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The Forum > Article Comments > Kerry's first Policy Guidance out of touch with climate realities > Comments

Kerry's first Policy Guidance out of touch with climate realities : Comments

By Tom Harris, published 17/3/2014

We should focus on adapting to climate change, not vainly trying to stop it.

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< We should focus on adapting to climate change, not vainly trying to stop it. >

Tom, the first imperative is not to focus on adapting to climate nor trying to stop it. It is to adapt our energy regime away from the utter dependence on fossil fuels and towards a more diverse base composed largely of renewable sources.

Fossil fuels are finite. As extraction becomes ever-more difficult and as the energy-in-energy-out ratio falls, prices are set to rise steadily.

Meanwhile, the rate of usage is utterly exorbitant and still increasing.

We need to prepare ourselves for the inevitability of the end of cheap and readily available oil, gas and coal.

THIS should be the primary motivation!

And if we did this properly, we would be addressing climate change much more effectively than if we continued to address it as the primary motive.
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 17 March 2014 8:53:03 AM
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Ludwig
no, the author's quite right - adaptation is the way to go. If we do start to run out of fossil fuels anytime in the next century or so, and this is highly unlikely given what's been happening the gas industry, then nuclear energy is the way to go.. The green energy stuff sound good in theory but its of limited use on real life networks.. wind has a capacity factor of around 30 per cent, for PVs its 18 per cent..
Posted by Curmudgeon, Monday, 17 March 2014 12:25:03 PM
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Even God is against global warming. Watch this 5 minute news video produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network:
http://www.cbn.com/tv/3022250100001
Posted by EQ, Monday, 17 March 2014 2:59:47 PM
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One only has to look at human history and see that there were mega-epoch droughts in the southern US when the Medieval Warm Period was pleasantly warm and stable in Europe; the Little Ice Age was catastrophic for civilization - famine, food riots, revolution. Starving beggars wandered the land. Over the centuries we have adapted best with the use of fossil fuels - the Thames Barrier could not have been created without them (for instance); central heating; snow plows; modern farm equipment. We are liberated for weather terror except in rare circumstances. Renewables just don't cut it at all - not free, green or clean; not market ready. The EU and UK have already shown us that extreme climate change targets help nothing but the rich - creating a wealth transfer that destroys the middle class. Bad policy.
Posted by HistoryBuff, Monday, 17 March 2014 3:28:13 PM
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Renewables are a joke; they don't work and cannot even produce power sufficient to manufacture their own infrastructure.

Fossils are not running out. Abiotic oil is a reality.

There is enough nuclear, both uranium and thorium, to last millennia.

Fusion will come on stream eventually.

Green energy policies are made by Luddites and misanthropes.
Posted by cohenite, Monday, 17 March 2014 7:32:54 PM
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I wrote:

>> Tom, the first imperative is not to focus on adapting to climate nor trying to stop it <<

Should have been climate CHANGE. Hrrrrgh!
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 17 March 2014 9:54:57 PM
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<< …adaptation is the way to go >>

Yes Curmy. But not adaptation to climate change. The most important thing that we need to adapt to is the new energy regime that approaches as fossil fuels become progressively more expensive, which will greatly change economics from national to personal levels.

Surely you’ve got to agree that we need to prepare for the time when fossil fuels become considerably more expensive, so that we are ready to move away from our dependence on them and onto other energy sources as seamlessly as possible.

Fossil fuels can always be a part of our energy paradigm, for as long as the resource remains. It’s our utter dependence on them that we’ve got to be most concerned about.

Fossil fuels are only going to remain around for the next century or so if we wind the rate of consumption right down. And in order to do that we need to develop alternate energy sources. And maybe nuclear can be a part of that.

THIS is the imperative – to prepare for the changing energy paradigm. Preparing for the changing climate is surely a much lesser priority… especially when we just don’t know what the climate is really doing!
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 17 March 2014 9:56:43 PM
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