Time to forgive Tony Blair? 05 April 04

Depressing to read of the nonsense Lovelock is churning out on carbon dioxide emissions. What chance is there of getting back to normal, while this sort of inaccurate, hysterical claptrap is attracting media and public attention?

It’s a great shame that so much publicity has to be given to this man and his obsessions, whilst down-to-earth systematic analyses of the global warming hypothesis are denied any coverage at all – eg: http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA420.pdf http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/Spinning%20temperature%20out%20of%20control.pdf

Ed, I don’t know if you are a global warming beginner or a committed denialist but you along with (the very, very few) others who continue to cast doubt on the scientific consensus re AGW/CC are increasingly sounding like the flat earth society. And if I’m not mistaken you are sounding a tad tetchy if not down right furious and allude to fantastical conspiracy theories.

I recommend you listen to the BBC stuff linked to in my earlier post this morning. I have my criticisms of JL (see below) but I am not so foolish as to deny the reality of anthropogenic global warming.

Douglas Coker

Did he inspire the CEI? See here http://commonsblog.org/archives/000283.php

Checking is easy Ed!!!!

Douglas Coker

- but I’ve never come across a more convincing case for the world’s future.

Most visions of the future consist of simple extrapolations of our current lifestyles. Increasing mobility, travel, speed, privacy, hygine.
It’s more of whatever we like.
More money, more goodies, more power.

Everyone seems to want hope and optimism.
Of course; because then we our future is comfortable.
Unfortunately reality doesn’t have to mean bright futures and happy endings.

Lovelock, instead of doing the usual thing; consoling us saying “A, B and C must be done or we’ll be in trouble”, has said we’re headed for complete disaster and explained why.
The risk he has taken is that of appearing as the sandwich man proclaiming “The end is nigh”.
Indeed, I’ve found several blogs where the author’s have written off Lovelock as a crazy old man, because he dared enter this forbidden zone. [I challenged all of these; none could defend their positions.]

Supporting nuclear power
Another forbidden zone for the pseudo-greens that Lovelock is well into.

Why do the pseudo-greens fear it?

Perhaps it’s because it represents centralised power.
Perhaps people cannot see thousands of successful operating reactor years.
Perhaps it’s because people cannot see the billions of tonnes of CO2 that are going to kill most us as opposed to the hundreds of tonnes of nuclear waste that have killed… has anyone ever been killed by nuclear waste?

Even intelligent-sounding people like George Monbiot seem too influenced by their emotions to defend their positions with reason.

Let them take on the big arguments:

• Per unit of energy produced by all large base electrical supplies (the ones that work whenever you need them to), nuclear power has produced the least deaths. (This includes Chernobyl.)
• the International Energy Agency in 2003 showed that the entire nuclear energy life cycle resulted in the second-lowest emissions of greenhouse gases next to wind.
• Light water reactors (the majority of those currently used) are very inefficient compared with what’s possible. The CANDU-type reactors makes uranium go much further. Thorium reactors work. There is several times more thorium available to us than uranium.

A wee correction, Mark. Lovelock offered to store a [single] nuclear power station’s waste for a year.
He didn’t say it would be unshielded either. I expect he would take it in the form of dry cask storage;

I would accept the same form of free heating myself.

Windpower
Lovelock doesn’t like it because the UK would require many tens of thousands of them “despoiling” every prominent windy part of the isles. (Given that in the the wind is only blowing across 20% of Britain at any given time; perhaps five times as many would be required?)
Lovelock points out in the latest online interview that a single compact nuclear power station; Hinkley (?) produces power equivalent to some 3000 windmills (and has done for 40 years.)
In any case, modern civilisation cannot currently live without electricity being available non-stop. Computers, lifts, refrigeration, security systems, radar… have got to have a highly reliable base supply.

Most of us… DEAD?
Like the pseudo-greens being unable to accept nuclear power, I find it hard to take this on board. [I grit my teeth]
Yes, we lost vast areas of coral in the 1998 heat.
Yes, ~2.5 more degrees, and we lose the Amazon and the Congo to desert when evaporation outpaces rainfall.
Yes, there is no reason why this should not mean the desertification of most of Europe and the USA.
Yes, losing great areas of forest means a great release of CO2… positive feedback… further desertification… little food being produced mean people starve/compete/die for food…
... and we end up with our “few breeding pairs” living close to the arctic regions.

The most important things?
- Don’t give up! We’re not dead yet! -
Stop peat-bog fires and coal-mine fires. These are of no benefit to anybody and account for perhaps 40% of all CO2 emissions.
Plant trees. Doesn’t matter what anyone says about their value as carbon stores; they help the environment in far more ways than just CO2 sequestration.

Do something.

Today!