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| coppice:
--- Quote from: Simon on February 17, 2019, 05:19:37 pm ---We know for a fact that: 1) fossil fuel is bad, it produces poisonous gasses and those gasses are green house gasses. You may debate how much they contribute to global warming. 2) fossil fuel is not limitless and we need a new solution anyway. And yet the dinosaurs of our society will argue forever that we should just carry on. --- End quote --- I think there are two drivers for that. The most obvious one is people with vested interests in the way things are done now. The other is people kinda realise in a vague way what Without The Hot Air spells out in detail, and its just too awful to face. You can see this in the abuse thrown at David MacKay in the comments below YouTiube videos of his talks. Few of the people making those comments can really be dumb enough to believe what they are saying. They just don't like reality. |
| Simon:
--- Quote from: coppice on February 17, 2019, 05:46:35 pm --- --- Quote from: Simon on February 17, 2019, 05:19:37 pm ---We know for a fact that: 1) fossil fuel is bad, it produces poisonous gasses and those gasses are green house gasses. You may debate how much they contribute to global warming. 2) fossil fuel is not limitless and we need a new solution anyway. And yet the dinosaurs of our society will argue forever that we should just carry on. --- End quote --- I think there are two drivers for that. The most obvious one is people with vested interests in the way things are done now. The other is people kinda realise in a vague way what Without The Hot Air spells out in detail, and its just too awful to face. You can see this in the abuse thrown at David MacKay in the comments below YouTiube videos of his talks. Few of the people making those comments can really be dumb enough to believe what they are saying. They just don't like reality. --- End quote --- Ah well, I'm sure natural selection will take care of them and all of us. This planet will not die, we will. Even if the climate is naturally warming why do anything to help that? We are where we are today because we evolved and learnt to control our environment and we created technologies that made life easier, too easy it would seem as now we are allowing the unintelligents to breed, they are not being selected out because our advances in technology allow them to survive in our society structure. Perhaps they should remember who they owe their lives to or rather the professions that created the system that sustains such an inferior human and have some respect for it. |
| rhb:
Except for carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, none of the gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels is toxic. The hydrogen sulfide is only a consequence of the presence of an impurity which is iron sulfide in the case of coal and readily removed by using appropriate technology. The resulting byproduct is calcium sulfate, otherwise known as plaster of paris. The walls of most houses in the Western world are made of it. Carbon monoxide is just a combustion process failure. Neither carbon dioxide nor water is intrinsically toxic. Coal is obviously more complex, but petroleum products are just various combinations of carbon and hydrogen. Without fossil fuels we would still be living in a neolithic culture and this conversation would not even be taking place. All of the predictions made about the effects of "greenhouse" gases are dependent upon complex computer models and data which are not available for public inspection. Mann et al insist they must remain confidential. The general acceptance of Mann's assertions under such circumstances is a glaring example of the absence of critical thinking. If the evidence is so overwhelming, why can't those who question his results see his data and software? What became of the open source software mantra that "many eyes improve code quality"? I spent my career writing and maintaining numerical codes which were much less complex. A couple of observations: They are difficult to get right no matter how careful you are. Any method you choose has error artifacts that depend upon the method and the parameters. Without knowledge of the method and the parameters there is no way to evaluate the results accurately Furthermore Mann et al apply "corrections" to the raw data. They will not release the raw data. And the 'corrections" have been changed repeatedly in the IPCC reports. I spent my career in the oil industry because my chosen field, mining geology, had no employment opportunities at the time I graduated. My initial reaction to "climate change" was it was preposterously silly, but if it led to a reduction in the insane rate at which we were consuming oil it suited me just fine. Most environmental regulations drive me up the wall because they are written so badly they are simply silly and complying with them a waste of money. However, that probably only applies to someone like me who understands the system from one end to the other and understands the consequences of decisions. I agonize over discarding a 1/4" of 10 AWG copper wire because I look at that wire and I see the hole in the ground and all the resources consumed to produce it. Where does the cost of recycling make conservation prohibitive? Unfortunately, instead of outlawing 6-8 mpg SUVs they wrote laws which drove up the cost of automobiles without in any way curbing the consumption of fuel. I would *love* to see a variable tax that imposed a constant $5/gal gasoline and diesel retail price. That money could be used to build a high speed rail system down the median of the interstate highway system. You pulled up at an exit, a small train stopped, you drove your car onto the train and the took off at 120 mph. At your destination exit, it stopped briefly to let you off. Travel on the train was at no cost. I got involved in this only because of the subject of critical thinking and it's general absence. In an environment where discussion is restricted because of emotional sensitivities, however silly, there is no possibility of anyone learning any sort of critical thinking skills. A woman was reportedly recently jailed in the UK for "misgendering" someone. WTF? Any restriction of discussion other than a simple requirement of civility is an absolute guarantee of the collapse of that society because that restriction carries with it the loss of the ability to examine any subject effectively. At which point science is impossible. I am a scientist. If you will not let other people examine your data and methods I must ask the obvious question. Why? Science requires transparency and Mann et al are prime exemplars of the opposite. |
| Simon:
--- Quote from: rhb on February 17, 2019, 09:18:37 pm ---Except for carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, none of the gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels is toxic. The hydrogen sulfide is only a consequence of the presence of an impurity which is iron sulfide in the case of coal and readily removed by using appropriate technology. The resulting byproduct is calcium sulfate, otherwise known as plaster of paris. The walls of most houses in the Western world are made of it. Carbon monoxide is just a combustion process failure. Neither carbon dioxide nor water is intrinsically toxic. Coal is obviously more complex, but petroleum products are just various combinations of carbon and hydrogen. Without fossil fuels we would still be living in a neolithic culture and this conversation would not even be taking place. --- End quote --- :palm: The gases resulting from burning stuff are not toxic except for the gases resulting from burning stuff. We have always done it this way so why change? We once rode horses instead of drive cars, WTF did we start driving cars for? Technology evolves. |
| rhb:
??????? I can't divine the point of your comment, Simon, but I'll try to make my statement more detailed in the hope that helps. Toxic gases from the combustion of fossil fuels is a *process* failure. It is not an intrinsic property of the fuel. They are only emitted in trace amounts in modern equipment which is operating properly. Because oxygen is essential to life processes in animals, they die if deprived of it whether by entering a closed space lacking sufficient oxygen or by drowning. They do not die from toxic effects. They die from the lack of oxygen. Several states have begun using dry nitrogen to execute condemned criminals. It does not produce the anxiety that high levels of CO2 produces. So they just fall asleep and die from lack of oxygen. Furthermore, because nitrogen is not toxic there is no risk to personnel from ventilating or entering the chamber afterwards. The collapse of linguistic and logical competence is far more of a threat to civilization than a natural geological cycle with a 15,000 year period. Modern technology has its origins in the calculus, but mathematical developments had relatively little effect on people's daily lives until abundant energy in the form of petroleum became available 160 years ago. Without the availability of that energy to mechanize the production of food, it would not be possible to support modern technology at all. Most of the population would be too busy farming. Only a very small number of people would have time to engage in science and technology. There was no technology above the neolithic level until agriculture made it possible for a single person to produce more food than they consumed themselves. But technology was relatively static for several millenia after the development of agriculture. It was an improvement in that it freed up a few people to develop technology. But technology was limited severely by the labor demands of agriculture. |
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