Would everybody use fusion power peacefully?

With great power comes great responsibility.

Are all people and countries responsible? — Agree to Disagree

Fusion power doesn't produce materials that can be weaponized, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Does everybody want climate-change/global-warming to be "solved" ? — Agree to Disagree

Anyone with an 6th grade understanding of climate change does, yes.

True, the fossil fuel industry and their propaganda cronies probably don’t— but I’m not interested in narcissistic greed.

Are the people who live in Moscow “suffering” from global-warming? — Agree to Disagree

Questions like this is why I say you’re an average climate denier, or at least parroting their greatest hits.

Do you really not understand how irrelevant this is? It’s the equivalent of bringing a snowball to the senate floor.

Are you seriously doubting whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas? — Mikie

Didn't you read what I said. Here is what I said, "Water vapor, like CO2, is a greenhouse gas.

Does that sound like I am "doubting whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas".

Are you seriously suggesting that the rise in temperature we see globally is due to water vapor (a common denialist claim)? — Mikie

I am talking about the possible effects of water vapor in Eunice Foote's experiments. Did she allow for the amount of water vapor in each of the glass containers?

The amount of global warming from CO2 is affected by the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. This is what causes polar amplification. There is not much water vapor in the atmosphere around the poles because it is cold, so adding CO2 causes a certain amount of global warming. But there is a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere around the equator so adding the same amount of CO2 causes less global warming than at the poles.

But as far as Foote’s specific experiment — who cares? — Mikie

You seem to care about Foote's experiment because you used it to show that the glass container with more CO2 heated up the fastest.

To save you from wasting more of your time, and my time, I will tell you what I believe. I believe:
- that CO2 is a greenhouse gas
- that humans are responsible for most of the increase in CO2 level above about 280 ppm
- that a lot of the increase in CO2 levels is due to the use of fossil fuels
- that the average temperature of the Earth has warmed by around 1.0 to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times

Does that make me a "denier" ?

You said recently that we should all be scared senseless about climate change. All sorts of bad things flow from deep seated fear, one of them being that it becomes ok to dehumanize other people with labels. It's something I struggle with as well. We could all do with some practice putting fear aside to see what clouds fall away from our vision when we do, so we might see that we're all in the same boat, we all have basically the same desires and needs.

I think one of the main things driving climate change denial is this very thing: fear. Except it's fear of intellectuals and academics. It's fear that these scientists might be right, and so we should be worried.

Fear divided us so we don't even see one another. All we see is monsters. That's not good.

You seem to care about Foote's experiment because you used it to show that the glass container with more CO2 heated up the fastest. — Agree to Disagree

I pointed it out as a historical fact, which anyone can reproduce. You can do it yourself. You can control for anything you want — put more or less water vapor, throw in methane, anything. The particular experiment from the 1800s isn’t important beyond that. Who cares?

To save you from wasting more of your time, and my time, I will tell you what I believe. I believe:
- that CO2 is a greenhouse gas
- that humans are responsible for most of the increase in CO2 level above about 280 ppm
- that a lot of the increase in CO2 levels is due to the use of fossil fuels
- that the average temperature of the Earth has warmed by around 1.0 to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times

Does that make me a "denier" ? — Agree to Disagree

Not in the Bjorn Lomborg sense, I suppose.

So you say all this and yet bring up things like Moscow and how cows are a major industry and thus we won’t solve the issue. Why?

Fusion power doesn't produce materials that can be weaponized, so it shouldn't be an issue. — frank

Who controls the energy produced by fusion power? Will every country have their own fusion power?

Turning the supply of energy off can certainly cause damage and/or disaster.

You need energy to fight a war, to manufacture weapons, to protect yourself, etc.

- that CO2 is a greenhouse gas
- that humans are responsible for most of the increase in CO2 level above about 280 ppm
- that a lot of the increase in CO2 levels is due to the use of fossil fuels
- that the average temperature of the Earth has warmed by around 1.0 to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times — Agree to Disagree

You do curiously leave out the link between the CO2 increase and the temperature increase.

Who controls the energy produced by fusion power? Will every country have their own fusion power?

Turning the supply of energy off can certainly cause damage and/or disaster.

You need energy to fight a war, to manufacture weapons, to protect yourself, etc. — Agree to Disagree

Who controls the energy produced by natural gas? Fusion wouldn't be any different from natural gas other than it doesn't cause climate change.

Right…that’s where this is going: it’s something other than CO2. But they can’t say it outright.

Does everybody want climate-change/global-warming to be "solved" ?
— Agree to Disagree

Anyone with an 6th grade understanding of climate change does, yes. — Mikie

Luckily I have a 7th grade understanding of climate change.

Questions like this is why I say you’re an average climate denier, or at least parroting their greatest hits. — Mikie

Do you care that the people who live in Russia are too cold? I don't think that you care.

So why should the Russians care if you are too hot. Once you are economically or climate damaged the Russians will be able to take over your country. You should learn to speak Russian.

Who controls the energy produced by natural gas? Fusion wouldn't be any different from natural gas other than it doesn't cause climate change. — frank

Wouldn't the energy produced by fusion power be much much much greater than the energy produced from natural gas?

Sort of like comparing a sword to a guided missile.

You do curiously leave out the link between the CO2 increase and the temperature increase. — Echarmion

I am not sure whether CO2 is responsible for 100% of the temperature increase. It is probably responsible for the majority of the increase in temperature.

The science is never settled. It must change if new data or observations are incompatible with the existing science. That is why I am not 100% sure.

Wouldn't the energy produced by fusion power be much much much greater than the energy produced from natural gas?

Sort of like comparing a sword to a guided missile. — Agree to Disagree

That kinda depends on a lot of practical engineering questions that we don't yet know the answers to. Technically fusion could produced a ton of power on a small footprint, but it's also possible it ends up similar to fission power in that you need large investments and as a result the returns aren't that high comparatively.

So why should the Russians care if you are too hot. Once you are economically or climate damaged the Russians will be able to take over your country. You should learn to speak Russian. — Agree to Disagree

Well they should care because it's not a zero sum game. It's a negative sum game where all the bad consequences (desertification, collapse of ecosystems, unliveable cities) are going to hit us first and only after that will new opportunities slowly open up.

And because having lots of resources helps in weathering the storm, the nations who are on top when shit starts going down will probably be the ones who suffer least.

Wouldn't the energy produced by fusion power be much much much greater than the energy produced from natural gas? — Agree to Disagree

No.

Do you care that the people who live in Russia are too cold? — Agree to Disagree

So much for a good faith discussion about climate change.

As with most climate deniers, the conversation has to devolve into nonsense.

The science is never settled. — Agree to Disagree

It is settled. In any meaningful sense whatsoever, it’s settled. It’s as settled as the earth being spherical.

Notice how the “science is never settled” trope gets used selectively. Especially when one knows next to nothing about the topic. Quantum mechanics? Science isn’t settled. Electromagnetism? Science isn’t settled. “Science is never settled!” They become armchair philosophers of science.

Easy, tired slogans.

I’ll simplify it further:

1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
2. Burning fossil fuels increases CO2.
3. With increased CO2 comes an increase in global temperatures— as seen in the graphs from my post above.

That’s settled.

I am not sure whether CO2 is responsible for 100% of the temperature increase. — Agree to Disagree

No one has ever claimed — certainly not climate scientists — that CO2 is “100% responsible”. This is a ludicrous statement.

Replacing 1 billion internal combustion engines with 1 billion batteries, and the building generating capacity to keep them all charged, will not be easy. — BC

You don't have to do it alone, there are the billion car owners to help. Each has to replace just one.

You don't have to do it alone — unenlightened

That's a relief. I was feeling slightly anxious about it.

In 2017 and 2018 the world produced 97,000,000 cars. More than I thought, but most of these were internal combustion powered. By 2025 the total number of electric vehicles on the road will be around 70,000,000 and somewhere between 10 million and 14 million are produced yearly in the world.

The numbers of electric cars are increasing rapidly, but it will be quite a few years before the CO2 burden of gas powered cars is lifted. Then we have to consider how the electricity for electric cars is being produced. Windmills? Solar arrays? Nuclear plants? Hydro? Natural gas? Coal?

Last year 12% of the world's electricity was from solar and wind--better than I thought, but still, a long way to go, especially in the US.

Fortunately I do not have to generate the world's electricity on my bicycle powered generator.

It would be great if governments incentivised the changes through taxation and subsidy. And even maybe directly building some generating infrastructure, but there seems to be a shortage of very stable genii in most governments. For buildings, for example a limit on rental charges permitted depending on the certified energy efficiency. Not very 'unregulated free market', but still... making stuff worth while doing is a good way to get folk to do stuff.

Last year the US government spent $15 billion subsidizing renewable energy, you get a $7500 IRS credit for buying an electric car, and in my state you get a 30% tax credit for using solar power. That kind of thing isn't unusual.

Cool! you guys rock!

:grin:

Do you care that the people who live in Russia are too cold?
— Agree to Disagree

So much for a good faith discussion about climate change.

As with most climate deniers, the conversation has to devolve into nonsense. — Mikie

Why does talking about the people who are too cold stop this being a good faith discussion?

You call me a denier whenever you disagree with me. You say that my ideas are nonsense whenever you don't want to discuss them. I have refrained from labelling you because I want to have a genuine discussion about climate-change/global-warming. It is you who is stopping us having a good faith discussion.

You call me a denier whenever you disagree with me. You say that my ideas are nonsense whenever you don't want to discuss them. I have refrained from labelling you because I want to have a genuine discussion about climate-change/global-warming. It is you who is stopping us having a good faith discussion. — Agree to Disagree

No, it's you. I gave you a long, detailed post explaining what climate change is. You respond with irrelevancies like "It's cold in Moscow."

If that's truly where your head is at -- to the point where you can't even see how stupid and irrelevant that statement was -- I'm not interested. You're not directing where the conversation goes, and I won't be dragged into a discourse on nonsense.

If you have something to say about climate change, or anything substantive about my post, by all means go for it. If there's some semblance of a point to be made by stating that one region of the world is cold, make it. Otherwise you're wasting my time and everyone else's.

(To those following along, notice how we've already strayed from anything to do with science, where some work actually needs to be done to follow along, into the subjective, flimsy world of "you're mean to me; I'm misunderstood; you call me names; you're not addressing my red herrings")

No, it's you. I gave you a long, detailed post explaining what climate change is. You respond with irrelevancies like "It's cold in Moscow." — Mikie

I am not disputing what climate change is, and I am not disputing that it is happening. I am pointing out the difficulty of "solving" climate change.

The cold temperatures in Russia are not irrelevant to the people who live in Russia. The people who live in Russia would probably like some global warming (nicer temperatures, winters not so harsh, more usable land, longer growing season, etc).

The "problem" of global warming is a difficult one to solve, and probably needs everyone to cooperate.

Why should the Russians cooperate with you?

How cooperative will these countries be? (they all have average summer temperatures below 25 degrees Celsius)
- Greenland
- Faroe Islands
- Norway
- Ireland
- Isle of Man
- Channel Islands
- United Kingdom
- Netherlands
- Denmark
- Finland
- Germany
- Switzerland
- Sweden
- Estonia
- Saint Helena
- Latvia
- Belgium
- Lithuania
- New Zealand
- Mongolia
- Austria
- Russia
- Czech Republic
- Belarus
- Chile
- Canada

These counties might say that they will cooperate, but how hard will they really try?

Why should the Russians cooperate with you? — Agree to Disagree

So the Russians won’t cooperate because it’s cold in Russia. Which is like arguing that the Cook Island don’t care about nuclear proliferation, since they have may survive a nuclear war.

What a low opinion you have of Russian people. In fact, polling shows majorities consider climate change a threat and want to do something about it— despite massive propaganda from this Petrol State.

The Russian government also signed the Paris Accords. The elite pay lip service to climate change but have so far done very little— not a surprise, given their economy.

These counties might say that they will cooperate, but how hard will they really try? — Agree to Disagree

Many are trying much harder than us, in fact. With the exception of Canada, I think, all of them have lower per capita emissions than we do. So they’re trying harder and contributing less at the same time.

The issue, as I said at the beginning, is political will. Other countries have much stronger action plans on climate change. The dopey US, with one major party full of climate deniers, has only tepidly entered the fight with the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which incentivizes EVs, heat pumps, induction stoves, solar panels, etc. — all of which are important technologies. It seems a decent signal to the rest of the world.

There are real roadblocks. Nothing you mentioned, of course, because you don’t know what you’re talking about — but problems like building transmission lines, dealing with permitting and NIMBYism, plugging old oil wells, sealing the leakage of methane from natural gas wells, countering misperceptions about nuclear power, etc., are all real problems. But they’re not impossible. As the climate keeps beating down on more and more people, you’ll start seeing more changes. It’s whether or not there’s enough time— that’s the only question.

To come here with one argument: “throw a solution at me and I’ll make up a reason why it won’t happen,” is really strange. Guess you figured it would make you look interesting in some way. The reality is quite the opposite.

There are real roadblocks. — Mikie

That is exactly the point that I am making. You think that these roadblocks will be overcome. I believe that these roadblocks won't be overcome.

We will have to wait and see which of us is correct.

I believe that these roadblocks won't be overcome. — Agree to Disagree

Right, you’re here to say “it can’t happen.” Just like those who said we’d never solve the ozone hole problem. Just a wave of the hand. Don’t have to learn anything or know anything, just point and say “way too hard— won’t happen.” Yeah, I suppose if everyone had attitudes like yours, it’d be a guarantee that nothing will happen.

Fortunately, even those who are pessimistic stress the importance of action. I value their onions; I don’t value yours. And for a simple reason: you haven’t shown even an 8th grade understanding of climate science.

Anyway— yes, time will tell.

The cold temperatures in Russia are not irrelevant to the people who live in Russia. — Agree to Disagree

And don't forget the researchers in the Antarctic! Imagine how much more pleasant life would be for them if the Earth warmed up 20 degrees or so.

I’m not interested in the armchair thoughts of a random internet guy, or what s/he thinks is possible or isn’t possible. — Mikie

So I’m seeing now that you’re just a fairly average climate denier coming here to spread old, tired canards. — Mikie

Why not run along before embarrassing yourself further about a subject of which you’re completely ignorant? :up: — Mikie

They [your views on climate change] fall right in the meaty part of the curve of climate denial. Fairly boring, actually. — Mikie

Yep. And from the other ignorant things you’ve said so far, perhaps below average. — Mikie

Questions like this is why I say you’re an average climate denier, or at least parroting their greatest hits. — Mikie

As with most climate deniers, the conversation has to devolve into nonsense. — Mikie

If that's truly where your head is at -- to the point where you can't even see how stupid and irrelevant that statement was -- I'm not interested. — Mikie

Guess you figured it would make you look interesting in some way. The reality is quite the opposite. — Mikie

I value their onions; I don’t value yours. And for a simple reason: you haven’t shown even an 8th grade understanding of climate science. — Mikie

As I said in an earlier post, I have been seriously interested in climate change for at least 10 years. As well as looking at temperature anomalies I have also looked in detail at actual temperatures. I have collected actual temperature data for over 36,000 locations on the earth.

After quality control I ended up with data for just over 24,000 locations on the earth. For each location the data includes:
- yearly and monthly average temperatures
- yearly and monthly average high temperatures
- yearly and monthly average low temperatures

I have grouped this data into 216 countries so that I know the average temperature, the average low temperature of the coldest month, and the average high temperature of the hottest month, for each country.

I have also combined the temperature data with population data for each country.

The following graph shows the data for each country. Each country is plotted as a rectangle. The height of the rectangle for a country goes from the average low temperature of the coldest month to the average high temperature of the hottest month. The width of the rectangle for a country shows the population of that country. The countries have been sorted by the average high temperature of the hottest month. Some of the countries with large populations have been labelled.

Also shown on the graph are:
- the average temperature of the land (averaged by area for 216 counties), This is the red line and equals 15.6 degrees Celsius
- the average temperature that humans live at (averaged over the total population of the earth).This is the blue line and equals 19.7 degrees Celsius

Note that the average human lives at a warmer temperature than the average land temperature.



Here is an example of using the graph. Find the yellow label which says “China” and locate the large rectangle above the label. That large rectangle represents China.

The average low temperature of China’s coldest month is about -2.0 degrees Celsius.
The average high temperature of China’s hottest month is about +30.3 degrees Celsius.
The grey line about half way up the rectangle is China’s yearly average temperature. For China, this is about +15.0 degrees Celsius.
The population of China is about 1,420,062,022 (the width of the rectangle).

There is a lot of information contained in the graph. One interesting thing that can be done is to choose a country and add some amount of global warming to the average high temperature of the hottest month. Then look to see which countries already have (without any global warming) an average high temperature of the hottest month higher than the first country chosen with global warming.

For example, Russia with +7.5 degrees Celsius of global warming will still have an average high temperature of the hottest month lower than America's with no global warming.

For example, Russia with +7.5 degrees Celsius of global warming will still have an average high temperature of the hottest month lower than America's with no global warming. — Agree to Disagree

So you’ve gathered data and put it into a graph — which thousands of climate scientists have also done — and then conclude with, once again, talking about how Russia is cold.

And this is supposed to disprove my quote statements above— which I stand by wholeheartedly. Hilarious.

It’s cold some places, it’s hotter other places. No kidding. Do you have a point to make or are you now just talking into the ether?