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Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks

longview said:
At the current time, if we stop using hydrocarbon fuel, the number of people will drop by about 80 %.
Starvation by any other name is still ugly!
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That about sums it up. Either people die from the effects of climate change or they die due to a suddenly cutting off energy. My guess is more people die if we cut the power or jack up the price of it through taxation to the point where the poorest people can't afford to eat.
 
American said:
No one is denying climate change, what's being denied is that the United States is the sole cause of it. Or that Man is the sole cause of it. .....
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Except you damn well know nobody is arguing those things. So if you can't even be honest about that, why should anyone bother with your supposed opinion?
 
calamity said:
That about sums it up. Either people die from the effects of climate change or they die due to a suddenly cutting off energy. My guess is more people die if we cut the power or jack up the price of it through taxation to the point where the poorest people can't afford to eat.
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Well it's a good thing nobody is suggesting we suddenly cut off all fossil fuels.
 
ok who was the genius who said NASA wasn't in it for the politics ?

This is the same NASA whos administrator claimed his primary goal was to be a muslim outreach center.

Nice.
 
Northern Light said:
Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks | Environment | guardian.co.uk



Cat's out of the bag. The funding demonstrates that the conservative agenda is not about actual science, but preserving their business model.

And although these think tanks have influence over government, the people donating to them can remain anonymous. Clandestined financial cabals such as these are the reason why democracy is threatened in most of the western world. They can use their massive fortunes to sway government without the public ever knowing who they are.

As a democratic people, we must stand up and insist our government create legal reforms that prevent lobbying on this massive scale.
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Cats been out of the bag for years concerning "global warming".

Wait, you guys changed it when it was revealed the earth has been cooling.

That the Govt funded corrrupt think tanks had been juicing their data all along to support a massive money grab from "carbon taxes" .
 
Hatuey said:
NASA is not in it for the politics. Here is how the situation pans out in the case global warming isn't happening:

1. Global warming is not happening: We just end up taking measures which not only clear the air of pollution but also provide cleaner working environments for human beings, healthier ecosystems, etc.

2. Global warming isn't happening: We just keep dumping toxic waste into waterways, polluting the air, filling the earth up with garbage, destroying ecosystems.

If it's not happening and we take the wrong option, we still lose.
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Over dramatize much?lol

In the case of "climate change" we are talking about, specifically, CO2. The USA has the toughest anti-pollution regulations in the industrialized world. There are agencies at every level of government(local, state, federal) who's sole purpose is enforcement. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING could be more disingenuous than the text in bold. You just heaped a big whopping LIE on top of an issue that centers around carbon dioxide gas. A gas which could hardly be classified as a "pollutant" in the first place.

You guys want to whine and cry about the manner in which your opponents get their funding but at the same time you think it's perfectly fine to present garbage like this. Absolutely shameless...
 
calamity said:
That about sums it up. Either people die from the effects of climate change or they die due to a suddenly cutting off energy. My guess is more people die if we cut the power or jack up the price of it through taxation to the point where the poorest people can't afford to eat.
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The difference is the probability of people dying from a reduction in hydrocarbon fuel use is so close to 100%
as to not matter. The probability of people dying from the effects of climate change is not measurable yet.
The short term solution (<100 years), will be to find some equally dense fuel supply that can be manufactured,
before the organic hydrocarbon runs out.
 
Hatuey said:
Actually, you don't know the difference between a meteorologist and a weatherman. You made that painfully obvious from the get-go. Meteorologists don't predict the weather. That's what weathermen do.
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And what specific discipline do "weathermen" study to become "weathermen"? The answer would be "meteorology" Find me a "weatherman" who doesn't have a degree in meteorology.
 
longview said:
The difference is the probability of people dying from a reduction in
hydrocarbon fuel use is so close to 100%
as to not matter. The probability of people dying from the effects of climate change is not measurable yet.
The short term solution (<100 years), will be to find some equally dense fuel supply that can be manufactured,
before the organic hydrocarbon runs out.
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Nuclear but the obvious choice has been ignored to the point that solar ans windmills are the new "tech".

Solars a joke and wind energy is a cartoon characterization of "how to" in new renewable energy.

Also thanks to fracking the whole run out of hydrocarbon fuels debate has been pushed back.
 
Fenton said:
Nuclear but the obvious choice has been ignored to the point that solar ans windmills are the new "tech".

Solars a joke and wind energy is a cartoon characterization of "how to" in new renewable energy.

Also thanks to fracking the whole run out of hydrocarbon fuels debate has been pushed back.
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Nuclear, in my humble opinion is only a long term viable solution if we can master fusion. Nuclear fission creates too much waste.
 
Deuce said:
Well it's a good thing nobody is suggesting we suddenly cut off all fossil fuels.
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A "Carbon tax" would have pretty much the same effect on the poorest people in the poorest nations.
 
Oceandan said:
Nuclear, in my humble opinion is only a long term viable solution if we can master fusion. Nuclear fission creates too much waste.
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Yep. In fact, the biggest cause of contamination at Fukushima are the spent rods that they were "storing" in pools of water inside one of the shut down reactors.
 
Oceandan said:
Nuclear, in my humble opinion is only a
long term viable solution if we can master fusion. Nuclear fission creates too much waste.
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Well we have with the fusion of dueterium and tridium but thermal weapons aren't viable forms of usable energy and the best we can do now at normal temperatures is a net zero production of energy from a fusion process.

My point is its going to take a while before we get to that level of technology and allowing our selves to be isolated down into punitive actions and highly ineffecient green energy contraptions like solar and wind is not the answer either.

Once the left politicized green energy they ruined green energy. They took a fascinating science and forced it out into the market way before it was ready and made us pay for it.

On top of that they attached or tried to attach taxes and sur charges to it.

I've been into different areas of tech for 30 years. Their forced injection of demagogy and fear tactics and politics into science and engineering caused major damage to the legitimate search for alternate fuels
 
Agreed Fenton. Comical aspect as per solar/wind, the battery production required for on demand usage of solar or wind is a larger carbon footprint than coal.
 
calamity said:
Yep. In fact, the biggest cause of
contamination at Fukushima are the
spent rods that they were "storing" in pools of water inside one of the shut down reactors.
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Nope, the massive tsunami that killed the generators that circulate water that cools the core was the biggest cause of contamination.

The fuel over heated, created hydrogen gas under massive domes and BOOM.

DONT build your power plant on a Tsunami magnet.

Chernobyl was a safety test gone wrong. They were trying to use the kinetic energy of the spooling down of the main turbines to power the pumps until the 90 or so seconds passed that was needed for their primary emergency generators to get up to synchronous rpm and build the voltage needed to continuously operate the main pumps.

They lowered the reactor output to start the test, that poisoned the reactor with naturally occuring xenon 135 that caused it to lose even more power, they manually pulled the rods to increase power because a reactor forced down to a fraction of its power too fast is a apocolyptic scenario.

This created steam voids in the core which caused the power out put to spike, they tried to initiate a SCRAM but it was too late. BOOM.

The last reading on the Power Output dial was 33 gigawatts. 10 times the reactors normal power output.

So human error on both reactors caused the issue. Nuclear is a safe alternative to bankrupting every western nation with green energy scams and carbon taxes.
 
Oceandan said:
Agreed Fenton. Comical aspect as per solar/wind, the battery production
required for on demand usage of solar or wind is a larger carbon footprint than coal.
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Germany built a 2.2 gigawatt solar plant. Its 5% of their total capacity.

They're real proud of it.

The German people pay an extra 10% on their utillity bills to pay for and maintain that plant.

I got into debate about solar with a guy on the west coast. He had a whole home solar set up. Used to brag about his awesome green energy accomplishment.

That he sold power back to the grid. ok.

I know how a home solar sytem works. From the photovoltaic to the massive inverters and batteries needed to turn that DC comming from the photovoltaic panels to useful polyphase AC.

He finally admitted that the ROI was 19 years and that did not include repair, or replacement fod batteries and components.

No they dont last 19 years. Its ridiculous. It was pushed on a lie by a political ideology that couldn't care less about the harm done to the average working class Americans that have to struggle with higher energy cost.
 
Fenton said:
Germany built a 2.2 gigawatt solar plant. Its 5% of their total capacity.

They're real proud of it.

The German people pay an extra 10% on their utillity bills to pay for and maintain that plant.

I got into debate about solar with a guy on the west coast. He had a whole home solar set up. Used to brag about his awesome green energy accomplishment.

That he sold power back to the grid. ok.

I know how a home solar sytem works. From the photovoltaic to the massive inverters and batteries needed to turn that DC comming from the photovoltaic panels to useful polyphase AC.

He finally admitted that the ROI was 19 years and that did not include repair, or replacement fod batteries and components.

No they dont last 19 years. Its ridiculous. It was pushed on a lie by a political ideology that couldn't care less about the harm done to the average working class Americans that have to struggle with higher energy cost.
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Time for the other side of the coin. Friend of mine is an elctrical engineer out in Cali, he set up a home solar setup. He did all the work, set up all the components and its a small set up meant to ease his bills, not totally eliminate them. His ROI is 9 years at current rates. BUT because of all the tax breaks involved in solar he got a gigantic tax deduction for it. New father too, so for the first time in a long time, he may have actually broke even on his taxes. Hes been a net payer for 15 plus years.

His new project is a tankless water heater kit hes assembling himself. Hes not going to get off the grid but as an engineer he sees a lot ways to make investments that lower his month to month costs and is taking the deductions before they disappear.
 
Fenton said:
Germany built a 2.2 gigawatt solar plant. Its 5% of their total capacity.

They're real proud of it.

The German people pay an extra 10% on their utillity bills to pay for and maintain that plant.

I got into debate about solar with a guy on the west coast. He had a whole home solar set up. Used to brag about his awesome green energy accomplishment.

That he sold power back to the grid. ok.

I know how a home solar sytem works. From the photovoltaic to the massive inverters and batteries needed to turn that DC comming from the photovoltaic panels to useful polyphase AC.

He finally admitted that the ROI was 19 years and that did not include repair, or replacement fod batteries and components.

No they dont last 19 years. Its ridiculous. It was pushed on a lie by a political ideology that couldn't care less about the harm done to the average working class Americans that have to struggle with higher energy cost.
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Unless I'm sadly mistaken the best available batteries need to be replaced every 5-7 years.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Time for the other side of the coin. Friend of mine is an elctrical engineer out in Cali, he set up a home solar setup. He did all the work, set up all the components and its a small set up meant to ease his bills, not totally eliminate them. His ROI is 9 years at current rates. BUT because of all the tax breaks involved in solar he got a gigantic tax deduction for it. New father too, so for the first time in a long time, he may have actually broke even on his taxes. Hes been a net payer for 15 plus years.

His new project is a tankless water heater kit hes assembling himself. Hes not going to get off the grid but as an engineer he sees a lot ways to make investments that lower his month to month costs and is taking the deductions before they disappear.
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Well that makes some sense. ROI on the whole home systems are typically 15 years, warranties on the inverters, maybe 10, 15 years.

If you make it to your ROI and you lose that inverter, ( I work with Inverters , actually Variable Frequency Drives and 15 years is pushing it) then you get to dive right back into that ROI because it's been extended. Its the second most expensive component in the rig. If your panels become damaged or shorted, that's the most expensive component you own and it's up to you to refinance another one.

I'm not opposed totally to solar and I love the tech. But the push from the Govt to get people into a very expensive system isn't based on it's practicality or durability.


As a electrical engineer he may have knowledge but the Electrical engineers I've run into in my past 30 years of electronic troubleshooting and industrial controls and power analysis were not competent as installers. Maybe he's the exception.
 
OpportunityCost said:
Time for the other side of the coin. Friend of mine is an elctrical engineer out in Cali, he set up a home solar setup. He did all the work, set up all the components and its a small set up meant to ease his bills, not totally eliminate them. His ROI is 9 years at current rates. BUT because of all the tax breaks involved in solar he got a gigantic tax deduction for it. New father too, so for the first time in a long time, he may have actually broke even on his taxes. Hes been a net payer for 15 plus years.

His new project is a tankless water heater kit hes assembling himself. Hes not going to get off the grid but as an engineer he sees a lot ways to make investments that lower his month to month costs and is taking the deductions before they disappear.
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You are probably referring to a grid tied system. Now the tankless water heater is an entire different story. Those are actually an improvement with the only "con" being you have to "wait" for the hot water. Of course I"ve never lived in a home where the water was instantly hot. I will be building a new home over the next few years. I will utilize all the possible energy saving concepts available. Not because they are all economical but because I don't like energy companies. LOL Go figure. Completely off grid solar/wind systems are not economical, period. If you put in a grid tied system yes the ROI is reduced, but it's still a capital investment up front. You are also still dependent on the grid because true grid tied systems do not function if you lose grid power. The only true viable and economic sense alternative systems are hydroelectric. They have made great strides in low flow hydroelectric as well.
 
Oceandan said:
Unless I'm sadly mistaken the best available batteries need to be replaced every 5-7 years.
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And they're about 900 bucks a piece. They make look like car batteries but they're not and I think they're 6 volts each. Same batteries they use on large UPS backup systems for server rooms. Those get changed out every 5 years whether they need it or not.
 
Indeed, storage is one of the greatest weaknesses in our system. Also, transmission efficiencies need to improve (we lose 47% of what we generate in the transmission).
 
OpportunityCost said:
Time for the other side of the coin. Friend of mine is an elctrical engineer out in Cali, he set up a home solar setup. He did all the work, set up all the components and its a small set up meant to ease his bills, not totally eliminate them. His ROI is 9 years at current rates. BUT because of all the tax breaks involved in solar he got a gigantic tax deduction for it. New father too, so for the first time in a long time, he may have actually broke even on his taxes. Hes been a net payer for 15 plus years.

His new project is a tankless water heater kit hes assembling himself. Hes not going to get off the grid but as an engineer he sees a lot ways to make investments that lower his month to month costs and is taking the deductions before they disappear.
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Also you have to have a plumbers master license to install a tank-less water heater. AND he would have to have the job permitted.

Those types of local regulations, permits and requirements actually make sense. Its laws like that that are written blood plus IF he does it himself and there an issue, huge water leak causes water damage, didn't run the flu and correctly and pumps CO into his home or causes a fire his Home Owners policy will NOT cover the damage if no permit was pulled.
 
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