dense wrote: » How about right here, for starters?https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/953188/eu-news-paris-climate-change-agreement-ireland-finedhttps://www.rte.ie/news/business/2018/0601/967646-sse-airtricity-price-increase/
Akrasia wrote: » Ireland's a developing country now? Get out of it
dense wrote: » Bingo; now try to use some of that logic to think about just how developed we'd be now, without fossil fuels, eh? After that, you can let us know if you think that the scientific community has already actually come up with the goods in terms of energy breakthroughs that would power the planet in absentia of fossil fuels if it wasn't for the big oil barons sabotaging them at every turn leaving us with just windmills and solar panels to keep the show on the road. Bear in mind that just 8% of global electricity production comes from renewable sources. Those fines though, being fined for something that the environmentalists can't even be bothered quantifying or taking a personal responsibility for, well, it's all a big scam, isn't it??
Wanderer78 wrote: » plutocratic forces will always shape our approaches to life, even control them, its up to us to democratise our world, it would be naive to think these same plutocratic forces are not already heavily involved in the development of alternative approaches, including renewables. my own suspicions are, fossil fuels are currently cheaper and easier to produce, and ultimately easier to produce quicker profits compared to alternatives, which is causing a serious lack of development in these alternatives, but to be fair, id imagine there are also complex technical issues still to overcome also.
Wanderer78 wrote: » we have no way of knowing where we d be without fossil fuels, but we probably would have developed technologies via alternative methods, including nuclear
dense wrote: » Bingo; now try to use some of that logic to think about just how developed we'd be now, without fossil fuels, eh?
After that, you can let us know if you think that the scientific community has already actually come up with the goods in terms of energy breakthroughs that would power the planet in absentia of fossil fuels if it wasn't for the big oil barons sabotaging them at every turn leaving us with just windmills and solar panels to keep the show on the road.
Bear in mind that just 8% of global electricity production comes from renewable sources.
Those fines though, being fined for something that the environmentalists can't even be bothered quantifying or taking a personal responsibility for, well, it's all a big scam, isn't it??
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » All a purely theoretical exercise that has not been proven. Call me a fool all you want, I'll see you back here in 2022.
Taking a sample is one thing, "extracting minerals from an asteroid... to ultimately help solve the problem of scarce natural resources through allowing us access to minerals beyond our own planet" (i.e. harvesting useful quantities of minerals from an asteroid) is another. Again, which minerals are you talking about? And for what?
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » Some reading for you re. those flood "defenses". This city floods at the drop of a hat. Three 500-year floods in the past decade (excluding Harvey). The same old story with planning; 38,000 acres of wetlands replaced by developments, 53% increase in water-resistant surfaces in one county, etc. As with most of the Gulf coast, Houston is a ticking timebomb. I've family living there for 40 years, and while the Harvey rain was the worst they experienced, flooding is an accepted way of life at this stage.https://amp.businessinsider.com/hurricane-harvey-why-houston-flooded-2017-8#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » Just hang on there, soldier. I seem to remember you arguing about how record-breaking Patricia was, and when I made the point that we don't know that it hasn't happened before you were all too keen to rely on early data then. The video you posted last week shows how the tropical activity has been adjusted to account for poor observational coverage in earlier times. All data of course come with error bars, but you seem to only choose the ones that suit you (i.e. the upper bars of the RCP8.5, for example). Are you saying that the 1880 spike in ACE did not occur? Was it flat then? You'd love to remove that peak from the record, wouldn't you?
Akrasia wrote: » Except that your number excludes hydroelectricity. The actual number is closer to 23%
Akrasia wrote: » The fines are for not meeting the commitments that we have signed up to. The whole point of the fines is that it gives an incentive to invest in clean energy because it's a hell of a lot better to spend that money on infrastructure than to pay it in a fine.
dense wrote: » Only 77% to go then. But I don't see much scope or enthusiasm now for new hydro electric projects given the enthusiasm the greens have for their 8% global electricity production from their solar and wind toys. Just like your own carbon footprint, Ireland's total carbon footprint is irrelevant. Therefore consciously signing up to treaties which will punish us for failing to meet targets is stupidity of the highest order. You understand this because it is how you justify ignoring your own carbon footprint. I'm just scaling it up using your logic.
Akrasia wrote: » Woah, you just blew my mind. But, the UK economy was built on coal fired steam turbines... we don't have many of those, how did our economy ever get off the ground?
Akrasia wrote: » I call anyone a fool who is so absolutely certain that they know something that is still uncertain. There are some rare earth metals like Indium that are extremely scarce and hard to extract that are essential for electronic components but we only need trace amounts per device. A mining operation that found a source of Indium or other rare metals like platinum, gold, iridium, paladium etc could return them to earth without having to worry about large volumes of ore. These will probably be the first kinds of mining operations to become viable. Then there are the industrial sized mining operations that could help us to explore the solar system Take one asteroid, 16 Psyche, it's made almost entirely out of metal, Iron and Nickle and it would be enough to satisfy global demand for Iron for centuries, or it could be a raw material to build colonies on Mars or Europa or wherever the future takes us.
Akrasia wrote: » The past 4 '500 year' flooding events all occuring within a 10 year period have been far worse than the usual flooding that they have grown used to. If these 500 year floods become regular flood events, then they will either have to spend a fortune building even better flood defenses, or these ares will become uninhabitable
Akrasia wrote: » [HTML][/HTML] You're doing the same thing yourself Gaoth, You're saying that the records are unreliable in the past therefore there must have been stronger hurricanes that we don't know about.
Akrasia wrote: » Ireland is a part of the EU, 28 member states, we are also part of the UN, 193 member states. Ireland as a nation has a much much bigger influence and responsibility than an ordinary citizen in a state of 4.7 million people.
dense wrote: » Yes, Ireland is a huge global influencer to be sure....
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » No I'm not. It is very possible - given historic records such as ACE - that in the past, equally strong storms could have formed and gone either undetected or not as accurately measured as Patricia. Had Patricia formed 80 years ago, long before hi-resolution tools like ASCAT, microwave soundings, hurricane-hunter flights and their GPS dropsondes, etc. I'd be fairly sure it would not have been classified as that strong. It was only technology that allowed "us" to accurately measure its winds as being stronger than older processes would have done.
“I’m concerned when hurricanes are used as the poster child for global warming,” said Dr. Chris Landsea, who is the science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “It’s very difficult to say how hurricanes are now versus 100 years ago. We’re still challenged today in knowing how strong a hurricane is, even in 2018,” said Landsea.
dense wrote: » Yes, Ireland is a huge global influencer to be sure.... So is Tuvalu, come to think of it. So what services do you want to see being underfunded in the future in order to come up with this annual half billion euros in fines that the environmentalists in People Before Profit and the like think we should be paying? Housing, health? And hey, isn't it funny that after what, 70 pages, not one person has been able to quantify the contribution they imagine Ireland has made to catastrophic climate warming or whatever. Imaginary problems, due to cost us, sorry, the tax payer, half a billion a year in fines. That's more good work from Paul Murphy and the environmentalists.
dense wrote: » https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/Is-There-a-Link-to-Superstorms-and-Global-Warming-484364611.html
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » Dense, please, single line between paragraphs!
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » Akrasia him/herself posted a video the other day in which the speaker stated the same. Maybe he/she missed that bit.
I personally cannot in good faith continue to contribute to a process that I view as both being motivated by pre-conceived agendas and being scientifically unsound.
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » These floods have been greatly exacerbated by the planning problems I outlined above. Without such ****-ups they would not have been classified so. Meanwhile your solution is to just build better defences? At least acknowledge that the city is in a much worse state now due to these developments.
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » Coal is a fossil fuel.
Akrasia wrote: » My solution isn't to build better flood defenses, I'm saying that Houston could find that a lot of these places will be uninhabitable if these 1 in 500 year rainfall events keep happening 4 times a decade. You consistently refuse to acknowledge the role extreme rainfall is playing in extreme flooding.
THE GREAT STORM - SEPTEMBER 8, 1900 (also known as the 1900 Galveston Hurricane) ◾DEATH TOLL ESTIMATED BETWEEN 6,000 AND 8,000 ◾GREATEST NATURAL DISASTER IN U.S. HISTORY IN TERMS OF LIVES LOST ◾SUSTAINED WINDS WERE IN EXCESS OF 130 MPH ◾STORM TIDES REACHED 20 FEET ◾STORM DAMAGE WAS ESTIMATED IN EXCESS OF $30 MILLION DOLLARS# # - Monetary values assigned to storms are from the year of the event. Values have not been adjusted for inflation.
DECEMBER 8 1935 HARRIS COUNTY FLOOD ◾HEAVY RAIN PRODUCED WIDESPREAD FLOODING ACROSS HARRIS COUNTY ◾BUFFALO BAYOU ROSE TO AN UNPRECEDENTED 52 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL (NORMAL WAS 6 FEET) AT THE CAPITOL STREET BRIDGE ◾FLOOD WATERS ROSE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD FLOORS AT MANY DOWNTOWN BUILDINGS ◾HOUSTON'S CENTRAL WATER PLANT WAS UNDER WATER AND INOPERABLE FOR WEEKS ◾DAMAGE ESTIMATED AT $12.6 MILLION DOLLARS# ◾THE IMPACT OF THIS FLOOD WAS SO SEVERE...THAT THE HARRIS COUNTY FLOOD CONTROL DISTRICT WAS CREATED TO ALLEVIATE THE FLOODING PROBLEMS WHICH PLAGUED THE CITY # - Monetary values assigned to storms are from the year of the event. Values have not been adjusted for inflation.
HURRICANE CARLA - SEPTEMBER 11, 1961 ◾A STRONG CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE WHICH MADE LANDFALL NEAR PORT O'CONNOR ◾SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR 125 MPH WITH GUSTS ESTIMATED NEAR 175 MPH ◾CARLA PRODUCED A 22 FOOT STORM SURGE IN MATAGORDA BAY ◾OVER 40 PERSONS KILLED ◾CARLA SPAWNED A STRONG F3 TORNADO WHICH DESTROYED PARTS OF DOWNTOWN GALVESTON AND KILLED OVER A DOZEN PERSONS
TROPICAL STORM CLAUDETTE - JULY 24-26, 1979 ◾24 HOUR DELUGE JUST SOUTH OF HOUSTON PRODUCING A 24 HOUR UNITED STATES RAINFALL RECORD OF 43.0 INCHES 2 MILES EAST NORTHEAST OF ALVIN. THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ALVIN REPORTED 28.7 INCHES OF RAIN IN 20 HOURS ◾CLEAR CREEK EXPANDED TO A WIDTH GREATER THAN A MILE...RISING 9 FEET ABOVE NORMAL ◾15,000 HOMES AND 17,000 AUTOMOBILES DAMAGED BY FLOOD WATERS ◾TOTAL DAMAGE ESTIMATED NEAR $750 MILLION DOLLARS# # - Monetary values assigned to storms are from the year of the event. Values have not been adjusted for inflation.
TROPICAL STORM ALLISON - JUNE 5 2001 THROUGH JUNE JUNE 9 2001 ALLISON WAS A WEAK TROPICAL STORM THAT MADE LANDFALL NEAR GALVESTON ON TUESDAY EVENING JUNE 5TH. THE STORM DUMPED 8 TO 10 INCHES OF RAIN ACROSS PARTS OF BRAZORIA...GALVESTON AND HARRIS COUNTIES AT LANDFALL. THE STORM LINGERED ACROSS THE REGION FOR 5 DAYS SLOWLY DRIFTING BACK TO THE COAST. PARAMETERS CAME TOGETHER FOR TORRENTIAL RAIN TO DEVELOP FRIDAY NIGHT INTO SATURDAY MORNING (JUNE8-9). RAIN WAS FALLING AT THE RATE OF 4 INCHES PER HOUR. SEVERAL AREAS IN EASTERN HARRIS COUNTY RECEIVED 25 INCHES OF RAIN ON FRIDAY NIGHT AND PARTS OF THE HOUSTON AREA RECEIVED OVER 35 INCHES OF RAIN IN 5 DAYS. DAMAGES WERE ESTIMATED NEAR 5 BILLION DOLLARS AND 23 PERSON LOST THEIR LIVES DURING THIS FLOOD EVENT.
HEAVY RAIN EVENT - JUNE 19 2006 A SLOW MOVING UPPER LEVEL LOW OVER EXTREME EAST TEXAS DRIFTED SLOWLY WEST DURING THE EARLY MORNING HOURS OF JUNE 19TH. INTENSE RAINFALL DEVELOPED WITH PARTS OF LIBERTY...CHAMBERS AND EASTERN HARRIS COUNTY RECEIVING 8 TO 12 INCHES OF RAIN. HOBBY AIRPORT RECEIVED 5.75 INCHES OF RAIN IN 75 MINUTES AND 9.29 INCHES OF RAIN BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND NOON. OVER 3300 HOMES IN HARRIS COUNTY SUFFERED SOME LEVEL OF FLOOD DAMAGE.
Gaoth Laidir wrote: » Galveston has a good precipitation record going back to 1871. Here are the monthly totals. August 2017 is an obvious outlier. Before that, the highest totals all occur before 1979, and mostly before 1940.
