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Global Warming: The Scientific Facts #124399
11/21/07 10:03 PM
11/21/07 10:03 PM
Joined: Jun 2001
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Minnesota
Jeff Peterson Offline OP
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Global Warming: The Scientific Facts. You can look at the data and believe what you want.

Melting Artic Sea Ice:

Here are satellite pictures/graphics:

At the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado: http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glance/index.html

At the University of Bremen, Germany: http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html


Rising carbon dioxide levels

At the NOAA Observatory, Mauna Loa, Hawaii: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/


Rising Sea Levels

At University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/



If you don’t trust the interpretation of the data as presented, all these sites can provide you the raw data sets and you can be your own scientist.

If you feel uneducated about global warming, start at the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s Home Page and start clicking. This web site started purely as a scientific data site, and by demand and default, became the ground zero of global warming information going from the scientific community to the outside world:
http://www.nsidc.org/


Jeff Peterson
H-16 Sail #23721
Big Marine Lake, MN
-- Have You Seen This? --
Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Jeff Peterson] #124400
11/22/07 12:10 PM
11/22/07 12:10 PM
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SAIL Offline
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Interesting FACTS:

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.



MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.



MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.



MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".

Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.


MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

FACT: Computer models can be made to "verify" anything by changing some of the 5 million input parameters or any of a multitude of negative and positive feedbacks in the program used.. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.


MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.


MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.


MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.


MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.

Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.

:::::::::The Scientific Facts come from humans who are not perfect and make mistakes. My bet is in 20, 50, 100 years from now the whole Global Warming THING will be seen as another man made error.

Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: SAIL] #124401
11/22/07 04:48 PM
11/22/07 04:48 PM
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Timbo Offline
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I don't trust any politicians, for or against global warming, but this I do know, the glaciers are melting and we all rely too much on oil as our primary source of energy. What is the downside to developing alternative sources of energy? It creates high tech jobs and hopefully will eventually lead to energy independence. I'm tired of sending my money to terroists sponsoring regimes in the middle east. I would rather pay twice as much for some other form of energy than send them more money.

And sooner or later, oil will run out. Maybe not in our life time, but someday it will, so why not develop a "replacement" now? Who does that hurt? New technology won't happen by itself.


Blade F16
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Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Timbo] #124402
11/22/07 05:55 PM
11/22/07 05:55 PM
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Petroleum not being used as an energy source isn't going to be the end of oil consuption. Everything is made with petroleum on some level or another. From the carpet your standing on to the polyester in your shirt. Being completely independent is bordline impossible. Most people don't like the alternatives either. Hydrogen fuel cells for cars isn't that far off, what is far off is the proper amount of infrastucter to produce the rediculous amounts of electricity it takes to pull hydrogen out of water. Everyone has a unfounded fear of nuclear energy because of Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island. Honestly if anyone is going to screw something up it would have been the Russian's. Three Mile Island could have been a major disaster had the proper steps not been taken, but that is the case with anything disaster is around the corner no matter what.

Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Karl_Brogger] #124403
11/22/07 08:45 PM
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So what's going to happen when the world oil supply is used up? Should we start working on that now or just wait and see...? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />


Blade F16
#777
Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Timbo] #124404
11/22/07 10:41 PM
11/22/07 10:41 PM
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Something like petroleum that is so engrained into everything we do can't be replaced easily. I leave finding alt energy to others, they leave building cabinets to me. 99.99% of "us" can't do a damn thing about it.

Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Karl_Brogger] #124405
11/23/07 06:57 AM
11/23/07 06:57 AM
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Wouter Offline
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Well conditioned (fissable) Uranium is not infinite either. If all electricity consumption would be done by nuclear reactors then in 40 to 50 years we would run out of that as well. Basically the same period as with easily accessible oil now.

But of course the main problem with nuclear energy is that the US won't allow any other non Allied state to develop that energy source for civilian use because of their fear of somebody else ever having the "A-bomb".

This isn't linked to any knowledge about the Uranium enridgement proces as that can only produce highly enriched uranium and so produce Atomic bombs (max 50kt). The real scare is about thermo nuclear (several Megatons) devices and that is a different animal. The worry is of course that nuclear reactors produce Plutonium as a side product, which is what you need for a thermo nuclear device. You can get this out of the spent fuel through reprocessing.

Many people don't understand the difference between an atomic bomb and a thermo nuclear bomb. But then again there is alot more that plain people simply don't understand. Global warming is one of these things.

Wouter

Last edited by Wouter; 11/23/07 06:59 AM.

Wouter Hijink
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Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Wouter] #124406
11/23/07 07:29 AM
11/23/07 07:29 AM
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If we run out of Uranium, how about some thorium.

Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Rolf_Nilsen] #124407
11/23/07 08:49 AM
11/23/07 08:49 AM
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Wouter Offline
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Sounds to me very similar to schale oil. It is there but not readily usuable. Thorium needs breeder reactors to become fissable and spend rods need to be reprocessed to get it. The effort required to produce energy becomes more and more with each new step away from readily avaible fuels we a eagerly burn away because it enhances our self image.

In theory there are tens of different energy sources available to us, but none are as easily put to use as the ones we are using now, many seems to forget that. That and the fact that our societies are totally dependent on the cheap and abundant supply of these fuels. We will have to change our societies anyway as energy may no longer be one or the other, nor cheap or abundantly available. Losing either one is sufficient to require a total redesign of our societies.

It will also be difficult to use nuclear devices in many applications like house hold heating and cars/trains and automobiles. So yes Thorium can be an alternative, that is true, but how practical will that alternative really be; assuming we can get that alternative figured out sufficiently. We have also been promised a fusion reactor for a couple of decades now no results yet so far.

Basically it gets harder with each step further away from the plain good ole boys like oil, gaz and coal. It seems to me the best approach is to avoid running into that wall alltogether. And if we have have to encounter that wall then do it walking and not running.

Wouter

Last edited by Wouter; 11/23/07 08:51 AM.

Wouter Hijink
Formula 16 NED 243 (one-off; homebuild)
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Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Timbo] #124408
11/23/07 09:48 AM
11/23/07 09:48 AM
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What is the predicted date of the last drop of oil being sucked from the earth? We know the peak of world oil production is near (~ next 5 years). It's guaranteed alternative plans are already in place. For personal transportation it's obvious electricity is the immediate futures alternate. Coal is (sorry) dirt cheap (compared to natural gas, or nuclear) and will serve as the electric power plants fuel for a long time to come due to an over abundance. The low cost and efficiency of coal over natural gas will be the deciding factor and money will win out (bottom line). The debate of CO2 will rage on as powerplants (more and new) belch out coal smoke.


John H16, H14
Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Wouter] #124409
11/23/07 09:54 AM
11/23/07 09:54 AM
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Just about everything we use around the home and office runs on electicity. Electric cars and trains are available today but right now, most of our electricity is generated by burning oil. What we need is another way to generate the electicity. Nukes, Wind, Solar, Water, Geothermic, etc. are available today, but as Wouter points out, until the price of oil gets very painful, or our governments mandate it, we won't see much money spent on developement of those sources.

That won't solve the problems of producing all the plastic items made from petroleum (like our Boats!) with -no- petroleum, but it's a start. How much petrol does it take to produce Carbon Fiber? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


Blade F16
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Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Timbo] #124410
11/23/07 10:05 AM
11/23/07 10:05 AM
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How can we really be running out of oil though? Russia is untouched. Nothing comes out of Africa. Technology to extract it from the ground gets better and better. The only reason the arabian pennisula is use so much is because of terrain and a steady climate.

Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Karl_Brogger] #124411
11/23/07 11:15 AM
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How can we really be running out of oil though? Russia is untouched. Nothing comes out of Africa. Technology to extract it from the ground gets better and better. The only reason the arabian pennisula is use so much is because of terrain and a steady climate.


Jeez Karl! Neither statement is true. I'll try and find the production number somewhere, but I think Russia is the biggest oil producer in the world, and Nigeria is pretty high up there.

The most immediate problem is cost of production. The oil "gusher" is mostly fiction. It happens, but not often. Oil is being brought up from deep underground. 15,000 feet? Sometimes that is AFTER you get to the bottom of the North Sea or Gulf of Mexico! As you take more oil out, the rock bearing the oil begins to collapse. Think of the pressures thousands of feet below the ground and hundreds of feet beneath the water. The whole proce$$ is very difficult.

Also China and to a lesser extent India have gone car crazy!

Demand is going through the roof so quickly, producers can't keep up!

Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Karl_Brogger] #124412
11/23/07 11:20 AM
11/23/07 11:20 AM
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Wouter Offline
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Quote

The only reason the arabian pennisula is use so much is because of terrain and a steady climate



Not entirely correct. The middle eastern oil is also of a very good quality and easily extracted because of its low viscus nature. For example is has a low sulfur content and other kinds of advantagious qualities.

There are very large other reserves of oil in the world like the Canadian schale oil but these are of much lower quality and often need elaborate processes to extract (boiling it out of the rock) and purification before we can dump it into our common refineries. We must also not forget that alot of these resources are spread thin over relatively large resevoirs unlike our current oil bubbles that only need to have a tap struck into to them and will empty under their own internal pressure. **** the rocks (schale oil) in order to liquify the tar like oil both adds alot of extraction cost and wasted extration energy that will cut directly into the net energy output of such resources. There are also often hugely poluting over wide area's. And what do you do with the unwanted elements like sulfur that you extract ?

The fact that some element is present somewhere doesn't may that it can easily be exploited. Iran has ample supplies of Uranium ore itself, their bad luck is that it is largely "poluted" by a isotope that kills the fission reaction. This is called "Uranium possioning". It needs to be extracted before it can be used as as fuel. For them it is easier to get good quality uranium from other nations.

Similar things are present in the often touted HUGE oil reserves. Yes, indeed there are 10 birds in the sky but at the end of the day it all comes down to the single one you can succesfully lure to your hand. The other 9 as nice to look at and dream about but other then that not of any practical use.

With respect to coal. That resource is often high in sulfur and as such highly problematic with respect to acid rain. When burned the sulfur reacts to sulfur oxide and when mixed with moisture in the air reacts to sulferic acid that eventually rains down on furtile land and pretty much "salts" it. We need much better smoke treatment processes to solve that issue and processes that can indeed be scale to process tons of smoke per minute. That is quite an engineering operation.

Problem with acid rain during the 70's and 90's in Europe were "solved" by transitioning from burning coal to burning natural gas and high grade oil. What will we win by transitioning back ?

Again, the problems are alot more complex then just finding stuff to burn.

Sorry.

Wouter

Last edited by Wouter; 11/23/07 11:25 AM.

Wouter Hijink
Formula 16 NED 243 (one-off; homebuild)
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Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Wouter] #124413
11/23/07 11:34 AM
11/23/07 11:34 AM
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Lets face one universal truth here :

The only easy road to solving these problems is to significantly cut down our energy consumption.

Without such a move we can not prevent the developping nations from demanding the same high consumption as we had/have and the growth in energy consumption from them alone will ofset any technological breakthrough we can achieve in the next 50 years. A similar thing is happening with China currently.

I feel that we in the West are looking for our own "Wonderwaffen" (Wonder Wapon) against the developping world Hordes as the Germans were in WW2 against the endless colons of Russian soldiers and tanks.

The hordes have to power of scale on their side no amount of superior technology will be able to stop them when they decide to move. You'll be overrun or in our case the system will collapse.

Whether we like it or not, our societies are going to change with respect to energy consumption, and these changes will eventually become very far reaching. Currently we can still choose between a hard landing and a soft landing. In a while, there will be no longer a choice and then we'll need to brace ourselves for the hard landing.

You may agree with Al Gore or not or support some luny US think tank (of which we have 1000's by now). But what ever you do, you can't reason away the fact that things will change significantly and are indeed changing as we speak.

Note only because of Global warming, but of a portfolio of other causes as well.

Wouter

Last edited by Wouter; 11/23/07 11:42 AM.

Wouter Hijink
Formula 16 NED 243 (one-off; homebuild)
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Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: fin.] #124414
11/23/07 11:40 AM
11/23/07 11:40 AM
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Lindale, Texas Inland freshwa...
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As you take more oil out, the rock bearing the oil begins to collapse. Think of the pressures thousands of feet below the ground and hundreds of feet beneath the water.


UH OH! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> Does this mean that once the worlds oil supply is depleted, the earth will collapse in upon itself! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> Another reason to seek alternatives! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Wouter] #124415
11/23/07 11:42 AM
11/23/07 11:42 AM
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*cough* now that is an extreme position Wouter.

If you are talking about an armed conflict between developing countries and the west, you are talking about WW3. You know what dear Albert said about the weapons of WW4?

But your other points about efficency, pollution and what the developing nations wants I do agree on.

Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Wouter] #124416
11/23/07 11:43 AM
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Wouter, I liked those huge windmills I saw offshore at Zandvoort, about what total percentage of your local electricity do they produce? There are wind farms here as well, just not enough to provide much power yet. But when I was traveling in Texas last August, I saw several big trucks going down the highway with huge windmill blades on them. Anyone know where those were going? They were heading north on I35.

Lots of people think they are "ugly" but not to me. Looks like free energy to me, and much easier to look at than the smokestacks of a coal burning plant or the dangers associated with a meltdown at a nuke plant, not that that is a real threat, but it does keep any from being built.


Blade F16
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Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Wallybear] #124417
11/23/07 11:44 AM
11/23/07 11:44 AM
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Won't all that flooding the Algore says will happen just drop into those oil vacated holes and the water will recede? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />
Rick


Rick White
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Re: Global Warming: The Scientific Facts [Re: Rolf_Nilsen] #124418
11/23/07 11:55 AM
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I'm not talking about war, although that is always a possibility when large groups are fighting over diminishing resources.

What I'm saying is that even if we in the West somehow solve 50% of our energy problems that the total energy problem of the whole world during that timeframe will only slow down in growth rate a little.

Basically, we have what 800 million people in developped countries and 5.3 billion in underdevelopped countries ?

Just putting a heating or airconditioning unit or lighting in the homes of 3 billion people will be enough to dwarf the any new energy production breakthrough the west can ever achieve.

What if they also want a TV set, an automobile, airtravel and all those plastic gizmo's we take for granted ?

Getting that stuff for only 800 million people already used the bulk of the easily accessible resources the planet held. What are the remaining 5.3 billion going to use.

Indeed, low grade and highly contaminated fuels at a consumption level that is ohh what 6 times as much as we in the West ever used !

That is is what is happening in China right now and it is a huge problem. Mostly because the bulk of the Chinese population has not gotten into the game yet.

That is what I means by the hordes. Their numbers are so great that even if they only demand full electric lighting on their homes comparable to what we have that that will already offset any energy gains we make in the west.

Wouter


Wouter Hijink
Formula 16 NED 243 (one-off; homebuild)
The Netherlands
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