Climate Change and Conservatism

[one.opinion]

8 hours ago, Cletus said:

yes I am referring to al gores video

Al Gore is responsible for the video, not the "universities" you are blaming.

8 hours ago, Cletus said:

the people who dreamed up this nonsense worship gaia aka mother earth aka a pagan deity.  they worship the sun and moon and the earth...

The "universities" are not teaching people to worship the earth, sun, or moon. I don't know where you are coming up with this.

[The Barbarian]

24 minutes ago, one.opinion said:

The "universities" are not teaching people to worship the earth, sun, or moon. I don't know where you are coming up with this.

You would not believe the things that people put up on denier sites.    That is a relatively sane example.   

[The Barbarian]

2 hours ago, Cletus said:

you have chosen well a screen name for yourself. 

Actually, someone gave it to me, sort of.  Long time ago, I was on this message board, and a rather aggressive atheist told me that I just didn't get how "barbaric" Christianity is.    So I said, "call me the barbarian, then."  The others, including most of the atheists, thought that was funny (aggressive atheist didn't) and so they started calling me "TB" for "The Barbarian."   Been doing that ever since.

 

2 hours ago, Cletus said:

rock on dude! 

 Been rocking for a long time, now.

2 hours ago, Cletus said:

May the LORD bless you on your quest to save the planet. 

My personal belief is that we, as a species, lack the moral fiber to do the necessary thing until it's too late to avoid serious damage to the world.   But as I told you before, that has nothing to do with the reality; that's just how we'll deal or not deal with it.

[The Barbarian]

1 minute ago, Cletus said:

by lack the moral fiber to do the right thing before its to late... are you referring to revelation chapter 16?  it talks about some serious global warming in that chapter.  among scholars there is some controversy if Malachi spoke of this time in revelation 16 or of when Jesus came in the flesh as The Lamb .  Personally i think Malachi 4 is a bit of both. 

I'm talking about being good stewards of the world He entrusted to us.

 

[The Barbarian]

13 hours ago, Cletus said:

ok so whats the plan?

Pretty much for most of us, what it's always been.  Live modestly and simply.   Don't waste stuff; that's a sin as much as it's foolish.  You have to again, remember this:

What we might do about the warming climate has nothing to do with the fact that it's happening.a

So long as people deny the reality, because they suppose it might cost some money, they cannot make rational decisions.

Some easy things; Iowa now gets about 35 percent of its electrical power from wind (and thereby enjoys one of the lowest electrical power rates in the nation).   Texas is gearing up to do the same thing, and it's generating even more electrical power from wind.   Fuel-efficient devices, solar panels on roofs, and so on, all lower emissions, and save money.    Until Trump cut the program, the Clean Coal initiative was making progress in finding ways to produce energy from coal without the drawbacks that have made it economically uncompetitive.

[The Barbarian]

2 hours ago, Cletus said:

see thats the problem though... 35% what about the other 65%, which is more than half. 

It's 35% cut in emissions for electrical power.   No magic bullets, just a variety of technology to make it better and cheaper.

2 hours ago, Cletus said:

furthermore, where are you getting your info?  which is actually false by the way.  

Well, let's take a look...

 (in 2017)

Iowa’s Republican senator on Wednesday raised concerns that U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has commissioned a “hastily developed” study of the reliability of the electric grid that appears “geared to undermine” the wind energy industry.

In a letter sent to Perry, Senator Chuck Grassley asked a series of questions about the 60-day study he commissioned. Grassley also said the results were pre-determined and would show that intermittent energy sources like wind make the grid unstable.

Last month, Perry ordered the grid study and said Obama-era policies offering incentives for the deployment of renewable energy had come at the expense of energy sources like coal and nuclear.

“I’m concerned that a hastily developed study, which appears to pre-determine that variable, renewable resources such as wind have undermined grid reliability, will not be viewed as credible, relevant or worthy of valuable taxpayer resources,” wrote Grassley, whose state is home to a booming wind energy industry.

He pointed to a previous study conducted a few years ago by the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which took two years to complete, not two months.

Grassley said Iowa gets 36 percent of its electricity from wind and that its largest utility, MidAmerican Energy Co, is on track to generate 90 percent of its electricity from wind in a few years. Grassley said MidAmerican has the ninth lowest electricity rates in the country.

https://ieefa.org/heartland-republican-pushback-trumps-hastily-developed-electricity-grid-campaign/

Iowa did have a whopping increase from other electric providers, however.   

2 hours ago, Cletus said:

even more, let me bottom line this for you.  solar, wind and hydro costs more to sustain. 

Well, let's look at that... the state with the largest percentage of electricity from hydroelectric and wind is Washington.   Washington has the 2nd lowest rates in the country:

https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/

 

3 hours ago, Cletus said:

and by the way, i live in Texas.  wind energy is less than 20% of total energy so thats an even worse poster child for all natural remedies than Iowa  . 

So am I.   And Texas in going full out to increase wind power.   It is, as you  see, cheaper than fossil fuels.  Texas, even with just 20% from wind, is 14th lowest in the country.

3 hours ago, Cletus said:

the only thing that ever made coal "economically un-competitive" was the clean coal initiative, aka the problem. 

No.  The Clean Coal Initiative was a program to find ways to make it cleaner.   Had nothing to do with the economics or production of coal.   The problem is that fracking made natural gas much more economical to use, and mining of coal in western states is cheaper than in the eastern states.    Cleaner coal would be more economically competitive with natural gas.   Yes, dirty fuels are now being avoided by many businesses, since communities have started to require them to clean up any messes they make.

 

 

 

 

 

[ChessPlayer]

On 10/28/2019 at 1:29 PM, dhchristian said:

Comments please on the following.

 

Ok so the link provided was from a blog of some sort that is skeptical of climate change. In your post, you talked about two major points. The first is the mass of CO2. You are correct that CO2 is heavier than our air composition of mostly diatomic nitrogen and diatomic oxygen. This does mean that if you were to sublimate dry ice (solid CO2) it will initially start lower on the ground. However, gases in the air act somewhat differently than liquids in a test tube which will tend to separate into layers if they have varying densities. Gases in our air are impacted by convection currents which are in turn impacted by temperature differences. Going back to your example of dry ice, you would also note that the CO2 gradually mixes with the surrounding air due to random motion. At certain very high points in the atmosphere (the edge of space) lighter gases like hydrogen and helium exist in higher percentages but outside of very specific cases like that, gases will tend to mix. See this paper on gas mixing in caves: Badino et el 2009, THE LEGEND OF CARBON DIOXIDE HEAVINESS. Note that even in relatively confined spaces like caves mixing occurs and the differences in concentrations of various gases are negligible. This should make sense to us on an empirical basis. If the gases were to layer in such a manner as you suggest we should be breathing much higher levels of oxygen and argon but due to mixing we actually breathe much more nitrogen.      

Now CO2 makes a relatively small amount of our typical "dry" air composition but it does absorb heat very well as even the blog you cite mentions. The biggest problem for the climate is that CO2 absorbs very well in particular wavelengths notably around 15 um (the infrared range). Dramatically increasing CO2 increases the likelihood of this absorption in our atmosphere which contributes to global warming. This is why CO2 is considered to be a greenhouse gas. It traps energy normally radiated out by other gases in the atmosphere and increases in CO2 concentration will therefore lead to an increase in trapped energy which translates to heat.   

[dhchristian]

1 hour ago, ChessPlayer said:

Now CO2 makes a relatively small amount of our typical "dry" air composition but it does absorb heat very well as even the blog you cite mentions. The biggest problem for the climate is that CO2 absorbs very well in particular wavelengths notably around 15 um (the infrared range). Dramatically increasing CO2 increases the likelihood of this absorption in our atmosphere which contributes to global warming. This is why CO2 is considered to be a greenhouse gas. It traps energy normally radiated out by other gases in the atmosphere and increases in CO2 concentration will therefore lead to an increase in trapped energy which translates to heat. 

But CO2 also cools faster than oxygen so the cycle is reversed and Co2 aids in cooling during the day by absorbing heat and aids in warming at night by releasing its heat quicker. 

Air is thinner at the top of Everest, not thicker, there is no Blanket effect going on. CO2 that comes out of a smoke stack over time will generally fall to ground level, as is indicated by the NASA maps at the site, with the highest concentrations following the prevailing winds such as just over the Atlantic East of the U.S. east coast where the majority lives. on the west coast this CO2 settles in the heartland of the U.S. leading to its use by plants for photosynthesis.

CO2 also does get trapped in caves and pits when there is no air movement, hence the need for oxygen to be pumped into mines and tunnels.  Mining has known of this for hundreds of years, hence the need for ventilation shafts in tunneling and mining. 

At .004% of the atmosphere, CO2 has little to no effect on global warming or climate change. In Fact, I think heat islands created by cities cause more global warming than CO2. 

 

  

[ChessPlayer]

1 hour ago, dhchristian said:

But CO2 also cools faster than oxygen so the cycle is reversed and Co2 aids in cooling during the day by absorbing heat and aids in warming at night by releasing its heat quicker. 

Air is thinner at the top of Everest, not thicker, there is no Blanket effect going on. CO2 that comes out of a smoke stack over time will generally fall to ground level, as is indicated by the NASA maps at the site, with the highest concentrations following the prevailing winds such as just over the Atlantic East of the U.S. east coast where the majority lives. on the west coast this CO2 settles in the heartland of the U.S. leading to its use by plants for photosynthesis.

CO2 also does get trapped in caves and pits when there is no air movement, hence the need for oxygen to be pumped into mines and tunnels.  Mining has known of this for hundreds of years, hence the need for ventilation shafts in tunneling and mining. 

At .004% of the atmosphere, CO2 has little to no effect on global warming or climate change. In Fact, I think heat islands created by cities cause more global warming than CO2.   

You are not quite understanding gas chemistry correctly. CO2 (which is about 0.041% - I think you are off by a factor of ten) is highly absorbent in the infrared range while other gases (notably the highly prevalent diatomic nitrogen and oxygen) are less so. This means that such energy is "trapped" by CO2. This energy is later radiated in all directions including back towards earth in the infrared range. If you ever look at an Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) scan you can see two different peaks at around 2400 cm-1 and around 700 cm-1 caused by radiation of energy from the bonds found in CO2. See the FTIR scan below from Evans et al, 2006 for some of the more common radiating greenhouse gases not including water vapor. 

  

If not for the greenhouse gases of CO2 (in addition to water vapor, methane, etc) in our atmosphere, the Earth would be an frozen ball of ice having temperatures more comparable to Mars (see Ma, et al 1998 for a CO2 absorption study). Now compare this to Venus which has an atmosphere of thick CO2 (over 96%) and has a "runaway" greenhouse effect leading to surface temperatures hotter than even Mercury. This makes Earth a rather delicate balance of atmosphere and is why dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere has an adverse impact on our climate. 

As I mentioned in my previous post, convection currents play a large role in atmospheric chemistry and is why we don't see the extreme layering of gases you postulate. If your hypothesis were true, we would be breathing almost almost 100% oxygen while nitrogen would float up to higher levels. Now this is not the case due to mixing due to convection currents. Rather, for the majority of the atmosphere the composition of most gases remains relatively stable. As I mentioned in my previous post this only really changes when you reach the stratosphere and higher until the edge of space. However, while the composition of gases does not change at higher altitudes what does change is the air pressure. Due to basic chemistry and gas laws this means less oxygen molecules are found in a given area (i.e. concentration) at high elevations and is why air is called "thinner" at higher altitudes. Once again, let me reiterate, this is not because gas composition changes but rather concentration changes due to pressure.  

You keep citing a NASA study of some sort regarding CO2 concentrations. Would you please provide me to a link or just an author, year and title of the publication you are referring to? I tried Googling along the lines of your argument but couldn't find anything. I have access to most academic publications through my work so it shouldn't be a problem if it's behind a paywall or anything like that. Thanks very much! 

Edited October 31, 2019 by ChessPlayer
For some reason my FTIR scan isn't showing. See Evans et al, 2006 for the scan.

[dhchristian]

2 hours ago, ChessPlayer said:

(which is about 0.041% - I think you are off by a factor of ten) is highly absorbent in the infrared range while other gases (notably the highly prevalent diatomic nitrogen and oxygen) are less so. This means that such energy is "trapped" by CO2. This energy is later radiated in all directions including back towards earth in the infrared range. If you ever look at an Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) scan you can see two different peaks at around 2400 cm-1 and around 700 cm-1 caused by radiation of energy from the bonds found in CO2. See the FTIR scan below from Evans et al, 2006 for some of the more common radiating greenhouse gases not including water vapor. 

Sorry about the extra zero in the fraction, did not proof read my text. As the article said, CO2 absorbs more heat, and rises, and also loses that heat quicker as it cools. The solar radiation it receives is "trapped" as you put it, by the CO2, but because it releases that heat quicker than the Nitrogen and oxygen that make up the majority of our atmosphere, it also cools faster and will sink the molecules in the atmosphere. Radiation that is absorbed by the atmosphere does not reach earth, This is why cloud cover cools the climate. CO2 which absorbs more radiation is in fact cooling the earth when it releases it. Think of it like a refrigerator. A compressor condenses a gas which absorbs the heat from the lower part of the atmosphere during the day, as it rises in the atmosphere it cools and releases that heat in the upper atmosphere, thereby cooling the earth below. It is exactly the opposite effect that the climate scientists are saying. More CO2 yields global cooling, less CO2 yields global warming, add to that the fact that man made pollutants such as con trails from jets actually cool the atmosphere by reflecting the radiation back into space, and you will see that AOC's green new deal will have exactly the opposite effect. The air we breath out is a vital part of our eco system, exactly as God created it. 

Are you seeing it yet? Did you catch the fact in the article that CO2 is like a hot air balloon? It absorbs the heat faster, and rises in the atmosphere, and releases that heat faster, which in turn is absorbed by the lighter gaseous molecules nitrogen, Oxygen, Helium, and hydrogen which are more prevalent higher due to their SD which has the effect of moving heat away from the surface of the earth. This is how the atmosphere keeps the planet habitable. If there were no atmosphere, like say on the moon, we would fry during the day time and freeze during the night. This is God's HVAC system, without it we die. It is a closed system that reaches equilibrium, when the earth goes through a warming cycle glaciers melt, these melting glaciers then allow for increased volcanic activity, because the weight of the glaciers is off the crust of the earth, which in turn adds particulates into the atmosphere which reflect more radiation and the earth cools. This is all simple common sense.

Here is the article linking volcanism and warming https://newatlas.com/climate-volcanic-activity-link/25520/

Here is the Link for the article in question with the Nasa maps. I did not copy and past the whole article at my post, so I will copy and paste that here. https://co2insanity.com/2011/09/04/top-scientists-in-heated-debate-over-‘-slaying-of-greenhouse-gas-theory/

NASA Data Confirms CO2 Not a Well Mixed Gas

Professor Nahle and his colleagues insist that in addition to the above facts the proven varying density of atmospheric CO2 also needs to be taken into account to show how IPCC scientists are guilty of the greatest scientific swindle ever perpetrated.

From the NASA graph below (verify with link here) we can discern distinct and measurable regional variations in CO2 ppmv. So even NASA data itself further puts paid to the bizarre notion that this benign trace gas is “well-mixed” around the globe.

NASA’s diagram thus not only proves CO2 isn’t a well mixed gas but also demonstrates that there is no link between regions of highest CO2 concentration and areas of highest human industrial emissions.

Groundbreaking Science Trumps IPCC Junk Claims

Both Postma and Nahle have recently published groundbreaking papers discrediting the GHE. Professor Nahle analyzed the thermal properties of carbon dioxide, exclusively, and found that 0.3 °C would be the change of temperature of CO2, also exclusively, not of the whole atmosphere. Nasif pointedly observes:

“Such change of temperature would not affect in absolute the whole mixture of gas because of the thermal diffusivity of carbon dioxide.”

Additionally, Nahle and his Slaying the Sky Dragon compadres demonstrate that carbon dioxide loses the energy it absorbs almost instantaneously, so there is no place for any kind of storage of thermal energy by carbon dioxide. To the more technically minded what Nahle and his colleagues say is that the release of a quantum/wave, at a different wavelength and frequency, lasts the time an excited electron takes to get back to its base state.

Thus the IPCC’s CO2 “sky blanket” is shot full of holes as rational folk are increasingly abandoning the unphysical nonsense that carbon dioxide “traps” heat and raises global temperatures. Policymakers may be the last to wise up but they, too, must nonetheless consign the man-made global warming sham to the trash can marked “junk science.”