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The Forum > Article Comments > The simple-minded politics of international action on climate > Comments

The simple-minded politics of international action on climate : Comments

By Nicholas Gruen, published 23/12/2005

Nicholas Gruen argues in spite of Kyoto developing countries' economies and emissions keep growing.

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While I believe that we have been presented with sufficient evidence for global warming, I would like to move away from the issue for the moment.

We do not allow garbage and refuse to build up inside our homes. We do not use up all the foundations of our homes for fuel.

So why do we continue to do this to the planet?

Is it not common sense to develop renewable and safe fuels?

Is it not common sense not to pollute the atmosphere/rivers/oceans?

Whether or not we have changed the dynamics of our environment, surely we should (with our fantastic technology) be living in a sustainable and therefore, more economically viable manner, than we are doing at present?

Kyoto may not be perfect, but it is a start. The smart thing to do now, as a nation, is develop technology that is environmentally friendly and cash in on that.
Posted by Scout, Thursday, 12 January 2006 11:50:09 AM
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Scout, we have all the technology we need, but not the political or corporate will. There will be no change, because vested interests have all their resources tied up in fossil fuel. If they turn to biofuels, small scale solar and wind, those vested interests would lose their control to the people and small business.

Its all there to use, there are no excuses, even city people can change and save. How many of you refuse packaging, and buy bulk. You all eat food that requires huge amounts of fossil fuels to provide it. Cities are lit upi like christmas trees all night, wasting energy. City people should only be allowed to ride bikes and use non polluting public transport in cities. That would reduce emmissions dramatically, until more personal non polluting veicles come on line.

Now if everyone suddenly stopped buying petro-fuel cars, vested interests would quickly change, or go broke. That may be better for us all in the long wrong

But no, people just all sit there waiting for someone else to do it for them. Result, a destroyed planet and a decimated population.
Posted by The alchemist, Thursday, 12 January 2006 12:22:12 PM
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Taz, you miss the point pv=nrt is widely accepted rule to describe relationship between pressure, volume and temperature of a gas, I do not think anyone dispute the relationship.

Almost everyone accepts that the earth's atmospheric pressure is 101.3 kPa, in just about all science teachings it is preached as a constant.

if temperature is rising at 0.1 degrees/decade this is approximately an increase of 0.5% per decade. from pv=nrt then pressure must also be increasing at that rate (actually it is slightly more because there are increased greenhouse gas molecules entering the atmosphere represented by n in the equation)

Remember it is in climatology that Venus is often used to demonstrate the runaway greenhouse effect, high temperatures and correspondingly high atmospheric pressure.

I am just perplexed that the debate over rising temperatures, heat island, satellite data not being correctly callibrated etc could simply be determined if average atmospheric pressure was increasing. We have a very simple formula which has been accepted by the scientific world and repeated and empirically shown to be sound.

Why is there no use of atmospheric pressure to counter the arguments of those that doubt global warming?
Posted by slasher, Thursday, 12 January 2006 8:25:15 PM
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Slasher: I don’t have the answer and your question goes beyond all the class lecture notes on the www. regarding Boyle’s law and combined gas laws.

http://ic.ucsc.edu/~wxcheng/envs23/lecture5/lect5_print.htm

I have another question for climate change social-science commentators following our alternative to Kyoto in Sydney.

Have we learnt anything useful from our old ‘Hilsch’ Tube vortex experiments?

I reckon our understanding of such thermodynamics may hold the key to knowing what comes next. Extreme weather is wound up like the intense air streams in a Hilsch tube and the practical researchers amongst our latest crop of writers have already found that ‘scientists’ still have to get a handle on it all.

I don’t expect much to come from governments or their advisers up there either.

In another comment I mentioned making a vortex tube in the early 60’s. The original demonstration pair failed. I was under instruction to make these things in clear plastic or glass for a science exhibition in Melbourne so school children could see the vortex in action. One of our problems was the extreme temperature differential in the materials used. Our glass blower tried using Pyrex throughout the later models but then we had problems controlling the construction detail. I kept the “demon” my metal version with a Perspex ‘low pressure’ snow maker in my tool box for years. It was so neat and practical.

At the time we were working on making homogenous solutions. Those researchers gave us Dulux paints, one step forward in long term solar protection of our most valuable assets. Fine particles in a high speed machine or molecules in a rotating jet stream the engineering is roughly the same.
Posted by Taz, Friday, 13 January 2006 5:23:31 AM
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Vortex Part 2 The critical air stream separation takes place in a tiny chamber as it does scaled up in a tornado. Warm shallow seas and hot landscapes can produce the necessary atmospheric uplift to wind up a vortex with out a thunderstorm for starters.

Years ago I saw a massive air vortex develop over Bass Strait that discharged many miles away over the highlands in Tasmania. It was stationary for hours and the suction tube was clearly defined by the rising vapor above the sea. Lightening finally occurred in the rain at the far end. But it was neither a thunderstorm nor a water spout. Its sheer size made it a new weather cell. But not all aspects of our weather are automatically recorded.

Such phenomena drive bushfires too. I also watched fire in swirling gasses. By then process engineers had shifted from measuring CO2 in the stack for fuel combustion efficiency to measuring excess O2. Both dry and wet fuel is more rapidly consumed in the increased intensity of vortexes. We should not expect to turn off the energy or the conditions that drives these systems in the short term but we must deal with the extra fuel that surrounds us every long summer. But burning off the dry grass ahead of a disaster is only one practical detail.

This is all about preventing rapidly rolling furnaces in front of severe wind shear. As grassland fuel becomes dust with the hot summer winds; any fire becomes an integral part of that atmospheric event.

See formation diagrams of tornadoes and cyclones here and note the tubes within tubes -

http://www.earthsci.org/J_Flood04/wea1/wea1.html

When we learn to live with natural vortexes with increasing frequency and magnitude we will have gone some way in dealing with climate change on the whole and this sphere in general with its more steamy surface.
Posted by Taz, Friday, 13 January 2006 10:43:19 AM
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Alchemist

I am rather perplexed by your post in response to mine where you stated:

"Scout, we have all the technology we need"

I shouldn't need to point out that technology is not static, nor should I point out that further development into renewables such as wind and solar is urgently needed, nor to rule out the possibilities of new discoveries.

I was trying to reach those who do not believe in global warming. My point was it doesn't matter whether global warming is a threat or not, however it behoves us all to adjust our industry towards sustainable and environmentally compatible methods.

I agree that industry and government have been lax in research and development and was trying to point out that there is money to be made - given our capitalist economy I would think that the entrepreneurial would be seizing the many opportunities for development of safe, renewable energy sources.

People aren't going to stop driving petroleum based cars until there is a viable alternative.

Despite the abundant sunshine, people are not likely to install low energy sources such as solar panels without government support. Some councils subsidise water tanks, why not solar or wind technology?

I have tried writing to my local MP's. If more of us did wrote to them instead of just griping, maybe we would see some action.

Australia has the opportunity to be a leader in areas such as renewables and organic farming - where are the visionaries?
Posted by Scout, Friday, 13 January 2006 12:07:41 PM
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