Thunberg and Mnuchin

A Reuters headline says

Get an economics degree Greta, then let’s talk – U.S. Treasury chief

I can save Greta a lot of time by condensing American economics down to two words:

Money talks

Look at ICANN. Look at how they “leaned” on France over France wanting to rein in Silicon Valley. Look at the threats of difficult trade agreements with the UK post Brexit.
They have money.
Ergo they have power.
And they’re quite happy to use and abuse it.

That’s literally all she needs to know about American economics.

Get an economics degree Greta, then let’s talk – U.S. Treasury chief

To which her response is, “you learn something about science.”

Careful, Clive, don’t confuse the words “Greta” and “science”!

It is worth pondering that as the word “terrorism” no longer strikes fear into the heart of the middle-classes, Greta and Climate Change have neatly stepped into the void to fulfil the role of “unbeatable lurking threat” that allows sweeping changes to our daily life. Whether you heed the message or not, the media and powers-that-be have a new best friend for keeping us all in check…

Greta isn’t herself a scientist, Andrew – but at least she listens to scientists and amplifies their message.

There’s nothing “lurking” about the threat of climate change. The science behind it has been known for over a hundred years; it’s been a concern of mine for over fifty. I pretty certainly know more about it than Greta does, but she’s a damn sight better at mobilizing action than I’ve ever been.

And no, it’s not unbeatable. It’s going to be bloody difficult to beat it, and it’s getting more and more difficult the longer we leave it. We can’t prevent all its negative consequences, but we can minimize them – but the extent to which we can minimize them is diminishing by the day due to governments’ failure to take appropriate measures.

Greta and Climate Change have neatly stepped into the void to fulfil the role of “unbeatable lurking threat”

Because, finally, somebody got up off their ass and started to do something.

The issue of climatic change is not a black and white scenario. I believe that the climate is changing, but I do not believe that “carbon targets” and other such folly is going to make an appreciable difference. It may, if we’re lucky, buy us some time. I guess that’s why politicians tend to like the idea – it’s basically passing the buck while looking like they’re doing something, and well done her for calling them out on it.

that allows sweeping changes to our daily life.

Not so much. To take our current climate seriously, we sort of need to stop using cars, airplanes, pretty much anything that runs on dead dinosaurs. Stop eating so much meat. Oh, and cull about half our species. Preferably by tomorrow.

A few pennies of “eco tax” and freaking out over single use plastics is an annoyance, not a sweeping change, and not something that’s going to amount to even a small pile of beans (never mind a hill of them).

The science behind it has been known for over a hundred years; it’s been a concern of mine for over fifty.

It’s not a concern of mine. I am not in a position to make any useful changes. I instead wonder about world sanity when we’re in a situation where I can’t get a straw to put in my burger-joint soft drink, yet Elon Musk can launch and then blow up a rocket to see if the escape mechanism works. Those with money do what they want, and you and me, we just get to put up with the crap that trickles down from above. There’s nothing I can do or change, and after the end of the month I won’t have the right to vote anywhere. So I’m not going to let it concern me that much. I just hope that when it all goes horribly wrong, it’ll be after I’m dead.

but she’s a damn sight better at mobilizing action than I’ve ever been.

Well, that’s the power of Greta, I guess.
If one of us went and shouted at world leaders…well, we’d get arrested before making it in the door.
They invite her back for more.

And no, it’s not unbeatable.

Disagree.

We are a ridiculously versatile mammal. We have made peace with reindeer in places where it never stops snowing, and we have domesticated camels in places where snow is an unknown concept.
We will need to adapt.
But more than that, we will need to try to figure out what to do with a shrinking land mass. You’ll notice that in the last century or so, shipping was The Big Thing, so many many important cities (and quite a few capitals) are either on the coast, or slightly offset via tidal river.
All of which basically translates to mean “more or less at sea level”.

Remember, we can create huge changes by many many little actions over durations of time. For creating big changes, our best method at the moment is a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, nature farted dramatically for six minutes and moved Japan’s main island about two and a half metres to the east, shifted the entire planet’s axis by 10-25cm (speeding up rotation by about one and a half microseconds per day), and delivered rapidly moving tsunami waves that in some places may have reached a height of 40 metres.

Don’t mess with nature. It’ll stamp on us with no regard nor concern.

Remember, also, that this planet of ours has already survived five extinction events.

Or, put simply, this planet owes us nothing and this climate that we enjoy is temporary.

The only reason this isn’t blindingly obvious to people is because known human history just doesn’t go back far enough. I mean, god, go to Wiki and try to unwind the chain of languages from English back to Proto-Indo-European. You’ll notice that it’s maybe six thousand years ago, when “writing” was drawing representative pictures.
I mention this to point out that, if you believe the Bible was created sort of around the time it was supposed to be, then The Great Flood and Noah’s Ark is about the oldest recorded weather report we have. And it’s not so long ago really.

So instead of looking at the changes in weather patterns and thinking “hmm, maybe there’s something happening” and instead of looking at “<something something> since records began” and wondering why, the politicians (lobbied and supported by the oil industry – and with revenue in the billions, they can afford it) prefer to create excuses rather than shake anything up. Pretty much the only reason anything at all is happening is thanks to enough people waking up to realise that, no, it isn’t alright.

It really isn’t.

Greta isn’t herself a scientist, Andrew – but at least she listens to scientists and amplifies their message

As the wife commented Greta doesn’t need to be a scientist others are doing that job, however the scientists tend to be ignored while a good publicist, like Greta, puts across the message.

Remember, also, that this planet of ours has already survived five extinction events.

I’d make the comment that a strong extinction event would leave the cockroaches in charge, but there’s a large part of me says they already are and one challenged Greta’s right to comment on her own survival prospects.

And no, it’s not unbeatable.

Disagree.

I think we’re merely meaning slightly different things by unbeatable, rather than seeing the world and the possibilities differently. When I say it’s not unbeatable, what I mean is that technically, it would be possible to keep the changes to some sort of minimum, and adapt to the inevitable changes, without civilization totally collapsing. Technically possible – but I rather doubt it’s politically possible. If it is politically possible, we have, in large part, Greta to thank for it.

it would be possible to keep the changes to some sort of minimum, and adapt to the inevitable changes, without civilization totally collapsing.

It seems like civilisation collapses when the “wrong” person gets voted off the dancing show or the put-stuff-in-the-oven show.

God help us when something important happens.

On a less flippant note: it would be possible to keep the changes to some sort of minimum, and adapt to the inevitable changes, without civilization totally collapsing.
I think we have rather different interpretations of the word “unbeatable”. Mine is literally “cannot be beaten” while yours appears to be a masterclass in understatement. I’d give you a thumb up, but RISC OS wouldn’t show you the emoji, just some random hex (👍).

But I do see the thumbs up, because I’m not on RISCOS, I’m on the Mac. In fact, until I get things properly set up here in Greenock, the Pi is somewhat restricted – it’s running okay, and NetSurf works and talks to the internet okay, but for some reason the Mac no longer sees Moonfish, and gmail no longer runs on Netsurf, so until I’ve got the NAS here (it’s in Ely just now) that both the Pi and the Mac can access, there’s no way I can transfer stuff from the Pi to the Mac. (The other way I can do via my website.)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-51216084#=

Just saw this on the Beeb News site as I was reading this thread, and this shows how far away we are as a species from doing anything significant about mitigating climate change. As an environmentalist and generally an optomist, I find this damning and quite depressing.

Greta isn’t herself a scientist, Andrew – but at least she listens to scientists and amplifies their message.

I never heard anything from Greta that even remotely resembles the scientific message. She instead ampilfies the message of various rather extreme activists with very little resemblance to the truth.

There’s nothing “lurking” about the threat of climate change.

This is true insofar as we still don’t know if the change of climate will be of net benefit to us. So it is doubtful whether it is really a threat. But the various things proposed to reduce our CO2 footprint have a 100% certainty to be a threat to a vast amount of people around the globe.

The science behind it has been known for over a hundred years; it’s been a concern of mine for over fifty.

Fifty years ago, the scientific consensus was the one about the coming of the next ice age.

The scientific basis of CO2-induced warming has indeed not changed for more than a hundred years, and it more or less condenses to “every doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration will lead to a warming of around 1K”. Nothing catastrophic to be seen here, the climate catastrophe only exists in computer models which have a very poor track record of any predictive capability.

And no, it’s not unbeatable. It’s going to be bloody difficult to beat it, and it’s getting more and more difficult the longer we leave it.

Actually, it is quite easy to beat it. Go 100% nuclear.

[PPNR is playing Apocalyptica’s “Helden” as I write this, it seems oddly appropriate]

She instead ampilfies the message of various rather extreme activists with very little resemblance to the truth.

Funny, I’d rather listen to her than to “studies” and “scientists” paid for by the likes of the oil industry.

if the change of climate will be of net benefit to us.

Pretty unlikely to be of benefit. If the climate changes (hotter, colder, etc) then it will affect and potentially displace large numbers of people.

But the various things proposed to reduce our CO2 footprint have a 100% certainty to be a threat to a vast amount of people around the globe.

All the while honestly doing about diddy-squat in the long run.

Fifty years ago, the scientific consensus was the one about the coming of the next ice age.

Hmm, because there was a horrible cold winter or two? There’s already precedent for anomalies – some years are colder or warmer than others.
The Thames famously froze in 1814 (they held a fair on the river). It also froze in 1978, 1740, 1739, 1716, 1684; however it has not frozen in the 206 years since. Instead, it now seems to be the case that each passing year is about “XX since records began”. That alone ought to say something…

The much bigger problem is, what does one mean by “warming” and “cooling”? When I was young, it was said that in the future (<cough> about now </cough>) the south of England would have a climate like the south of France. England could have vineyards along the South Downs (I know there are some, but not like on the scale of actual wine areas).

Even as a bratty teenager, I called bull on that, because there was something they seemed to overlook that has more recently been considered. The current of warm air/water that runs up the Atlantic and blesses western Europe with it’s reasonably pleasant water. If the ice up in the Arctic melts, well that’ll be dumping a lot of damned cold water into the ocean, which will not only mess up (or destroy) that nice warm current… it’ll also drag weather down from the polar regions as happens in Canada and the northern states.
Most of France, all of Germany, etc is further north than Toronto and Montreal (they’re just above 45N). So it is entirely possible that a “warming” may not only make places like Africa hotter (to the point of being uninhabitable), it may be that at the same time western Europe will have its ass frozen off.
You know those pictures you see of people in Wisconsin waking up to a half metre or so of snow, where they can frisbee clothing and toss buckets of hot water into the air to demonstrate the Mpemba Effect? That could become any winter’s day in Cardiff…

in computer models which have a very poor track record of any predictive capability.

Because it is insanely difficult. It’s hard enough to accurately predict tomorrows weather for a fairly small zone like “France”, trying to model the entire planet for years in the future? Brain-aching.

Actually, it is quite easy to beat it. Go 100% nuclear.

Hahaha… I nearly wet myself laughing at that. So astonishingly simplistic.

Okay, so switching to nuclear¹ will give a reasonably² clean source of elecricity.

How tell me what you plan to do about the internal combustion engine? Home heating (that isn’t electric)? The massive amounts of CO2 released by agriculture (often described to laypersons as “farting cows”)? The, well, the small issue of our ever increasing population³? Not to mention our propensity for blowing each other up.

And really, go nuclear? What the hell do we need all that power for? Oh, yeah, Netflix, iPads, endless phones and smart speakers and computers and a hundred thousand things that are oh-so-essential but are the end result of massively polluting enterprises. Do you know what is involved in the creation process of a modern “smart” television? Do you know what chemical elements are inside it?

Switching to nuclear will have a small benefit in places where power generation is gas or dead dinoosaur pieces, but in terms of “saving the planet”… it’s kind of damn near inconsequential.

Oh, yeah, and don’t forget the entire industry involved in mining and purifying uranium. It isn’t some mystical process where you pull rods out of the earth and shove them in a reactor, “look ma, no plu’shun!”. It’s just a little better than the alternatives…until something goes horribly wrong and leaves entire towns and cities uninhabitable for decades or centuries (we haven’t really had nuclear for long enough to know exactly when it will be safe ⁴ to repopulate Prypyat, if indeed anybody ever wants to).

¹ France is still something like 86% nuclear

² Just don’t mention nuclear accidents or what to do with the waste.

³ It wasn’t hyperbole when I said we’d need to cull about half of humanity. Any volunteers? Just need about three billion…

⁴ Most places in the city carry an emission of 1µSv per hour. The typical yearly dose of an average person is about 1mSv per year. So… A calendar year contains 8760 hours. I’m sure you can see where this is going…

Fifty years ago, the scientific consensus was the one about the coming of the next ice age.

Bullshit. Plain, simple bullshit. There were a few folks who were saying that, but the scientific consensus most certainly wasn’t. Fifty years ago awareness of the greenhouse effect was already seventy years old, and it was known to be likely to be significant within decades if we carried on the way we were (which we have, of course). I was learning about it in school in the 1960s.

Just don’t mention nuclear accidents or what to do with the waste.

Exactly.

There’s actually plenty of renewable energy, and reasonably simple, reasonably economical technologies for storing energy from these intermittent sources. But is there the political will to build the necessary infrastructure?

we’d need to cull about half of humanity

Actually, we only need to cull about 20%, as long as it’s the richest 20%. Unfortunately, that’s politically rather tricky; so Nature will do the job for us, and cull the poorest 80% instead. (Roughly speaking; wealth won’t guarantee your survival, and poverty isn’t certain death. But the odds are very, very skewed in favour of the wealthy.)

we only need to cull about 20%, as long as it’s the richest 20%. Unfortunately, that’s politically rather tricky; so Nature will do the job for us, and cull the poorest 80% instead.

20% of the wealthy (though I don’t think the wealthy we’re talking about even account for 5%, never mind 20%) or 80% of the poor.
I guess we can average that out to be about 50% if there was a really random non-gamed system where I and Trump would have an equal chance…

Bullshit. Plain, simple bullshit.

😀 I was trying to be a little more polite…

actually plenty of renewable energy

The problem with this is that one cannot determine when the sun will shine and the wind will blow and our battery technology is pitiful – one of the reasons we’re not all driving electric cars. Batteries also work with DC and power generation AC which isn’t insurmountable but it does all complications.

For an island nation like us, tidal energy must surely be a key long-term goal. Unfortunately no-one’s really found an efficient/“green” way to unlock it. It’s one of the few forces of nature that is (somewhat) predictable (not that it doesn’t vary mathematically, but that tides have been predicted effectively for centuries due to the standardised lunar cycles).

But, then, environmentalists will cite the impact that collecting hydro power will have on oceanic ecosystems. Ever feel like you can’t win?

I think this is where technology/progress will come in. It must be possible to find balance between fuel sources and the environment, but I suspect nothing will come easily. And governments don’t like investing in science, so it’ll probably come privately, and then unavailable cost effectively. (eg. government estimate on cardiff tidal project cost of 32 billion pounds!).

our battery technology is pitiful

Indeed it is. There are far better technologies for grid scale storage, see http://clive.semmens.org.uk/Energy/StoringEnergy.html

tidal energy must surely be a key long-term goal

You’re right that its environmental credentials are not very good. Solar and wind are far better – for one thing, there’s far more energy available in sun or wind than in tides, and for another they’re far cheaper to build (per GW). That said, there are a few places where tide would be a possible contender, and its predictability is a plus; but it’s inevitably a relatively minor source of energy, even for the UK. (The cost of tidal power infrastructure varies enormously from one location to another: there are a few places where it could be reasonably economical – particularly those locations where you wouldn’t be constructing a barrage at all, you’d merely be putting turbines in existing tidal streams – Pentland Firth, and the mouths of some Scottish lochs are the usual suspects. Good price per GW, but not all that many GW anyway.)

Batteries also work with DC and power generation AC which isn’t insurmountable but it does all complications.

Not really; large amounts of power are shifted around every day using DC links; there’s over 3GW of the 40GW being consumed by the UK as I type this coming in via just two DC links from the mainland, for example. The problem is the storage itself: you would need a lot of batteries to make any kind of dent in that demand (the same site tells me that the UK’s pumped storage is just capable of 3GW, and that can only really run long enough to get a “proper” power station up and running).

Funny, I’d rather listen to her than to “studies” and “scientists” paid for by the likes of the oil industry.

Because we’ve “all had enough of experts”? Congratulations, Rick; we all knew that you’d come around to agree with the Brexit premise eventually… :-)

It’s scientists who haven’t been bought by the oil industry I like to listen to – the IPCC is pretty solid. They are experts – and it’s them Thunberg has been listening to and learning from, and they’re backing her up.

The problem is the storage itself

Pumped storage is good as far as it goes, but available sites are limited. Batteries are okay for peaking, but hopeless for bulk storage. There are other technologies, again see http://clive.semmens.org.uk/Energy/StoringEnergy.html

Because we’ve “all had enough of experts”? Congratulations, Rick;

Experts and scientists are not necessarily the same thing.
See a Clive’s reply two up from this one.

It’s scientists who haven’t been bought by the oil industry […]

Surely by definition, once someone has been “bought” by an interest group, they cease to be following science?

For the avoidance of doubt, I’m largely with yourself and Rick – rather than with Andrew and Steffen. The actual science is pretty compelling that something significant needs to be done now.

Clive, commenting on

Fifty years ago, the scientific consensus was the one about the coming of the next ice age.

says

Bullshit. Plain, simple bullshit. There were a few folks who were saying that, but the scientific consensus most certainly wasn’t. Fifty years ago awareness of the greenhouse effect was already seventy years old, and it was known to be likely to be significant within decades if we carried on the way we were (which we have, of course). I was learning about it in school in the 1960s.

Indeed, see this article from 15 years ago: The global cooling myth

It’s disappointing to see old tired arguments being trotted out again.

Surely by definition, once someone has been “bought” by an interest group, they cease to be following science?

I’m happy with that point of view, certainly. I probably should have put quotes around the word “scientists” somewhere.

Thanks for the link to that article, David. Interesting and useful! My inspirational physics teacher, Philip Titchmarsh, was clearly a little ahead of the curve when he introduced me to the works of Svante Arrhenius and Milutin Milanković in the 1960s. It was in discussions with him (and other interested sixth formers) that I decided to study Nuclear Engineering, in the belief that nuclear power would be the solution to the problem of the greenhouse effect. I applied for and won a UKAEA scholarship to study Nuc. Eng. at Queen Mary College, University of London. It’s worth mentioning that the other scholarship winner and I are still friends fifty odd years later, and that neither of us now believes nuclear power to be the solution to anything, indeed it’s just another big problem itself.

Pumped storage is good as far as it goes, but available sites are limited.

Another option I read about lately is to suspend very large weights in old mineshafts and winch them up when there is spare generating capacity, lowering them down again when you need to retrieve the energy. This has the virtue of reusing old fossil fuel infrastructure. Sir David King showed us a similar concept at a conference last summer, but that was a new-build design, involving a large weight arranged as a piston in a vertical cylinder, to be raised by hydraulics. The thought was this would be suitable for pumped storage in desert countries like Saudi Arabia.

I don’t know how that would compare with pumped storage hydroelectricity. It depends on the depth of the shafts, which I imagine could give a larger height difference than a hydro scheme. But a hydro scheme might well make up for it by the volume of water that could be displaced.