Mini ice age coming?

[Jan Smits]

It does however creep into politics, if enough people don't see a subject as mumbo jumbo and buy into it then it becomes 'sensible'. History is littered with things we look back on as 'wrong' but at the time made sense. Ultimately its all down to opinions, I'm really not wanting to open a can of worms on this but in the US the whole gun 'thing' is down to opinions, and its opinions that make laws and then amend them. If a majority feel strongly then it becomes 'right' even if a large minority disagree.

That is a flaw of democracy, though I'm aware saying it has any could be seen as heresy. Crap still happens, but it is the best we've got, and I wouldn't stomach anything else on offer.

One thing I don't accept is that we are to blame ...

I don't fully accept that either, but having looked at pro and anti evidence, I've concluded for myself that I don't know who to believe. I think it is possible and we're better laying off the burning of fossil fuels just in case. Oil makes cars go, but so does electricity. Oil also makes plastic - I think it's a better use of resources to make useful things than to just burn it and use up the resources. It's the short term thinking is the real danger to guard against, in my opinion.

Ice Age is a term different people define different ways. If you look at it from a Carboniferous baseline we're definitely still in one. I don't like calling it Climate Change because it has always changed, so nothing to get excited about. I don't care for Global Warming much either as some places could get colder, as I'll get onto. Global Weirding is a horrible term but I'm more comfortable with it. The Oceans are very good at regulating climate, much more than the atmosphere. Ocean circulation brings warm water to the poles and cooler water to the tropics. They haven't definitely found what drives circulation, but the most likely idea seems to be that when (North) polar sea-ice forms, the freshwater ice expels salt, which makes the water underneath denser and it sinks to the ocean bottom, displacing other water which flows away. In this model, no sea-ice equals no ocean currents. No currents, no Gulf Stream, among others, but no Gulf Stream the North Pole gets very cold, so ice forms and the process can start again. Exactly where the system reaches equilibrium again is anyone's guess. Yeah, I just did a course in Oceanography so I could be overstating their importance, but the models don't seem to give them enough.

Bottom line, I don't believe those who know really know, but neither do I think that means we should do nothing.

[grenfell]

Let's not get too worried,
https://theconversation.com/the-mini-ic ... tion-45037

[tc556guy]

I don't fully accept that either, but having looked at pro and anti evidence, I've concluded for myself that I don't know who to believe. I think it is possible and we're better laying off the burning of fossil fuels just in case. Oil makes cars go, but so does electricity. Oil also makes plastic - I think it's a better use of resources to make useful things than to just burn it and use up the resources. It's the short term thinking is the real danger to guard against, in my opinion.

if you lay off the use of fossil fuels, what will you power an industrial economy with. And I don't just mean the residential power requirements. The greenies don't want nukes. They don't want hydro. They don't want wind if they're NIMBYs. They dream about solar but there's absolutely no way an industrial first world nation can get its manufacturing power requirements from solar. SOMETHING has to be the source of our industrial power, and saying "well, we should not use fossil fuels just in case global warming is real" wont cut it

[grenfell]

And therein lies the problem. It's a vicious circle fuelled as much by the idea of continuous growth than anything else , every increasing industrial production to produce more wealth to finance the ever increasing debt based economies and oil with its high EROEI has provided the ideal energy resource. You are right when you say that there is no way of powering a first world industrial nation without oil although you should of added in it's present form. Nowhere did you mention actually cutting back on usage , cutting back on industrial production , cutting back on transport , cutting back on consumption. How does it make sense to keep producing more and more stuff , often stuff we didn't have or want a decade ago , and designing all that stuff with a short lifespan so we "need" to but ever more stuff in a few years time and all of it shipped thousands of miles across the planet?
To give an example the new power station at Hinkley is said to be able to supply 7% of the countries electricity needs. The figures are out there in Internet land to see and it is also said that HS2 will consume half of Hinkley's production. So in short if we could cut back consumption by as little as 3 1/2% we could get away with not building either.
I agree with what you say that renewables don't have the capacity to provide all the power we need and to be fair the use of bio fuels from what are essentially food crops has it's own inherent flaws. Again we really need to look at reducing consumption , travelling less and sourcing locally. Ultimately savings are for the long term whereas opening a new we'll only satisfies the demand , the greed , for a short time before we are back to square one. Also ultimately oil is a finite resource , it is going to dry up one day or at least get too expensive to extract , conventional oil peaked a decade ago and production has only been continued with fracking , tar sands etc all of which have lowering EROEI.

[bobble]

Agree with Grenfell 100%

[Jan Smits]

Agree with Grenfell 100%

Me too. Wouldn't have said it better myself.

[featherstick]

Agree too. We have to get used to LESS - Less Entertainment, Stimulation and Stuff.

[tc556guy]

And therein lies the problem. It's a vicious circle fuelled as much by the idea of continuous growth than anything else , every increasing industrial production to produce more wealth to finance the ever increasing debt based economies and oil with its high EROEI has provided the ideal energy resource. You are right when you say that there is no way of powering a first world industrial nation without oil although you should of added in it's present form. Nowhere did you mention actually cutting back on usage , cutting back on industrial production , cutting back on transport , cutting back on consumption. How does it make sense to keep producing more and more stuff , often stuff we didn't have or want a decade ago , and designing all that stuff with a short lifespan so we "need" to but ever more stuff in a few years time and all of it shipped thousands of miles across the planet?
To give an example the new power station at Hinkley is said to be able to supply 7% of the countries electricity needs. The figures are out there in Internet land to see and it is also said that HS2 will consume half of Hinkley's production. So in short if we could cut back consumption by as little as 3 1/2% we could get away with not building either.
I agree with what you say that renewables don't have the capacity to provide all the power we need and to be fair the use of bio fuels from what are essentially food crops has it's own inherent flaws. Again we really need to look at reducing consumption , travelling less and sourcing locally. Ultimately savings are for the long term whereas opening a new we'll only satisfies the demand , the greed , for a short time before we are back to square one. Also ultimately oil is a finite resource , it is going to dry up one day or at least get too expensive to extract , conventional oil peaked a decade ago and production has only been continued with fracking , tar sands etc all of which have lowering EROEI.

It's all fine and good to think that you can maintain an industrial first world society by reduce reuse recycle.
It's a pretty 60's hippy mentality when you get right down to it, and not very realistic
Every society economically has to have economic growth of some sort or its a stagnant society
.
I didn't say that you couldn't produce stuff without planned obsolescence being a factor.
Obviously manufacturers want you to buy more of their stuff, which is why they do what they do
Consumers also want to buy the cheapest stuff possible, so the market is driving the downward spiral towards 'flimsy stuff"
That's not entirely the fault of manufacturers alone.

It's all fine and dandy to have the "make it locally" mindset, but an industrial society isn't going to have heavy manufacturing of everything in every town. There can be only so many builders of cars, industrial equipment, and all of the stuff that goes into a modern society.

I hear your sort of mindset a lot in my town, since I live in a university town filled with leftists and pie in the sky thinkers.
Their mindset is not realistic.
They're also a bunch of NIMBYs. A guy has been trying to build a wind farm for a decade and all of his neighbors are having cows because they don't want to see big towers and hear the rotors, and they claim that their homes will get smashed up when a tower falls, as if that's an every day occurrence.

[Deeps]

And therein lies the problem. It's a vicious circle fuelled as much by the idea of continuous growth than anything else , every increasing industrial production to produce more wealth to finance the ever increasing debt based economies and oil with its high EROEI has provided the ideal energy resource. You are right when you say that there is no way of powering a first world industrial nation without oil although you should of added in it's present form. Nowhere did you mention actually cutting back on usage , cutting back on industrial production , cutting back on transport , cutting back on consumption. How does it make sense to keep producing more and more stuff , often stuff we didn't have or want a decade ago , and designing all that stuff with a short lifespan so we "need" to but ever more stuff in a few years time and all of it shipped thousands of miles across the planet?
To give an example the new power station at Hinkley is said to be able to supply 7% of the countries electricity needs. The figures are out there in Internet land to see and it is also said that HS2 will consume half of Hinkley's production. So in short if we could cut back consumption by as little as 3 1/2% we could get away with not building either.
I agree with what you say that renewables don't have the capacity to provide all the power we need and to be fair the use of bio fuels from what are essentially food crops has it's own inherent flaws. Again we really need to look at reducing consumption , travelling less and sourcing locally. Ultimately savings are for the long term whereas opening a new we'll only satisfies the demand , the greed , for a short time before we are back to square one. Also ultimately oil is a finite resource , it is going to dry up one day or at least get too expensive to extract , conventional oil peaked a decade ago and production has only been continued with fracking , tar sands etc all of which have lowering EROEI.

It's all fine and good to think that you can maintain an industrial first world society by reduce reuse recycle.
It's a pretty 60's hippy mentality when you get right down to it, and not very realistic
Every society economically has to have economic growth of some sort or its a stagnant society
.
I didn't say that you couldn't produce stuff without planned obsolescence being a factor.
Obviously manufacturers want you to buy more of their stuff, which is why they do what they do
Consumers also want to buy the cheapest stuff possible, so the market is driving the downward spiral towards 'flimsy stuff"
That's not entirely the fault of manufacturers alone.

It's all fine and dandy to have the "make it locally" mindset, but an industrial society isn't going to have heavy manufacturing of everything in every town. There can be only so many builders of cars, industrial equipment, and all of the stuff that goes into a modern society.

I hear your sort of mindset a lot in my town, since I live in a university town filled with leftists and pie in the sky thinkers.
Their mindset is not realistic.
They're also a bunch of NIMBYs. A guy has been trying to build a wind farm for a decade and all of his neighbors are having cows because they don't want to see big towers and hear the rotors, and they claim that their homes will get smashed up when a tower falls, as if that's an every day occurrence.

and this is.....wrong I take it, ?
I guess YOUR way is the only correct way and anyone who see's things differently leave themselves open to ridicule. That's likely to win people over to your side.

[preparedsurrey]

To be fair if their houses are close enough to be hit if the tower falls I can see why they are objecting, the ones I've been near aren't exactly silent running. If they have the space to build a wind farm surely they could shift it away from neighbouring buildings?