View Story | 30 comments
Comments: Expand Shrink Hide (Always) | Indented Flat (Always)
Start with survival levels and work from there. From bare survival to refugee camp. From refugee camp to permanent settlement. All built around a goal of zero emissions and start with Solar IS Civil Defense - flashlight, radio, extra set of batteries solar powered and hand cranked. It couldn't hurt.
Once that's available worldwide, which may mean a rise in standard of living for a billion or more people, we can start working on capturing carbon and methane from the atmosphere.
At least, that's what I think is going to be necessary.
Solar is civil defense. Video of my small scale solar experiments at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2006/03/solar-video.html
by gmoke on Tue Mar 18, 2008 at 10:52:02 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
The problem is, of course, that it may all be too late. We are already above Hansen's 350ppm and CO2 is rising, rising, rising.
Not falling.
Every 10 ppm increase is another 100 years give-or-take to dissipate naturally -- IF the oceans continue to absorb as they have in the past.
Unfortunately, the oceans absorb less as temperatures increase, and, at some point, actually emit CO2 back into the atmosphere, so...
given that temperatures will be rising...
So -- how long can we wait to start removing CO2?
Free speech? Yeah, I've heard of that. Have you?
by dinotrac on Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 05:29:17 AM PDT
That's why I call for a solar civil defense, the basic necessities to have on hand in case of emergency - flashlight, radio, extra set of batteries powered by solar and hand crank, independent of any grid.
Then move to zero emissions - period. That should be the goal. Zero emissions, nothing goes into the garbage, all waste becomes food for a continuing process.
Next is to start removing carbon and methane from the atmosphere.
Those are my priorities.
Yes, I believe that it is probably already too late but that's no reason not to do what is necessary now. One should recognize that these priorities are not mutually exclusive and are not dependent upon doing one before the other. We need to work on all these priorities today.
My belief is that Reagan killed us. Carter was calling for 20% of our energy from renewables by the year 2000. Reagan stopped that dead in the tracks. That is when we made the wrong turn into climate crisis.
by gmoke on Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 03:27:46 PM PDT
Old, early-stage Senior Moments.
So ... Well, yes.
But no -- Reagan didn't kill us, nor any other US President, at least not in the sense of being done in by warming.
We are only one piece of the whole, and we are a piece that is shrinking in significance every single day.
Carter was urging those actions in the wake of the Arab oil embargo. Given the technology of 30 years ago, and the costs involved, could any President have achieved that goal once oil prices went back down and the oil river began to flow? Even Bill Clinton, with future Nobel prize-winning VP didn't make any big strides.
by dinotrac on Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 08:25:32 PM PDT
One country actually did take the 1970s energy crisis to heart: Brazil. That country spent thirty years making ethanol from sugarcane waste (bagasse) into a real alternative to gasoline. Not a panacea, but an example.
I say Reagan killed us because Carter's 20% by 2000 was a useful goal that would have made a real difference. That, for me, the reactionary turning point on a variety of issues.
As for culpability, we are always digging our graves with our forks and other tools. As human beans, we will always probably be doing so until we go extinct. When we do go extinct, the Earth and life and the biosphere will go on.
Clinton and Gore were both too invested in the Kyoto protocols to get anywhere. Neither was particularly active or evinced real interest in the topic while they headed the government. Remember, it was George W. Bush who brought solar back to the White House.
by gmoke on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 03:53:25 PM PDT
I'd forgotten about Bush boosting solar energy spending.
He also took a lot of flak for pushing hydrogen, and a $1.2 billion hydrogen car program.
Admittedly, his hydrogen vision includes a lot of hydrogen derived from fossil fuels, but that's not as bad as it seems. It's kind of like an infrastructure version of the Prius. If you think about it, hybrid cars are a fairly bad deal. Two drive systems -- extra complexity, extra weight, etc.
But -- they do use and cause to be improved many components of an electric car, including an electric car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, which would include hydrogen produced by renewable means.
Of course, if the countryside is detroyed and criss-crossed with oil pipelines you can only get out to see on the 11 days of the year when temperatures remain in safe ranges, then it won't matter...
by dinotrac on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 07:44:40 PM PDT
Bush could have gotten the auto makers to implement the hybrid technology developed and paid for by the Clinton-era gov/corp hybrid billion $$$ project but instead decided to fund yet another gov/corp billion $$$ project to develop hydrogen.
The object is not to get new technology into the marketplace but to get billions of $$$ into the pockets of corporations. This view, I believe, is not cynicism but the way things actually work in this imperfect world. It is one reason why I do not look for big solutions.
PS: Any idea to transform our car culture is going to take at least a decade to play out as it takes that long for the existing vehicle fleet now on the road to turn over. Problem is we may not have a decade to make that change if the recent statements by climate change scientists are to be believed.
by gmoke on Thu Mar 20, 2008 at 08:44:56 PM PDT
>Bush could have gotten the auto makers to implement the hybrid technology developed and paid for by the Clinton-era gov/corp hybrid billion
If government has a role in this kind of thing -- and I'm convinced that it does, it should not be promoting something that the auto-makers have demonstrated they are quite capable of doing -- especially something that is no more than a stopgap technology anyway.
Toyota and Honda have been selling hybrids for years. Ford is selling hybrids, GM is juming in.
Hydrogen may or may not get it's kinks worked out, but it has the potential to be fossil-fuel free.
by dinotrac on Fri Mar 21, 2008 at 05:25:01 AM PDT
wide narrow
View Story | 30 comments