The Simple Math of CO2 Reduction

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Message 1203046 - Posted: 6 Mar 2012, 16:10:45 UTC - in response to Message 1201985.  

Your line of argument to distract from reality is kind of silly is it not?


The reality is that combustion, transportation, energy, food production production and digestion all produce Carbon Dioxide as a byproduct.

The reality is that our industry and lax careless ignorant pollution from that industry is doing great damage. A little bit of further ingenuity can allow industry to continue but WITHOUT trashing our planet. All that is needed is the political will and public awareness.

Why let the profits of a very greedy few at the expense of the rest of the world and everyone else get in the way of that?

Without carbon oxidation there is no life.

Very wrong on that count. The earth doesn't need humans and at present we're polluting our planet back to where it was over 600 Million years ago or more...


Still our only planet,
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Message 1203161 - Posted: 6 Mar 2012, 23:35:20 UTC - in response to Message 1203046.  

A little bit of further ingenuity can allow industry to continue but WITHOUT trashing our planet.

If that were true there would be no opposition. Unfortunately wishing for technology does not work. Technology is the product of R&D. The universal law of R&D is that only two of three factors can be specified.
The factors are:
1) Result
2) Cost
3) Time required.

We know from the sky is falling screams of the warmists the time required is miniscule. We know from the warmists that the amount to be cut is huge. The cost can not be specified and indeed can exceed the total world capital available.

Anyone who realistically looks at the amount warmists claim needs to be cut and the time frame claimed, the answer is to return the world population of humans to an agrarian society and the number of humans needs to be cut to only 0.5B. Perhaps that is reason we haven't found ET. ET can't survive at a high enough consumption level long enough to communicate.

Unfortunately no one is even able to correctly calculate the amount of carbon released to build a green object to replace a brown one. If not, how the heck can you know if you have saved anything. God forbid we build a pile and make it worse. Want a why? Calculation is done using one area's power mix but the item is built elsewhere on a much dirtier mix of power. OOPS!

One of the few things we may have a handle on CO2 is a Fukushima Daiichi to replace a coal fired power plant. We are reasonably sure over the lifetime of the plant of having a net carbon reduction. Get rid of all the coal power plants on earth and that might put us 10% on the reduction road.

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Message 1203427 - Posted: 7 Mar 2012, 18:10:45 UTC - in response to Message 1203046.  

To continue our Socratic dialogue:

The earth doesn't need humans


Can I sign you up to be on the manned Mars Mission ?
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Message 1203511 - Posted: 7 Mar 2012, 22:51:29 UTC - in response to Message 1203161.  

A little bit of further ingenuity can allow industry to continue but WITHOUT trashing our planet.

If that were true there would be no opposition. Unfortunately wishing for technology does not work. Technology is the product of R&D. The universal law of R&D is that only two of three factors can be specified.
The factors are:
1) Result
2) Cost
3) Time required.

We know from the sky is falling screams of the warmists the time required is miniscule. We know from the warmists that the amount to be cut is huge. The cost can not be specified and indeed can exceed the total world capital available.

So says a glib denialist without any numbers to work with, and also a confirmed apologist to do nothing.

If you want some real numbers, there is the Stern financial report from some time ago now that accounted up the financial costs of retrofitting industry to run clean versus 'business as usual' with all the pollution.

The financial numbers clearly showed cleaning up industry to be the most profitable move.


Shame the dirtiest parts of industry are lobbying so hard to stay dirty. All at the expense of everyone else.

Still our only planet,
Martin

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Message 1203512 - Posted: 7 Mar 2012, 22:54:36 UTC - in response to Message 1203427.  

To continue our Socratic dialogue:

The earth doesn't need humans


Can I sign you up to be on the manned Mars Mission ?

No useful comment from you then.

Even though you even deny change, that change will regardless hit you in the face sooner than you wish.

Ostrich head in the sand? King Canute commanding the tide to halt?...


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Message 1203597 - Posted: 8 Mar 2012, 5:12:39 UTC - in response to Message 1203511.  

If you want some real numbers, there is the Stern financial report from some time ago now that accounted up the financial costs of retrofitting industry to run clean versus 'business as usual' with all the pollution.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/4/3/Executive_Summary.pdf
CO2 emissions per head have been strongly correlated with GDP per head. ... Most future emissions growth will come from today’s developing countries, because of their more rapid population and GDP growth and their increasing share of energy-intensive industries.

Changes in energy technologies and the structure of economies have reduced the responsiveness of emissions to income growth, particularly in some of the richest countries.
...
In the long term, annual global emissions will need to be reduced to below 5 GtCO2e, the level that the earth can absorb without adding to the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. This is more than 80% below the absolute level of current annual emissions.
...
To stabilise at 450ppm CO2e, without overshooting, global emissions would need to peak in the next 10 years and then fall at more than 5% per year, reaching 70% below current levels by 2050.
...
Reversing the historical trend in emissions growth, and achieving cuts of 25% or
more against today’s levels is a major challenge.
...
Greenhouse-gas emissions can be cut in four ways.
• Reducing demand for emissions-intensive goods and services
• Increased efficiency, which can save both money and emissions
• Action on non-energy emissions, such as avoiding deforestation
• Switching to lower-carbon technologies for power, heat and transport

Way five, depopulation
The technical potential for efficiency improvements to reduce emissions and costs is substantial. Over the past century, efficiency in energy supply improved ten-fold or more in developed countries,
...
Non-energy emissions make up one-third of total greenhouse-gas emissions; action here will make an important contribution. A substantial body of evidence suggests that action to prevent further deforestation would be relatively cheap compared with other types of mitigation, if the right policies and institutional structures are put in place.
...
Large-scale uptake of a range of clean power, heat, and transport technologies is required for radical emission cuts in the medium to long term.
...
Deep cuts in the transport sector are likely to be more difficult in the shorter term,

That is where you live, how you get to work, and deglobalization or not being able to order stuff from outside your local area.
The shift to a low-carbon global economy will take place against the background of
an abundant supply of fossil fuels. That is to say, the stocks of hydrocarbons that are
profitable to extract (under current policies) are more than enough to take the world
to levels of greenhouse-gas concentrations well beyond 750ppm CO2e, with very
dangerous consequences. Indeed, under BAU, energy users are likely to switch
towards more carbon-intensive coal and oil shales, increasing rates of emissions
growth.

Unless there is a world command government, someone will cheat.

Stabilisation at 450ppm CO2e is already almost out of reach, given that we are likely to reach this level within ten years and that there are real difficulties of making the sharp reductions required with current and foreseeable technologies. Costs rise significantly as mitigation efforts become more ambitious or sudden. Efforts to reduce emissions rapidly are likely to be very costly.
...
The first element of policy is carbon pricing. Greenhouse gases are, in economic terms, an externality: those who produce greenhouse-gas emissions are bringing about climate change, thereby imposing costs on the world and on future generations, but they do not face the full consequences of their actions themselves.
...
Emissions from deforestation are very significant – they are estimated to represent more than 18% of global emissions, a share greater than is produced by the global transport sector.

And just how are you going to tax the dirt farmer using slash and burn in some third world backwater or convince him not to farm?
Above all, reducing the risks of climate change requires collective action.

Collective is right, a world command government.

This is a nice academic report. It assumes that there are effective first world governments in place throughout the world to carry out the policies it espouses. See the many references to it working in a first world economy. We all know that isn't the case except for a small percentage of the people on the planet. Most live in places almost without government. So we are left with a pile GIGO. Not that is isn't a starting point, but we know it can't work as written and it conclusions are therefore skewed at best.

The assumption the report takes, a everyone will do it because it is right view, clearly is not how the world works. Capitalism, xenophobia and prisoner's dilemma is how the world works. Each makes the decision based on what is best for them right now. Right now, burn baby burn, is the choice that is best for them. For a great many of the reports possibles, no matter what there is no economic incentive for people to change, unless there is a world command government in place that forces it.

The only way we will make it is to use a good measure of option five. That one isn't pretty, but it is the only one where it is impossible to cheat. If the warmists are right, we can't have cheaters, can we?
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Message boards : Politics : The Simple Math of CO2 Reduction


 
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