Minister X wrote:

PCHiway wrote:Ray Jay asked how AGW causes more extreme weather specifically stronger winds.

So is that the question you want answered? If so, allow me to make several observations.

1) I don't know the answer. Chances are that neither do Ricky or Danivon in any comprehensive way. That doesn't mean that no one knows the answer.

My answers are generalised and based on my recollections of science from school. So may well be flawed. And is certainly not comprehensive. I never claimed to be a climate scientist or meteorologist.

2) There's nothing that says climate science or AGW has to be simple enough for laymen to grasp all aspects of it after just an hour of wandering the WWW.

Indeed. Which is why a good place to start is on the science. Ignore the blogs (on both sides), and start with what the claims are. Only by understanding them can it really make sense to attempt to contradict them. Asking us amateurs, as well meaning as we are, won't get you as much as reading up on it. And the latest IPCC reports are a good starting reference point (not a complete total definitive answer in themselves)

3) However, on an intuitive level it does make some sense to suggest that if you add energy to a system you're going to see more energetic behavior from it.

Or within it. It is also the case that adding energy in one form doesn't mean it will stay in the same form.

4) & 5)

Good research!

6) If you are under the impression that global warming means that every breeze, gust or hurricane everywhere all the time will become 2% faster (or something like that), I suspect you're not on the right track.

Similar to the expectation that GW would be smooth and constant across the globe, because we observe that the average goes up. The idea that we may see more high wind events doesn't mean we'd not see normal weather as well. The idea that extreme weather may be more damaging doesn't mean that normal weather will be.

Well there you go Ray Jay. I hope it's as clear to you as it is to me now.

AGW means more energy in the system (though not just the atmosphere) which probably means...something. Maybe some extreme events...or events that could be considered extreme...in some places but not so much in others.

I keep coming back to my observation that if we can't get some firm "or elses"...we're going to keep muddling along towards renewable energy on a country by country basis. I...like the current Administration...am fine with that. I suspect that some of you may not be. Do you dispute my theory that we're not going to get worldwide buy-in to fight AGW minus some sort of demonstrable negative reinforcement?

No argument from me!
and that said, I also agree we SHOULD do more and more renewable "green" energy, I' all for it, I'm all for keeping the environment clean as well. We are and will work our way towards less and less carbon fuels over time, necessity will force it upon us, no need for the IPCC to do so for us.
Speaking of a clean environment
When did the hippy lefties suddenly start to embrace Nuclear? They all love it now but not long ago it was an evil power supply. Myself, I am not against it but I much prefer renewable and "alternate" energy, not all that solid on nukes.

Aha! Good sub-topic Tom.

I myself am a pro-nuke kind of guy. (For purposes of disclosure I do own stock in a uranium concern). Though I wouldn't say nuclear is being embraced here in the U.S. yet. There's the whole NIMBY problem.

Too bad too. Check out the power plant map. Whose got the biggest dots? Nukes that's who.

PCHiway wrote:Well there you go Ray Jay. I hope it's as clear to you as it is to me now.

I found it to be an extremely helpful discussion. Thank you to Ricky and Danivon for taking it on, and to you and Min X for the valuable push back and give and take.

When I was in high school (late 70's) there was no discussion of global warming,

Tom said:

When did the hippy lefties suddenly start to embrace Nuclear?

For me it was the late 80's. Why do you have a need to denigrate others when discussing political issues?

You have to forgive Tom. In his youth...hippies killed and ate his dog in front of him.

Denigrate?
Back in the 60s and 70s it was indeed the hippy counter culture who protested nuclear power. Those same people now embrace it, why is it denigrating? I happen to work with a bunch of guys who admit to being hippy-types in their youth, it's no a slur in the least.

and that whole dog thing, it was horrible!
damned hippies!

GMTom wrote:Back in the 60s and 70s it was indeed the hippy counter culture who protested nuclear power.

Materially untrue. The movement against nuclear power began before hippies and peaked after them. It was started mostly by techno-geeks and later adopted by mainline libs. Hippies did not organize around any political movement other than Vietnam (and even that wasn't really central); they were almost universally anti-war and against nuclear weapons, and tended to be supportive of environmentalism, but these were not the basic motivations of hippies. Check out the Wikipedia page titled "Anti-nuclear movement in the United States" and the one titled "Hippie". In the latter, do a search on "nuclear" and you'll find only two references to nuclear weapons, none to nuclear power. One of those references is in this sentence, which does a good job of defining a hippie:

Hippies rejected established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Eastern philosophy, championed sexual liberation, were often vegetarian and eco-friendly, promoted the use of psychedelic drugs which they believed expanded one's consciousness, and created intentional communities or communes.

Again: I'm not saying no hippie ever protested against a nuclear power plant. But they weren't even close to being the main group or type of people who did, and for the most part did not spend much time or mental energy on the issue.

Perhaps you were just being glib; excuse me for offering this slight factual correction. This thread is about climate change - I hope I've not contributed to getting us even farther off-topic.

How about "Tree Hugger" then?

Tom, to answer your question, many people when confronted with new information (e.g. safety record of nuclear power, impact of CO2 in the air, safety record of coal mining) analyze it and then change their minds if that is appropriate. It's been my impression that true conservatives and true liberals who tend to stick to their guns see this as a negative, but in fact, flexibility of mind is a huge positive.

RJ

I'm really not complaining about the switch of opinions, that's great and I understand why people change their minds. My question was actually an honest one. Those who seem to embrace nuclear energy the most seem to be those who protested against it the most not very long ago. Seriously, when did that suddenly happen? It does seem strange to have such a sudden swing and it not ever be discussed.
The change of opinion is fine, simply when did it happen and how come that giant change was never discussed,
It's interesting to me anyways...

Fair enough ... I don't think it happened suddenly ... I think it happens gradually, for me 20+ years ago, but I agree with you that it sort of reached a tipping point over the last few years ... part of it is the baby boomers are getting older and getting more conservative ... part of it is the impact of global warming / climate change on our thinking ... there's a realization that conservation / solar / wind are just not going to cut it as an alternative ... we are also seeing a softening to natural gas (I believe that Obama mentioned it as an alternative in his state of the union speach). If you take global warming seriously, the science tells you that oil and coal are the problem, and everything else becomes part of the solution.

Cheers,

RJ

P.S. your dog was a very good dog, wasn't he ;)

Minister X wrote:Perhaps you were just being glib; excuse me for offering this slight factual correction. This thread is about climate change - I hope I've not contributed to getting us even farther off-topic.

Tom being glib? I don't get that one. He's always so serious and thoughtful...

I did wonder what 'hippies' Tom was referring to. Anyone on here? I was no hippy - I wasn't born when the 'Summer of Love' was on, or for another several years, and while I had long hair in the 1990s, that was because I was into heavy metal not because I hugged trees.

From my recollections, there were many people who opposed nuclear weapons far more than nuclear power. Often, the opposition to the power aspect was partly related to the fact that it was outputs from power plants that were used to make bombs. I suppose incidents like 3 Mile Island Windscale and Chernobyl did boost the anti-nuclear position, but for my part my position on nuclear power hasn't changed much at all:

I'm pretty ambivalent towards it. On the one hand, it can be much cleaner than oil or coal and once it's up and running provides a pretty good way to satisfy constant demand. On the other hand, it's not as cheap as we were promised (hence large state subsidies), it has some pretty nasty pollution to deal with afterwards as well as needing pretty strict safety standards, it requires the use of rare resources, and of course you can still use the byproducts to make bombs.

So, Tom, did you have any actual hippies in mind? Or just the general stereotypical dog-beating ones?

On the subject of whether climate change causes weather 'events', a study was released today which suggests that unusually bad flooding in the UK in the autumn/winter of 2000 (which I remember well as the effect in my locality proved to be a massive issue politically and I'd just joined the council), were made much more likely by increased CO2 levels.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 09762.html

On the subject of nuclear energy, do events in Japan give us any cause for concern? Certainly being dependent upon nuclear stations that are in or near earthquake zone has been shown to have a large possible downside.