what will replace coal?

[schlimm]

Murray

Its definitely being manipulated by governments and other organization with politically driven agendas.

Once again you reveal your politically driven agenda.  The notion that hundreds of scientists in many nations in the field of climate research are in a conspiracy with various governments is so ridiculous as to make most outsiders reading this laugh.   Most scientists are pretty much non-political for one thing.  They are dedicated to their field of research and usually detest politics.   If you had ever spent any time with them in academia you would know that.

Here is an example of one researcher, a physicist, who had received funding from the Koch brothers, and who had seriously doubted the validity of AGCC.   He undertook a more extensive review involving a dozen other scientists and concluded:  "that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[BARFlyer]

1. For Co2 reduction folks,the CARBON tax was tried for many years in Australia. It was tracked very closely. IT made no difference in levels measured. Last year the people there Elected a new Prime Minister,Tony Abbot, Booting out the Socialist Julia Gillard, who had her thumbs on the "carbon tax". Carbon tax can and does hurt everyone, while giving money to governments ( or the UN) who are about 30% efficient.

2. The Heat on earth from the Sun tends to be Latent. Its possible the Earth can have effects from solar flares for a year after one occurs, if its large and close enough.

3. The Earths ecosystem is a thermodynamic system and  it exists in a particular global state.. A Thermodynamic cycle happens  when a  Thermodynamic system is put through changes involving its State, and finally returned to its initial state. In the process of going through this cycle, the system may perform work on its surroundings, thereby acting as a source of heat, or heat pump. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics all processes will tend towards the creation of entropy. In other words NO process can take place and return its system AND the surroundings back to the ORIGINAL state. There will always be something lost to the surroundings, some "disorder" that will be created.( Entropy)

4. This means that Climate change is NATURAL in cycles, but can be affected by things  that are actually IN our thermo system, the Sun and Solar flares, all animals in the system, and all matter in the system.

5. Back to Heat and Replacing coal. A tier 4 locomotive engine gives off a much higher temp to burn diesel than stack temps on coal steam engines. How much is heat worth in this throwing Coal against global warming??

6. There is ROCK, Peridotite that absorbs excess Co2 on earth... Imagine that??

7 Lastly, there are massive amounts of Methane released 24/7 just off the coast of California, bubbling up from the shallow ocean floor. Its natural...IT IS considered a greenhouse gas..... Can we control nature? Tax the Pacific ocean??

 Building better quality items so we don't live in a throw away society may be the best thing we can do. Taxing Carbon only hurts economies and feeds the govt more money.

 - People believe what they WANT to believe, Galactic change is everywhere

[erikem]

DwightBranch

Again, the theory of AGW is not a theory of all weather at all times, it is an explanation of a specific phenomenon, the warming of the atmosphere due to increased CO2, now. An all-encompassing theory is what religions do, generally not science.

There's a lot more to "AGW" than CO2, such as particulates, other GHG's, etc.

The effect of varying concentrations of CO2 on the radiative heat balance is pretty straightforward if all the other atmospheric constituents with high far IR absorption cross sections are well known and remain constant. Clouds are a bit of a joker in this discussion as no-one has come up with a good model for when and where clouds form. Clouds are strong blockers of IR, though low clouds will lead to net cooling due to increasing albedo plus radiating more IR due to low clouds being warmer than high clouds. High clouds are typically net contributors to warming due to minimal increase in albedo versus increased attenuation of IR and lower thermal emissions due to lower temperature (radiated energy goes up with the fourth power of absolute temperature). One very common type of a high cloud is a CONTRAIL.

At the moment, the majority of the climate models are doing a poor job of predicting global surface temperatures. This implies that the models are missing a lot of the physics going on with climate.

[Norm48327]

schlimm

Murray

Its definitely being manipulated by governments and other organization with politically driven agendas.

Once again you reveal your politically driven agenda.  The notion that hundreds of scientists in many nations in the field of climate research are in a conspiracy with various governments is so ridiculous as to make most outsiders reading this laugh.   Most scientists are pretty much non-political for one thing.  They are dedicated to their field of research and usually detest politics.   If you had ever spent any time with them in academia you would know that.

Here is an example of one researcher, a physicist, who had received funding from the Koch brothers, and who had seriously doubted the validity of AGCC.  

I suggest that your agenda is politically driven since you insist on making reference to those with whom you disagree.

He undertook a more extensive review involving a dozen other scientists and concluded:  "that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause. My total turnaround, in such a short time, is the result of careful and objective analysis by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which I founded with my daughter Elizabeth. Our results show that the average temperature of the earth’s land has risen by two and a half degrees Fahrenheit over the past 250 years, including an increase of one and a half degrees over the most recent 50 years. Moreover, it appears likely that essentially all of this increase results from the human emission of greenhouse gases."

So, you are in effect saying there is no way that could have been caused by natural phenomena? Remember that in that time frame things were not yet as mechanized as they are today. What part did CO2 play over those years?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[Norm48327]

DwightBranch

MP173

Scientific theory is all well and good, but is it possible the data can be either manipulated or certain data withheld?

Look closely DwightBranch and there are very serious allegations of that occuring with Mann and others.

The entire basis of the 97% could be called into question.

I really appreciate this thread and the moderators allowing it to run.  It has forced me to do a little research.

Ed

Conspiracy theories never hold water. I have worked in academics with other college faculty and I can tell you that most of us hate each other after being around each other for very long., and that is true of those in the physical sciences as well.  There is no way any of us would let any other get credit for a theory if it could be disproved. The testing and scrutiny each new theory goes through before being accepted is absolutely intense. Add to that scientists all over the world also scrutinizing it, in different countries, that we have never met,  rivalries between universities ("we're better at Physics than MIT!"), etc, and for 97% of them to come to the same conclusion is overwhelming to the point of being unshakable.  

Very adept and totally evasive answer.

[Steve Sweeney]

Gentlemen:

This thread devolved quickly during the last weekend. The Moderators have received no fewer than 14 complaints about this thread in three days. It is now locked.

As a reminder, these free forums are for unencumbered discussions about railroads and railroading.

Best,
Steve S.