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Forums - General - Do you think humans are helping cause Climate change?

 

Are humans the leading factor in our changing climate?

Of course we are. 73 55.30%
 
Probably. 17 12.88%
 
Probably not. 12 9.09%
 
Absolutely not. 23 17.42%
 
I have no idea. 6 4.55%
 
I wanna change apms climate ;) 1 0.76%
 
Total:132
fordy on 26 April 2012
thismeintiel said:

Oil companies do not get subsidies, they get tax breaks.  In other words, they do not get taxpayer money, like the bankrupt Solyndra did, they just get to keep more of their own moeny to further invest in their companies.  Why this administration wishes to change the meaning of subsidies is beyond me.  Actually, that's a lie, I know why they do it.  To give gullible people a new enemy to target.  The fact remains that green energy is not efficient enough yet to power a whole country.  Just imagine how much land would be taken away from humans and animals to put up enough windmills and solar panels to power the entire country, plus new electric cars for everyone.  And how are we going to power jets for over 4 hrs on electric?

 

Let's take a look at the major parts of oil subsidies in 3 major parts:

  1. Foreign tax credit (42%)
  2. Credit for production of non-conventional fuels (39%)
  3. Oil and Gas exploration and development expensing (19%)
In other words, a good chunk of it goes towards foreign tax credit (read up on the dispute between Saudi Arabia and (afterwards) Israel to find out why we have to subsidise for fuel from SA), and exploration and developement. Can you tell me why big oil needs any extra "incentive" to explore for more oil and gas, besides, oh I dunno.....STAYING IN BUSINESS?!
I agree with you on the whole efficiency of renewables, and there is good reason for that. Can you cite exactly how much investment was put towards the automobile from it's entry as a gas guzzler, to today where we can achieve > 100mpg? How many years put towards it? That's the whole point of a renewable subsidy. It's going to take time and investment to get renewable to such a standard to rely upon, and I dunno abut you, but I'd rather that happen now than when we're only a matter of days from reaching peak oil (which will be when the market finally reacts. Yeah...just a little late).



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Rath on 26 April 2012
killerzX said:
fordy said:
killerzX said:

your right, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. now arent we smart.


You never answered the original question. 

Fossil fuels happen to be there in convenient form, thus distorting the market price of what it's actually worth. Sure it's convenient to "live off of savings" and not have to do any more work, but I thought you libertarians were against that sort of thing. Why not price oil at it's true price? (the price of a corpse plus 65 million years interest). At least that will prevent the constant dipping into savings.

its price is what the market dictates, its not based off some retarded philosophical garbage. and its market price would be even lower if we were allowed to use our own oil. we have hundreds  thousands of years of oil left, and it is debated whether or not more is currently being made, and by the time we run out, or by the time it becomes economically unviable to drill and extract it, will will have efficient, practicle and cost efficient green energy. in the mean time im using oil and coal. thank you.

Thousands of years left?

You're living so far in dreamland it's hard to comprehend. Even optimistic predictions put peak oil in the next couple of decades. Why? Because less oil is being found.



killerzX on 26 April 2012
Rath said:
killerzX said:
fordy said:
killerzX said:

your right, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. now arent we smart.


You never answered the original question. 

Fossil fuels happen to be there in convenient form, thus distorting the market price of what it's actually worth. Sure it's convenient to "live off of savings" and not have to do any more work, but I thought you libertarians were against that sort of thing. Why not price oil at it's true price? (the price of a corpse plus 65 million years interest). At least that will prevent the constant dipping into savings.

its price is what the market dictates, its not based off some retarded philosophical garbage. and its market price would be even lower if we were allowed to use our own oil. we have hundreds  thousands of years of oil left, and it is debated whether or not more is currently being made, and by the time we run out, or by the time it becomes economically unviable to drill and extract it, will will have efficient, practicle and cost efficient green energy. in the mean time im using oil and coal. thank you.

Thousands of years left?

You're living so far in dreamland it's hard to comprehend. Even optimistic predictions put peak oil in the next couple of decades. Why? Because less oil is being found.

lol... theres a proven 100 years worth of oil left in one oil sand field in canada.

well with the optimistic predcitions of just a few decades left, that means realist means like what 1-2 decades before we run out. so that means I dont have to wait to long to laugh at the hilarious number. 



fordy on 26 April 2012
HappySqurriel said:
If the money that has been wasted developing wind, solar and/or fast breeder reactors had been directed towards liquid salt thorium breeder reactors we would have enough safe, clean and efficient energy today to produce as much power for everyone in the world to have a much higher standard of living than people in western developed nations currently have.


While breeder reactors are a financially viable option, I'd still call that pushing the overall problem further down the track. Yes it's a good idea, but what about when Peak Thorium hits? And don't start with the 'oh that's YEARS away' crap. That's the kind of mentality that got us in tis predicament in the first place.

There are 2 permanent solutions to the problem:

1. Gathering of energy directly (or indrectly) from the Sun

2. Nuclear fusion

NONE of these will ever be financially viable unless money is put towards them to make them cost efficient. It's rather unfair to those who say that 100th generation steam and coal turbines are outpacing 2nad or 3rd generation solar for efficiency. Of course! What do you expect?!

It might suprise you to know that your government HAS put money towards the research of sustainable fusion, along with several other countries, and by the looks of your anti-government posts, you're most likely against it.



SvennoJ on 26 April 2012
killerzX said:
fordy said:
killerzX said:

its price is what the market dictates, its not based off some retarded philosophical garbage. and its market price would be even lower if we were allowed to use our own oil. we have hundreds  thousands of years of oil left, and it is debated whether or not more is currently being made, and by the time we run out, or by the time it becomes economically unviable to drill and extract it, will will have efficient, practicle and cost efficient green energy. in the mean time im using oil and coal. thank you.


This is your issue. You're trying to treat a finite resource to market conditions, in which "exhaustion" is not a predicted outcome. 

Oh, and I love your fabricated estimate of how much oil we have remaining. Now here are the real  figures from the IEAs World Energy Outlook report:

In 2009, PROVEN oil reserves worldwide amounts to 1354 billion barrels. You can speculate how much is left out there, but until you have actual proof that there are still trillions of barrels of oil remaining, it's just that; speculation.

In 2009, the rate of demand is 84 million barrels per day. Now, given that the demand remains CONSTANT (which is impossible. Demand will rise as it has mostly for the past 50 years), we will have a little over 44 years of oil. I'm sorry, but I think that's a liiiiittle under the thousands of years of oil that you spouted.

Similar calculations were made for coal, which amounted to anywhere from 150 to 350 years, depending on demand and the added demand once oil reserves are gone. That figure was, at the time, being incredibly generous, I might add.

You ARE forgetting that when this increase in price to be economically unviable happens, where do we turn to? After all, no subsidies towards alternatives means no reserach into making the technology efficient enough. The oil/coal exhaustion will hit quicker than newer technologies can effectively produce, thus there will be an instant overdemand for energy (it wont be a small transition. The news will be sudden in order to keep stock prices going as long as possible). 

What you fail to understand is the subsidy towards renewables is to simulate a period of demand for energy in order to kickstart (or boost) reserach and innovation towards a viable alternative, so we are prepared when stocks of fossil fuels are exhausted (which is a LOT sooner than you think. Do your research). 

proven, there you go.

we are constantly finding "new" oil reserves, and we will continue to do so. i dont have exact numbers, but the number of proven oil reserves has gone up constantly as year progress. in the year 1000 there wasnt very much if at all proven reserves. did that mean oil didnt exist back then?

Sure we're still finding new resources but far from enough anymore

http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php

We've gotten prety good at finding oil. And do you really think the industry would go through this much trouble if we still had hundreds of years of cheap oil left?


http://www.energy.alberta.ca/oilsands/oilsands.asp
vs
http://oilsandstruth.org/

The Tar Sands "Gigaproject" is the largest industrial project in human history and likely also the most destructive. The tar sands mining procedure releases at least three times the CO2 emissions as regular oil production and is slated to become the single largest industrial contributor in North America to Climate Change.

The tar sands are already slated to be the cause of up to the second fastest rate of deforestation on the planet behind the Amazon Rainforest Basin. Currently approved projects will see 3 million barrels of tar sands mock crude produced daily by 2018; for each barrel of oil up to as high as five barrels of water are used.



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Stinky on 26 April 2012

One needn't be an expert to extrapolate the following facts:

- carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas
- burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere
- geological observation correlates high CO2 concentrations with higher atmospheric temperatures
- forests are known for buffering and sequestration of atmospheric CO2
- human activity includes burning massive amounts of fossil fuels and deforestation

Argue as you wish, but all of these are verified to be true.



fordy on 26 April 2012
killerzX said:

lol... theres a proven 100 years worth of oil left in one oil sand field in canada.

well with the optimistic predcitions of just a few decades left, that means realist means like what 1-2 decades before we run out. so that means I dont have to wait to long to laugh at the hilarious number. 


Proven 100 years?

Funny, the figures in the 2010 report explicity state that Canada's oil sands were already included in the figures.



Rath on 26 April 2012
killerzX said:
Rath said:
killerzX said:
fordy said:
killerzX said:

your right, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. now arent we smart.


You never answered the original question. 

Fossil fuels happen to be there in convenient form, thus distorting the market price of what it's actually worth. Sure it's convenient to "live off of savings" and not have to do any more work, but I thought you libertarians were against that sort of thing. Why not price oil at it's true price? (the price of a corpse plus 65 million years interest). At least that will prevent the constant dipping into savings.

its price is what the market dictates, its not based off some retarded philosophical garbage. and its market price would be even lower if we were allowed to use our own oil. we have hundreds  thousands of years of oil left, and it is debated whether or not more is currently being made, and by the time we run out, or by the time it becomes economically unviable to drill and extract it, will will have efficient, practicle and cost efficient green energy. in the mean time im using oil and coal. thank you.

Thousands of years left?

You're living so far in dreamland it's hard to comprehend. Even optimistic predictions put peak oil in the next couple of decades. Why? Because less oil is being found.

lol... theres a proven 100 years worth of oil left in one oil sand field in canada.

well with the optimistic predcitions of just a few decades left, that means realist means like what 1-2 decades before we run out. so that means I dont have to wait to long to laugh at the hilarious number. 


Total reserves of all oil sands are estimated at 250 billion barrels or so (http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/ser_2010_report_1.pdf) total consumption is about 90 million barrels a day (http://omrpublic.iea.org/) 250,000,000,000/90,000,000 = ~2770. That's a bit over seven years.



thismeintiel on 26 April 2012
Rath said:
killerzX said:

lol... theres a proven 100 years worth of oil left in one oil sand field in canada.

well with the optimistic predcitions of just a few decades left, that means realist means like what 1-2 decades before we run out. so that means I dont have to wait to long to laugh at the hilarious number. 


Total reserves are estimated at 250 billion barrels or so (http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/ser_2010_report_1.pdf) total consumption is about 90 million barrels a day (http://omrpublic.iea.org/) 250,000,000,000/90,000,000 = ~2770. That's a bit over seven years.

Lol, I'll see you in 8 years, when we are still using oil like today, and yet mysteriously still have more.



 

Rath on 26 April 2012
thismeintiel said:
Rath said:
killerzX said:

lol... theres a proven 100 years worth of oil left in one oil sand field in canada.

well with the optimistic predcitions of just a few decades left, that means realist means like what 1-2 decades before we run out. so that means I dont have to wait to long to laugh at the hilarious number. 


Total reserves are estimated at 250 billion barrels or so (http://www.worldenergy.org/documents/ser_2010_report_1.pdf) total consumption is about 90 million barrels a day (http://omrpublic.iea.org/) 250,000,000,000/90,000,000 = ~2770. That's a bit over seven years.

Lol, I'll see you in 8 years, when we are still using oil like today, and yet mysteriously still have more.

That's only oil sands, there's a lot of conventional oil out there still too. I'm not saying we're going to run out straight away - just that we're going to start having less than before. With the current rate of oil discovery compared to the current rate of oil consumption it simply isn't sustainable forever. Peak oil doesn't mean all oil is going to stop, it just means it will slowly wind down.