THIS PAGE HAS BEEN ACTIVATED AS THE NEW STATESMAN BLOG IS NOW CLOSED FOR COMMENTS
At 10am this morning, the New Statesman finally closed the Mark Lynas thread on their website after 1715 comments had been added over a period of five months. I don’t know whether this constitutes any kind of a record, but gratitude is certainly due to the editor of of the New Statesman for hosting the discussion so patiently and also for publishing articles from Dr David Whitehouse and Mark Lynas that have created so much interest.
This page is now live, and anyone who would like to continue the discussion here is welcome to do so. I have copied the most recent contributions at the New Statesman as the first comment for the sake of convenience. If you want to refer back to either of the original threads, then you can find them here:
Dr David Whitehouse’s article can be found here with all 1289 comments.
Mark Lynas’ attempted refutation can be found here with 1715 comments.
Welcome to Harmless Sky, and happy blogging.
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10,000 Responses to “Continuation of the New Statesman Whitehouse/Lynas blogs.”
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Bob: See your #621 and #624 for my notes on the spam problem. Your seem to be the only person who is being afflicted now.
This should amuse Brute.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for link to your Kyoto/oil price article and the Deming article in the Washington Post.
Brown’s Saudi Arabia trip was probably more of a boondoggle than anything else (show the folks back home that you are at least “doing something”). In contrast to the USA, which imports 70% of its oil today, the UK is still a (minor) net exporter, so the high price of oil should be of no great concern to Brown.
Just yesterday Al Gore was clucking about (guess what?) high oil prices (and the “climate crisis”, of course) to an enthusiastic audience in Washington. So there is a definite attempt to make a link between two “disasters”.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1824132,00.html?imw=Y
The first is a perceived disaster, which is currently being felt today by Americans when they fill up their SUVs at $4+/gallon (to which a European can only say, “ho-hum”).
The second is the specter of an impending climate disaster, which Gore tells his audience will destroy the USA “as we know it”, adding in a hushed voice, “the future of human civilization is at stake.”
What Al does not tell his US audience is that if he has his way and carbon taxes or cap and trade schemes get implemented, they will see the “price at the pump” skyrocket ($4/gal will be a pleasant memory).
So there is definitely a link between AGW and the price of oil.
Gore’s proposed solution (he wisely did not mention the carbon tax or cap and trade schemes): Americans should completely abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within 10 years, and replace them with carbon-free renewables like solar, wind and geothermal. (Probably the only Gore speech T. Boone Pickens ever watched, and even enjoyed!)
Professor Deming points out that renewable energy sources are largely a fraud and that solar and wind power will be unable to replace oil and gas, since “they are expensive, intermittent and can’t be used for transportation”. And he points out that corn-based ethanol as a motor fuel consumes more energy than it produces.
Strangely, Gore does not even mention the most logical replacement for fossil fuel generated electrical power: nuclear fission. I wonder why?
Meanwhile the nuclear-unfriendly Germans are planning to invest 1.5 billion Euro to build a new 800 MW coal-fired power plant (in Poland). Guess they missed Gore’s speech.
http://www.rwestoen.pl/index.php?id=921&L=1
Regards,
Max
Hi Tony,
Al Gore made the “bold” proposal that the USA should replace all its fossil fuel fired power plants in the next 10 years.
Let’s do a quick reality check on this proposal.
Installed power generation capacity in USA was 1,100,000 MW end 2007.
Total installed wind power generation was 17,000 MW.
Fossil fuel power plants generated 3,000 billion KWH over the year 2007, out of a total of 4,100 billion KWH.
Nuclear power plants generated around 800 billion KWH.
Natural gas fired plants generated around 22% or 900 billion KWH.
Let’s assume.
50% of all US households will install solar systems for own use (plus feedback into the grid).
Wind power will increase by a factor of 10.
All the rest will be covered by new nuclear power generation.
Excluding any growth in US power consumption (around 3.2% per year), the cost of Al Gore’s proposal to replace fossil fuel plants would be:
Solar
Average consumption per household = 1.3 kwh/hr
Average installed solar capacity per household (nameplate) = 5 kw
Number of households (total) = 115 million
Number of households converted = 57.5 million
Installation cost per household (today’s cost) = $35,000
Assume costs come down by 50% (projected cost) = $17,500
Total investment = $1,006 billion
Total installed power (nameplate) = 287,500 mw
Total power generated (30% on line) = 86,250 mw
Investment cost per mw generated = $11.7 million
Wind
Current total installed wind power = 17,000 mw
Multiply by 10 in 10 years = 170,000 mw
Total power generated (40% on line) = 68,000 mw
Installation cost per nameplate kw (projected) = $2,000
Total investment = 340 billion
Investment cost per mw generated = $5.0 million
Balance = Nuclear
Total fossil fuel generation shut down = 825,000 mw
Less new household solar installed = 86,250 mw
Less new wind power installed = 68,000 mw
Balance = new nuclear power installed = 670,750 mw
Total nameplate capacity (95% on line) = 706,053 mw
Installation cost per nameplate kw = $3,000
Total investment = $2,118 billion
Total investment cost for Al Gore proposal = $3,464 billion = $3.5 trillion
Note that this is one-third of the entire annual US gross domestic product today and would cost every man, woman and child in the USA a per capita average of $11,700.
Just like the T. Boone Pickens proposal, this proposal would “free up” natural gas used today to fire over 20% of US power plants for use as motor fuel. Pickens estimates that this would reduce US oil imports of $700 billion/year by one-third or $230 billion/year.
But if we ignore “saving the planet” and just concentrate on Pickens’ plan of freeing up natural gas for motor fuel to reduce the US oil bill, we have:
Percentage of power generated by natural gas = 22%
Total installed (to be replaced by wind) = 242,000 mw
Total nameplate capacity (40% on line) = 605,000 mw
Installation cost per nameplate kw = $2,000
Total investment = $1,210 billion
Costs only one-third of Gore’s “bold” proposal.
But wait. There’s a smarter way. Replace the natural gas power with nuclear.
Total installed (to be replaced by nuclear) = 242,000 mw
Total nameplate capacity (95% on line) = 254,737 mw
Installation cost per nameplate kw = $3,000
Total investment = $764 billion
This alternate would achieve the same savings in US oil imports ($230 billion/year in trade imbalance) as the Gore proposal at roughly one-fifth the investment cost and about 60% of the cost of the Pickens proposal.
So Gore’s proposal only makes sense if one believes in “saving the planet from disastrous AGW”.
And Pickens’ proposal only makes sense if one assumes that new nuclear plants cannot be built in the USA because of anti-nuclear “greenie” opposition.
The actual economics of converting natural gas power plants to free up the gas as motor fuel would have to include the equivalent motor fuel value of natural gas plus the added investments required.
But in either case I believe we can write off Al Gore’s “bold” proposal as unrealistic.
What do you think?
Regards,
Max
Robin,
You’re right; that was amusing. Al Gore reminds me of one of those guys that dresses up like a space alien and hangs around Roswell New Mexico. Complete fanatic……
Or better yet, he’s one of those guys that attends the Star Trek conventions dressed up with Spock ears…..he’s a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic……..
If anyone doubted that the APS COUNCIL has played political games, just speculate on this:
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/07/19/american-physical-society-and-monckton-at-odds-over-paper/
Someone appears to have been politically inept in the extreme in this case, and I doubt if Monckton will allow them (Or whatever individual/s)to escape without a meaningful slap on the wrist and apology!
But, maybe it was a greenie loony hacker attack?
” Presumably that means that {being very right wing}, as I indicated before, he {Andrew Bolt} inclines towards a military-style totalitarian government favouring racial purity”.
No you shouldn’t presume that. The use of the terms left and right wing, predates 20th century Nazism and Fascism, and originated in the early 19th century after the French revolution, in the National Assembly , to describe the different parties and different view points that were expressed there. A ‘very right wing’ position then would have been for a restoration of the monarchy and for a return to a pre-revolutionary social structure.
The nature of the political right has changed over the years, and the dominant strain of the early 21st century would have to be what is known as neoconservatism which originated in the USA, particularly the Republican Party,but has since has attracted followers overseas; and you’d have to include Andrew Bolt and probably even Tony Blair. You can read up for
yourself just what exactly the term means, but the political philosophy would include laissez -faire free market economics, a globalist, interventionist, minimum levels of government at least internally, open borders ideology, an espousal of the Christian religion, but strong support for Israel, and hostility to Islamic and socialist ideologies or what is erroneously called ‘liberalism’ in the USA. To this list I would add an hostility to environmentalism, particularly on issues such as AGW and the need to adopt policies of mitigation with respect to CO2 emissions.
I would suggest that, with the exception of Tony, the anti-AGW bloggers on this forum would subscribe to the ideas on the above list and that it is quite unusual to have one without the other. Just why, of course ,is the big question. The simple answer would be that the neo-cons are just tools of the energy industry. It’s certainly true that many of them are. Leading global warming sceptic Joe L. Barton, for instance. But the financial relationship doesn’t quite explain the entirety of neo-con scepticism on global warming. For one thing, the energy industry has dramatically softened its opposition to global warming over recent years. The truth is more straightforward and can only be explained by the concept of group mentality.
There are exceptions, of course, but by an large people tend to believe in packages of thought. You wouldn’t expect to find someone who had an overall leftish view of politics on all issues except socialised medicine, for example. Or, someone who agreed with the neocon agenda but felt that the Palestinians were in the right in their conflict with Israel. I suppose it is possible, and you might even manage to find some examples of those who think exactly that, but you’d have to look pretty hard.
In the late nineties the neocons seemed to be flirting with the idea of going along with the idea of the need to mitigate CO2 emissions. I believe that George Bush included a commitment to Kyoto in his 2000 election manifesto. Whether there was a genuine change of mind on his part or whether the inclusion was just part of a cynical attempt to mislead the American voters we’ll never know for sure. What we do know is that they’ve been happy to associate Al Gore with the treaty ever since and their strategy has included making global warming seem to be the pet obsession of Democrats and Hollywood lefties.
It does follow from all this that there is no real point in discussing the science in a rational manner with those of this particular ideological train of thought. It is like discussing Darwinism with religious fundamentalist. Their only interest is in discrediting any science that comes into conflict with their neocon agenda.
I kept my post short above, to reduce “spam risk”
Can’t resist posting this extract opinion from the WattsUp report:
How will the American Physical Society respond to Lord Monckton’s procedural and scientific gauntlets?
As of noon on Saturday July 20, 2008, the offending paragraph in the table of contents had been removed. However, this offending paragraph was still very much evident in Monckton’s paper Climate Sensitivity Revisited. It was also evident in the Forum’s full PDF of its July, 2008 newsletter Physics and Society Vol 37, No 3, p 6.
The APS’s PeerGate scandal may well prove to provide much greater publicity and serious examination of Monckton’s thesis than if the disclaimers had never been posted. It also exposes the superficiality of statements by executives of the American Physical Society and other scientific organizations supporting the IPCC’s global warming. Those statements were typically not submitted to the rank and file for scientific peer review, nor were they typically voted on by the rank and file.
David B Benson,
Hello…..oh! Are you lurking out there somewhere?
And to any other worshippers of Tamino, you are invited to read the following by Steve McIntyre:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2807
From this you may comprehend that:
1) Steve has an incredible strength in DETAIL for analysis of data and sniffing out sources, and, and, and, if you check-out some of his other work, famously eg, his demolition of the hockey-stick……high expertise in statistics, computer codes and whatnot……….. He is so cleverly analytical!
2) From this article alone, Tamino is demonstrated as being opposite in these respects. Expressed mathematically, Txxxxo carries a negative sign in front of these parameters.
Bugger! I uttered that T-word twice…… now for the mouthwash!
Peter,
You can’t be out-there riding your bike in your shorts on a day like this can you? (I believe you live in Greater Melbourne like me, right?….Me NE)
Me, I’ve decided to combat the AGW by turning-up the gas heater, supping an early glass of Cab-Merlot, and listening to the Sydney International Piano Competition.
Can’t wait to hear your latest wisdom on the APS!
Hi Peter,
In your philosophical discussion on political views (632) you wrote: “You can read up for
yourself just what exactly the term means, but the political philosophy would include laissez -faire free market economics, a globalist, interventionist, minimum levels of government at least internally, open borders ideology, an espousal of the Christian religion, but strong support for Israel, and hostility to Islamic and socialist ideologies or what is erroneously called ‘liberalism’ in the USA. To this list I would add an hostility to environmentalism, particularly on issues such as AGW and the need to adopt policies of mitigation with respect to CO2 emissions.
I would suggest that, with the exception of Tony, the anti-AGW bloggers on this forum would subscribe to the ideas on the above list and that it is quite unusual to have one without the other.”
Well, Peter, I would suggest that you have no earthly notion of what ideas you call the “anti-AGW bloggers on this forum would subscribe to”.
To equate “environmentalism” with “the need to adopt policies of mitigation with respect to CO2 emissions” is a monumental stretch, Peter. The two really have nothing to do with one another.
The on-line dictionary tells me that environmentalism means:
1: a theory that views environment rather than heredity as the important factor in the development and especially the cultural and intellectual development of an individual or group
2: advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment; especially : the movement to control pollution
Nothing in there, Peter, about “mitigation with respect to CO2 emissions”.
No one in his right mind would describe CO2 (a natural trace component of our Earth’s atmosphere that is absolutely vital for all life on this planet) as “pollution”. Would you?
As for espousal of “minimum levels of government”, I think you are wrong again. I would word this as “optimum levels of government”.
I think we all agree that there can be too much control by “government”, as there can be too little control. In the former USSR and in former Nazi Germany (as in China today) there may have been (or may be) too much government control; in the old “wild west” days of the USA there was probably not enough. Where we are today in the UK, in the USA or Switzerland for that matter, is a matter of opinion. Since these are democracies, one can assume that the degree of government control will eventually reflect what the populations of these countries really want and that people will get the governments they deserve.
“Open borders”? Why not? But, then again, the citizens of each country should be able to decide just how “open” they want these borders to be. Don’t you agree?
Now to “Christian religion, but strong support for Israel, and hostility to Islamic and socialist ideologies”, I would say:
· Nothing basically wrong with Christian principles (love thy neighbor as thyself, golden rule, and all that good stuff, without the organization and dogma of the church)
· Why not support Israel, a small country surrounded by more or less hostile neighbors? Is Israel a threat to anyone? If so, how?
· Hostility to Islam? Not really, Peter. I think it is more a reaction to the rage or hostility from Islamic fundamentalists that despise and fear the western democratic society.
· Socialist ideology? In its most extreme form, that died with the USSR. It is still alive in North Korea and Cuba and, to a lesser extent, in China today (where it is slowly being modified to a more “free market” approach in the good old traditional Chinese way).
So Peter, I believe your ideas (on what “anti-AGW bloggers on this forum would subscribe to”) are misguided and without any rational basis.
Regards,
Max
Everyone, Re 636 penultimate para, PLEASE:
I think we should CEASE commenting at this depth on “religio-ethnic matters” here!
Sorry Max, but I particularly strongly object to your:
· Why not support Israel, a small country surrounded by more or less hostile neighbors? Is Israel a threat to anyone? If so, how?
· Hostility to Islam? Not really, Peter. I think it is more a reaction to the rage or hostility from Islamic fundamentalists that despise and fear the western democratic.
Since Max and me have worked together very well on the AGW debate, I regret that I cannot agree with his making such gross simplifications in these two points. Neither do I feel it appropriate to explain why I think so here, because that could trigger WW3!
Maybe there is another forum that could work, but how? Where?
TonyN, perhaps you could open something, but it could get nasty!
My background is that I have been deeply hurt by religious fundamentalism in the past, and feel that the worst kinds of it are the so-called Christian/Christadelphian extremes. That may seem illogical to mainstream thought in nominally Christian democracy, but I’ve done a great deal of study on it, and firmly believe that to be true
Time for everyone to have a look at blog rules I think.
On another topic, I’ve just installed a new comment preview plugin. Is anyone noticing a problem with this?
Religeon:
Tony,
“Religion” is spelled incorrectly on the blog rules page, (unless this is the way that it is spelled in the UK). It is spelled correctly further down in the paragraph, so I assume it is an error.
I apologize, my obsessive compulsiveness is evident here. Grammar is one of my pet peeves even though I’m not particularly adept.
I found this quit interesting.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/07/17/nasa-climate-alarmist-attacks-newsbusters-sheppard
It seems that Real Climate is not the selfless, philanthropic organization that it would have us believe. Again, Soros appears to be the man behind the curtain.
Is there any organization that is untainted? (From either point of view?). Every one of these organizations seems to have an ax to grind.
Tony,
Do you see any organization out there that is truly balanced that you could refer me to?
Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro Nuclear Reactor
Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.
The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.
Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.
Brute,
How dare you Yanks preach on the English language!
For instance why do you corrupt ‘arse’ into ‘ass”, that’s just plain silly and rather ambiguous!
You corrupt sceptic into skeptic
Colour into color.
It’s endlessly daft!
And (your) fanny, well, I cannot say the connotations here!
And I’ve nearly choked on my drink in an American bar (several times) when someone has introduced themself thus: Hi, I’m Randy…… warmly shaking hands.
Your third word of ‘spelled‘, is presumably a corruption of past tenses of spell….. Well really! how awful!
Per Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation.
spelt [spelt]
Past participle, past tense of spell3
Past participle of spell2
Past tense of spell1
No, I cherry-pick/jest, further research elsewhere shows that ‘spelled’ is allegedly a permissible spelling, (YUK), but I would insist that the final consonant is sounded as a hard T. So there!
BTW Brute,
I’m just amazed at how many guys in American/Canadian bars, give a big smile and declare that they are randy at first sight.
SF bay area, Detroit area, and Windsor-London Ontario.
Bob,
Blew coffee through my nose at your last post…..posting? ……posted?…….previous poster?…….Aw, the hell with it……..your last comment.
I apologise …….apologize?
When in doubt, I attempt to strictly adhere to the Queen’s English, (After all, my language originated from that lovely island nation, and I attempt not to corrupt, despite the Revolution and all that). I am also a product of the American publik…….public? school system which leaves me at a serious disadvantage, (Socialism you know).
I saw that it was spelled, (written), differently within the same paragraph and assumed that it was an oversight………….oversite?
The last time I watched a Crockodile Dundee movie, I noticed that the Aussies don’t follow the rules of proper English grammar to the letter either…….so there!
Bob,
It took me a little while to appreciate the “randy” joke…….funny.
Another miscue……misque? at the blog……(blogger?) rules page……….my wife pointed to this one……
Ab Hominem attacks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
This one cannot be a geographical perversion of language…..right?………. correct? (Latin you know)………………….
Oh whele…….well? A lazy Sunday morning…….I thought a little levity would be appropriate today.
Another one that really bothers me is “irregardless” which really means regardless-regardless……I cringe………….. distinctly American.
Or when people say “I COULD care less”, when they really mean to convey that “they COULDN’T care less”.
Brute:
The proprietor of Harmless Sky has now re-done his homework on a Sunday afternoon. Religion and ad hominem were duly corrected. Many thanks to you and to Mrs Brute.
Interesting question – I certainly can’t think of one off the top of my head. It might be worth looking at CoRev’s excellent Global Warming Clearinghouse, as he covers some sites that he considers to be neutral. Link in left hand side-bar of this page.
Everyone:
Re my #638, I find that the comment text input box on this thread has become infuriatingly slow since I installed the new preview plug-in. Is it just me?
Tony,
I’m just busting your b***s. Please, take no offense, (Mrs. Brute is really the stickler for accuracy).
Yes, the little comment box is slow…..there seems to be a delay between typing and the text appearing in the window. Maybe it’s due to Global Warming or the Ionosphere or something.
I normally type my comments into Word then cut and past anyway, (because my spelling and grammar is so atrocious).
Damn!…Paste……
Hi Bob,
Agree with “I think we should CEASE commenting at this depth on ‘religio-ethnic matters’; this is not the forum for broad ideological discussions.”
But our different viewpoints on the Judeo-Christian-Islamic issue raised by Peter (632) show that he was wrong in his generalization of “anti-AGW bloggers” when he wrote:
“I would suggest that, with the exception of Tony, the anti-AGW bloggers on this forum would subscribe to the ideas on the above list and that it is quite unusual to have one without the other.”
You and I are both rationally skeptical (in the scientific sense) of all the AGW hysteria and hype that is out there (as I have witnessed from your earlier posts), yet we do not fit into Peter’s neat “box” for those rational AGW skeptics he chooses to label “anti-AGW bloggers”.
Guess I’ve been fortunate in not having had any direct contact or hurt from Christian religious fundamentalism in the past, no real contact with Israel, a few friends of the Jewish faith and two good friends that are moderate Moslems, so no hang-ups there, either.
But you’re right. This is not the forum for “religio-ethnic matters”.
Regards,
Max