[ExI] "Up against the warming zealots"

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Thu Jul 26 09:13:56 UTC 2007


On Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 02:40:32AM -0400, John K Clark wrote:

> Eugen that's chump change if you're really serious about reducing 
> CO2 emissions. The extraordinarily silly Kyoto Protocols if

I do not care about CO2 emissions. I care about giving individuals
personal ownership to very cheap sources of energy (which happen
to be zero-emission, but that's a side effect). 

We're rapidly moving towards solid-state lighting (I installed
my first LED spots yesterday, and in about a year or two that technology
will kill fluorescents dead), and there are incremental progress
towards solid-state heat pumps. Add polymer PV (as an inflatable
dome) to it, and you can have something which will fit into the
back of an (EV) truck, or can be airdropped, and house a complete
family, including air-conditioning and a source of clean water.
Add algaculture to it, and here's something which will clean up
sewage and provide animal feed on a very small footprint.

Apart from reducing the ecological footprint to almost zero this
is something which closely approaches the technology required
for sustainable living in space, coincidentally. 

> adopted by the USA would cost between 150 to 350 billion dollars
> every year (that's Billion with a B) and for all that it would mean

The raw numbers are not a problem:

	http://zfacts.com/p/447.html

but I really question your numbers. I think this is bogus.
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=22799&hed=Germany+Eases+off+Solar&sector=Industries&subsector=Energy

At the same time, Germany has already surpassed its goal of generating about 12 
percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2010. Today Germans get 13 
percent of their energy from renewable sources, and the environment 
ministry wants to more than double that percentage by 2020 while still 
increasing overall energy production by 3 percent annually, Mr. Schroeren said."

> the warming you would see in 2100 would be postponed until 2106.
> That's a rounding error! If we spent the same money on clean water

We're talking about long-term plans in domestic energy
markets. Coincidentally, cheap photovoltaics is a good
way to drive water well pumps and water purification
systems.

And of course there are drinking-straw type of filters
which last a year and cost next to nothing. 

> in just 8 years (8 YEARS!) every human on earth would have clean
> potable water, this would stop 2 million deaths and prevent a
> billion illnesses EVERY YEAR. So I'm supposed to get all weepy
> over the prospect of global warming? BULLSHIT!
> 
> If it turns out in a hundred years that global warming is a serious problem
> then we will deal with it then, but you seem to demand that the Wright
> brothers produce a solution to airport congestion before they try to build
> their first airplane.

I think the year is 1947, and I'm just trying to buy an airplane ticket.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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