A Thoughtful Article on Climate Change

I realize the article is a bit too long and boring for many in this thread, but for those of you who have read the article, what did you think of this excerpt?

...Another climate nonalarmist is Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. I call Pielke a nonalarmist rather than a skeptic because he readily acknowledges that the challenges associated with climate change, including sea-level rise, are real, serious and probably unstoppable, at least for many decades.

But that is also the source of his (relative) optimism. "If we have to have a problem," he told me when I reached him by phone, "we probably want one with a slow onset that we can see coming. It's not like an asteroid coming from space."

Among Pielke's areas of expertise is the analysis of long-term trends in weather and climate-related disasters. Even as the nominal cost of hurricanes, floods, fires and droughts has grown, the economic impact of these disasters relative to the overall size of the economy continues to fall, a function of better forecasting, infrastructure, planning and responsiveness when disaster strikes — all of which, in turn, are the result of the massive increase in wealth the world has enjoyed in the past century.

"Since the 1940s, the impact of floods as a proportion of U.S. gross domestic product has dropped by 70 percent-plus," Pielke said. "We see this around the world, across phenomena. The story is that fewer people are dying and we are having less damage proportional to G.D.P."

A considerable amount of data bears Pielke out. In the 1920s, the estimated average annual death toll from natural catastrophes around the globe averaged more than 500,000 a year. The 1931 China floods alone killed as many as four million people not only through drowning but also by exposure, disease and famine. A more recent example, the 1970 Bhola cyclone, killed as many as half a million people in what is now Bangladesh.

In the 2010s, the annual average death toll was below 50,000 — a tenth of what it was a century ago. Hurricane Ian, among the strongest storms ever to hit Florida, had a death toll of at least 119, a small fraction of the 8,000 believed killed by the Great Galveston hurricane of 1900

Even the poorest countries, while still unacceptably vulnerable, are suffering far fewer human and economic losses to climate-related disasters.

Global warming is real and getting worse, Pielke said, yet still it's possible that humanity will be able to adapt to, and compensate for, its effects..."


It seems we all believe in climate change, but tend to disagree primarily on its cause. Maybe there are mitigation efforts that we can agree upon?
 
" When in trouble
When in doubt
Run in circles
Scream and shout "

Laugh at me - I'm a fool. I believe in something that says there is a plan, not of our making. A plan that will come to fruition. From a Planner that cannot fail. It is the height of arrogance and hubris to believe I can change or thwart that plan or delay its implementation or alter its' course one wit.

Call me a fool. Call me a denier. Call me superstitious. Call me uneducated. Matters not to me.

As the old saying goes, "He who laughs last . . . . . " ;)

That one sailed over a bunch of heads.
 
My mother, a strong Christian and regular church goer, told me this story:

It had rained for days and now the river rose. Soon it covered the banks, and was fast approaching across the fields towards their house.

The sheriff pulled up and advised the couple in the house to evacuate. They said they'd stay put, pray for safety, and trust in the Lord.

Water kept rising. It was at the porch now. Some volunteers came by in a boat. The couple once again refused the aid, thanking the volunteers but saying they believed in the Lord, that he would save them, and that they would continue to pray.

Water kept rising. They were on the roof now. A helicopter rescue crew showed up, and offered to rappel down and pull them up to safety. Again the couple thanked their would-be rescuers, but explained their deep faith, and continued to pray fervently.

Well, they drowned.

Being staunch Christians, they made it to heaven, of course, and met God, who welcomed them. The man, screwing up his courage, said, "God, we are very grateful to be here, but I have a question. We have always been faithful. We prayed to you for deliverance from that flood, and cannot understand why you abandoned us..."

God said, "Good grief, man! I sent the sheriff, a boat crew, and a helicopter, didn't I?"
 
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Lake Mead? Colorado River water management/conservation? I wonder how much of that water is wasted?

California water agencies don't know how much their pipes leak, UCLA report finds | UCLA

There's that and putting 30 million people in a desert and expecting one river to water most of them.

A soluble problem: 30 nuclear plants on the coast running desalinators. All the water they could ever use- sell the rest into the southwest.
Gonna do it? Nope. instead restrict water and enjoy brownouts courtesy of their "all renewables" power plan. :rolleyes:

San Onofre- closed, Diablo Canyon- they kicked the can down the road on closing that as they can't afford to lose 10% of their power.

That's what I was talking about.
Mindset of abundance vs. mindset of scarcity.
 
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I support nuclear power as well. We need to do a better job of explaining it to the public, and especially to the younger generation. I think there is a good chance we'll come around to nuclear power again:

My father-in-law designed the controls used at Three Mile Island,,
and
I have a Materials Science Engineering Degree from Virginia Tech (1970's)
I used my degree to assist in the design controls for GE,,
including the 3 years that we produced controls for TEPCO (yes, THAT TEPCO)

so, I have been closer to nuclear power than most.

I honestly believe that we do not have the skill or knowledge to safely create nuclear power.

If we could develop the skill to safely produce nuclear power, we would ultimately be too cheap to fund the requirements.

There is always a "cheaper way",, and that way is always selected.

Before TEPCO, we designed a control for a nuclear NAVY sub.
For over 2 years, we developed the controls, the program was called "Four Megawatt",, we had the words Four Megawatt on EVERY drawing, and every document.
One day, a government guy came to our plant, and saw our use of the words Four Megawatt.

He told us we had to remove those words, and stop referencing the size of the reactor.

Basically, anyone could backwards determine the size of the sub, from the output power of the controls. OOPs,,,,,,,
We re-wrote a LOT of documents,, a TEAM of contract draftsmen were hired, to redo the drawings.

In the end, the words were never completely removed, they were included in too many documents, for FAR too long.

That is just an example of a nuclear power boo-boo that could not be fixed,,.
 
Well, Sweet, you certainly have more qualifications than most to comment.

I was in Tokyo in 2011, when Fukushima ... failed? Folks were pretty nervous. Only 160 kilometers from downtown, as I recall.

I had a colleague at the time who was a former US Army NBC officer. He thought fears were overblown. He liked to say that you would get more radiation standing next to a pile of 3,500 bananas than ever leaked from Three Mile Island.
 
Well, Sweet, you certainly have more qualifications than most to comment.

I was in Tokyo in 2011, when Fukushima ... failed? Folks were pretty nervous. Only 160 kilometers from downtown, as I recall.

I had a colleague at the time who was a former US Army NBC officer. He thought fears were overblown. He liked to say that you would get more radiation standing next to a pile of 3,500 bananas than ever leaked from Three Mile Island.

My FIL died from some condition that is normally the result of radiation.
He was on site the day after the incident.
He lived for about 10 years after the incident, so no one tied the death to the radiation.

The family always believed he died somewhat early because of TMI.
(Who knows??)

BUT, no one was lawsuit crazy then,, if they had been, my S&W collection may have been larger,,

(He also worked on other nuclear projects like the NS Savannah cargo ship that was nuclear powered)
 
The remedy for "climate change" always seems to be killing the U.S. economy and sending billions in U.S. tax payer dollars to the UN who, after skimming their cut, redistributes it to unproductive countries who's only export is hatred toward us.
That's pretty much what the author said, if less stridently. He has some other ideas that you might have interest in.
 
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My father-in-law designed the controls used at Three Mile Island,,
and
I have a Materials Science Engineering Degree from Virginia Tech (1970's)
I used my degree to assist in the design controls for GE,,
including the 3 years that we produced controls for TEPCO (yes, THAT TEPCO)

so, I have been closer to nuclear power than most.

I honestly believe that we do not have the skill or knowledge to safely create nuclear power.

If we could develop the skill to safely produce nuclear power, we would ultimately be too cheap to fund the requirements.

There is always a "cheaper way",, and that way is always selected.

Before TEPCO, we designed a control for a nuclear NAVY sub.
For over 2 years, we developed the controls, the program was called "Four Megawatt",, we had the words Four Megawatt on EVERY drawing, and every document.
One day, a government guy came to our plant, and saw our use of the words Four Megawatt.

He told us we had to remove those words, and stop referencing the size of the reactor.

Basically, anyone could backwards determine the size of the sub, from the output power of the controls. OOPs,,,,,,,
We re-wrote a LOT of documents,, a TEAM of contract draftsmen were hired, to redo the drawings.

In the end, the words were never completely removed, they were included in too many documents, for FAR too long.

That is just an example of a nuclear power boo-boo that could not be fixed,,.

And how did poor plant placement at Fukushima have anything to do with controls? Recall that right up the coast, people took refuge in a nuclear plant:

Japanese nuclear plant survived tsunami, offers clues | Reuters

Light water reactors are great for subs, and they should have stayed there. Setting them up for grid power was Rickover's big mistake.
 
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