Do u agree with Lovelock's views?

Question

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange

Answer 1

I personally don;t believe their is sufficient information in the public domain to say global warming is a man made event.

An interesting point i heard was if the biggest problem is the ice caps melting, then consider this an iceberg is 90% under water and we know water expands when its frozen so the question is when the ice melts will the 90% under water provide enough room to accommodate the 10% above water?

Global Warming, i just dunno?

Answer 2

I get a lot of flack when I suggest we may have reached or will soon each the tipping point. It implies that action to be meaningful would have to be essentially immediate and at least 80% reduction of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.

Any delay would make it necessary to reduce those emissions to zero.

I do not see any hope at all that either is going to happen. So, I am not hopeful that we will significantly delay let alone stop global warming.

That does not mean we should continue to waste our fossil fuel reserves. We are going to need them, urgently, over the next few centuries.

The exception to that would be arctic methane hydrates that if not consumed will float free into the atmosphere.

Nuclear power, is still dangerous, but less so than fossil fuels. To go Nuclear we also need to be sure we do not waste our nuclear fuel, that we get a lot of energy from the fuel and use it very judiciously.

Right now, gearing up to live mostly on Nuclear is a task we have neglected and if rushed is likely to be done badly. We had best cut our need for power as deeply as we can simply because we have waited too late to replace fossil fuel with nuclear that fast.

Answer 3

I first heard of him during the late 60s, much of what he predicted has come true. At least he has the interests of the natural world at heart, work with nature not against it, sounds reasonable to me.

Answer 4

No.

Answer 5

Building nuclear plants is definitely not the answer.

Solar is cheaper, safer and uses no fuel whatsoever.  

Here's what's wrong with nukes.

Expensive:

"Estimates of the cost to construct nuclear power plants are as high as $4,000 per kilowatt, as compared to about $1,400 per kilowatt for wind projects."

"Some people object to government subsidies for renewable energy projects. What they might not know is that new nuclear plants are being underwritten by tax dollars in amounts infinitely larger than any support being offered to clean, safe energy sources."

" The nuclear industry has long enjoyed limited liability for nuclear accidents under the Price-Anderson Act, which ensures that taxpayers, not industry, will pay for damages in the event of a serious accident."

"Part of our electric rates go to payments to the federal Nuclear Waste Fund, which is intended to fund the construction of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada and pay for transportation of waste to the proposed disposal site. To date, Wisconsin customers have paid about $600 million into this fund."  

   That's just one state.

"Nuclear plant owners are responsible for costs to dismantle retired units, dispose of waste, and decontaminate the site. Each unit has its own decommissioning trust fund, paid for by customers. Wisconsin ratepayers have spent $1.5 billion for the eventual decommissioning of the Point Beach, Kewaunee, and Genoa plants."      

Doesn't end our dependence on foreign fuel supply.

"We import 65 percent of our oil, but 90 percent of our uranium. At a time when state and federal leadership has set goals for "energy independence," reliance on nuclear power would mean depending on technology that requires fuel imported from overseas. Moreover, according to MIT scientists, there is less global supply of enriched uranium than commonly projected and the price has increased more than tenfold over the last five years."

Not safe from terrorism:

"A report from Argonne National Lab concluded that aircraft crashes could subject nuclear plants to numerous multiple failures that could lead to "total meltdown" even without direct damage to the containment structure."

source:

http://www.cleanwisconsin.org/campaigns/...

Here's what we can do with solar power plants.

Article from Scientific America

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-so...

Shows how we can have 65% solar electric grid by 2050 and nearly all solar by 2100, while spending a small fraction, in public money, of what we now give oil companies in subsidies.

The hidden costs of oil, including subsidies, has been estimated as high as $800 billion per year.

That is what is ruining our economy. By spending about  $13 billion a year for 30 years we could have this solar grid.   Subsidies to oil companies are about 5 times that amount.

The military costs of protecting oil shipments are about $100 billion annually.

With a clean electric grid we can have all electric cars.

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/

Green Wombat has several articles about what is already happening with solar power plants.

Just scroll down to find them.

Ausra, one of the companies involved, says:

"Solar thermal power plants such as Ausra's generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Ausra's solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, and produce electricity at prices directly competitive with gas- and coal-fired electric power."

"Solar is one the most land-efficient sources of clean power we have, using a fraction of the area needed by hydro or wind projects of comparable output. All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines."

1% of the Sahara Desert would power the entire world.

Answer 6

Yes. It is so refreshing to hear someone tell it like it is.

The only way we can significantly affect the course of the change in climate is to completely change our way of life (Conservation), and build Nuclear plants as fast as we can. I just do not see that happening. Everyone wants to keep their way of life.

Day dreaming about carbon offsetting, wind and solar, and electric cars is just la la land marketing . The real numbers just don't add up. Cars, for example - even if we cut our emissions in half or to 1/3, it s a very small percentage change in CO2 output (About 4-5%). I don't see us even doing this in the next twenty years.

Answer 7

MAN HAS NOT MADE CLIMATE CHANGE THIS IS NATURAL WHATS HAPPENING WE CAN`T STOP IT WE ARE AT THE  VERY END OF THE ICE AGE  AND THESE  FANATICS WHO SAY DIFFERENT  well all i can say wake up smell the coffee this country was  a desert once over  and even deep under the sea so any one who thinks we can think again