General > General Technical Chat
heartbroken that John Clauser seems to have joined climate change denial.
nctnico:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on August 01, 2023, 07:23:35 am ---Science is NOT about finding consensus or "truth", never was, never will be. This is a lie by non-scientist. Science is all about the process: verifiability of the claims, unlimited discussion, even debate. A lot of modern-day research is of substandard quality and this affects climate research as well. It's very alarming if alternative viewpoints within scientific community are not allowed.
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It depends on how you define science. As a process to prove / disprove findings OR as a means to verify something to be true or not. As a process to prove / disprove findings it is a never ending story that never has a definitive answer. But the real world needs answers so scientists as a group will have to come to some sort of consensus on what is the 'truth of the day'.
Either way, it takes time and in the meantime people want answers. Even if it is the wrong answer. Religion exists to give people answers to questions that have no real answer. But having an answer, any answer makes people feel good. The whole Covid pandemic has made this painfully clear.
thm_w:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on August 01, 2023, 03:29:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: rhb on August 01, 2023, 02:06:04 pm ---Why aren't the port cities of ancient history completely flooded?
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But laymen are easy to fool. Open your TV on National Geographic and you'll see them repeat a documentary about how Venice is sinking because of climate change. Somehow, given the same climate and seas, Finland is raising and we are getting more and more land. Now all you need to do is apply tiny bit of critical thinking: watching the same Natgeo documentary they show how Venice is built on a swamp and has always been sinking. So why they mention sea level rise when it's causing maybe a few % of that sink rate? It's the brain washing part, mixed with factual content about Venice, which is of course interesting and fun to watch.
Usually one doesn't even need to go far in "alternative sources", I mostly follow mainstream media because it's still not based on the principle of "full propaganda", but contains facts, just with built-in interpretations you don't have to agree with. Critical thinking is all that's needed.
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That is a terrible example. Google "why is venice sinking" and you'll see essentially every article clearly explains its mostly a combination of the two effects, which it is. If a documentary chooses to highlight one of the two issues, that is completely their choice, maybe that was the subject they thought was more appealing to the audience or topical.
"Sixteen hundred years ago, around the time of Venice's founding, the Adriatic's standard sea level was almost six feet below what it is today. "
"The latest study suggests that it’s sinking at a rate of about 1 to 2 mm a year"
Sea level rise = 1.1mm per year
Foundation sink rate = 1 to 2mm per year
https://www.venezialines.com/blog/venice-sinking-will-happen/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venice/solutions.html
hans:
@nctnico Science is a never ending story. This is why p-hacking is such a huge problem in the social sciences, unfortunately.
For engineering research though, IME majority of the work is spent in a state of confusion and frustration where even the simplest of stuff breaks. Once the dust settles and one starts writing, hindsight kicks in and realization comes in on what they have done. Now its time to write the introduction and hypothesis. Its more a state of the art instead of a process that can be forced at will.
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on August 01, 2023, 06:57:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: pickle9000 on August 01, 2023, 05:56:02 pm ---I'm with hans "We cant keep using these non-renewable resources forever"
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Well, it's a pretty sensible viewpoint in any case. You don't need all the fearmongering to convey that, IMHO.
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Yes, I don't mean to say its rocket science, even though I tend to blab on for ages.
--- Quote ---BTW, a honest question, as we are all engineers here, many working professionally -- what have you done to solve this Thing, thing referring to climate crisis, climate problem, CO2 problem, energy crisis, energy instability, whatever you choose to call it?
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Batteries, they are in so many devices around us. And they need regular replacement. Imagine if you have some industrial IoT application where you actually have to put a road, building or other structure into maintenance for a few days to do battery replacements. The battery itself may be 1$, but the labour is orders of magnitude more. And given these sensor devices may not even cost as much.. might as well install a new one when you're there.
Digital circuits scale down very well with lower power consumption. Analog does not. So one tends to see radio's as a big cut in the power budget of an IoT sensor. I'm working on backscatter radio to replace or complement existing radio technology. The principle of backscatter is very simple.. antenna + switch. Consumes nano to micro watt's. Lots of research being done; QAM, OFDM, LoRa, 802.11, BLE, WiFi, beamforming, localization/ranging, piggybacking energy from existing RF carriers (e.g. surrounding WiFi networks), etc.
It's not a magic bullet to replace everything, but it may have its strengths in pushing complexity outside the edge devices.
tszaboo:
--- Quote from: tom66 on August 01, 2023, 04:21:47 pm ---
--- Quote from: EEVblog on August 01, 2023, 12:22:48 pm ---And it's also a reasonable position to think that the climate is changing but that we can't really do much about it, and it's a better option to adapt to the changes than try and destroy everyones lives to meet some arbitrary "net zero" or other goal. or at least to discuss this stuff reasonably without being labelled like you seem to be doing here.
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The problem with this is there is not a great outcome from 3C+ warming which is what we are heading for.
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Yes we are headed to a catastrophe. Look at it, we better start designing tree houses, since if it's going this way by 2085 the whole of Europe will be covered by trees. It's already 35% and it's growing every year.
--- Quote from: nctnico on August 01, 2023, 07:59:26 pm ---
--- Quote from: tszaboo on August 01, 2023, 10:49:49 am ---The shop I buy food, replaced plastic packaging with plastic lined paper. It's worse in quality, often times opened already on the shelves, spoiled food, and impossible to recycle because it's a composite.
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On that topic: an independant consumer magazin did an analysis on which type of bag is worst. Turns out cotton bags you often get from 'biological' stores are the worst. The best are the bags made from recycled PET which have a low footprint but are also the most durable (you can use these for a very long time).
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Oh, one of my favorite. I think you need to use the cotton bag for some 17 years or so to offset using a new plastic bag for every shopping. But I've been using an IKEA big blue bag (made from everyone's favorite: plastic) so I guess it's never worth it.
tom66:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on August 01, 2023, 09:38:56 pm ---
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Yes, this shows progress, it's great. But... it's not a removal of CO2. It's just producing less. (Same as a small fall in high inflation figures is still 'bad news'... it's still high inflation!) The production from all sectors needs to go to as close to zero as possible. Anything that cannot be eliminated, needs to be offset by direct air capture or something similar. Direct air carbon capture is expensive, and is unlikely without extraordinary breakthroughs to get cheaper, so this will be limited to the most difficult technologies to decarbonise, like aviation (if synfuels don't work out.)
See what the global emissions graph looks like from latest IPCC:
For those still unconvinced:-
Insurance and financial companies are taking significant actions against climate change. For instance, some banks will not issue mortgages on properties at risk of future flood risk, because they don't like the idea of an asset they can't collect against in 20-30 years time.
Even companies like Shell and BP, who would benefit from continuing to extract and sell fossil fuels, openly admit anthropogenic climate change is happening and push their respective changes to "tackle the problems". Shell, for instance, is pushing carbon capture hydrogen really hard, but also supporting the roll out of electric vehicle chargers. BP are doing similar things with solar/wind investments and EV charging as well.
If this was a grand conspiracy involving science, how does capitalism get involved? Surely it would like to minimise costs and maximise profit, by finding the truth that is being covered up(!), by paying those scientists who go against the grain to produce a detailed thesis on why climate change is not happening? Yet no such "truth" emerges despite the enormous financial benefits.
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