Artic Sea Ice

[U4K61]

The discussion has been great!

This thread addresses an anomaly by trying to be as objective as possible. We might be the culprit, but perhaps we are just witnessing one of natures' natural variations as history is full of such examples. One view has it that the relative temperature stability of the 10,000 year Holocene, the period we are living in, is drawing to a close, to be replaced by a more volatile climate. Many postulate it enabled civilization, and our use of the earth, especially from agriculture, actually stabilized the climate. On the other hand, "the profligate burning of fossil fuels during the past two hundred has restarted the tipping mechanisms that can upset things again"
(The Long Emergency).

Climate change policy must consider cause and effect, where everything we do has a consequence. Modern industrial civilization has generated considerable wealth but has depleted many non-renewable resources. Our charge to go green can be tempered by rasing costs for goods and services and increasing poverty. The CO2 tax can raise the price of fuel and food so the poorest can not afford it, leading some into starvation and negating a well intioned climate policy.




The Quixotic Charge for Green and Renewable Ethanol:

"Producing first generation ethanol from corn is a mistake"

“It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol,” Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are “trivial,” he added, but “It’s hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.”
No kidding, and Mr. Gore said he knows from experience: “One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President.”

The Wall St Journal

The measure used to calculate the energy required to produce energy is Energy Return on Investment (EROI). the Renewable Fuel Asociation places ethanol from corn at 1.6 where gasoline is 5. But this is only part of the story. By 2012, we will have the capacity to produce 12 billion gallons, but will consume 48 billion gallons of water for the production process, plus an amount to grow the crop, giving a total of between 1,700 - 2,500 gallons of water for each gallon of ethanol. This gives a grand total of 1.7 - 2.5 trillion gallons to produce the government mandated 12 billion gallons of ethanol. Did they figure in the energy needed to pump all that water out of the ground? Got to love that law of diminishing returns: more work for less energy. Source: Unquenchable, Robert Glennon, p54-55




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