Penguin Crisis
On the heels of Al Gore’s nonsensical “challenge“, from the AP comes the alarming news: Hundreds of baby penguins found dead in Brazil
With a headline like that, you just know what’s coming:
But biologist Erli Costa of Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University suggested weather patterns could be involved.
“I don’t think the levels of pollution are high enough to affect the birds so quickly. I think instead we’re seeing more young and sick penguins because of global warming, which affects ocean currents and creates more cyclones, making the seas rougher,” Costa said.
As I mentioned a few days back…climate change has become TRUTH. Any behavior we don’t understand can now be attributed to climate change, without the inconvenience of actually doing the science.
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An article from last year regarding Gore and how the climate change zealots now regard global warming as a matter of “faith”.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelBarone/2007/03/26/gores_faith_is_bad_science?page=1
Kind of a poorly written article, actually. And Townhall.com wears it’s biases on it’s sleeve.
Still, there is religious “flavor” to the way that climate change is debated by the Gore camp.
Why is Gore’s challenge “nonsensical”? Just because it’s expensive? Honest question….
It’s nonsensical because it’s impossible. Impossible in 10 years, impossible in 20 years, impossible in 30 years.
Alternative energy has a lot of problems. It’s inefficient, it’s unreliable (sun doesn’t always shine, wind doesn’t always blow), and yes, it’s expensive.
It’s not always there when you want it, and there are no ways to store it. The battery technology does not exist to store excess production (if it ever got to that.)
Solar and Wind energy can play a role in a larger mix of energy which should include (increasingly) nuclear and (given tech advances) clean coal. Solar can be used to knock down the energy footprint of large companies. With significant advances, it may even be a worthwhile investment someday for residential units (as it is today it takes nearly the life of a mortgage to recoup the investment costs.)
Gore’s posturing was simply a way to get attention. His claims were incorrect, his science faulty, and his “challenge” ultimately harmful to his “movement”.
That people who call themselves thinkers and scientists buy into this rhetoric unquestioningly is alarming on several levels, but probably not surprising. There’s a religious fervor to it which I find distasteful.
Oil is very expensive as well. Especially if you include economic costs such as pollution and instability in the middle east.
You can challenge global warming science but you cannot produce one scientific document that has survived peer review that contradicts it – there isn’t one that exists.
T. Boone Pickens believes we have hit peak oil and has become a strong advocate for alternative bridge solutions. Nuclear is a bad choice but liquefied natural gas, wind, solar, tidal, etc. can all play a role until storage capability catches up to demands.
My argument is not meant to be some defense of oil. My complaint is against grandstanding “challenges” that the challenger knows are impossible.
Remember – we’re talking about electricity generation here, not automobile fuel sources.
You say nuclear is a bad choice, but don’t say why. Please elaborate.
Coal is the chief fuel source for electrical generation in the US, and we’re sitting on the world’s largest stores. It accounts for almost 50% of our energy. Wind power provides less than 1%. Solar, less than 1/10 of a percent.
I’m well aware of the fact that we’re talking electricity. I believe only one in nine barrels of oil in the U.S. goes to automobiles.
I just happen to think that we’re playing with a match stick that is much too big when it comes to Nuclear energy. We’ve already had one meltdown in Europe and a near miss in the U.S. I’m also aware that in Europe they are reprocessing spent nuclear waste to create more nuclear energy effectively minimizing the waste storage issues.
I just think it’s inherently too dangerous. Also the skeptic in me thinks that if nuclear energy, as a proven solution, becomes our major source of electricity, we will not take the steps to advance safer alternatives until another tragedy occurs.
“I believe only one in nine barrels of oil in the U.S. goes to automobiles.”
I challenge that figure. In 2006 Oil and Diesel accounted for 0.5% of electrical production in the US. Nuclear was 19.4%, and coal was 49.1%.
Wind was 0.7% and solar was 0.1%.
Nuclear power is clean and safe, scales beautifully, and is available NOW. The technology is more efficient and safer than ever.
Fear of the technology is irrational.
I agree with you that Gore’s challenge, as stated, is impossible. However, I think it’s akin to seeking perfection, not with the actual goal of getting it (because we all know that’s impossible) but with the goal of getting as close as possible.
Put another way, if we could achieve even 10% of what Gore challenged, we’d be a lot better off than we are now. I believe that’s the spirit such a challenge should be taken, and dare I say this without actually knowing for sure, I believe that’s probably how he intended it.
Gore of course is no scientist – he is a politician. But I think the message he carries is important, and while I also disdain the religious fervor some of his more extreme followers exhibit, I think it’s worthwhile not to get too distracted by that. In the end, I’m hopeful that clear, logical thinking will prevail.
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