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Lapsed Agnostic writes:
“I haven’t got time to read all the references you cited…”
In which case you will continue to believe in the fantasy nonsense you write, for example:-
“There is no law of thermodynamics that means that we can’t harness a fraction of the Sun’s energy for our requirements, since it generously provides us with about as much energy in an hour as humans use in a year.”
Such ‘arm waving’ simply exposes that you don’t understand that thermodynamics is telling us: that going uphill costs energy. Further IF it were so easy then Q: WHY aren’t industrialist / governments falling over themselves to build infrastructure as fast as possible to gather all this cheap easy energy?
Re: David Mackay ‘Without the Hot Air’.
My claim it would take 200% of the land in the UK for renewables to replace existing ENERGY supply (i.e. not just electricity i.e some form of liquid hydrocarbon synthesis) is based upon a full system view at the current average UK demand of 125Kwh/day.
Further, in claiming 5% ‒ 7% land use, you ignore the context that Mackay gives elsewhere in the book. In other words solar and wind needs back up storage which takes up land you do not account for.
In any case, these sorts of estimates are a waste of time, since even at first blush – in the link you give, Mackay observes that
“The solar power capacity required to deliver this 50 kWh per day per person in the UK is more than 100 times all the photovoltaics in the whole world [and] paving 5% of the UK with solar panels seems beyond the bounds of plausibility in so many ways.”
Regards,
Clark writes about electric arc furnaces, but they can’t smelt raw iron ore i.e. add carbon to iron to make steel i.e. iron ore is used for 70% of current global steel production the remaining 30% is recycled steel.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/global-steel-production/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/270835/world-steel-production-and-scrap-consumption/
In other words using only electric arc furnaces would mean having to cut global steel production by 70% and given recycling would consequently decrease too, probably even lower.
It’s simply not possible to build renewable infrastructures that requires steel (and dozens of other metals) production to multiply dozens of times larger than current quantities to replace fossil fuels.
https://energyskeptic.com/2021/metal-recycle-limited-by-many-factors/
“Clark writes about electric arc furnaces, but they can’t smelt raw iron ore “
On reading this statement my memory was stirred to recall reading that some company has indeed begun to use electric arc furnaces to smelt iron ore (if smelt is still the correct terminology) in a process they claim completely carbon free.
https://newatlas.com/materials/ssab-volvo-green-steel/“SSAB’s HYBRIT process uses hydrogen as the reductant as iron ore and limestone are combined to create steel, replacing “coke,” or baked coal. The traditional coal-fired blast furnace is also replaced with an electric arc furnace.”
The steel delivered to Volvo is a trial run I guess. I realise Natasha that the (extra) electricity to replace the previously used energy source still needs generation somehow and especially hydrogen has inefficiencies but electric arc furnaces CAN and already do replace the entire (former coking) steel production process. The company SSAB intends to move to “fossil free” steel completely by 2030 according to their website blurb.
I’m not exactly sure what “fossil free” ore sources or mining is and I’m not sure how they ensure the electricity used comes from “fossil free” sources but my main point was that electric arc furnaces can be used for the entire process.
As a side note, my brain baulked at the idea electricity cannot produce enough heat in a furnace. I’ve also heard people say that elsewhere in arguing the limitations of renewable energy sources. To my mind, as long as you can put in enough heat energy into a furnace, from whatever source, it should do its job. I’m not aware of any absolute temperature limitations of electricity as long as you have enough of it (excepting esoteric temperatures like plasmas etc.).
ET
– “as long as you can put in enough heat energy into a furnace, from whatever source, it should do its job”
One problem is: what do you make the heating element from? It has to be electrically conductive; most substances melt, or get close enough to their melting temperature to become fragile. This is where the electric arc is a clever solution. But for an arc to work, the stuff you’re attempting to melt has to be sufficiently conductive. I was wondering if iron ore could be arc smelted by mixing in enough scrap steel.
There are multiple potential technical solutions to all sorts of problems, but the task of evaluating and developing them, and then replacing current infrastructure presents enormous practical difficulties. And the argument has polarised, as all arguments seem to these days.
“One problem is: what do you make the heating element from?”
I didn’t think there was a heating element in electric arc furnaces. My, perhaps wrong, understanding is that they hit the furnace charge, the stuff you want to melt, with what amounts to a mini lightning bolt. If the furnace charge is conductive you’ll get some heat from the resistance to conduction; but even if not, the charge is heated by the radiant energy evoked by the arc.
ET
– “I didn’t think there was a heating element in electric arc furnaces”
That’s absolutely right. That’s why I called the arc furnace a clever solution; it gets around the need for heating elements.
Thanks ET,
I remember SAAB’s claim “to smelt iron ore […] in a process they claim completely carbon free.”
But SAAB are literally ‘grooming’ us with their pilot steel-making process – in the same way psychopaths ensnare their victims – by depositing dollops of bovine poop trying to skip round THERMODYNAMIC limitations.
How?
Steel contains carbon between 0.05 up to 2.1 percent by weight, so you have to get it from somewhere. If it’s from lime, then lime needs mining, milling and transport, which can only be done with fossil fuels, then heating it to 900°C to get the carbon, using electricity from windmills and solar panels, which can’t be built without fossil fuels, nor maintained, nor connected to electricity and storage grids, nor finally recycled at end of circa max 25 years life spans.
Then SAAB relies on hydrogen electrolysis, which is a net energy sink, also using electricity from windmills and solar panels that can’t be built etc. without fossil fuels. Even fuel cells can’t scale since nowhere near enough platinum group metals, tantalum, niobium etc. to make catalytic converters exists anywhere on this pale blue dot.
Another option is shipping hydrogen, but “tell that to the people who’ll have to ship it across the globe at hyper-cold temperatures close to those in outer space”. There are three prototype ships in experimental stages with many technical challenges to overcome. The hydrogen has to be chilled to minus 253 degrees Celsius (just 20 degrees above absolute zero, the coldest possible temperature) just to keep it in liquid form and keep the vessel from cracking. That’s even colder than liquefied natural gas (minus 160 C). To prevent embrittlement, new high-strength steel, super insulation, and welding techniques will be necessary. The costs will be extremely high though none of the prototype makers were willing to say what the cost might be (Saul 2021). The same problems apply just to storing hydrogen where it’s made, even without piping or shipping it anywhere.
Plus hydrogen can be bad for your health. Burning hydrogen in power plants can produce lung-damaging nitrogen oxides as a by-product (Chediak 2022).
Thus, hydrogen needs far too much energy to create at any scale, then more energy to build storage infrastructure (especially if made with intermittent electricity) and then pipe to steel making equipment without leaking (smallest molecule of all) or exploding. Hydrogen is the dumbest & most impossible renewable.
https://energyskeptic.com/2019/hydrogen/
The energy conversion processes anticipated (dream-wish-magic) by the green hydrogen economy (electrolysis, compression, storage and fuel cells) are thus extremely inefficient: wasting energy as low grade heat. A huge amount of new renewable electricity capacity would be needed to compensate for the wasted energy.
https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-hydrogen-hoax-confessions-of-former.html
https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydrogen-or-battery–that-is-the-question.html
Conclusion: You cannot levitate above the ground in defiance of gravity by pulling on your shoelaces.
SAAB are politically signalling unadulterated ‘Green Wash’ which they achieve by ring-fencing their analysis, thereby magically vanishing externalities, i.e. the hidden fossil fuel consumption and CO2 – let alone ecological & social i.e. extractivism footprints of material inputs outlined above.
https://popularresistance.org/extractivism-and-resistance-in-north-africa/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extractivism
https://columbanjpe.org/article/what-extractivism
In other words it is deeply disingenuous of SAAB to be advertising such ‘investor story time’ performative nonsense, on the back of running a tiny steel-making demonstration plant, thereby hoping to convince other global steel production infrastructure managers and investors to copy them and switch from using the current coke & raw iron ore steel making process, when the above THERMODYNAMIC limitations will ALWAYS apply on hydrogen, electricity, lime & iron ore steel making processes.
ET asks whether electricity can produce enough heat to make steel etc. in an electric arc or induction furnace?
Yes they can, but the question misses the point that electric arc or induction furnaces can’t process mined iron or other metal ores, they can only input scrap steel iron (or other scrap metals) or raw pig-iron from a standard fossil fuel smelter (or other similarly processed metals).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace#Operation
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/electric-furnace
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/electric-arc-furnace-process
“Yes they can, but the question misses the point that electric arc or induction furnaces can’t process mined iron or other metal ores,”
Natasha, you have repeated a statement that I have shown is no longer the case. Electric arc furnaces CAN, HAVE and ARE producing steel from mined iron ore. Your other arguments may well be pertinent but, even if only on a trial basis, the fact that it HAS been done shows that it CAN be done. To continue to insist that it can’t be done undermines your other arguments.
So, can we move on please.“Green hydrogen” via renewable electricity is greenwash by which the fossil fuel companies promote “blue hydrogen” derived from natural gas, pretending that “blue hydrogen” is a stepping-stone to the impractical “green hydrogen”.
Hydrogen is a pain. As the smallest, lightest molecule, it diffuses out of any container you attempt to use, and just to add to the fun it embrittles metals, increasing the explosion risk. As some joker once quipped, “if you want to store and transport hydrogen, your best bet is to bond it to carbon first”, and you’re back to hydrocarbons.
You can bond hydrogen to nitrogen instead and get ammonia; there were trams powered by ammonia in the 1900s, I think. And you can mix hydrogen into natural gas; I understand the UK gas grid already delivers around 10% hydrogen.
– “Burning hydrogen in power plants can produce lung-damaging nitrogen oxides”
Indeed. Burning anything with Earth’s nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere produces nitrogen oxides, especially at high temperatures.
Natasha, I agree that humanity is in a multi-system crisis that is fast getting worse. What do you think we should do about it? I think our best bet is to learn to get by with as little energy and technological products as possible.
Optimism vs. pessimism – is our cup half full or half empty? What I mean is, instead of looking at our predicament from our first-world perspective of how much we lose without abundant cheap energy, consider a third-world perspective of how much easier life becomes when gaining very minimal energy and technology.
Thanks ET, you are correct, I apologise for being careless in how I worded my comment, some electric furnace processes can indeed input iron ore (or other metal ores), such as the SSAB’s HYBRIT process you linked to which “uses hydrogen as the reductant as iron ore and limestone are combined to create steel, replacing “coke,” or baked coal.”
Nonetheless, my main point remains, that:-
a) electric furnaces usually only input scrap steel, pig iron, or direct-reduced iron, and
b) that all methods of making steel will always be limited by fossil fuel availability in their input materials supply chains.
For the avoidance of doubt here are some further details.
Scrap steel generally isn’t melted in a blast furnace because the heat for the blast furnace is supplied by the reduction of the iron by the coal. In an electric arc furnace (EAF) the heat is supplied by electricity. That’s why EAF generally used to melt scrap. It’s less economical to supply heat to a process when you don’t need to. That being said, you could just load up coke and ore in an EAF, heat it up, and the chemistry works itself out in the same way.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Blacksmith/comments/60397h/make_steel_from_an_electric_arc_furnace/
Steel is produced via two main routes: the blast furnace (BF) and electric arc furnace (EAF) route. The key difference between the routes is the type of raw materials they consume. For the BF route these are predominantly iron ore, coal, and recycled steel, while the EAF route produces steel using mainly recycled steel and electricity. Depending on the plant configuration and availability of recycled steel, other sources of metallic iron such as direct-reduced iron (DRI) or hot metal can also be used in the EAF route.
► A total of 70.7% of steel is produced using the blast furnace route. First, iron ores are reduced to iron, also called hot metal or pig iron. Then the iron is converted to steel.
► Steel made in an EAF uses electricity to melt recycled steel. Additives, such as alloys, are used to adjust to the desired chemical composition. Electrical energy can be supplemented with oxygen injected into the EAF. Downstream process stages, such as casting, reheating and rolling, are similar to those found in the BF-BOF route. About 28.9% of steel is produced via the EAF route.
https://www.dancarbon.com/q/eaf/105.html
DRI is produced by the direct reduction of iron ore or other iron bearing materials in the solid state by using non-coking coal or natural gas. Processes which produce DRI by reduction of iron ore below the melting point of the iron are normally known as the direct reduction processes. The reducing agents are carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2), [as used in the SSAB’s HYBRIT process] coming from reformed natural gas, syngas, or coal. Iron ore is used mostly in pellet and/or lumpy form. Oxygen (O2) is removed from the iron ore by chemical reactions based on H2 and CO for the production of highly metalized DRI.
https://www.ispatguru.com/use-of-direct-reduced-iron-in-electric-arc-furnace/
Clark,
In answer to your question: what should we do about humanity being in a multi-system crisis?
First, to best manage and lessen the impacts of the otherwise certainty of extremely violent collapse over a matter of the next few decades or so (i.e. at same rate of fossil fuel decline), then ‘we’ have to weed out the psychopaths running the political-corporate-military-banking show we call ‘modern civilization’. At the very least, ‘our’ first step must be that ‘we’ stop voting for psychopaths, for example by encouraging all those on ballots to publish their psychological test results.
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/problem-pathocracy
Until then, I sort of don’t care that much and am neither for nor against optimism or pessimism. Humans have dealt with psychopaths in previous earlier civilizations and tribal societies. Perhaps the group arranges for any greedy violent troublemakers to have an “accident” whilst the group was out hunting or whatever and were left to die alone.
I’ve lived and travelled throughout the so-called third-world so have adsorbed some perspective(s) already, but I’ll be too old and dead soon enough. Meanwhile, be nice to people, grow a few vegetables and dwell on physics & engineering details that psychopaths can’t manipulate. I may even enjoy the process of seeing through their lies, deceptions and manipulations!
Natasha, I encountered an interesting saying or rule-of-thumb in a sci-fi book:
– “Macrocosm dominates microcosm”
The science of the sci-fi concerned biologists, and the phrase referred to organisms adapting to their environment. Of course, organisms also modify their environments, but that’s generally a slower process.
My point is that people with psychopathic tendencies get elevated to positions of power due to structural processes. A whole swathe of them could be removed, but the structures would just select and promote another bunch. Therefore we need to change the structure. History confirms this; significant, lasting change occurs when widespread pressure forces structural change, eg. the Suffragettes forced a change of the voting system rather than trying to get a load of somewhat less sexist men elected.
That’s why I’m in Extinction Rebellion rather than any of the single-issue pressure groups, because XR’s objectives are: face the truth, act upon that truth with the urgency it demands, and devolve power to the general population.
It seems like people have been busy on here in my absence. Too much to deal with in one go – but I should be able to take a brief time-out from celebrating Celtic’s latest battering of the Huns to address some of Clark’s points:
Firstly, hydrogen doesn’t diffuse out of any container you attempt to use, otherwise airships wouldn’t have been able to make it across the Atlantic in the 1920’s etc. It can cause metals with which it comes into contact to become more brittle but that’s not a major problem, especially since most existing iron gas pipes are being replaced with plastic ones anyway:
Town gas, which was used in the UK before North Sea gas came on stream, contained on average 50% hydrogen (and sometimes up to 60%). North Sea gas doesn’t contain 10% hydrogen – it’s probably less than 1%. However, in a 2021 trial, the supply to the Tyneside village of Winlaton had 20% hydrogen added to it. The engineers reckon that there’s no need to modify boilers or burners until the hydrogen content gets up to 23%, which came as a surprise to me but, unlike some people on this thread, I’d imagine they know best seeing as they do this shit for a living.
https://hydeploy.co.uk/about/news/green-light-for-first-hydrogen-blending-on-a-public-gas-network/
Burning hydrogen doesn’t produce nitrogen oxides, and neither does burning anything else that doesn’t contain nitrogen atoms because nitrogen gas in the air is very unreactive: to get it to react with pretty much anything you need to either use temperatures of over 400 Celsius *and* pressures of over 200 atmospheres *and* iron-based heterogenous catalysts as in the Born-Haber process – or get some highly specialised bacteria to do it for you using some pretty complex enzymes and a shitload of ATP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diazotroph
Finally, here’s a bit of light weekend reading courtesy of XR founder Roger Hallam:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-perverse-fantasies-of-xr-s-founder
I sometimes wonder if XR, Insulate Britain and the like aren’t security service / Big Fossil false flags to discredit the Green Movement – it’s not as if the former doesn’t have plenty of previous in infiltrating environmental groups. Enjoy the rest of the weekend people.
Lapsed Agnostic, I may have overstated the diffusion problem (a memory from around a decade ago), but it is referred to in engineering sources especially regarding gasket materials; unfortunately the citations from the following link are behind a paywall:
Obviously, diffusion was a minor issue for the early hydrogen airships; the inner hydrogen and outer air pressures were almost equal, and their ratio of volume to surface area was high due to their immense size. Both of the opposites are true when storing or piping hydrogen.
I didn’t claim that North Sea gas contains much hydrogen, I said that hydrogen can be mixed into it, which you just confirmed regarding the Winlaton trial. I first heard of mixing hydrogen into the gas supply some years ago from a friend at UCL who’s involved with energy security. Since then I think you’ll find it’s gone mainstream at around 10%; I expect the Winlaton trial was to test higher ratios.
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) most definitely are produced in common combustion processes. They are produced in internal combustion engines; exhaust gas recirculation is a pollution reduction system to reduce NOx production by reducing combustion temperature. During the early 2019 / 2020 lockdowns in China, atmospheric NOx concentrations observed by satellite confirmed the lack of traffic in major Chinese cities:
Nitrogen oxides were the main cause of the acid rain crisis that poisoned swathes of European forests, though some of this was from nitrogen in fuels. NOx formation from atmospheric N2 (“thermal NOx”) certainly increases with temperature; 1200°C is usually treated as a sort of threshold even though low concentrations form below that temperature, but then natural gas and hydrogen burn in air at 1950°C and 2111°C respectively, and so do produce NOx:
– “Thermal NOx formation, which is highly temperature dependent, is recognized as the most relevant source when combusting natural gas.”
You’ve already stated your “I’m all right Jack” attitude to climate change, while my southern English village hit 40°C, leaves died on the trees and a third of Pakistan disappeared under floods. Your techno-optimism of humanity reviving species lost in the ongoing mass extinction is simply bizarre – you just assume that civilisation will survive to do this? Humanity hasn’t even discovered the majority of species, let alone preserved their seeds of genomes, and species can’t be replaced by just raising specimens and releasing them into the wild; parenting is as important in animals as it is in humans. I remind you that the most developed species are also the most dependent upon all that lie beneath. So citing a Spectator polemic on Roger Hallam and invoking conspiracy theory is just the cherry on the cake; I think I’m starting to understand how you made Natasha so cross.
You have grossly underestimated the potential dangers of climate change. The figures of 2°C and 3°C that you quoted are by the year 2100, but according to the IPCC, on those emissions pathways the temperature rise doesn’t level out until 2400. But we’d be on those pathways only if the Paris Accords were being adhered to. Not a single country is within its Paris commitments. Maybe future generations and even the young people of today matter as little as the people of Pakistan, but don’t go assuming you’re safe in Scotland; the Gulf Stream is weakening with the loss of Arctic ice (the reservoir of cold which drives that great convection current), and the sea ice will all be gone 20 to 30 years from now; that’s not a computer projection, just extrapolate the graph of ice measurements. Without the Gulf Stream Scotland will be plunged into freezing conditions colder than Iceland.
And you don’t seem to understand the fuel depletion problem. Having started over a century ago, our “proven reserves for 50 years at current rates” really isn’t very much fuel. Trivially, consumption rates are increasing exponentially (and I mean that mathematically, not as a superlative) – or at least, that’s what consumption rates are attempting to do, due to international capital’s addiction to GDP growth. I can’t be bothered to calculate what that brings the “50 years” down to because the dominant effect is actually the Huppert extraction curve; with only 50 years-worth left we must be well on the downside which means that very soon (if not already) increasing the production rate becomes impossible. At that point, as Natasha suspects, we won’t have sufficient fuel to build our shiny new renewables infrastructure unless we severely cut back on all the other things we use it for, and who’s going to vote for that?
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/the-energy-trap/
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2022/06/shedding-our-fossil-fuel-suit/
I agree that it is the energy cost of energy that will be the problem. We cannot run the current consumer economy without unlimited cheap energy. Consumerism has been used to suppress the drive among populations in the West for political and social reform, and I believe this is why the political elites are panicking at the prospect of newly dissatisfied masses in a grossly unequal economy.
Lapsed Agnostic,
Try typing in your own phrase: “hydrogen doesn’t diffuse out of any container you attempt to use” into a search engine and you will see that EVERY hit shows hydrogen diffuses FASTER than any gas. Replacing pipes with plastic within 30m of where people live (as detailed in the link you give), is VERY £xpen$ive if it’s even possible to dig up the streets and under buildings in many locations.
And even if hydrogen leaks were solved ALL the other deal breakers (in links I give earlier in this thread) to hydrogen scaling up remain (very low efficiency as an energy carrier i.e. laws of thermodynamics), no matter how hard you bury your head in the sand wanting to whistle a different tune.
Please, why not do some basic research before posting such poor quality responses?
Another example, your claim that “Burning hydrogen doesn’t produce nitrogen oxides”(!) when it took me a couple of mins searching the net for “Burning hydrogen nitrogen oxide” and find this well referenced article …
https://www.cleanegroup.org/hydrogen-hype-in-the-air/
… amongst dozens of results showing very clearly that the science and industrial practice is replete with counterexamples of your unreferenced claim that “Burning hydrogen doesn’t produce nitrogen oxides”.
“The bad news is that H2 combustion can produce dangerously high levels of nitrogen oxide (NOx). Two European studies have found that burning hydrogen-enriched natural gas in an industrial setting can lead to NOx emissions up to six times that of methane (the most common element in natural gas mixes).[17],[18] There are numerous other studies in the scientific literature about the difficulties of controlling NOx emissions from H2 combustion in various industrial applications.[19],[20]
Even the Trump Administration’s Department of Energy “Hydrogen Program Plan” identifies H2 combustion as a significant problem. It states that additional research is needed on a host of emissions control issues around H2 combustion. The point DOE makes is that at very low levels of H2 blending, the NOx emissions levels might be controllable. But at higher levels, it is not only difficult to control NOx emissions, but the technologies that have been developed to attempt to control those higher NOx levels remain unproven.[21] That research is years off.
This emissions problem is not a secret but a longstanding industry problem. A recent industry report from the European Turbine Network regarding H2 combustion states: “The higher adiabatic flame temperature of H2 will result in higher NOx emissions if no additional measures are undertaken…It will be particularly a challenge to achieve even stricter NOx-limits foreseen in the future.”[22]”
And if a few hydrogen airships crossing the Atlantic shows they don’t leak, then why did so many explode into flames and stopped being used in’ the 1930s!?
Clark writes about Lapsed Agnostic:
“[…] citing a Spectator polemic on Roger Hallam and invoking conspiracy theory is just the cherry on the cake; I think I’m starting to understand how you made Natasha so cross.”
Roger Hallam is an easy target in failing to recognise that fossil fuels are already over half way used up already, causing global GDP and future CO2 emissions to rapidly crash.
This means future climate change will be self limiting which many climate models fail to account for too.
Hallam and his XR crew, the ‘Greens’, ‘eco-warriors’ etc. also too often fail to acknowledge that population is directly correlated with fossil fuel supply.
In other words, the message from XR and Greta Thunberg’s etc. is deeply disingenuous since they too often fail to acknowledge that if we were to simply give up fossil fuels – as they constantly urge us to embrace ideally over night – then 75% of the worlds population will have to die too.
So the real question is: who is going to enforce / propagandise us into believing who is best suited to decide / this or that about who is going to have to die whilst we try to adapt our economies on ‘a pale blue dot’ to dwindling supplies of fossil fuels?
Natasha, Greta Thunberg is just a teenager; she cannot be expected to know all the aspects of humanity’s crisis. She has every right – indeed, a duty – to campaign for her and her generation’s future. Her resolve is admirable, especially in someone so young.
Roger Hallam is now dismissive of XR.
– “they constantly urge us…”
XR urges nothing of you, nor of any individual. “XR Principle 8: We avoid blaming and shaming. We live in a toxic system, but no individual is to blame”. XR’s demands are directed at the systems of power, consisting of governments, the media, finance etc. I think it was BP’s PR department that invented and promoted the idea that emissions reductions should be framed as individual consumer choice; government and media seized upon it for obvious reasons.
– “So the real question is: who […] ?”
XR’s Third Demand answers this question – a Citizens’ Assembly; an assembly of people chosen at random, like jury service, so that they represent a true cross-section of the population. The system is called sortition, and it is the earliest recorded form of democracy. Consequently, the assembly would contain the same proportion of psychopathic tendencies as the population as a whole – as opposed to a concentration of psychopathy, as we see in the systems of power.
This is why I support XR; XR has no energy policy except “reduce emissions as rapidly as possible, starting immediately*, which is entirely consistent with weaning human systems off of fossil fuels. And the only way that can be achieved with fairness and justice is with massive improvement to democracy; indeed, a transition to true democracy.
There are three great campaigns that must achieve unity, because seen correctly, in the global context, they are all the same struggle. They are the climate and ecological campaign, the campaign against war, and the campaign to transcend fossil fuels.
– – – – – – – – –* (The phrase “reduce emissions as rapidly as possible, starting immediately” is my interpretation of XR Demand 2 – “Carbon neutral by 2025”. I haven’t met a single person in XR who believes that this is possible, many XR activists state it as “act now” instead, and there have been many internal attempts to change it. The demand was coined in 2018 when there were seven years unto 2025; I suspect by analogy to the economic and social transformation implemented in the six years of World War Two, which proved that transformation can be achieved when people recognise the need.)
Interesting thread with participants i’d really enjoy sharing a discussion and decent wine/beer with. Seems logical to me that human activity must have some effect on global temperatures but personally doubt it’s a major problem. This year in particular i think the majority of people have woken up to geoengineering/chem trailing being real, a “conspiracy theory” which has actually long been proven. It was blatant this summer in the UK and i really think most of the freak climate events/catastrophes we experience, are caused by geo-engineering. Don’t know if you have heard of Operation Cumulus, which began in the UK during 1949 and led to this catastrophe:
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/lymouth-flood-disaster-raf-rainmaking-3215800
If such devastation could be engineered 70 years ago, just imagine what can be done with technology now.I also question if oil is a fossil fuel and that we’re in danger of running out of it. Definitely mean question, not deny, my mind is very open to new information, “the science” does not exist and i’m a genuinely scientific thinker, who evaluates new info which i might consider likely, for now. This is a short, good synopsis of abiotic oil theory:
https://healthresearchfunding.org/abiotic-oil-theory-explained/
hrf actually has a really good section providing short explanations of many theories:
https://healthresearchfunding.org/category/theories-and-models/
Personally have been vegan since the early ’80s and lead a more natural life than the vast majority, through choice. Still walk at least 5 miles most days now, actually need to get out into the surrounding countryside and escape what passes for life now, for a little while. It wasn’t idyllic but i grew up when people still used to truly interact with each other, instead of being glued to a smartphone screen, walked or used the comparitively excellent public transport, rather than jump in a car etc. Personally think the biggest danger to ourselves is losing our collective humanity.
Demeter, I have big problems with all of those ‘alternative’ ideas for the following reasons.
The Arctic sea ice melting away indicates a major climate problem. The ice loss is indisputable observationally; no fancy computer simulations necessary. Where is that heat flow going to go when the sea ice has all gone? The quantity of heat that will melt a kilo of ice, will raise the temperature of a kilo of liquid water by almost 80 degrees centigrade.
If widespread chemtrailing were real it would be detectable from the ground by using spectroscopy upon the trails – the same method used to assess the constituents of stars, and interstellar clouds.
If oil were being replaced abiotically rather than depleting, Huppert’s curve would be wrong, but Huppert’s work correctly predicted the peak and subsequent decline of “US lower 48 states” oil production (mid 1970s) and North Sea production.
I entirely agree that our collective humanity is falling apart. I’d say that distrust of the scientific community is an aspect of that.
I avoid resorting to “scientific authority” as much as I can. I try to keep my arguments scientific, by referring to evidence rather than the competence and qualifications of specific experts, because science is about evidence, not authority.
However, I will use the “scientific authority” argument backwards, eg. the rapid Arctic melting confirms the integrity of the (much maligned) climate science community. This matters because in complex matters, like modelling what specific changes global heating will cause, simple reasoning from undeniable facts is not possible, so we need be able to assess to what extent the scientific community is trustworthy.
Addenda – rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is only part of the problem. I know there are marginal counter arguments, but the CO2 dissolves into the oceans and lowers ocean alkalinity (“ocean acidification”), with devastating effects upon the base of the oceanic food chain.
Apologies for my “repeated afterthoughts” style of commenting!
Nothing to apologise for Clark, i too often post streams of thought comments. I’m sure there’s real climate change, which is probably fairly frequent throughout the existence of our planet but i don’t currently believe it’s an existential crisis for Earth’s inhabitants. As has been proven regularly computer models are only as good as the data they’re constructed from, sadly, too often they’re used for nefarious purposes to convince us we should rely on a technocratic, selfstyled elite. Posting a link to what i think is a great article giving some idea of how long the psychopaths have been planning their system of hell on earth:
https://www.newdawnmagazine.com/articles/who-really-controls-the-world
Old enough to remember when we were being terrified about a new ice age, deadly anthropogenic climate change was introduced soon after the Club of Rome trotted out. S’pose i’m pretty much a love the planet/mother nature, hippie type. There’s nothing inherently wrong with technology, luxuries etc, so long as we don’t abuse our planetary home, fellow humans or other planetmates. Or let our pursuit of such things weaken our empathy/humanity.
Definitely don’t want to upset u Clark as you seem to be much more invested in your current tenets than myself, so will just post one other link to an article which might interest you:
https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/50-years-of-predictions-that-the-climate-apocalypse-is-nigh/
