Why Renewables Can’t Save the Planet

I didn't make a claim that I thought needed to be proven.

What would you like me to show you exactly?

The fossilized records of an abundance of plant life in warmer temperatures...that one is easy and was common knowledge I thought.

The earth was far hotter during the Jurassic period than even the worse case predictions they are making for now and there was far more animal and plant life then than there is now.

This is just a fact.

Once temperatures dropped, for whatever reason, the majority of them died out.

It's not a warming planet that is dangerous, it's a cooling one.

 

Ocean life would beg to differ. See, it isn't just temperature that is changing. Have your investigations turned up anything about the effects of ocean acidifcation?

Furthermore, greater warmth is not automatically a better climate. Deserts are quite warm, and we all know just how hospitable they are to life.

How about we just avoid causing undue changes to Earth's climate? Is that too much to ask?

 

Ocean life is doing just fine.

Some species suffer while others propagate. Not sure if you've seen the Jelly fish population exploding around the world. And no scientists I've heard has stated that the earth will heat up so much that Iowa turns in the Sahara.

Now you are just making up crap as you go along.

The worst case scenario is that the nice wonderful average summer temperature in Iowa of 70 degrees goes up to 76 degrees.

That is your massive global warming.

I suppose in that disastrous worse case scenario that the folks in Iowa may need to put an extra ice cube in their glass of lemonade.

 

Humans are a part of the natural world just like any other species or the weather or any other thing that naturally happens on the planet. If we heat it up or cool it down it's part of nature. The Earth can blow up Longvalley and Yellowstone or we could set off our nukes, it's all part of the natural workings of the Earth.

The Earth will adapt and so will all the creatures on it.

Some will go extinct (hopefully not us) and others will be created, its a never ending process.

You somehow think that humans are not part of nature when we are.

Did you know that the single biggest Co2 producer, more than everything else combined, are humans exhaling Co2?

You have 7 billion of them doing it constantly....do you have any idea how much that is contributing to the warming of the planet?

So there is no such thing as undue changes.

 

Renewables alone won't save the world. They would, however, heavily contribute to energy independence and weaning us off of the OPEC teat, and help eliminate the need to expend blood and treasure in Asia Minor. Not poisoning ourselves with mercury-laden coal smoke would be an added bonus. Every barrel of oil not needed for electricity generation and heating is a barrel of oil not providing income to a Wahhabist that wants to exterminate the Great Satan.

What's the downside? Who wants to feed and defend those that wish to annihilate us?

 

You are so dismissive of the disruption we are causing. You just wave your hand and say it's all fine. You have no way of predicting what the impacts of all this added CO2 and warming will be, but climate scientists do have at least some idea, because unlike you they study the matter. We are already disrupting ocean ecosystems as well as terrestrial ecosystems. We are killing coral reefs and driving ocean animals into new areas as they migrate to cooler waters. We are acidifying the oceans, which places a growing number of species at risk of extinction and risks a collapse of the ecosystem. Historically, Earth has seen multiple extinction events related to changes in the climate. It does not matter whether humans, asteroids, volcanoes, solar input or a gamma ray burst is to blame, the end result is never good for life - especially large, needy things like us.

Stop ignorantly asserting things such as "the worst case scenario is that the nice wonderful average summer temperature in Iowa of 70 degrees goes up to 76 degrees." You have no basis to believe or say this, and you are gambling with the future of our entire species.

 

That probably has more to do with lack of precipitation than the heat.

 

It's funny how you think we are doing all that, as if the Earth suddenly stopped changing the climate when it's been doing it for 6 billion years.

Now it's taking a break I guess so it's all us right?

And yes, extinctions happen at the rate of at least one a day regardless of what we do.

The earth adapts.

Here is a fact for you...no matter what we do the climate will change and the ice will melt. We are in an ice-age now and coming out of it and from scientific records of the last six of them, the earth will heat up and all of the ice will melt.

That is the Earth's normal state, having permanent ice is an anomaly.

It has to do with the earths tilt and position and we can predict this with 100% accuracy. No amount of anything humans can do will change what is going to happen.

From fossil records we can see that these periods between ice ages is when the earth recovers it's plant life and it's species, life blooms to full, the Earth becomes a wonderful place for a few thousand years until the ice comes back and starts eradicating all the species again.

This is when the species change and only the toughest survive.

So it doesn't matter what we do because the Earth will do it anyways.

Now you could certainly argue the pollution thing and that is indeed something we could and should work on and that would have an immediate impact on all of us. But worrying about the earth heating up....pointless.

 

Excellent Post!

It's Kyoto all over again!

Sandy O's Green New Deal collapses right out of the gate.

 

Just as with coal-fired power plants, and the combustion engine, including the need for processes that pollute Earth, if and when we have significant reserves of oil or coal, etc., we should improve/create the technology to 99% scrub the harmful emissions. If it's unlikely world-wide that we'll see a serious reduction in fossil fuel consumption, then at least scrub the emissions. And sure this comes at a cost of both efficiency and dollars but it allows us more time to consume fossil fuels while in parallel developing renewables and working on that paradigm shift away from fossil fuels...

 

And we need to do it outside free market capitalist systems, where the goal of efficiency is not conservation but to increase production in exchange for more profits.

 

Do more research on the matter. Recent science reports show that oceans and various plant and animal species are now being affected.

Also, you're talking about weather. Global warming refers to a slight increase in surface temperature worldwide (in short,you won't feel it) which leads to multiple feedback loops kicking in.

 

Plant and animal life in the oceans are always being affected by something.

No matte what you do it will not stay the way it is right now.

 

Makes sense. I am even looking at 2nd hand Prius's because the cost of replacing the battery pack has dropped below $3k. Prius owners are not known for "hammering" their vehicles so they just make sense especially for students. Since it is a hybrid there isn't a range problem and Toyota does make decent vehicles.

 

Handling flammable liquids requires a massive infrastructure. Putting outlets next to each parking space along a road or in a parking garage is not an issue since all it requires is wiring and a small meter capable of taking a credit card. Once installed there are no ongoing labor overheads since any electrical contractor could replace a faulty one if and when needed.

Yes, it would be a viable for profit business but also one with far lower initial investment and minimal running costs. Odds are cities would opt to install these charging meters on their own roads in order to benefit from the revenues that they would generate.

 

So, you're agreeing with me?

 

This........

 

Agreed but triggering a mass extinction is NOT a good idea

 

Isn’t it good then that we do not outsource the manufacture to China which has shitty environmental protections

 

Hmmm

Better would be to encourage developing nations to “go green” whilst slowly changing over as our infrastructure ages

 

One time release of chemicals offset by 25+ years of ZERO CO2 emissions.

Too bad your source never did the math to determine which is actually worse for the environment but the odds are the amount of chemicals that are accidentally released is still only a fraction of what is produced by coal fired power stations.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.php?page=coal_environment

 

You mean 'within' capitalism? All government needs to do is set the allowable emissions and the private sector will figure out how to achieve it...

 

You like math so let's do some math; today we have perhaps 250 million combustion cars (not counting trucks) so assume 1/2 will become EV's in the future which is 125 million. Let's say 1/2 of these can charge at home. So we'll need essentially 63 million charging stations per day. According to the internet(s) the cost is about $1000 per station and this does not include the electrical infrastructure (more electrical service, more breakers, more underground conduit and wiring, etc.) So 63,000,000 (*) $1000 = $63,000,000,000 or $63 BILLION plus infrastructure costs. This also assumes that an EV will always find a vacant charging station, which they won't when 20 EV's show up and there are only 5 charging stations...so it's reasonable to increase the $63 BILLION by perhaps 20% or more which brings us to $75.6 BILLION + infrastructure costs. Like I said...this is a much more complex issue than most people think...

 

But we need to be realists! We have an abundance of coal and oil, both of which are profitable and create commerce and jobs and taxes, etc. IMO it would be political and economic suicide to ignore this reality. But if we can scrub 99% of the harmful emissions...why not do this? In parallel we must focus on the expansion and efficiency increases of renewables. If we cannot scrub 99% of the harmful emissions then stop using fossil fuels ASAP...which again in reality will be many many decades...

 

How do you know what they are doing with those emissions?