMT
I spent two and a half weeks in Texas earlier this year. The attitudes I encountered were simply mind-boggling. People acted as if we have another four or five planets up our sleeves when this one finally dies. I never saw a single recycling bin during the whole time I was there. My hosts told me nobody in their town uses them. 'Just throw it in the trash, it all goes to landfill. Cheaper than recycling.' And this was a deeply religious community, mind. Unbelievable. Meanwhile Sweden is so efficient at recycling its garbage that it's having to import the stuff. The Swedes send a mere 4% of their waste to landfill (compared to 64% in the US), and they burn a lot of it to generate heating. Problem is, they don't have enough garbage to treat this way, so they are starting to import other country's trash to help solve this "problem". inhabitat.com/sweden-plans-to-import-800000-tons-of-garbage-each-year/But this is surely just "leftist" propaganda and lies, no doubt spread by "climate alarmists" who only seek to disturb sensible hidebound conservatives who know that we can stick anything at all into the ground, the water or the air without it affecting a thing. Sweden is also an atheistic hellhole where the lack of objective religious morals make it a maelstrom of looting and murder, where atheism leads to gulags and torture and where the blank-eyed religion-free wretches who live there eke out a bitter existence, lost in nihilistic despair. While the third most atheistic country of Europe performs quite well on climate policy, it seems the fourth most atheistic country (where yours truly lives) underperforms a little, according to the Climate Change Performance Index 2013: germanwatch.org/en/5698It's ranked worst out of all ranked EU countries, yes even worse than terrible Poland and Greece, and ranked 46th out of the 58 countries evaluated. Not that the number of atheists means much in terms of climate policy, of course.
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Post by fortigurn on Dec 3, 2012 23:56:40 GMT
The current models cannot account for the decreasing temperatures between the 1940s (the last time the Arctic was ice-free) and the 1970s (when there were world conferences on the problem of global cooling), nor for the similar pattern developing today, as the solar max appears to have passed and we have had an unprecedentedly dead sun for several years now and no net increase in terrestrial temperatures since the 1998 El Nino. Evidence please. There was no scientific consensus on global cooling in the 1970s; on the contrary, the evidence for anthropogenic global warming was already in, and was becoming increasingly recognized within the scientific community. They're not climatologists. That's the correct term to use by the way, 'climatologists' not 'computer modelers'; astrophysicists use computer models too, but that doesn't make them 'computer modelers'. Evidence please. The scholarly consensus on climate change does not ascribe everything to climate change.
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