UK to end hydrocarbon-fuelled cars in 2040

[Just_a_fan]

Option B looks far more appealing to me, because it is actually politically achievable and allows us to continue living in energy abundance like our fathers did from say 1950/60 - 2010. Plus, petrol engines are great and don't have that awkward silence when you're sitting at the lights.

You've hit the nail on the head there. It doesn't require you to change your life. That's the real nub of the issue. Lots of poeple are against the idea of climate change because it will require them to have to change, "to suffer" etc.

The reality is that we'll have to change anyway because we're not going to be able to keep driving big old petrol/diesel engines forever. At least, not in places that are crowded i.e. cities, which is where the majority of the population lives anyway. Now, I don't live in a city but I want the people who do to stay there so they don't come and live in the countryside where I do. So I'll have to put up with some changes in order for that be the case.

I'm not bothered about whether my vehicle is electric or fossil powered, to be honest. I do want to have reasonable range (I need a definite 200 miles for work as some days I'll do nearly that much and I want a bit of "fudge factor" built in). We're getting there with the current / coming generation of cars. They can be made to be sporty to drive too, so that box can be ticked. As for a big V8 sound, well, no they can't do that. But then neither can the majority of ICE engines out there: most people drive 4 cylinder engines, after all. One could easily have a synthetic engine noise if desired, of course. Imagine the sound track of Bullitt when you want it at the press of a button, near silence when you want that too. Perfectly achievable.

[Andres125sx]

Come on everyone, this is supposed to be a technical forum. Complaining that the leaves of the vegetables in Spain are wilting when they didn't back in some dimly remembered past is hardly persuasive evidence for world-ending global warming.

It is almost funny your attempt to discredit my words

My life, my father´s life, and all the farmers life he knows are far from dimly remembered past. It is actually their present, wich has been conditioned by climate changes. An undebatable fact even if you don´t like it.

Storms like the one I linked some posts above this week in Spain are another fact, also first hand experience. Any spanish you can ask will confirm this didn´t happen 20 or 30 years ago and now there are several a year

I said all this since scientists warnings are not taken seriously, in an attempt to show evidences wich support their warnings. But now first hand experience isn´t convicing either...


So if scientists failed to predict accurately the consequences of a hugely complex process, then everything they say is false. And if I´ve lived some consequences myself that´s not a valid point either. What a logical reasoning...

Let's say it's all true.

Option A

• Spend trillions of dollars replacing all the coal plants with windmills within the next ten years, for which we need to...

• ... pioneer a completely new technology base for distribution, to connect these transient sources with our smooth and predictable demand.

• Languish in energy poverty until cheap fusion arrives.

• Forced to drive around in golf carts.

Option B

• Spend hundreds of billions of dollars blotting out the sun with shade sails and/or aerosols, for which we need to...

• ... pioneer a new technology base, but a much simpler one.

• Enjoy energy wealth and abundance forever.

• Drive all the V8 / V12 sports cars we can afford.

Option B looks far more appealing to me, because it is actually politically achievable and allows us to continue living in energy abundance like our fathers did from say 1950/60 - 2010. Plus, petrol engines are great and don't have that awkward silence when you're sitting at the lights.

Anyone care to discuss? If you prefer option A, why?

So if hypotetically we´re ruinning the atmosphere your solution is a sunshade or more aerosols to the atmosphere?

The changes are too complex to think we can solve it so easily. We don´t fully understand it yet so assuming we can solve it with new changes is not reasonable. When you don´t fully understand something the only thing you can do is tryint to not interfere. The consequences of interfering on something you don´t completely understand will always be unpredictable

[Fulcrum]

why do you call climatology a science ? - it never tests its ideas
eg 'they' conveniently ignore the present unusual behaviour of the Sun (re solar particle emission effects)
despite a Danish lab showing by experiment that particles nucleate 20x as much cloud formation as climatists model
and that there are more and longer period solar perturbations than climatists use

clearly you have no experience of science or scientists
the scientists whose opinions form public policy are self-promoters who feed politics what it wants and rewards
like our Chief Scientific Advisors Hermann Bondi and recently (Sir) David King
Bondi got a Thames flood barrier that wasn't needed and then manipulated tidal barrage energy for political convenience
King says diesel makers have blood on their hands (to deny his culpability for his incorrigible promotion of the diesel)

around 50 years ago there was huge expansion of oil eg drilling rigs and marine structures in oil transport
the expert oceanographers decided what the worst wave heights were and engineers designed accordingly
(wave climate is like meteorological climate - there's not enough records to know what the climate really is)
one (Mediterranean) device that I retro-tested was designed around a predicted 50 year wave height of 30 feet
it failed in 2 years when it received 42 foot waves
all the early North Sea platforms were under-designed in this way
so then there was an EU-wide panic programme to hindcast the wave climate using wind climate data
this 'showed' that the 50 year wave is as big as 36 metres
basically the scientists had rubbished the sailors ideas of wave height
but when satellite radar was used it showed (1998) that the sailors were right and the scientists were wrong for 100 years
similarly scientists rubbished archaeologists when they showed what science now admits was natural climate change


back to the UK .......
its (unsustainable ?) carbon cleanup ... afaik it (as others) exempts international travel and transport
we'll just go from 43% net reduction today to 80 (or 100%) reduction of total onshore carbon (greenhouse equivalence) !
and play our excessive part in feeding countries that have increased their populations by 400% in 50 years
on a continent much of which has a rather unstable climate and fragile agricultural scope
it was rinderpest brought in with Italian cattle that caused the human population of NE Africa to plummet

Climatology is to physics as economics is to mathematics it seems.

[strad]

Scientists that make pronouncements without stating any verifiable facts. You know like Michael Mann.
I told Greg and Tommy (and I should have taken my own advice) that it was a waste of time .
Because they believe people like Al Gore or Michael Mann because the have a bigger microphone than the 1000s of opposing climatologists that don't have as big a soap box.

[Just_a_fan]

Just an observation: it seems the biggest nay-sayers are in countries that benefit most from the current fossil fuel way of life, either by usage or by economic benefit e.g. USA and Australia. Countries that don't have a big financial incentive to maintain the fossil-based status quo are more open to change.

Funny that...

[hollus]

Just for fun, in case it needs stating: We do not have the capability to block the sun with shades in space.
This is the current state of the art in actual hardware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightSail ... e_projects. Blocking 1% of solar radiation would require about 100.000 of them.
And this was the state of the art at the concept level in 2006 and AFAIK, still is. For only a few trillion $ (and using future but maybe realistic technology): http://www.pnas.org/content/103/46/17184.full

[AJI]

When you don´t fully understand something the only thing you can do is tryint [try not (is what I assume you meant to say)] to not interfere. The consequences of interfering on something you don´t completely understand will always be unpredictable

This sums up the argument perfectly, but it's does introduce a, 'everything we do is wrong, therefore the best thing we can do is nothing', conundrum...
What would be the consequences of there simply being less of us?

[Greg Locock]

As I said before, go the Spanish national met office and get the data. I don't know about the other straw man argument you are wittering on about, say what you mean if you want a polite response.

[loner]

another study
New technique for turning sunshine and water into hydrogen fuel

With Professor Samuel Mao's team at UC Berkeley in the U.S., Professor Yu's research team developed a new H-doped photocatalyst by removing oxygen from the photocatalyst surface made of titanium dioxide and filling hydrogen into it through the decomposition of MgH2. Energy of long wavelength including visible light could not be used for the existing white Titanium dioxide because it has a wide band gap energy. However, the development of MgH2 reduction could overcome this through oxygen flaw induction and H-doping while enabling the use of solar light with 570nm-wavelength.
MgH2 reduction can synthesize new matters by applying to Titanium oxide used in this research as well as the oxides composed of other atoms such as Zr, Zn, and Fe. This method is applicable to various other fields such as photocatalyst and secondary battery. The photocatalyst synthesized in this research has four times higher photoactivity than the existing white titanium dioxide and is not difficult to manufacture, thus being very advantageous for hydrogen mass production.
With a follow-up research on improving the efficiency and economic feasibility of photocatalyst, we will take the lead in creating an environment stable hydrogen energy production that can replace fossil energy

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases ... 101118.php

[Andres125sx]

Scientists that make pronouncements without stating any verifiable facts. You know like Michael Mann.
I told Greg and Tommy (and I should have taken my own advice) that it was a waste of time .
Because they believe people like Al Gore or Michael Mann because the have a bigger microphone than the 1000s of opposing climatologists that don't have as big a soap box.

And you can´t post a link of a serious climatologist who does oppose to climate change?

For the record, I had to goggle Michael Mann to know who´s he. I knew Al Gore was a politician, but that´s all. I´ve never read anything from any of them, but it´s funny how nay-sayers try to assume anything we say is absurd assuming we´re believing some politician or director instead of scientists and facts, when it´s exactly the other way around, the one believing sensationalisic sources and specially ignoring facts is your Strad

[Andres125sx]

Just an observation: it seems the biggest nay-sayers are in countries that benefit most from the current fossil fuel way of life, either by usage or by economic benefit e.g. USA and Australia. Countries that don't have a big financial incentive to maintain the fossil-based status quo are more open to change.

Funny that...

Good point, didn´t consider it, but looks like you´re spot on. I guess in those countries some people with loads of money is doing very big efforts to discredit climate change. Too much to loose without fighting I guess

[Andres125sx]

As I said before, go the Spanish national met office and get the data. I don't know about the other straw man argument you are wittering on about, say what you mean if you want a polite response.

Straw man argument: A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.


Yeah I know solar radiation was not presented by any opponent, as nay-sayers always focus on CO2 so they (you) can ignore all the other problems wich are as important if not more important, but what I said is a fact, a fallacy is trying to discredit someone else experience without any single reason, just because that experience goes against your belief and does cause you some lack of confort. But it´s still a fact, first hand experience, not a manipulated report by any part

[Greg Locock]

I'm well aware English is not your first language. -1 ing my post because you didn't understand it is a bit embarrassing, I suggest you revert that.

So, I'll write out what you need to do if you want to behave like an engineer as opposed to an illogical millenial twitterati:

Go to the spanish meteorological website.

Download annual rainfall, insolation, and temperature for whatever area your dad's farm is in for the last 30 years

Graph it up. Post it.

[strad]

Way back when this started (first round) I quoted many you just didn't bother to read them.

[strad]

Andres, you're the one who couldn't be bothered reading any of the Climategate material.
You should just drop it is can't be bothered to research both sides.
Very un scientific.
I have read and researched both sides and that's why/how I came to an educated conclusion.
If you would show any sign of being open minded it would be much easier to let believe what you wish.