What to do about global warming

Tonington

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Oct 27, 2006
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...Extra you are a prolific recycler. This thread is a repeat of one portion of another, one which you asked the same thing, and you were given answers, which you then proceeded to say would not work. Denial. Par for the course.

Anyways, here it is, again. One framework. It's not rigid, the solution is plastic, in the sense that it is flexible...

Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world’s energy needs over the next 50years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the preindustrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed beyond the laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already implemented somewhere at full industrial scale. Although no element is a credible candidate for doing the entire job (or even half the job) by itself, the portfolio as a whole is large enough that not every element has to be used.
From: Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies by Pacala and Socolow

A decent National Geographic representation here:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/carbon-crisis/img/stabilization_wedges.pdf

It's an immense task.

And of course the wedges listed above could be replaced by other technologies that weren't included on the list.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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I've always been a proponent to alternative energy because I can't stand our total dependency on foreign oil. I'm for cleaner energy because it is better than coal plants belching pollution into the sky. So you don't have to be onboard with climate change to want alternative and cleaner energy.
Cleanliness is next to godliness which I believe in and support fully but when it comes to pointin the finger at Joe Blow for drving to and from work daily or heating a home I call bull****.

Industry should be taking the brunt of this first and foremost. Once industry is clean the rest of us can make the leap to geo thermal and solar once the new technology gouge factor has passed.

There are fantastic options available to the public but those who are marketing the clean goods are gouging upwards of 600%.

I'm glad Harper dropped the EcoEnergy grants which were merely going to line the pockets of the retailers and installers of green tech.
 

darkbeaver

the universe is electric
Jan 26, 2006
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It dosn't matter what forms of energy would eventually be adopted into the present social economic paradigm it will first ensure your complete dependence irrespective of region of origin or it simply won't be adopted. It's isn't about saving the planet it's about saving the energy gatekeepers.
 

captain morgan

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One thing that I am VERY excited about is a project in Massachusetts called Cape WInd. I am excited for a number of reasons.

1. It replaces fossil fuel with wind power.

2. It is off Hyanis, Cape Cod and it was opposed by none other than the Earth Saving Kennedy's as it would interefer with their views while yachting. Not boating...us little people boat when we are lucky. The Kennedy's and the rest of the well to do of Hyannis "yacht".

You see, saving the earth is great...as long as the liberals aren't affected by it. If the wind farm was off New Bedford or Fall River or some other run down Massachusetts coastal city they would be all for it. Now it is going to be in "THEIR" backyard and THEY are going to have to pay for it.

3. It is going to be very expensive and the cost will trickle down to the consumers on Cape Cod. The wealthy ones will get to see what saving the earth from GW really costs as their power bills will double to pay for the wind farm.

I just LOVE Karma.

Oh and when the final tally came in and the stuffed shirts on Cape Cod FLIPPED out a man simply said.

"Cleaner energy does not mean free and cheap."

That is so sweet... Just deserts I say
 

Tonington

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Oct 27, 2006
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It dosn't matter what forms of energy would eventually be adopted into the present social economic paradigm it will first ensure your complete dependence irrespective of region of origin or it simply won't be adopted. It's isn't about saving the planet it's about saving the energy gatekeepers.

So a quick question as a foil for your rhetoric beav.

Which group lobbies for power producers that contribute to the grid to be paid fair compensation? Those who wish to mitigate and prevent climate change, or the large energy corporations and their lobbyists, many of which have been grandfathered the assets to distribute power, paid for in part by tax payers?

:roll:
 

AnnaG

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Jul 5, 2009
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...Extra you are a prolific recycler. This thread is a repeat of one portion of another, one which you asked the same thing, and you were given answers, which you then proceeded to say would not work. Denial. Par for the course.

Anyways, here it is, again. One framework. It's not rigid, the solution is plastic, in the sense that it is flexible...

From: Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies by Pacala and Socolow

A decent National Geographic representation here:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/carbon-crisis/img/stabilization_wedges.pdf

It's an immense task.

And of course the wedges listed above could be replaced by other technologies that weren't included on the list.
Oh, but that'll kill the economy because its goals are unattainable. ;)

Cleanliness is next to godliness which I believe in and support fully but when it comes to pointin the finger at Joe Blow for drving to and from work daily or heating a home I call bull****.

Industry should be taking the brunt of this first and foremost. Once industry is clean the rest of us can make the leap to geo thermal and solar once the new technology gouge factor has passed.

There are fantastic options available to the public but those who are marketing the clean goods are gouging upwards of 600%.

I'm glad Harper dropped the EcoEnergy grants which were merely going to line the pockets of the retailers and installers of green tech.
Yeah well, the single biggest contributing industry to the emissions is electrical energy. Having people put a half dozen panels on their roofs would make a huge dent in EE consumption. Get businesses to do the same and that'd be another large dent.
The Gospel of Green | CBC News: the fifth estate

It dosn't matter what forms of energy would eventually be adopted into the present social economic paradigm it will first ensure your complete dependence irrespective of region of origin or it simply won't be adopted. It's isn't about saving the planet it's about saving the energy gatekeepers.
Whatever works. If it results in a cleaner planet, who cares if some people benefit financially. We'll all benefit in various ways.

That is so sweet... Just deserts I say
It didn't work for them, it worked for us. Obviously they did something wrong. lol
 

Extrafire

Council Member
Mar 31, 2005
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You haven't answered mine....you never do.

Telling to say the least.

Like I said, I am perfectly willing to exchange ideas with you if that is the purpose of this thread, if it isn't I won't bother.

I'll ask again......?

Take care.:canada:

:lol: Dodge, dodge, dodge!

You are so pathetic. I ask a question and you, instead of answering, ask me a question and require I answer yours before you answer mine. Where do you get the idea that's a valid excuse for dodging the question?

In any case, even though I'm under no obligation to respond to yours, I did. See post #45

That is not the purpose of this thread.

There are many threads dealing AGW, if you wish to discuss the validity of AGW I suggest you seek them out.
Thanks.

No. Although we fractionalized our impact, we didn't keep track of how much we reduced it by. Otherwise I would have told you long ago. There's nothing keeping others from doing the same and assessing their efforts to see how much they reduced, though.
Can you guarantee that it wouldn't be 80%? If you can show us how you can guarantee that claim, please.
I already did. Agriculture, industry/manufacturing and transportation comprise 80%. Most of your suggestions fall outside those categories and thus, if eliminated entirely (instead of just reducing) would still add up to no more than 80%. It's plain logic.

I don't think it would actually shut everything down. . I think it would take quite a bit of conversions from old practises to new ones. I think you're claiming that in hopes no-one will call you on it. Like I said before, the area around Trail used to look like a moonscape until Teck-Cominco straightened its act up. Now there's green stuff growing around the town.
It would take the equivalent of shutting them down. That's the question, how do you do that.

*shrugs* I'd get across the river any way I could, whether it'd be hitch a ride on a pteradactyl or crawl along the rope. Maybe even swim even it swept me downstream a few miles.
Anna dear, you aren't paying attention. In the analogy you can't crawl along the rope (which is your current tech) because you can't get it to the other side. You can't swim because it's too cold, you'd die of hypothermia. So would you keep throwing the rope and hook, knowing that it was futile? No you wouldn't, you'd look for another way. So why keep trying AGW reductions that you know won't achieve what you want?

So you are saying we either ignore the whole issue or else wait until we have a total new set of products to replace petroleum? You don't think we can reduce as much as we can and when we can. It's either one or the other but not working on the one while we wait for the other. Like I said, your attitude sucks.
Not at all. You're missing my point. Conservation is a great idea, and it's made possible mostly by inovations in technology (the Lomborg position). For a while, supermarkets were replacing their (very expensive) refridgeration units every two years because advances in technology made it so much cheaper to run. When my old furnace needs replacing the new one will be much more efficient. It isn't a case of either/or, you use the new tech as it develops, but you don't throw money away on things that don't work and whose real purpose is wealth transfer or political.

Yup, but we reduced our demand on it by a large fraction, which is the point.
No, the point is, is it enough? Even if you reduced your personal use by 80%, that still doesn't much affect the huge emissions of manufacturing or agriculture.

It wouldn't. But as I said before, we do have an impact on our water and land, so it seems inane that we could spew crap into the atmosphere and not expect it to have an impact. And no-one has produced quantitative and definitive proof that points to how much we've affected it that I've seen. Would the planet be better off than if we did nothing? Absolutely not.
If you're talking about actual pollution then I agree, it will have an impact on land and water and we should do what we can to mitigate it. But expending effort that won't mitigate it is as useless as expending ineffective efforts on AGW.


Good for Lomborg. And I am glad that you finally see that making an effort at doing what we plan can be a good thing, whether we actually achieve our plan or not. Doing nothing would be just as stupid as polluting in the first place.
That's not quite what I said. Doing nothing is much wiser that doing something that you know won't work.

So why are you snivelling about the goals we make efforts to achieve?.
I'm not snivelling about the goals. I'm only pointing out that you efforts to reach them are ineffective and a waste of effort and money.

To you maybe. But we aren't as smart as you I guess, so show us please.
See above.


How do you know? Show us. I didn't even finish the list yet you claim those things will only amount to less than 20%? And then you tell me that I sound like SJP. roflmao You're a laugh and a half.
How much of that list falls under the category of manufacturing/industry, transportation and agriculture? If all of it did you'd have to eliminate it to get an 80% reduction, not just reduce it by a fraction.

Here's a little info for you about Teck-Cominco's smelter in Trail, where in the mid 70s they decided that lead and other contaminants were causing grief in the neighborhood:
The difference is they were using technology that worked to achieve the goals they set., they weren't wasting time, effort and money on ineffective actions. That's why they achieved their goal.

So there's no problem and we shouldn't have to do anything? Right back to the start again. You're the one that's most like SJP.
We all know that I don't believe there's a problem, but that's not the topic of this thread. I've mentioned already that for the purposes of this thread we're assuming there is a problem. The question is what to do about it. My comment was there's no point in expending huge efforts and dollars to do something that won't work. It's no better than doing nothing, in fact it's worse.


Yeah, nothing like developing new ideas, new industries to replace the old dirty ones like the petroleum industry. That's just a bad idea and unachievable. :roll:

It's working in southern AB. Solar energy is working for Germany. The alternative sucks worse.
Developing new ideas, industry and technology is more Lomborg position. (We may not be so far apart, you keep suggesting stuff that I agree with) The problem with the way it's being done in Europe is it requires a lot of subsidies paid for by the very part of the economy that's under attack, it isn't self sustaining. And it isn't working, Europes emissions keep going up.
 

Tonington

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 27, 2006
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...Extra you are a prolific recycler. This thread is a repeat of one portion of another, one which you asked the same thing, and you were given answers, which you then proceeded to say would not work. Denial. Par for the course.

Anyways, here it is, again. One framework. It's not rigid, the solution is plastic, in the sense that it is flexible...

Humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical, and industrial know-how to solve the carbon and climate problem for the next half-century. A portfolio of technologies now exists to meet the world’s energy needs over the next 50years and limit atmospheric CO2 to a trajectory that avoids a doubling of the preindustrial concentration. Every element in this portfolio has passed beyond the laboratory bench and demonstration project; many are already implemented somewhere at full industrial scale. Although no element is a credible candidate for doing the entire job (or even half the job) by itself, the portfolio as a whole is large enough that not every element has to be used.

From: Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies by Pacala and Socolow

A decent National Geographic representation here:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/10/carbon-crisis/img/stabilization_wedges.pdf

It's an immense task.

And of course the wedges listed above could be replaced by other technologies that weren't included on the list.

Ahem....
 

Extrafire

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Mar 31, 2005
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Patience Ton, I read it and I have comments but I ran out of time. I'll get to you this afternoon.

Also I hate the way my posts all run together when I respond to several posts at once.
 

Avro

Time Out
Feb 12, 2007
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:lol: Dodge, dodge, dodge!

You are so pathetic. I ask a question and you, instead of answering, ask me a question and require I answer yours before you answer mine. Where do you get the idea that's a valid excuse for dodging the question?

In any case, even though I'm under no obligation to respond to yours, I did. See post #45

Like I said, I will happily share ideas if that is the purpose of the thread.

I even stated that it was not the purpose of the thread....

This thread isn't about finding solutions.

This thread is about getting people in here to offer solutions to have them ripped apart by the thread starter who not only believes AGW is a scam but one perpetrated by a cabal of socialists and scientists to steal money from the West.

Of course, if I am wrong the thread starter will offer a few solutions of his own.

Then you admited it...


You just about got that 100% right.

If you or anyone puts forward a solution and I can rip it apart then it wasn't much of a solution in the first place.


So I suggested you change the the tilte to....

Perhaps the thread title should have read:

Hand in your solutions to AGW so I can rip them apart.

That would have been, at the very least, honest.

Take care buddy.:cool:

....and since you somewhat responded I will do so in kind.

He suggests instead of trying to reach such a reduction, all efforts should be directed into developing new technology that can replace fossil fuels rather than wasting money on windmills or tax initiatives such as cap & trade which will only hurt developed economies.


YouTube - Renewable Energy Solution of the Month - Wind#!
 

Tonington

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 27, 2006
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Patience Ton, I read it and I have comments but I ran out of time. I'll get to you this afternoon.

Also I hate the way my posts all run together when I respond to several posts at once.

We're prolific posters here! If you show up infrequently you get buried. ;-)
 

VanIsle

Always thinking
Nov 12, 2008
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Patience Ton, I read it and I have comments but I ran out of time. I'll get to you this afternoon.

Also I hate the way my posts all run together when I respond to several posts at once.
It's a new feature. You'll have to get used to it. It does save time and helps stop so much quoting.
 

VanIsle

Always thinking
Nov 12, 2008
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It's broken. I just posted a pile in one of the "life begins at" threads and they were all individual posts. (I'm too lazy to use the multiple quote button ).
That's too bad because even though sometimes it made a bit of a jumble, generally speaking, it was good. I liked it.
 

L Gilbert

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It's easy to answer that: cut back on pollution. Set high standards and try reaching those goals. We don't have to do it all tomorrow. I would bet eventually we could knock 90% of our today's level of impact out. Necessity is the mother of invention. - Plato
 
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Avro

Time Out
Feb 12, 2007
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It's easy to answer that: cut back on pollution. Set high standards and try reaching those goals. We don't have to do it all tomorrow. I would bet eventually we could knock 90% of our impact out. Necessity is the mother of invention. - Plato

Man has done many great things technologically....why this is such a difference is beyond me.

Working for a solution is not the purpose of this thread, this threads purpose is to feed the ego of a fire.
 

Tonington

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Oct 27, 2006
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The topic of this thread is what to do about global warming.

Further deviations will lead to moved posts. There's plenty of threads on this forum discussing the physical basis of global warming and climate change.
 

Extrafire

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OK, here is my critique. This will be a rather long post.

First off, they don't try to do it in 10 years, which is intelligent. Anyone with half a brain knows that the 10 year warning is nothing more than a ruse to scare (or even panic) governments and people into making rash decisions thereby lining the pockets of scam artists such as Gore et al, and/or advancing the alarmist political agenda. These people envision a 100 year effort and this report is focused on the first 50 years. Commendable.

The next thing I noticed was they focus on leveling off atmospheric concentrations rather than reducing emissions by 80% so it doesn't really address the exact question, but it does address the question of what to do about AGW so it deserves consideration.


Option 1.- Increased fuel efficiency of cars to average 60 MPG. They say these can be accomplished by using existing tech but the car companies are having a tough time figuring out how to reach the recently mandated 35 mpg. My bro-in-law swears he read an article in popular mechanics back in the '50's that described a carb that could give a Ford flathead V8 100 mpg. Such stories have been around for years. Are they true or just urban ledgends? There's also this;
"A FLEET of Volkswagen Golfs (Rabbits to Americans) that get a staggering 94 miles per gallon (or, as Europeans say, 2.5 litres per 100km) are running around Berlin. Something like the Golf “Twin Drive” is what many of us will be driving within five years.… "
You gotta pay, sorry.
http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/techview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12492042&fsrc=nwl

It just might be possible.


Option 2. Reduced reliance on cars. Nice thought but how realistic is it to think that people will go along? I've known refugees from Kosovo, Sudan and Chile, and all of them got a car just as soon as possible. People all over the world want cars and as their countries develop they won't want to be restricted any more than we do. This scenario won't fly.

Option 3. More efficient buildings. Great idea, and it's already being done in new construction. Are they suggesting re-fitting old buildings? They don't say but I don't think so and I'd be surprised if they can get their results without. New construction means more buildings that need heat and light, and while they can be made very efficient, the addition of new buildings always means increased energy consumption, not reduction.

Option 5. Substitute N. gas for coal. Good idea, it would make a difference. Problem is a lot of environmental groups don't want it. They want the coal plants shut down but they're also opposed to any fossil fuel plant construction, even natural gas. To convert 6000 coal plants to gas would require 120 conversions a year. That's a huge expense, and it doesn't seem all that feasible in difficult economic times as this. It would be made much more expensive by all the litigation brought by enviro-groups and considering some of the rediculous decisions rendered by courts recently they might just win. Such conversion isn't likely feasible within 50 years on more than a minor scale.

Option 6. Storage of carbon captured in power plants. It would work, but very expensive and once again, enviro-groups oppose it. Plus there is the cost. The chemical steps in the capture consume energy, as do the compression and transport of the carbon dioxide. That will use up a quarter or more of the output of a power station fitted with CCS, according to most estimates. So plants with CCS will need to be at least a third bigger than normal ones to generate the same net amount of power, and will also consume at least a third more fuel. In addition, there is the extra expense of building the capture plant and the injection pipelines. If the storage site is far from the power plant, yet more energy will be needed to move the carbon dioxide. Is it worth the price to the customers? The consumer will only stand for so much.

Option 9. Nuclear power replacing coal. Again, strongly opposed by enviro-groups. Did they take into consideration the time required to get through all the litigation and environmental reviews? They'd need much more than 50 years to get any amount of them converted. I like nuclear and it would work. I also like the idea in this article, I'd be happy to have one in my neighbourhood, hell I'd even rent my yard space to BC Hydro for the installation, but most people are very leary of nuclear plants any where near them.

Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs
http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news-toshiba-micro-nuclear-12.17b.html


Option 10. Windmill electricity. Lots of problems with wind power that doesn't get much press. For example, there's a world wide kaffufle over 500 ducks that were killed in a tailings pond at the tar sands, yet many magnitude more birds are killed by windmills and we hardly ever know it. To build the number of windmills mentioned in this article would result in massive slaughter of birds and bats. Eventually the people would learn about it. There's a price to pay for any kind of energy but do you really think they'd stand for that?

Besides wind power requires huge subsidies and governments are reaching the point where they can no longer fund anything and everything that catches their fancy.

“Spain admits that the green economy as sold to Obama is a disaster,” read the headline in La Gaceta, a Spanish business newspaper that reported a leaked internal Cabinet document in a full-page article (Obama has often cited Spain as a model Green Economy). The Cabinet document indicated that more than two jobs were lost for every green job created, that the country’s spending binge on renewables had made Spain a high-electricity-cost country, and that Spanish businesses now faced electricity costs 17% higher than the European average. Thanks to the green economy, Spain has Europe’s highest unemployment rate, at 20%, and is now staring at bankruptcy.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/05/28/green-elites-meet-the-people/#ixzz0pHgXMKAV

* The U.S. can expect 2.2 jobs to be destroyed for every 1 renewable job financed by the government.

* Only 1 in 10 of the jobs actually created through green investment is permanent.

* Since 2000, Spain has spent €571,138 ($753,770 to create each “green job,” including subsidies of more than €1 million ($1,319,783) per wind industry job.

* Those programs resulted in the destruction of nearly 113,000 jobs elsewhere in the economy.

* Each “green” megawatt installed destroyed 5.39 jobs in non-energy sectors of the Spanish economy.

* The total over-cost—the amount paid over the cost that would result from buying the electricity generated by the renewable power plants at market prices—between 2000 and 2008 amounts to 7,918.54 million Euros ($10 billion).

* The total subsidy spent and committed to these three renewable sources amounts to €28,671 million ($36 billion).

* Consumer energy costs in Spain would have to be increased 31 percent to repay the debt generated by the green jobs subsidies.
http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf


And are the results really as good as claimed?

The wind farm industry has been forced to admit that the environmental benefit of wind power in reducing carbon emissions is only half as big as it had previously claimed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/3867232/Promoters-overstated-the-environmental-benefit-of-wind-farms.html

Option 11. Photovoltaic electricity. Problems are very similar to wind electricity so I won't list them.

Option 13. Biofuels. They have a caveat on this one,
"provided the ethanol itself were fossil-carbon free".
It isn't. It takes 29% more energy to produce ethanol than it contains. Biofuels increase emissions. Someday we may develop technology that would enable us to produce ethanol without the input of fossil energy but that would likely negate the need for alternate fuel.

In addition, massive production of biofuels would result in major hardship for the poorest of the worlds peoples. According to the World Bank's top economist, Don Mitchell, biofuels have been responsible for three-quarters of the 140 per cent rise in world food prices between 2002 and 2008. Not that there's been any shortage of food, but the perception resulted in hoarding and higher prices in third world countries on top of the increase in grain prices in commodity markets. Recall the angry demonstrations and riots by those poor? Imagine what would happen if biofuel production were ramped up the levels this report wants.

Are their estimates of land requirements accurate? A 2006 report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation suggested that for the EU to meet its 10 per cent target from home-grown biofuels would require a staggering 70 per cent of arable land to be taken out of food production. What's more, far from helping to cut global CO2 emissions, biofuel production can often give off much more CO2 than it saves – not least by disturbing huge quantities of carbon dioxide locked in the soil which, according to the University of Minnesota, could release "17 to 420 times more CO2" than is saved by the fuels themselves.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3347046/The-Great-Biofuels-Con.html


Option 14. Forest management. First on their list is reduced tropical deforestation, but this is completely at odds with the biofuel option. Currently one of the biggest causes of tropical deforestation is to provide cropland for palm oil plantations to produce biofuel supplements for European deisel fuel. You can't have both increased biofuel production and reduced deforestation.

Next they want to restore temperate forests to massive areas which is also at odds with the biofuels option. While trees are a carbon sink, once the forest is grown it achieves an equilibrium. Trees grow and die but the forest as a whole maintains basically a static level of carbon so there would be no more sequestation from that point on. In certain boreal forests carbon is gradually built up on the forest floor in muskeg or peat deposits but it takes centuries to achieve any significant amount. Moreover, establishing a forest takes far longer than the 50 year timeframe they use. A concerted effort might be able to plant the trees, but another century would be needed to reach full capacity.


All those options would be very expensive to implement and the question that must be answered is where the money will come from. The western economies which have been so wealthy have got themselves into a debt crisis that is rapidly coming to a head. The gravy train is over. We can't even fund existing programs, let alone embark on such an expensive venture.

The welfare states of Europe that rose out of the ashes of the Second World War are now facing destruction because of the sovereign debt crisis, analysts say.

The troubles that began with the collapse of Greece and which now threaten the euro spell the end for excessive and occasionally corrupt welfare systems, they say.
http://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/2010/05/end-of-welfare-states.html

Back in 2008, when I was fulminating against multiculturalism on a more or less weekly basis, a reader wrote to advise me to lighten up, on the grounds that “we’re rich enough to afford to be stupid.”

Two years later, we’re a lot less rich. In fact, many Western nations are, in any objective sense, insolvent. Hence last week’s column, on the EU’s decision to toss a trillion dollars into the great sucking maw of Greece’s public-sector kleptocracy. It no longer matters whether you’re intellectually in favour of European-style social democracy: simply as a practical matter, it’s unaffordable.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/27/were-too-broke-to-be-this-stupid/



My conclusion is it's a good effort, much more realistic than most other scenarios proposed by the alarmists but it's unrealistic. Lomborg still has the only sensible plan.