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climate change times are a changin'

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Re: climate change times are a changin'

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
LOL.

They know climate change is real. They just don't want to impact their bottom line by admitting it.
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I will never understand how they don't see this as one of the largest opportunities we've seen in energy since they stopped sending gasoline to the flare.

There is a trillion-dollar market out there for clean energy. Their R&D and M&A departments should be working overtime to get this stuff to market. Be the first before China, Japan, Germany, and France beat us to it.

Trillions of dollars.
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

dxmnkd316 said:
I will never understand how they don't see this as one of the largest opportunities we've seen in energy since they stopped sending gasoline to the flare.

There is a trillion-dollar market out there for clean energy. Their R&D and M&A departments should be working overtime to get this stuff to market. Be the first before China, Japan, Germany, and France beat us to it.

Trillions of dollars.
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The oil companies do a lot of R&D on clean energy, but they don't want their current revenue flows disrupted until the last possible moment either. So they keep their climate research confidential.
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

dxmnkd316 said:
Trillions of dollars.
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Easily. Presumably they believe that if they're not first they'll just use their government ownership, er, influence to buy a piece of the action. And in the meantime, they still own the greatest game on the planet and they don't want to mess with it.

The Dutch East India company is estimated to have been worth between 5 and 10 trillion (adjusted) dollars at its height. If a company actually made THE breakthrough in clean energy and if it was not possible to reserve-engineer it, it would rival if not surpass that.
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

Fusion is the holy grail. Make that and license it and you're probably worth more than the next five people combined.
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Yeah, we all know where Cain got his cockamamie tax plan from.

IIRC, the cheats to get fusion before 2050 were "power to the masses" or "you don't deserve it", depending on version.
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My God, I was addicted to the first version of SimCity. I think I played 24-hours straight once on nothing but beer and circus peanuts.

I still have a soft spot for low density industrial zoning.
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

A really good public policy prescription in today's Wall St. Journal. I hope it's not behind the paywall, it is worth reading in its entirety. It is a way to filter out the arguments between climate change zealots and climate change deniers and re-focus the debate on the actual underlying science in all its nuances and uncertainties.

Tomorrow’s March for Science will draw many thousands in support of evidence-based policy making and against the politicization of science. A concrete step toward those worthy goals would be to convene a “Red Team/Blue Team” process for climate science, one of the most important and contentious issues of our age.

The national-security community pioneered the “Red Team” methodology to test assumptions and analyses, identify risks, and reduce—or at least understand—uncertainties. The process is now considered a best practice in high-consequence situations such as intelligence assessments, spacecraft design and major industrial operations. It is very different and more rigorous than traditional peer review, which is usually confidential and always adjudicated, rather than public and moderated.

The public is largely unaware of the intense debates within climate science. At a recent national laboratory meeting, I observed more than 100 active government and university researchers challenge one another as they strove to separate human impacts from the climate’s natural variability. At issue were not nuances but fundamental aspects of our understanding, such as the apparent—and unexpected—slowing of global sea-level rise over the past two decades. [underline added]

....We scientists must better portray not only our certainties but also our uncertainties, and even things we may never know. Not doing so is an advisory malpractice that usurps society’s right to make choices fully informed by risk, economics and values. Moving from oracular consensus statements to an open adversarial process would shine much-needed light on the scientific debates.

....

... Here’s how it might work: The focus would be a published scientific report meant to inform policy such as the U.N.’s Summary for Policymakers or the U.S. Government’s National Climate Assessment. A Red Team of scientists would write a critique of that document and a Blue Team would rebut that critique. Further exchanges of documents would ensue to the point of diminishing returns. A commission would coordinate and moderate the process and then hold hearings to highlight points of agreement and disagreement, as well as steps that might resolve the latter. The process would unfold in full public view: the initial report, the exchanged documents and the hearings.

....

The outcome of a Red/Blue exercise for climate science is not preordained, which makes such a process all the more valuable. It could reveal the current consensus as weaker than claimed. Alternatively, the consensus could emerge strengthened if Red Team criticisms were countered effectively. But whatever the outcome, we scientists would have better fulfilled our responsibilities to society, and climate policy discussions would be better informed. For those reasons, all who march to advocate policy making based upon transparent apolitical science should support a climate science Red Team exercise.
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While "97% of scientists agree" that climate change is occurring, a far smaller number than that agree that it is primarily driven by human activity. It would be good to get some of these distinctions in the public record. too many people are shouting past each other, not even realizing that each of them are talking about entirely different elements of the overall situation.
 
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