The Truth About Global Warming And Climate Change

Who says the glaciers are melting?

It’s really strange. Nobody debates that satellites circle the earth, that antibiotics are effective against certain diseases, or that if you drop a ball it will fall to the earth at a rate that can be calculated. In fact, nobody would think about debating that because science works. It works really well… and what works about it is the scientific method. The same scientific method is applied to building computers, finding new planets, finding the DNA sequence, and lots of other stuff. It’s also the same scientific method that has come to the conclusion that climate change is really happening. It is a simple fact that the vast preponderance of independent scientists and scientific organizations agree that climate change is real, the planet is warming, the warming is caused by excess carbon dioxide emissions, and we have a limited about of time to do something about it. In fact, the only people who debate that scientific research are the folks that have a highly vested economic interest to keep the wool over your eyes so that their industry can continue to pump out carbon dioxide without limits… yes, that means industries like the coal and oil industries.

The Expected Value Arguement

Another interesting scientific theory is that of Expected Value. This was originally developed to study gaming theory… yes, like in Las Vegas, but was applied to things like deciding what aircraft to send on what missions in Viet Nam. Here is the basic idea.

For any action you think about taking, there is a good outcome (like throwing a 7 with dice) and the probability that that outcome will happen. There is als a bad outcome (like throwing snake eyes) and the probability the bad outcome will happen. If the value of the good outcome multiplied times its probability exceeds the negative value of the bad outcome multiplied times its risk, then it makes sense to take the action.

Companies can't see past the money

In the case of global warming and climate change the negative value is so immensely huge… we are talking about the literal destruction of all coastal cities, disruption of our food supply, and many many other very bad things… that we simply cannot afford to take the risk that the respectable scientific community is wrong, particular for the sake of profits of a few corporations. The problem is that business can’t see the truth because no bean counter has figured out how to put planetary descrition on the liability side of a Balance Sheet.

The other important consideration in the Expected Value arguement is “What positive value is derived if we believe science and take action to reverse global warming?” Think about it. The worst thing that can happen from a societial point of view is that humanity develops some new technologies to meet the demands for energy that are not based on the burning of carbon fuels. At a minimum that means new jobs along with cleaner sources of energy. But this new technology scares the carbon based industries like oil, coal, and even power plants to death. It’s not that they can’t be in the forefront of new technologies. It’s that some of the new technologies like photovoltaic solar cells take them out of the equation of selling you energy on a continuing basis. Just imagine the profit losses to oil, coal, and power if every home and business got all the electricity they needed for lights, heating, cooling, and electric cars from an array of solar cells on their roof. Those businesses would be devistated. They know it, and that is why they are conducting a massive anit-climate change propaganda campaign to convince you it’s a big hoax. It’s all about them staying in business, their executives making big bonuses, and their stockholders making a profit.

What has to happen?

Conceptually, this is really simple. We need to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (and other stuff) emitted into the atmosphere. The earth does have a way to clean all the mess up if we just stop putting all this crap into the air. So, we have to generate even more energy, but without the bad emissions. In practice, this become tricky because we can’t just turn off all the switches while we put some new technology in place. We’ve got to get from where we are now with most energy production based on carbon technology to clean energy production and still keep the lights on and the cars running. There are a few technologies being discussed and others that are on the horizon.

• Clean carbon burning technology
• Nuclear power based on current reactor technology
• Nuclear power based an alternate reactor technology
• Photovoltaic solar cells
• Other centralized solar technology
• Wind

With the exception of photovoltaic, all these technologies are about turning the wheels on a generator around and around, and with the exception of wind, the turning is done by heating up something (like water) to turn a turbine generator. In the next posts, each of these technologies will be discussed.

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