Climate Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility

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Declension
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19 Nov 2013, 1:42 am

eric76 wrote:

That's the great thing about Mathematics. Ideally, there is no appeal to authority in Mathematics.

Huh? Yes there is. Mathematicians appeal to authority all the time.

If I want to assume Fermat's last theorem as part of a proof I'm writing up, do I have to fully understand the proof of Fermat's last theorem? Of course not. I just put a citation.

Heck, we can even take an example as simple as calculus. Do I remember how to derive all of calculus from first principles? Probably not. But I trust that it can be done, so I can use calculus without worrying about the underlying machinery.

It's the same in any field of study. Nobody has the time to fully understand more than a handful of things. For everything else, we trust the authorities. It's only in certain cases (usually cases involving politics) where people suddenly become strangely suspicious of authorities.

eric76
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19 Nov 2013, 2:42 am

Declension wrote:

eric76 wrote:

That's the great thing about Mathematics. Ideally, there is no appeal to authority in Mathematics.

I think that you do not understand the meaning of "appeal to authority".

In Mathematics, we don't accept something to be true because some authority says that it is true. We accept something is true because we can verify that it is true -- that we might not verify that it is true is not the point. If something cannot be verified as being true, then it is not regarded as being true.

This is the truly great thing about Mathematics.

Declension
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19 Nov 2013, 7:21 am

eric76 wrote:

We accept something is true because we can verify that it is true -- that we might not verify that it is true is not the point.

Isn't that the same thing as my attitude towards climate science?

I don't understand the proof of Fermat's last theorem, but I trust that if I put in the effort to study the subject for many years, I would come to understand the proof of Fermat's last theorem.

I don't understand why climate scientists believe in AGW, but I trust that if I put in the effort to study the subject for many years, I would come to understand why climate scientists believe in AGW.

Jono
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19 Nov 2013, 7:38 am

AspE wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Jono wrote:

If we just warmed up to using nuclear power then we can have our cake and eat it. We would be able to use an even better source of energy without emitting any of those greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming and plus we would be healthier with cleaner air to breathe on top of it. There would be no need to take a vow of poverty. Unfortunately, many eco-activists do not like the nuclear option either, despite the fact that it would be necessary to achieve what they want.

That is what I keep telling people. Pave the U.S, east to west and north to south with breeder and thorium reactors. Inside of a decade the only thing will will need oil for is to pay plastics and other polymers.

We can disengage from the middle east and tell the Sheiks of Araby to go f*ck their camels.

ruveyn

So you are in favor a this big government solution but not the regulation of carbon?

It's much better than the regulation of carbon. Nuclear power stations have a 0% carbon emission rate and they release only steam into the atmosphere. Nuclear power is basically just steam generated power, using the heat generated by nuclear fission to boil water. Eliminating carbon emissions for power use is far better than reducing them.

Jono
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19 Nov 2013, 7:51 am

eric76 wrote:

AspE wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

Jono wrote:

So you are in favor a this big government solution but not the regulation of carbon?

The reactors should be built and owned by businesses, not the government.

No they shouldn't be. Not only because they require subsidies but also because it's essential that they require government regulation for nuclear safety issues etc. I wouldn't trust executives in businesses to not order the stripping down of safety measures in new reactor designs to reduce their reduction cost and increase profit. The executives are not generally engineers, so I don't necessarily trust them to know what they're doing when they make such business decisions.

mikassyna
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19 Nov 2013, 10:10 am

Jono wrote:

I think they should try to find a workable combination of business and government. I think if that were the case they could keep each other accountable.

ruveyn
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19 Nov 2013, 11:43 am

Jono wrote:

Right on!

The_Walrus
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19 Nov 2013, 5:50 pm

Jono wrote:

It's much better than the regulation of carbon. Nuclear power stations have a 0% carbon emission rate

This isn't quite true, because uranium often needs to be transported by air and, to by knowledge, we do not have reliable long range electrified air transport.

I do agree that nuclear power needs to be embraced in order to fight climate change. It is probably the single most important step.

AspE
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19 Nov 2013, 6:30 pm

Jono wrote:

Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. The water emissions from nuclear plants ruin the surrounding waterways environmentally due to excess heat. Building a nuclear power plant requires huge inputs of fossil fuel, as does mining the uranium. And they are very expensive to clean up when they fail, as they will.

ruveyn
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19 Nov 2013, 7:18 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

Jono wrote:

It's much better than the regulation of carbon. Nuclear power stations have a 0% carbon emission rate

The amount of energy necessary to carry a kg of uranium fuel overland is a small fraction of the energy it will generate.

The energy density of uranium is very high. The main reason why nuclear reactor generators are scarce is the regulatory hurdles and costs that must be handled.

ruveyn

eric76
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19 Nov 2013, 7:37 pm

AspE wrote:

Jono wrote:

How many nuclear power plants have failed? What percentage is that of nuclear power plants?

mikassyna
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19 Nov 2013, 7:52 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

Jono wrote:

It's much better than the regulation of carbon. Nuclear power stations have a 0% carbon emission rate

I will have to argue though that the regular, frequent transport of uranium would probably carry immense security risks (terrorists) and the measures needed to keep such structures safe would be pretty profound (again, terrorists), and might offset any potential savings. It would be interesting to read a thorough risk analysis.

ruveyn
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19 Nov 2013, 10:39 pm

mikassyna wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

Jono wrote:

It's much better than the regulation of carbon. Nuclear power stations have a 0% carbon emission rate

All the more reason to build thorium reactors. You can not make bomb stuff from thorium and its break down products.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 20 Nov 2013, 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AspE
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20 Nov 2013, 12:48 pm

eric76 wrote:

How many nuclear power plants have failed? What percentage is that of nuclear power plants?

It doesn't take many to make a big expensive mess.

Kurgan
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20 Nov 2013, 3:43 pm

The_Walrus wrote:

Actually, it isn't. Ocean acidification is caused by shifts in the equilibrium between CO2 (aq) and CO2 (g). Introduce more CO2 (g) into the system and more will be absorbed into the ocean to compensate. This forms carbonic acid.

Like I said, it's the same basic chemical reaction.

CO2+H2O->H2CO3

3NO3+H2O->2HNO3 (nitric acid)+NO

SO2+O+H2O->H2SO4 (sulfuric acid)

Carbonic acid is a very weak acid (but sulfuric and nitric acid are not) and CO2 does not react as quickly with water as NOx or SO2 does. Lastly, if CO2 was the main perpetrator, the coastal areas would not be hit much harder than the intercontinental oceans. Now, here's the fun part: CO2 in the atmosphere is by nature 350.000-400.000 times as common as nitrogen oxide or sulfur dioxide.

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Climate scientists don't claim that humans are responsible for 100% of the changes. Though at the moment we're having a massive impact.

Previously, the temperature changed due to natural cycles. Now, we're changing it beyond those natural cycles.

We have a far more significant impact on other environmental problems than global warming. Whatever impact mankind has, is almost exclusively caused by the coal industry. Since Mr. and Mrs. America makes a lot of money on coal, Tiberius Caesar rears his ugly head again. Punishing the drivers the way the left-wingers want, will do no good.

Last edited by Kurgan on 20 Nov 2013, 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Kurgan
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20 Nov 2013, 3:45 pm

ruveyn wrote:

mikassyna wrote:

The_Walrus wrote:

Jono wrote:

It's much better than the regulation of carbon. Nuclear power stations have a 0% carbon emission rate

All the more reason to build thorium reactors. You can not make bomb stuff from thorium and its break down products.

ruveyn

With a proper containment building and a secure storage of atomic waste (the Chernobyl reactors did not have ther former), there's very little havock a terrorist organization can wreck with an uranium based plant as well.

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