Agnostic, you'd be funny, if you weren't dangerous with your propaganda, that some fools might fall for.

The last I heard, the majority of the ice sheet in Greenland & the Antarctic are actually gaining thickness. Bet those greenhouse trolls must hate satellites, & their accurate measurements that resist adjustments.

Do you remember the famous lost squadron? That is the group of P38s & B17 that in July 1942 were forced to crash land on Greenland's east coast land bound ice sheet.

You must know, with all your knowledge, that when they looked for them in 1988 they were hard to find. That was because no one had expected them to be under 75 meters, [yes 250 Ft] of compacted ice that had covered them in that 46 years. The experts reckon that requires about 15 feet of snow a year to give that thickness of compacted ice.

That kind of agrees with those satellite measurements that tell us Greenland, & Antarctic icesheets are increasing in thickness, not diminishing.

Of course you can cherry pick a few areas of ice loss, particularly where volcanic activity underlies the ice pack, & that is exactly what we are used to you warmists doing.

Agnostic, the only reason that an electric car go 500 km is
only because it uses a very large battery.
Other electric cars normally have a range up to about 150km.
The batteries do not seem to have come down in cost and so far there
has been no breakthough in battery/size/cost capacity.

It is this factor that makes solar and wind backed up by batteries the
reason that wind and solar are not the solution to our energy problem.
If someone can come up with a battery at a very much higher energy
density and much lower cost, then our worries will all be over.
Remember that a normal days charge of the battery may have to support
three, four, perhaps five 24hr cold days and have enough left over
to start the next sunny day.

Anyway, the IPCC's computer models are working on the wrong amount of
fossil fuels. known as GIGO !

Hi Bazz

Well, yes and no. The latest Tesla gets its range due to improved increase in the ability of its batteries to store energy, not an increase in their size. On the other hand you are right that the cost of those batteries is very high and has yet to show signs of coming down. Until Elon Musk completes his mega factory and begins mass production of these batteries (expected in 2016) price will not come down and significant competition with other battery producers will not begin.

Battery technology has some startling advances in the works and yes, there may be years between research/development and mass production but it will come and, as you rightly point out, when it does, it will be the final nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. I don’t think we will have to wait more than another 3-5 years for this to become reality.

Hi Loudmouth

No, I do not agree with Lomborg who thinks CO2 is good for plants and us and we should concentrate on coping with increased emissions rather than attempting to reduce them.

Technology to capture CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels has been developed, known as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been developed at a cost of billions. The problem is that its use is so expensive that its makes coal fired electricity generation and metal smelting prohibitively expansive and, by comparison, makes solar power that much cheaper as an energy source.

Affordable technology to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere has not been developed BUT trees and oceans do suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. Two problems: When oceans absorb CO2 they become more acidic and this threatens the survival of fish species; Trees are being destroyed much faster than they are being planted, so their ability to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere is falling while, at the same time our CO2 emissions are increasing.

The problem with trees is made even more problematic by increasing global temperature which causes droughts and bush fires – both of which kill huge and increasing numbers of trees. When trees die, instead of absorbing CO2, they release it.

Fellow-Agnostic,

Why do you think they call it 'greenhouse gas' ? Because growers pump CO2 into their greenhouses, to encourage growth - and also to economise on water, since more rapidly growing plants use proportionately less water.

I think you misinterpret Lomborg very badly. As well, you sort of answer your own question - if trees absorb CO2, as of course they do, and as all vegetable growth does, then why not plant vastly more trees ? It can't be rocket science to organise tree plantings across the North, say a million a year to start with ? Aboriginal people could be trained up to operate the necessary nurseries and pumping stations. Problem solved. Piece of cake.

Joe

Hi Loudmouth

Lomborg approach is that he thinks CO2’s promotional effects on plant life justifies an increase in CO2 emissions. The problem with this approach is that it ignores two very serious effects of allowing atmospheric CO2 to rise further:
(1) it increases ocean acidity which reduces survivability of plankton on which fish species depend and this threatens fish species on which we depend and,
(2) it causes average global temperature to rise to very dangerous levels which will produce very severe climate conditions characterized by droughts, heat-waves and fires which life-forms, animal and plant alike, can not survive.

The very real threat of climate becoming so severe that it destroys human habitat is the reason why we must curb Carbon emissions and keep average global temperature below 2°C above the pre-industrial. If we fail to achieve the latter, we are simply not going to be around to debate Lomborg’s attitude – or anything else.