U.S. Still Can’t Commit at Annual Climate Conference
The United Nations opened its annual climate conference in Poznan, Poland yesterday. It seems the U.S. delegation of youths that is attending the 2-week conference was embarrassed when U.S. negotiator, Ambassador Harlan Watson, avoided committing to emissions targets or funding for developing countries to address global warming. Again, it was the same old song and dance of the Bush administration.
Since a great deal of America’s youth were involved with our latest election and clearly view climate change as important as anything else that faces our nation, their disappointment is understandable. I’m saying this again. One of the worse acts perpetrated on the American public by the Bush administration was instilling doubt about global warming. It politicized something that affects every living thing on earth, which has nothing to do with U.S. party lines. I’m also sick and tired of people here pointing fingers at China. We have no control over China. But we have all responsibility for how we act here. If enough civilized nations reel in their emissions and begin to unleash the ingenuity that brings new invention and prosperity, China will do likewise or suffer trade embargoes in the future. We’ve already suffered from tainted imports from China, and stopped importing them.
It’s called being a model for the rest of the global community, something America has not been for quite awhile relative to the environment. The youth of this country and groups like 350.org have plans to make Americans more aware of global warming, and it doesn’t look like they will give in easily. A good thing and none too soon.
It’s funny that doubters about global warming think steering away from oil and fossil fuels is impossible and will cause some sort of financial collapse and an altered lifestyle where we would be deprived of conveniences. Doubters think we would go in reverse.
Believers of global warming see a whole new frontier of invention yet to surface if the web of doubt could just be lifted long enough to allow all that inventiveness to progress. Believers feel like hostages to the big bucks of the oil and coal industry, which is mired in the past. To go green is to progress.
It’s the same old story all right. Doubters = reverse or reverting back to the usual. Believers = progress or advancing to the unusual. We’re in the 21st century for Pete’s sake. A little progress is due. Heck I’m still disappointed were not zipping around like the Jetsons.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-01-01.asp
December 4th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
In the UK an amazing reversal in a the sale of small energy efficent cars has been noticed since gas got cheaper again. NO one wants those little cars….
Global warming has not been provided. You are using the word “believers” the in the same context as Christians do about their faith. Is this a faith issue for you?
Again, and for the millionth (spelling?) time, it cooled by 1/2 of a degree over seventy or eighty years. For the past ten it has warmed….
Why should we all just “drink the purple koolaid” duew to a very small fews “faith?”
This is nuts.
Also why aren’t you calling for nuclear power? This is the cleanest mass produced energy availible and would completely shut down the coal plants.
You lived with it in Monroe forever, why not call for it everywhere?
The Kyoto treaty is a document not meant to benefit the USA…we will be severely disadvantaged by it. We should NEVER sign that piece of trash…
Have you actually read it?
December 4th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
corrections to the above note….
it WARMED 1/2 a degree for 70 or 80 year’s ending in 1998. It has stopped warming since and Maybee even cooled. Also, Nov of this year was the coldest in memory.
The sales a ELETRIC cars has slowed in the UK all this year not just sence gas got let expensive.
sorry
December 4th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Are you suggesting global warming stopped in 1998 and we are now in a cooling phase? You’re far far behind on all of this.
Try reading this if you can understand it: http://sciencepoliticsclimatechange.blogspot.com/2006/09/has-climate-warmed-since-1998.html.
If you can’t understand it, then you shouldn’t comment like you’ve a novel idea. Check the date on the article–2006.
December 4th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
You missed my rather simple point….but the link helps. The earth warms and it cools….it’s been here a long time and we have no idea what the temps were thousands of years ago, or hundreds of years for that matter. It will do what it is going to do.
Can you give me any reasonable answer as to why we shouldn’t be building as many nuclear power plants as we can as fast as we can.
I am in agreement with you half way. Lets do all the energy things you want to do. However, not because of some silly notion as global warming, but because its better, more efficant and we will reduce our reliance on those not so stable nations around the world…
So you and I are headed in the same direction just not for the same reasons.
Would really like to hear your thoughts on nuclear ….and have you read the kyoto treaty
Have a nice evening!!!
December 7th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
We do agree on that much and it’s a good sign Bob that even people who do not believe in global warming want to clean up and become more efficient. As for the rest of it, I worked at the Fermi II plant collectively for 8.5 years. I was the secy. to the Chief Field Engineer and Asst. Project Mgr. for Ralph M. Parsons. Later I was secy. for the QA Manager for Daniel that answered to the NRC. In 1978 I was the second woman working construction at that plant and literally have crawled and climbed everywhere inside including working directly inside of the reactor. Oh and I briefly worked as secy. for the engineering pool that was in charge of bringing in the turbine on a barge from England. So along the way I just learned a lot, know what I mean?
I have no problem with nuclear power but as any engineer admits, there is no solution to effectively getting rid of the radioactive refuse. It’s buried in huge extremely reinforced concrete containment vessels. How much ground should be donated to a graveyard like this and for how long? These graveyards will keep growing with more use. See the problem here? We’re using another form of energy that will ultimately become too cumbersome for the environment. Not the air, but the earth. It’s just not sustainable. There are nations like Germany that have at least ¼ to 1/3 nuclear power. I don’t know if their plants are new enough that disposal hasn’t posed a problem yet, but where is all that radioactive refuse going? I know already countries that are arguing about carting radioactive waste across borders.
Radioactive waste like this doesn’t dissipate for a thousand years. Our best bet is to encourage science more instead of dissing it. Science has taken a direct hit during the Bush/Cheney admin., enough to create doubt about global warming, one of the greatest detriments to moving forward environmentally, especially when the biggest contribution to mankind would be science’ ability to stabilize radioactive material.
As for the Fermi plant in Monroe here, they already have the land, already buried waste, nothing else is happening there anyway… I did a blog on some of the new reactors and other potential sources for biofuels: http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/03/pebble-bed-reactors-or-pbrs-coming-to-america-soon/.
Yes I’ve read the Kyoto Treaty before, but would have to have a refresher. The U.S. biggest reason for refusing to sign was that it would hurt our industry. Since we have little of that left, now would be the perfect time to green-up enough to join the rest of the world since we’re revamping our manufacturing sectors anyway. It’s perfect timing actually. We need new jobs in brand new sectors.
As for global warming. Like any new phenomena, science on this is evolving daily because it is nothing like we’ve known before and is affecting hundreds of ecosystems at once. Understand that the data library for global warming will continue to grow. It’s not like we don’t have anything to measure against either, because we do. I’ve done a blog on the “Little Ice Age” and the “Medieval Warming Period.” Events today are quicker and more extreme than that and with 6.7 billion people on earth.
You’re behind on info like a find a lot of naysayers to be. I did many blogs long ago, answering most of your queries, especially one about our first global warming that happened 40 million years ago caused by methane gas. Scientists are able to take core samples at the bottom of frozen lakes in the Arctic and ice core samples that trap air bubbles of what used to be the atmosphere. They can tell how old the stuff is. Amazing stuff. We know more about the past than you think.
I’m sorry my website is out of control, but blogs about many of your questions are there with reputable links to reputable sources.
.
Here are a few I ran across. The latest from Science Daily says man has been affecting the environment for 2000 years:
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/05/humans-have-been-affecting-the-earths-atmosphere-for-at-least-2000-years/.
Watch this. It is a fascinating video learning tool.
http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/07/national-geographics-planet-earth/.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
i think it is sweeden that uses about 80 - 90 percent neclear. they are using water for disposal or some thing to dispose or contain the waste. i read a huge article in fortune on this within the last year. i say neclear is the answer for the global warming crowd. burning coal accouints for the largest percentage of the green house gases i believe and this would make the whole thing go away. i’ve sold materials to the companys building the underground waste area for neclaer waste. the guild lines are very tough.
December 8th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Thanks for the conversation Bob. I agree about the safety for now, but it’s still buried stuff. Sweden buries it too.
Sweden disposes of low-level short-lived radioactive waste at its Final Repository for Radioactive Operational Waste (SFR), in granite rock 50 meters (164 feet) below the Baltic Sea. The SFR is 60 meters offshore, connected by a tunnel to the site of the Forsmark nuclear power plant in central Sweden. The first of its kind in the world, the SFR has been in operation since 1988. Radioactive waste will remain at SFR for 500 years, until its radioactivity is reduced to acceptable levels.
The SFR uses a multi-barrier approach to containing radiation. Some low-level radioactive waste is put into large rock vaults of granite bedrock. Other low-level radioactive waste is put into silos surrounded by protective barriers of clay and concrete.
Spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste
After an initial one-year cool down period at the nuclear power facility, spent nuclear fuel is sent to Sweden’s Central Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel, or CLAB, located in Oskarshamn in southern Sweden. During the first 30 years at CLAB, spent nuclear fuel cools in water in an underground rock cavern built to shield against radiation release. Construction is underway to enlarge the facility.
Sweden’s spent nuclear fuel was sent to France for reprocessing until the mid 1980s, when it was decided by Swedish authorities that disposal would be less costly than reprocessing.
You see Bob, nothing makes the radioactivity go away. And all nuclear powered nations are storing it. The short term storage for low level radioactivity is 500 years. It’s a matter of time if this industry expands everywhere that storage becomes a serious problem.
It’s all about money still. It’s cheaper to store it than reprocess. Even your saying nuclear is the answer has motive. It’s what you do for a living and I don’t blame you. But it is not environmentally sound in the long run because it is not sustainable and an overabundance of radioactive graveyards is far more dangerous than a barge of garbage or two. The global warming crowd are a little more savvy than that.
I honestly think geothermal is going to play a big part in our energy future. Way back when I worked at Fermi, I knew a carpenter who used the geothermal heat from underground to heat a trout pond and warm his horse barn simultaneously. Free, constant heat. I’ve done a patent search for a process I’m developing that in part uses some of that thermal heat. I hoping for a pending patent within a year. If you’ve got any new green ideas of your own, now is the time to go for it. Thanks Bob.