Climate Change and the battle for your mind

Climate Change.

A.K.A. Global Warming.

Is it REAL?



This first video challenges "conventional, accepted wisdom" that there is scientific consensus that it is Anthopogenic Global Warming (AGW) - see from about 4 minutes into the video. And the "smoking gun" is that about 2/3 of the almost 12,000 scientific papers on climate change had no position on AGW. The "consensus" is based on those papers that had a position on AGW. And in those papers 97% of those papers backed AGW.

But is this science or politics or politically-motivated science?

The point of the above video ultimately is that we don't completely understand climate change, and that there is pressure to conform to the Consensus.

Or is this just another shot from the Climate Deniers?

There is a video that addresses this "myth" - that there is NO Scientific Consensus on Climate Change or AGW. Which serves as a counterpoint to the above video.

IOW, there IS scientific consensus.

At least... that is MY conclusion. You should make up your own mind, consider the "evidence" provided. Hunt down those references. Understand the actual findings and conclusions. Decide for yourself whether those findings are "legit", the conclusions valid and reasonable, and make up your own mind.

Or read this blogpost, consider my conclusions, decide if my compilation of "evidence" is reasonable, or not.

This next video presents the story of how Exxon scientists were the first to discover the link between carbon pollution and the AGW.

In the early 1980s.




So an oil company's scientists were the first to realise that the oil industry was responsible for or would cause AGW.

And the oil company buried the science and lied to the public and created the Climate Deniers movement.

Except...

We need to look at the BIG PICTURE.



And yeah, we MAY NOT COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND CLIMATE CHANGE.

And we are presumptuous and arrogant to think that we live on a planet with a stable and enduring climate.

When, it has only been stable for just the last 10,000 years or so.

The rest of the time (at least for the preceding hundred thousands years), we were in an Ice Age.

And for the final Big Picture perspective, we are not trying to save the world or that we are destroying the world. No. Preventing or coping with AGW is about saving OURSELVES, OUR LIFESTYLE, OUR CULTURES, AND OUR VALUES.

The earth will continue. Whether the 7+ billion parasites (i.e. humans) on it survive or not.

AGW is a problem for the parasite (i.e. us). Not for the Earth (the planet).

So, to be clear, Climate Change is NOT a problem for Planet Earth, only for the life on it, and in particular, for humans who recognised how far we have screwed up the planet and now worry about how we will survive Climate Change. In the millions and maybe billions of years since life crawled, swam, creeped and walk upon the earth, there have been many extinction events when up to 90% or more of the species went extinct because of changes to the environment. AGW is just another such event. The only difference is that this one is caused by humans, one of the species on Earth. And we might extinguish ourselves.

Of course there will be those who will rebut and say, if humans go extinct, if human civilisation ceases, then it is as good as the Earth being destroyed.

Which is solipsistic.

From the video above:

"... Our entire way of life was made possible because of this random, rare and fragile stretch of stable climate over the last 10,000 years. So here's an idea: let's totally fuck with that! About 150 years ago we started digging carbon-based fossil fuels out of the ground and burning it for energy, and this kicked off the Industrial Revolution which proved to be an even bigger game changer than the Agricultural Revolution... That's why I'm not really that big of a hater on fossil fuel because when it all comes down to it, our lives have been made immeasurably better because of that. But the downside is that there's been a worldwide, long-term concerted effort to dig carbon that's been sequestered under the ground for millions of years and pump it up into the atmosphere which have wound up pushing the greenhouse gases level up over 400 parts per million in 2013... The scarier part is that crops that have been stable for thousands of years are going to be a lot less stable, water is going to become scarce..."

So how do we survive Climate Change.

Or rather, the first question asked is, how can we STOP Climate Change?

And this is where the battle for your minds begin.

Remember that when environmentalists and Climate Change Optimists propose initiatives to slow, stop or reverse climate change, they are really concerned about saving humans, and human civilisation, and our way of life. Which is self-preservation at its best, and not unreasonable.

But there is an element of moral judgment and reprobation in some of the... solutions.

For example, recycling. It was not just a solution, it was also penance, contrition, and an act of redemption.

But the reality is, recycling only makes sense up to a point. And this point is driven home most sharply, when China stopped accepting "recyclables" from the world.

The world then tried to send their garbage, I mean "recyclables" to developing countries in S.E.Asia.

Which resulted in degradation of their environment, pollution and contamination of their ground water and agricultural land, and the poisoning of their population. Recycling is not the solution.

Then there is the fantasy of saving the earth (humanity) with solar, wind and other renewables!

Well, renewables can't save our planet (or humanity).

In Europe, they have been building renewables for 40 years. And renewables (wind and solar) make up only about 1% of the energy supply.

The main problem with solar and wind is that they are very diluted ("energy diffused"). It takes a lot of solar panels and wind turbines to generate enough power to run a country, or even a town or city.

Take Apple Singapore. They are proud to be fully powered by solar in Singapore. Except,

In Singapore, where land is scarce, Apple adapted and built its renewable energy on 800 rooftops.

In order, to get enough solar power, they had to install solar panels on the rooftops of 800 other buildings.

Sunlight does not have the energy density to power our civilisation. To do so, would mean vast tracts of land converted to solar farms. Put another way, if Apple SG needs 800 other rooftops to generate enough power for its operations. What do the occupants under those 800 rooftops do for solar power if they wanted to be like Apple and be fully powered by solar? Whose roofs would they be using?

And the reason why Apple needs 800 other rooftops is also because solar is unreliable. When the sun shines, and solar power is being generated, you need to store energy for when the sun is not shining.

The next problem is that there is a upper limit to the efficiency of solar panels in converting light into energy. Currently the efficiency is about 30%. Maybe 35%. There is a theoretical limit of 80%. But the realistic upper limit (which we are nowhere near) is closer to 55%. That is, we might one day be able to reach 55% efficiency in terms of converting sunlight to electrical energy. So while the energy of the sunlight falling on one rooftop may be enough to power your home, the problem is the solar panels is only able to convert (at current efficiency) about 30% of the energy to electricity. So that means you need 3 rooftops! And because sunlight can be intermittent and so, unreliable, you need to store energy in batteries for those days when there is no sun. So you now need 6 rooftops - 3 for now, and 3 to charge your batteries. Except batteries have a charge/discharge "cost" or efficiency. You put in one hour of energy, but the battery might only store 50 minutes of energy. And when you draw on the battery, you may only be able to draw 40 minutes of energy. There is an efficiency cost for energy storage.

(And for Singapore, we have the unique problem of about 90% of us living in HDB flats, so we don't have a roof to ourselves, We have to share the roof on our HDB block with the other 100 or so units. )

But watch the video "Why Renewables can't Save our Planet" for yourself. It's only 17:30 long.

So if we can't depend on renewables to save our planets, then what?

Then, nuclear power.



What about Fukushima? What about Chernobyl? What about Nuclear wastes?

Shellenberger addresses that very question from about 10:00 mark.

The point is we have been brainwashed into thinking that Nuclear is dangerous. That it is uncontrollable. That it is just one big disaster waiting to happen.

But that's just anti-nuclear propaganda and fear perpetuated by some people with irrational fears and questionable agendas.

And nuclear waste in the only form of energy generation where the waste is completely contained. With fossil-fuel based energy plants, waste is dispersed into the wind as pollution. How is that better?

Solar and Wind has no emissions you say. Well, there is the manufacturing process for wind turbines and solar panels, and all that rare earth materials needed. And what about disposal of those components at the end of their life? It is a problem.

There is no way to produce all the energy we need and still reduce carbon emissions without using Nuclear power for now.

Take Germany. They have decided to do away with nuclear power. Because, Fukushima. And Chernobyl.

And fear of losing the elections to the Green party.

They are not going to meet their carbon emissions target under the Paris Accord. They may not have renounced the Paris Accord overtly (as Trump has done), but they are doing so by action. So how is paying hypocritical lip service any better than Trump?



The point is trying to save the climate with renewables is impractical and impossible without exacting a heavy cost and burden on the environment. And the science just isn't on its side.

It is clear. It is nuclear.

Once we can get over the irrational fear of nuclear, and look at the data objectively, we see that Nuclear is even cleaner that Solar.

Can we try other things before we turn to Nuclear?

Well, some scientists are trying to hack climate change to save the world.

Geo-engineering is tinkering with the earth to keep it cool.

It may includes things like building a barrier on the ocean floor to block warm ocean currents from melting the arctic ice, or spraying sea mist into the atmosphere to block the sun from heating the earth. We would need A LOT OF SEA MIST to be pumped into the air. And even fertilising the ocean with iron to stimulate bacteria to absorb more CO2 and hopefully sequester in.

The problem with geo-engineering is that this is tampering with the earth on an even greater scale. With many unintended, and unpredictable results. Surely the solution to the problem of polluting the air with greenhouse gases cannot be to spray the atmosphere with sea mist! Or dumping iron into the ocean!

The problem is there is too much CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and that is causing the planet to heat up. And this melts glaciers, the polar ice-caps. And carbon emission is due mainly to the use of fossil fuels - for power generation and transportation.

So the first thing to do is to stop using fossil fuel.

Renewables are not the answer.

So Nuclear. And not the old generation of nuclear power plants that could lead to Chernobyl and Fukushima.

We need new generation, safer nuclear power plants. Like Molten Salt Reactor power plants.

So what's so good about the new Molten Salt Thorium Reactors, compared to the older nuclear power plants?

Thorium reactors or Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) are also known as Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) would be small. Can be modular. Produce less waste which would only have to be stored for 300 years (compared to the tens of thousands of years for uranium waste), and can consume the nuclear waste (Uranium) of old reactors, after which, those waste need only be stored for 300 years.

A modular nuclear power plant can also be used for desalination of water, which would be useful to Singapore.

So for the immediate future, to reduce our carbon emissions from energy generation, we need to switch to Nuclear power. And to be safe, a LFTR power plant with passive, "walk-away" safety may assuage some fears. Note that these nuclear power plants, even the 5th generation plants would still be nuclear fission plants.

Then in about 30 years, hopefully, scientist would have figured out how to harness fusion energy, which would be even safer and cheaper.

China may have that breakthrough because 1) they want to innovate and lead the world in Science. And 2) They do not have to worry about popular resistance or popular sentiments about or rather against nuclear power. Like in the democratic and idiotic west.


NEXT: Climate Change and its challenges for Singapore.

Read also: "Temperatures in SG could hit 40C by 2045."
And "Singapore to face climate shifts by 2050".