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A New Initiative to Study Solar Climate Influence

Jack Hays said:
No human advance has done more to lift people out of poverty and improve lives than the widespread use of fossil fuels; I'm not willing to throw that away.
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Nonsense.
- Development of the scientific method
- Germ theory, sanitation and vaccines
- Refrigeration and food preservation
- Birth control and sexual education
- Enlightenment values of equality, liberty and justice
- Widespread/universal access to education

Lives are improved by having adequate food and shelter, not dying from plague or war, and finding worthwhile goals to strive for in life. Fossil fuels have certainly helped with food availability... but not as much as food preservation, improved fertilizers and crop breeding/selection, or even birth/population control. Meanwhile steamships, trains and planes have arguably made both warfare and the spread of disease far deadlier - the latter fortunately mitigated by medical progress.

None of the advances above depended on fossil fuels... in fact besides refrigeration and universal education, they were all either entering widespread practice or at least available before Watt's improved design revolutionized steam power (indeed experiments in refrigeration were conducted from the mid 18th century, but without practical application). And unlike fossil fuels filling air, lungs and countryside with soot and smog, none of the advances above had any obvious or necessary downside, again besides refrigeration which for a time depended heavily on ozone-depleting CFCs. Fossil fuels have not been the best advance by any stretch of the imagination. You could probably make a good case (which others could probably debate) that on balance widespread use of fossil fuels was a net positive for humanity, and that their pollution was therefore a 'necessary evil.'

We recognized the pollution from combustion fuels right from the beginning, and we have always had every incentive to fund development and implementation of cleaner alternatives.... But it's mostly poor people who've lived near the busiest roads and closest to/downwind of the biggest factories and power plants, so apparently they should just suck it up and thank their lucky stars that America and Europe have a bit more anti-pollution regulation than in the 19th century (at least until we make America great again :lol: ).

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Lord of Planar said:
I get really tired of such claims. These are generally people who are in poor health already. There would likely be more of these people if they had to pay for more expensive electricity to stay warm in the winter, or cool in the summer.
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Electricity would be more expensive if the owners of coal and oil power plants were obliged to ensure that their products produced no significant pollution (potentially making them much more expensive than renewables and nuclear), rather than externalizing the health and environmental impacts onto the public. It would then be a small matter to provide subsidies for the poor to ensure adequate access to clean electricity; but instead you seem to be supporting the system of subsidizing the big power companies by those costs to public health.
 
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Mithrae said:
Nonsense.
- Development of the scientific method
- Germ theory, sanitation and vaccines
- Refrigeration and food preservation
- Birth control and sexual education
- Enlightenment values of equality, liberty and justice
- Widespread/universal access to education

Lives are improved by having adequate food and shelter, not dying from plague or war, and finding worthwhile goals to strive for in life. Fossil fuels have certainly helped with food availability... but not as much as food preservation, improved fertilizers and crop breeding/selection, or even birth/population control. Meanwhile steamships, trains and planes have arguably made both warfare and the spread of disease far deadlier - the latter fortunately mitigated by medical progress.

None of the advances above depended on fossil fuels... in fact besides refrigeration and universal education, they were all either entering widespread practice or at least available before Watt's improved design revolutionized steam power (indeed experiments in refrigeration were conducted from the mid 18th century, but without practical application). And unlike fossil fuels filling air, lungs and countryside with soot and smog, none of the advances above had any obvious or necessary downside, again besides refrigeration which for a time depended heavily on ozone-depleting CFCs. Fossil fuels have not been the best advance by any stretch of the imagination. You could probably make a good case (which others could probably debate) that on balance widespread use of fossil fuels was a net positive for humanity, and that their pollution was therefore a 'necessary evil.'

We recognized the pollution from combustion fuels right from the beginning, and we have always had every incentive to fund development and implementation of cleaner alternatives.... But it's mostly poor people who've lived near the busiest roads and closest to/downwind of the biggest factories and power plants, so apparently they should just suck it up and thank their lucky stars that America and Europe have a bit more anti-pollution regulation than in the 19th century (at least until we make America great again :lol: ).

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Electricity would be more expensive if the owners of coal and oil power plants were obliged to ensure that their products produced no significant pollution (potentially making them much more expensive than renewables and nuclear), rather than externalizing the health and environmental impacts onto the public. It would then be a small matter to provide subsidies for the poor to ensure adequate access to clean electricity; but instead you seem to be supporting the system of subsidizing the big power companies by those costs to public health.
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Most coal power plants in operation have already been equipped with better technology. Not perfect, but the mortality rates from coal will drop in the USA, not increase. This technology does not make existing plants more expensive than the alternates pushed by agenda. I say we should just let the marketplace decide. We should also increase pollution standards, but not call CO2 a pollutant, and grandfather in existing plants.
 
Lord of Planar said:
Most coal power plants in operation have already been equipped with better technology. Not perfect, but the mortality rates from coal will drop in the USA, not increase. This technology does not make existing plants more expensive than the alternates pushed by agenda. I say we should just let the marketplace decide. We should also increase pollution standards, but not call CO2 a pollutant, and grandfather in existing plants.
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IOW, if you actually clean the emissions, it's not economically viable.

I live in Maine, we already have more mercury from coal plants than is safe. You can put the rest where the sun doesn't shine.
 
Lord of Planar said:
Most coal power plants in operation have already been equipped with better technology. Not perfect, but the mortality rates from coal will drop in the USA, not increase. This technology does not make existing plants more expensive than the alternates pushed by agenda. I say we should just let the marketplace decide. We should also increase pollution standards, but not call CO2 a pollutant, and grandfather in existing plants.
Click to expand...

"I say we should just let the marketplace decide. We should also increase pollution standards" - there seems to be a bit of a contradiction in your "agenda." Yes, there should be better standards; and there should have been better standards or at least higher aspirations backed by genuine commitments toward development and implementation for many decades past.

Would you really say that tens of thousands of American lives was an acceptable price to pay for coal power in the 2000s?

I don't care if the counterfactual result were genuinely clean coal power instead of solar, hydro and nuclear etc.: But to be genuinely clean, or at least comparable to those alternatives, that coal power would need to have less than 0.5% of the pollution of current plants, and I rather suspect that if those kind of standards had been implemented or aimed for back in the 70s, fossil fuels would already have fallen by the wayside as economically unviable. They remain dominant only because of limited band-aid regulation and the public health effects still remaining and uncosted; the fact that they are still praised and desperately defended by some in spite of those health costs and in spite of the additional serious issue of global warming virtually beggars belief.
 
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Mithrae said:
Nonsense.
- Development of the scientific method
- Germ theory, sanitation and vaccines
- Refrigeration and food preservation
- Birth control and sexual education
- Enlightenment values of equality, liberty and justice
- Widespread/universal access to education
Click to expand...

In some cases fossil fuels directly enabled the advance. In others the wealth created by fossil fuels enabled the advance.

[h=3]The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels | Could everything we know about ...[/h]www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com/



Alex Epstein's The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels may make your blood boil, but his cool reason and cold, hard facts will lead us beyond hysterics to a much better ...
 
Mithrae said:
"I say we should just let the marketplace decide. We should also increase pollution standards" - there seems to be a bit of a contradiction in your "agenda." Yes, there should be better standards; and there should have been better standards or at least higher aspirations backed by genuine commitments toward development and implementation for many decades past.
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It isn't a contradiction. Yes, coal costs a little more when upgraded, but it's still not as expensive as the agenda being pushed.

Mithrae said:
Would you really say that tens of thousands of American lives was an acceptable price to pay for coal power in the 2000s?
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I don't know that those numbers bear any merit. Such numbers are usually padded in one way or another. If we went all green, don't you think energy prices would nearly double? How then would those number compare to the added numbers who die because they cannot afford the higher energy bills to heat and cool during the extremes?

Mithrae said:
I don't care if the counterfactual result were genuinely clean coal power instead of solar, hydro and nuclear etc.: But to be genuinely clean, or at least comparable to those alternatives, that coal power would need to have less than 0.5% of the pollution of current plants, and I rather suspect that if those kind of standards had been implemented or aimed for back in the 70s, fossil fuels would already have fallen by the wayside as economically unviable. They remain dominant only because of limited band-aid regulation and the public health effects still remaining and uncosted; the fact that they are still praised and desperately defended by some in spite of those health costs and in spite of the additional serious issue of global warming virtually beggars belief.
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Coal will never be that clean, and I am not an advocate of building any new plants. We shouldn't scrap existing plants though. Everyone gives China a pass on their building new coal. They have money for better options. How many times have I pointed out we shouldn't spend excess money on getting cleaner until other nations step up their game too?
 
Lord of Planar said:
It isn't a contradiction. Yes, coal costs a little more when upgraded, but it's still not as expensive as the agenda being pushed.


I don't know that those numbers bear any merit. Such numbers are usually padded in one way or another. If we went all green, don't you think energy prices would nearly double? How then would those number compare to the added numbers who die because they cannot afford the higher energy bills to heat and cool during the extremes?
Click to expand...

Even if nuclear and renewables were significantly more expensive - which needn't be the case, particularly if sufficient R&D had been invested since the 70s as I've suggested should have been done* - again I come back to the point that your argument boils down to preference for subsidizing the power companies rather than subsidizing the poor; allowing them to externalize the health and environmental impacts of their business, rather than implementing clean power and (if necessary) helping out those who can't afford it.

* I choose the 70s in part because of the tale of President Carter's solar system on the White House, removed under Reagan.

Coal will never be that clean, and I am not an advocate of building any new plants. We shouldn't scrap existing plants though. Everyone gives China a pass on their building new coal. They have money for better options. How many times have I pointed out we shouldn't spend excess money on getting cleaner until other nations step up their game too?
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Bit of a victim complex there? China does NOT get a pass - some reports suggest that their air pollution contributes as many as one million deaths per year, a quarter or more from coal. Hell, even wood/biomass burning for cooking etc. in poorer countries is highlighted by major agencies as one of the most important health issues in the world. We know - and have always known - that smoke can kill, that soot and smog are unhealthy. Even if other countried did get "a pass" on allowing their own people's deaths, it would be very strange to argue that tens of thousands of American or European or Australian lives are therefore an acceptable price to stick with combustion fuels.

We should have been aiming higher decades ago, regardless of the serious additional issue that global warming has since raised.
 
Jack Hays said:
In some cases fossil fuels directly enabled the advance. In others the wealth created by fossil fuels enabled the advance.

[h=3]The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels | Could everything we know about ...[/h]www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com/



Alex Epstein's The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels may make your blood boil, but his cool reason and cold, hard facts will lead us beyond hysterics to a much better ...
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Your denial of the effects of CO2 on climate is possibly not unrelated to your enthusiasm for the use of fossil fuels.
 
Surface Detail said:
Your denial of the effects of CO2 on climate is possibly not unrelated to your enthusiasm for the use of fossil fuels.
Click to expand...

My preference would be nuclear power, but the abandonment of that path leaves fossil fuels as the practical alternative.
 
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