Thread: Climate Change and our Land of Fire, Flood and Drought.

Originally Posted by AK83

ps. the commentary revolving around sol and it's future in hundreds of millions of years .. realistically nothing compared to the potential catastrophe that the approaching star may do to Earth.

Dunno mate. Earth does appear to have cycles of around 12k years where the magnetic poles can and do change.
And we are around 12k years from the last one, also our magnetic field and poles are changing drastically.
Thats certainly not in millions of years.
Even suggestion of said events in books like the bible.

Chan Thomas The adam and eve story.
Thats an interesting story, not just the book but why it was classified by the cia for so many years.
Give it a read if you can find it, or watch a video version of it. It relates to this topic specifically but is just an interesting story.
Will leave you asking more questions that when you started.

ps. I do enjoy your replies AK83. Well thought out and commented, not biting despite i think people trying to bait you.

Originally Posted by vnx205

Who profits if we do nothing?

Who profited in HAVING done nothing during previous climactic change events?

Does it really matter 'who profits' .. the more important question is how much will it really cost, and who is going to take the brunt of this impending cost?
Almost always will be those that can least afford it to pay for the majority of it.
And that doesn't help anyone.
So this is where the hysterical nature of the demanded 'urgent action' will work against itself, and those proposing it.
Urgent action will naturally force excessive costs into an ultimately futile fix.
A more considered, gradual and natural evolution of energy creation will (or should) cost less than a forced 'urgent' one.

People change, societies change, and there are many parallels in other aspects of life that reflect the natural evolution of lifestyles that reflect how people naturally accept change.
What many folks don't like is a forced change. Those that demand forced changes will ultimately come to regret it. It may work for them in the short term, but long term it almost always doesn't.

so as an example:
lets take the current situation that most of our electricity is generated by coal, with a growing transition to renewables. Now that renewables cost less per Wh to initiate, there is far less likelyhood that new coal will be built(or planned), other than in a political system that forces a coal station to be built. More and louder voices against it, than for it, and one political leader lost to the idea too(amongst other failing of that leader).
From what I've read about it over the past few years, most energy producers prefer to be building renewable power generators in one form or another due to initial cost, and better scalability.
With the mad rush to design storage systems in the near future, this will ultimately become the preferred power generating system overall.
But there is no reason to cut short the current coal power generating facilities.
The overall long term (supposed)impact that they cause will be negligible, as they gradually fade into insignificance, as more and more renewable generation comes on line.

But what the pie in the sky, rainbow warrior acid affected hippy types demand .. that they're all closed down now, to (somehow)avert a future catastrophe is pure and utter BS!
There will be zero net effect of the actual climate with a gradual shut down of coal power generation, but a monumental impact if it's 'shut down immediately'.

I always thought we should use roads as a means of collecting solar.

Massive job no question but we do have a good 5% of the population not working and getting paid for nothing so...........
Give the lads a shovel and lets get it started.

It's an interesting discussion, so that's good.

Couple of points.

Fire rings on trees more than about 200 years old might not be evidence for or against climate change, they might just reveal Aboriginal firestick farming patterns, so that evidence should be treated with caution.

The Earth's orbit is elliptical, so that has regular effects which climate scientists have to take into account in building their climate change models.

The coal industry is going to be around for decades yet, it's not going to shut down any time soon, so North Queensland residents can relax.
However, new investment is going into renewables and gas. Even China is cutting coal imports and switching to more gas, which is a simple way to halve emissions from electricity generation. The UK has already almost phased out coal and gone to gas.

Incidentally, what could be more truly conservative than to conserve the only planet God has given us? That's the view in the UK, which has a consensus to aim for zero net emissions by 2050.

BTW here's something else to lie awake at night worrying about - the giant star Betelgeuse is dimming and might be turning into a supernova. If fact, it might have already happened and we might not know yet, since it is 700 light years away. Or it might not happen for another 10,000 years.
What effect would that have on climate change? The mind boggles... or not.

A star roughly 10 times bigger than the sun could be about to explode
Is Betelgeuse, the red giant star in the constellation Orion, going to explode? - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

There are currently 7 (last I checked) primary Climate modelling systems.
From these multiple scenarios are run in an attempt to determine the outcomes of different changes.

There has not been more than 2 scenarios that have matched up significantly since their inception.

Recently, solar data has been added to one or more of these models and significantly altered the outcomes of scenarios.

They are still to attempt to factor in the Water Vapour in the atmosphere as this is the most complex - and the biggest contributor to atmospheric heating/cooling.

On a different note: whilst every discussion on creating a healthier environment/reduction in unnecessary emissions continues to be focused on “this will cost” or “this will hurt our GDP by.....” we are ****ed! When humans stop chasing money and start focusing on others (sadly that time is gone) and companies return to the original business model of “for the good of the people” rather than Corporate Personhood we may have a chance.

However, whilst vapid morons on Instagram, Facebook etc are worshiped we’re going nowhere fast.

Originally Posted by Tombie

[Edit]

On a different note: whilst every discussion on creating a healthier environment/reduction in unnecessary emissions continues to be focused on “this will cost” or “this will hurt our GDP by.....” we are ****ed! When humans stop chasing money and start focusing on others (sadly that time is gone) and companies return to the original business model of “for the good of the people” rather than Corporate Personhood we may have a chance.

However, whilst vapid morons on Instagram, Facebook etc are worshiped we’re going nowhere fast.

Nailed it.

And there is this in the Courier Mail the other day,and refers to Qld.

'With the federal govt's renewable energy target over subscribed,and wholesale prices plummeting,many proposed solar and wind farms have become marginal at best.And given the isolation of many renewable resources,and the prohibitive cost of hooking them up to the grid,and can't be charged back to consumers,expect a bunch to fall over.'

How much truth is in that who knows,but it does go on to say without huge government subsidies,there is a good chance the governments renewable targets will never be met.

Originally Posted by scarry

And there is this in the Courier Mail the other day,and refers to Qld.

'With the federal govt's renewable energy target over subscribed,and wholesale prices plummeting,many proposed solar and wind farms have become marginal at best.And given the isolation of many renewable resources,and the prohibitive cost of hooking them up to the grid,and can't be charged back to consumers,expect a bunch to fall over.'

How much truth is in that who knows,but it does go on to say without huge government subsidies,there is a good chance the governments renewable targets will never be met.

Coming from the Courier Mail, I take it with a grain of salt.