World Meteorological Organization: Carbon Dioxide hits 400ppm, 'Time is running out'

arknor said:
green energy is subsidised though although looks like not so much any more from googling.

anyway it's a fact that the green energy push lead to increased energy prices
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The price of fossil fuels going up has lead to energy price increases too. That small "green" part of your energy bill is split down between lots of different government schemes so the money going directly to renewable energy generation is even smaller. (onshore wind is cheap)

Having said that, Fossil fuels receive HUGE tax breaks.

arknor said:
what do these wind turbines do during heavy winds? don't they get shut down so they don't catch fire :confused:
What are the maintenance and general running costs for

nuclear vs wind
assuming of course the wind farm is big enough to match the power output of a single nuclear plant.

I'm assuming offshore wind farms are much more expensive in that regards due to being off shore and they seem to have a habit of failing during high winds if they aren't shut down first.
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During severely strong winds turbines are turned out of the wind and shut down, however this is very dependent on the size and age of the turbine. With the newer technology they can work in much harsher environments e.g

http://www.diavik.ca/ENG/ouroperations/565_wind_farm.asp

This should not be wind V nuclear etc. We need all these forms of generation as part of our energy mix. We do however need to get rid of coal asap.

For those who do wish to gain a better understanding of our complex grid system, and want to know why renewable such as wind farms play an important part in our energy needs i suggest you watch this BBC program.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03y65xx/sign/bang-goes-the-theory-series-8-1-energy
 
arknor said:
what do these wind turbines do during heavy winds? don't they get shut down so they don't catch fire :confused:
What are the maintenance and general running costs for

nuclear vs wind
assuming of course the wind farm is big enough to match the power output of a single nuclear plant.

I'm assuming offshore wind farms are much more expensive in that regards due to being off shore and they seem to have a habit of failing during high winds if they aren't shut down first.

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I'm sure farming land to support a growing population becomes a major issue in the not to distant future though
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Great, so we can all live together in cramped conditions... It's not just the housing space that is the problem, it's how you feed people, how you provide all the raw materials, let alone any CO2 issues?
 
Amp34 said:
There is only really one long term solution to all the earths human made problems (climate change being just one symptom).

Population reduction.

There is no way we (as a species) can all live like the west with a population increasing, we need to make a concerted effort to reduce our population by a few billion and keep it there at a sustainable level. How we do that is the question, lots of teaching, access to birth control and greater women's rights in many countries would help. Other more draconian possibilities could include global child limits (say one child per adult - 2 per couple). That would help reduce the population. There are charities out there trying to affect the former, unfortunately they have few funds and little political power.

Reduction in population would help the other major symptoms of "humanity", extinction of species, over fishing, deforestation, pollution and water shortages, desertification and potentially wars (over resources). Unfortunately it's a difficult task and as yet no major party (outside China) have even broached the fact, probably in part because so many so called environmentalists aren't environmentalists at all, rather "humanists", only caring about how it affects humans rather than the environment as a whole.

There is only so much land we can cover in concrete, so many valleys we can flood and dam, so many deserts we can cover in solar power (which seems to be the policy of many CO2 reduction policies). If you really want to reduce your carbon footprint significantly, don't have kids*. Simple...

*gets off soapbox*

*Or alternatively, a more realistic option is to have only one or max 2 kids.
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I agree, that's part of the solution - but these are long term solutions to a problem which is likely to come before we have made the changes.

As you say, educating & empowering women, access to contraception & improving the lifestyle of the citizens in the developing world should resolve that problem organically.

To reduce the population?, well it's highly difficult without being draconian - one child policies can be ignored & what do you do when it's ignored which doesn't punish the child for the poor decision making of the parents? - realistically we can never stop some families from having a large amount of children & unless a person believes in collective punishment or enforced abortions (I don't on either counts) there is nothing you can do to solve those cases.

What we can do, is incentivise & change social attitudes for a majority of the population to have less children as long as the average is less than 2 the problem is solved.

Besides, even at our current rate we can't sustain how we use materials & pollute at our current level - so we still need to focus on reducing the pollution of our land, sea, forests & the destruction of arable land.
 
The IPCC’s conclusion that CO2 has a major warming effect is false. In the pre-Cambrian era 750 million years ago the Earth was an ice-planet, with glaciers at sea level at the Equator: yet atmospheric CO2 concentration was 300,000 ppmv – about 700 times today’s 400 ppmv. If CO2 had the large warming effect the IPCC imagines, the glaciers could not have been there.
 
altus said:
The IPCC’s conclusion that CO2 has a major warming effect is false. In the pre-Cambrian era 750 million years ago the Earth was an ice-planet, with glaciers at sea level at the Equator: yet atmospheric CO2 concentration was 300,000 ppmv – about 700 times today’s 400 ppmv. If CO2 had the large warming effect the IPCC imagines, the glaciers could not have been there.
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Source?
 
wilber said:
The price of fossil fuels going up has lead to energy price increases too. That small "green" part of your energy bill is split down between lots of different government schemes so the money going directly to renewable energy generation is even smaller. (onshore wind is cheap)

Having said that, Fossil fuels receive HUGE tax breaks.


During severely strong winds turbines are turned out of the wind and shut down, however this is very dependent on the size and age of the turbine. With the newer technology they can work in much harsher environments e.g

http://www.diavik.ca/ENG/ouroperations/565_wind_farm.asp

This should not be wind V nuclear etc. We need all these forms of generation as part of our energy mix. We do however need to get rid of coal asap.

For those who do wish to gain a better understanding of our complex grid system, and want to know why renewable such as wind farms play an important part in our energy needs i suggest you watch this BBC program.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03y65xx/sign/bang-goes-the-theory-series-8-1-energy
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Any evidence that fossil fuels receive huge tax breaks? Is that before or after the late supplementary tax companies have to pay on oil and gas sales?

Agreed that our energy mix needs to be varied however

kitch9 said:
You are already paying Carbon Tax, only no one is being told.
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Unfortunately it could have been better if the EU had a spine and reformed the Carbon trading scheme, or at least reduced the number of credits floating around...
 
Amp34 said:
Great, so we can all live together in cramped conditions... It's not just the housing space that is the problem, it's how you feed people, how you provide all the raw materials, let alone any CO2 issues?
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well I'm guessing the houston layout isn't cramped from the land area it would require for 6.7billion people but I did mention farmland will likely be an issue at some point if we carry on like this
 
RedvGreen said:
Interesting point. Could burning fossil fuels be used as an act of aggression against other countries which might be affected by a (perceived manmade) change in the icecaps?
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I've never actually thought about it as that!

Quite possibly though. If you hated the countries closest to either ice cap enough, you may possibly not mind their destruction, especially if you're situated near the equator.

The only way of us working our way around this is by working together. So... run? :(

edit: I didn't know China had actually made such a push on their renewable sources. I best change my original post to India*. :p

*I know, they're doing the same as China.
 
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Ryan-3 said:
I've never actually thought about it as that!

Quite possibly though. If you hated the countries closest to either ice cap enough, you may possibly not mind their destruction, especially if you're situated near the equator.

The only way of us working our way around this is by working together. So... run? :(

edit: I didn't know China had actually made such a push on their renewable sources. I best change my original post to India. :p
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you're aware that the flooding would be the lowest land points not just those closest to the caps
 
tbh I'd love to see what Antarctica looks like without the ice and there's likely loads of well preserved fauna and flora we have never encountered before.

also some of that flora will come back to life as the ice melts
http://www.livescience.com/44134-old-frozen-antarctic-moss-regrows.html
Moss frozen on an Antarctic island for more than 1,500 years was brought back to life in a British laboratory, researchers report.

The verdant growth marks the first time a plant has been resurrected after such a long freeze, the researchers said. "This is the very first instance we have of any plant or animal surviving [being frozen] for more than a couple of decades," said study co-author Peter Convey, an ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey.

There is potential for even longer cryopreservation, or survival by freezing, if mosses are blanketed by glaciers during a long ice age, the researchers think. Antarctica's oldest frozen mosses date back more than 5,000 years. [See Stunning Photos of Antarctic Ice]

The findings were published today (March 17) in the journal Current Biology.
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might help with the co2 lol
http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/moss.php
 
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Tuppy_Glossop said:
Until the oil exploration begins, at least.
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I believe there is currently a treaty banning all resource harvesting in antartica but I reckon if antartica does become a promised land there will be a lot of disputes and possibly wars over ownership.

some of it is already contested as it is and claims not recognised etc
 
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