Kemi Badenoch’s pretence that we can adapt to climate change is wrong because we can’t.
The claim that business makes that we will find some solution to this in some technical sense, but which we don’t know about as yet, is wrong, because we’ve known about this problem for long enough for that technical solution to have been created by now, or it probably doesn’t exist.
There is, just coming over the horizon into economic acceptability, something that will indede largely solve the problem. And it’s going to be Elon Musk that delivers it.
Space based solar power.
Every individual part of it can be done technically. Sure, probably have to build a couple of iterations of each bit to get it exactly right. But it can deffo be done. The problem is cost. Specifically, cost per kg into orbit. Which is the thing that SpaceX is just solving. We really are getting to the point where it will be economic.
At which point, given insolation, we end up not having a problem, at all, with 24/7 electricity. And with Fischer Tropsch and the like not with anything else either.
Now, I don’t expect to see this supplying the world by my likely checkout date. But odds on in the lifetimes of my nephews, and solid 100% nailed on certainty in the expected lifespans of my great nephews.
There really is a technical solution to climate change and it’s going to be so much fun that it’s Musk who is going to deliver it.
We have nuclear power available already. CO2 has only a negligible effect on the climate so we don’t need a solution to anything. If the climate changes on its own, which it has done continuously since the dawn of time, there is nothing that can be done to stop it. We have to adapt to it and we can, we have been doing so for thousands of years.
To reinforce our kind host’s philosophy regarding government run projects, Elon Musk’s Space X team are making NASA look like the tribe that laid out packing cases on the clearing they made to make the big bird come again…
Space based solar power for our electricity is
i) mind-blowingly expensive
ii) subject to unforeseen interruption (or possibly foreseen interruption about which we already know we can do fuck all)
iii) solving a non-existent ‘problem’
iv) so therefore completely fucking insane.
“….pretence that we can adapt to climate change ….”
Stupidity. The predicted changes (exaggerated) mean that adaptation is the equivalent of moving from Leamington Spa to Dorchester. Or vice versa. Try as I might I don’t see that as insurmountable.
(ii) for the win , Interested
eg Apophis
But also because I’ve seen too many episodes of Stargate.
Now if Elon put on a blonde wig and changed his name to Samantha…
@Interested
+1000!
And blasting gigawatts at earth via microwaves probably isn’t a particularly good idea either.
There has never been a lab experiment confirming the hypothesis of CO2=based climate change. Further, there has never been a demonstration of it happening in the atmosphere either. The theory requires ceteris paribus, but the atmosphere doesn’t work like that, it is a very complex open system and anybody who claims they know how it works or that they have a working computer model is a fool or a charlatan.
“And blasting gigawatts at earth via microwaves probably isn’t a particularly good idea either”
Particularly as there are now thousands of low orbiting satellites in the way, with more being added almost weekly. Elon Musk should know this, as he’s responsible for a large number of these obstacles…
“Kemi Badenoch’s pretence that we can adapt to climate change is wrong because we can’t.”
We can’t, eh? Amazing what we’ve weathered in the past two millennia alone, eh?
Roman Warm Period, Medieval Cold and Warm Anomalies, Little Ice Age… and that’s just the stuff measured in centuries..
Funny how we managed to get from bronze/iron age tech to a fat elyan potato hamfisting his keyboard without ever adapting…
Because said lard-infused spud tells us we can’t!!
Samantha has to nip out now as she is off to her evening class where the baking instructor is going to assess here efforts. Last week he popped her bread rolls straight into his mouth and he’s promised to try her muffin this week.
1. We may have a climate problem, but we don’t have a climate emergency
2. We can adapt to climate change.
3. Climate hysterics and eco-socialists are promoting an authoritarian and collectivist agenda to a largely hypothetical ‘threat’.
rhoda klapp
December 2, 2024 at 11:54 am
There has never been a lab experiment confirming the hypothesis of CO2=based climate change. Further, there has never been a demonstration of it happening in the atmosphere either.
Bingo. All that has happened is someone looked at a graph and concluded that co2 is driving mean temperatures. Never mind going back thousands of years to see if the same correlation existed.
‘We have nuclear power available already.’
Yeah Stonyground.
And as Tim points out, Fischer-Tropsch can convert H2 and CO2 from the oceans and the atmosphere to hydrocarbon fuels.
And breeder reactors could be built if people couldn’t find enough uranium. Or indeed thorium.
Though of course religion might mean people insist on using the sacred solar power from orbiting satellites instead of that satanic radioactive rubbish.
The technical solution to climate change is to change with the climate, which as Grikath mentions humans (and our nonhuman hominid ancestors such as the Neanderthals) knew how to do 400,000 years ago.
The alternative solution, promoted by people who want you to be slaves, is to financialise the entire economy so your children and grandchildren are desperately poor, own nothing and spend most of their lives working to pay bankers, energy companies, landowners and other politically favoured Wicker Manables who we don’t need and can safely sacrifice for the harvest.
Since China, Russia, India and Brazil never had any intention of slitting their own economic throat, and the USA has just escaped the globalist noose, that just leaves tiny, irrelevant Europe to grind it’s own nose off in order to reduce homeopathic emissions of a harmless trace gas. The rest of the world is not afraid of climate change, too busy pissing itself with laughter at the stupid white people.
Sorry Tim, but in your dreams. Try doing a bit of math. 1,2kw/m² at 1AU less transmission inefficiencies. Multiply by energy needs. Multiply by mass of SP’s + ancillary structures. You’re talking gigatonnes. You’re even talking gigatonnes for rolling replacement/refurbishment.
That’s with panels & shipping the energy earthside at m/w frequencies.
Mirrors? Concentrated beams of light at all frequencies including I/R coming down through the atmosphere at core temperatures of at least hundreds of degrees. You want a climate catastrophe?
The Kessler Syndrome would put paid to the idea of us having ‘too cheap to measure’ electricity from space:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
Apart from the possibility of such an event occurring naturally by accident, creating a chain reaction of space crap devastation on purpose would be very simple for anyone with nefarious intent.
Space-harvested solar power sounds like a bit of a fiddle. Seems a bit pointless when there’s plenty of stuff to burn/nuke.
Following on from Steve’s point, the only countries in the list of top 10 carbon emitters with a serious 2050 net zero target are Germany, South Korea and Japan. The rest, who make up nearly 2/3 of global emissions, don’t really care.
Having said that, the idea that any of Germany, South Korea or Japan will get to net zero by 2050 is laughable. Unless Germany collapses to pre-industrial levels of course, which is a possibility.
Some S/F writer got this about right when describing the launch of a space vehicle using ground based lasers. And that’s the effing great bang as the laser lights up. Air molecules in the beam instantly ionise at thousands of degrees. It going up wouldn’t sound much different to one of Musk’s rockets. You’ve essentially the same things going on, just with a different energy source. It doesn’t go up with a faint hum like in StarWars. So I doubt any beam of light mirrored down from orbit carrying serious amounts of energy would be silent. It’s going to lose energy into the atmosphere & that energy has to go somewhere. You’re probably looking at having a permanent 747 on approach hanging over your head.
Space based solar power is a great idea if you live at the L1 Lagrange Point. It’s a perfect solution for extraterrestrial artificial habitats.
Less so when you’re trying to beam significant quantities of power down to the surface of planet Earth, because Earth has an atmosphere. A functional space based solar power is also technically indistinguishable from a Bond baddie superweapon.
“I AM INVINCIBLE!” – Boris Grishenko
Marius – Having said that, the idea that any of Germany, South Korea or Japan will get to net zero by 2050 is laughable. Unless Germany collapses to pre-industrial levels of course, which is a possibility.
The European economy has lost *trillions* since cutting off Russian gas, and the hits keep on coming:
WOLFSBURG, Germany, Oct 28 (Reuters) – Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), opens new tab plans to shut at least three factories in Germany, lay off tens of thousands of staff and shrink its remaining plants in Europe’s biggest economy as it plots a deeper-than-expected overhaul, the company’s works council head said on Monday.
Europe’s biggest carmaker has been negotiating for weeks with unions over plans to revamp its business and cut costs, including considering plant closures on home soil for the first time, in a blow to Germany’s industrial prowess.
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
(Btw the winner of the Ukraine war is China)
You are completely missing the point Tim.
“Climate Change” has got nothing to do with climate, or CO2 or any other of the nonsense.
It is a Marxist concept to put the bloody peasants back in the box and stop thenm interfering with the privileges of the ruling elite.
It is a new feudalism. see 15 minute cities, where you won’t be allowed to leave without your owner’s permission.
There is an easy cure for “climate change” and it doesn’t involve space-based power. It involves rope and lamp posts. Wait for the first major blackouts, and see just how civilised things become.
@Steve
Net zero by 2025 is a very real possibility. The Biden string-pullers have nothing to lose and are desperately trying to provoke WW3. The result will be North America, Europe and Russia becoming radioactive glass.
But the wind is usually west to east. So the surviving Russians will all die of the fallout several weeks before all the remaining Americans and Europeans. So we win.
I don’t see it like that Tim. I see it as a great number of individuals found themselves with an unmissable opportunity to gain a great deal of influence/& primarily wealth. That starts with the first “climate scientists” & has mushroomed exponentially
At the COP29 summit last month, the “least developed countries” were given $300bn explicitly for “adaptation plans” to mitigate the impact of climate change. If they can do it, so can we!
“There has never been a lab experiment confirming the hypothesis of CO2=based climate change. ”
Apparently there were some experiments done back in the 1700s, with dry air. Everything published since has used the numbers obtained then.
Needless to say, the atmosphere is not dry air.
As Jeeves would opine, you have to consider the psychology of the individual & fold in the time value of money. They consider their gain now more valuable than other people’s loss in the future. How old’s Michael Mann now? Enjoying his retirement?
Consider how many people must be employed currently or benefiting from investment in the various facets of the Climate Change industry. No doubt there are howls of pain currently emanating from VW as it de-emphasises its drive to go electric. From all the people who were doing its EV projects. Climate Change must be the biggest new industry for years. Far greater than social media or AI.
TtC – we’ve come a long way from Dr Strangelove, which (accurately) depicted Brits at the time as being calmer and less bloodthirsty than Yank military men.
I mean, we must be increasingly on the alert to prevent them taking over other mine shafts space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do. Thus, knocking us out of these superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!
The overwhelming majority of us are descended from Neanderthals (small percentage of DNA in us but very large percentage of us with some Neanderthal DNA) who managed to adapt both to ice ages and to inter-ice age periods. The Neanderthals also had larger brains than the “homo sapiens” with whom they subsequently interbred: it is plausible that the ice ages winnowed out the Neanderthals with less intelligence so that the survivors were those with larger brains.
I am not allowed to compare the IQ of those descended from, inter alia, Neanderthals from those who are not (and did not have to cope with adapting to ice ages) because that would be racist. However I can say that if some of us have inherited a modicum of the larger Neanderthal brain then those will find a way to adapt to the, relatively modest, climate change forecast by the doomsayers/snake oil salesmen/Elysian pundits.
john77 – Us Thals are the Hyperborean Master Race.
All of you Ug Come Lately Homo Sapiens have to go back.
CO2 is food for plants.
CO2 levels were 4 times higher when Dinosaurs walked the earth. They must have had enormous SUV’s.
Let’s suppose (just for giggles) that the climate catastrophists are correct and that in 50 or 100 years’ time we really need to do something to turn down the thermostat on Earth. Rather than launching solar power stations into orbit, wouldn’t it be easier to put thousand of satellites into solar L2, where they can act as a sunshade? Maybe they’d need solar-powered ion thrusters to keep them in place.
Mark, we believe (according to the available evidence) CO2 hit 7000 parts per million at the beginning of the pre – Cambrian era (AKA the explosion of life).
The average is thought to be around 1300 ppm.
It is now 420 ppm.
Trees, plants, bushes and all the animals on land would die at around 200 ppm.
Unfortunately, while we have morons who have bought into the new religion / charlatans making money / academic kudos, or supposedly educated people (Tim) proposing ever more elaborate and preposterous solutions to the climate crisis, it will continue.
Mark – CO2 levels were 4 times higher when Dinosaurs walked the earth
Ding! Ding! Ding! Winner, winner, smilodon dinner.
Why were prehistoric creatures so massive? Why were wolves as big as horses, sharks as big as galleys, and dragonflies so big a hobbit could ride their backs? Because the Earth was warmer and produced a lot more calories to support the food chain. Global warming is a blessing to life on Earth. The opposite problem, Snowball Earth, would kill the vast majority of living things.
More warmth, please.
PS – NB that we’re asked to believe global warming presents an extinction level threat. 99.99% of all species that have ever lived on Earth are already extinct.
How many of them died due to global warming?
Zero.
@Chris Miller
If you have ion thrusters, not L2. You put a much smaller sunshield in a powered orbit much closer to the sun. In other words, it had the same orbital period as the earth but a proportion of its mass is supported in the sun’s gravity by the thrusters. So it doesn’t require the same radial velocity to maintain that orbit as it would do unsupported. The nearer the sun, the smaller the shield has to be to occlude the right amount of sunlight.
Solar L1 (between the Sun and the Earth) has the advantage that a sunshade there would actually stay in the right place, shading the Earth.
If you move it further in, then it moves out of position assuming it’s in orbit. If it’s not in orbit then it moves also.
L2 would be on the other side of the Earth (further out) from the Sun and would not work as a sunshade. It would serve as a place to put a mirror to reflect back on the Earth, though it would have to be very large to make a difference.
A forum I frequent has people quoting Murphy (I know…) in support of their argument. What’s the best (worst) example of the Spud I can quote to persuade them otherwise? Or maybe I’ll just link to all Timmy’s Ragging On posts.
So we’ll be putting machines in orbit that will beam highly concentrated rays of high energy down to us, presumably aimed at proper receptors that can then reharness that energy for distribution.
My Inner Paranoiac is asking if that beam can be nudged over a bit to aim at those troublesome peasants in Yukland and produce deleterious effects?
(“Even if possible, Inner Cynic, they would never do such a thing!” Yeah, that doesn’t make me calm.)
# London’s streets are knee-deep in horse shit. It’s no good looking for solutions to this, as we’ve been looking for years, and nothing has been found, no nothing will be found.
* Hey, I’ve just invented the car.
Ah GurzelWummidge… You are asking the wrong question..
You see, anyone competent or intelligent would, after careful consideration, discover the huge essential flaws in Richard J. Murphy’s theorems and Opinions.
Being of good faith, one might even try to adress those oversights in logic with the author, only to find out about the other defining aspect of mr. Murphy: his vile and vindictive personality when he is actually criticised, let alone proven wrong.
This is not opinion, this is simple observation from over 2 decades of evidence left behind on various social media and official publications by the man himself, for all to see.
What our host presents here regularly are the more excessive highlights of mr. Murphy’s productions, so that the readership here can see that the fox, indeed, still hasn’t changed his coat and that porcine aviation is as yet not on the table.
Anyone, in face of this decades-spanning body of evidence, who still considers mr. Murphy an expert and/or quotable source on anything is , by derivation, not capable of discerning this fact and therefore neither intelligent nor competent enough in any subject matter a forum might address.
So the question is not: “What would be the best Worstall Quote regarding Richard J. Murphy”.
There are many, and there is probably one that would fit any given subject your mentioned forum might address, if you would be more specific.
The actual question is”Why even bother?”
Those quoting Richard J. Murphy as an “Authority” are, to use the vernacular, Too Thick to parse and understand any critique, and generally of a similar unpleasant demeanor as the original author should their complacent sycophancy be disturbed by the mere suggestion that their Idol might be wrong.
It’s a futile excercise.
Why not just use the words of Spud to refute the other words of Spud?
He usually contradicts himself in the same sentence, so it shouldn’t be too hard to take his latest output and then scroll back in the feed to find him arguing the exact opposite. If you have the stomach for it.
I think jaGUar have solved the climate crisis.
I mean who doesn’t want to drive around in a milk float that looks like FAB1 ?
I wonder if it has guns behind the front grille …
Why were prehistoric creatures so massive?
Depends on which period & which animals.
The era of very large invertebrates, oxygen partial pressure was far higher than it is now. So their inefficient respiratory systems could sustain a larger form. For dinosaurs, indeed, in milder climates large bodyforms likely had evolutionary advantages. Same could be true in the era of giant mammals. But large is, in itself, a form of specialisation. And the more specialised a creature is, the more vulnerable it is to a change in its environment. So if early humans didn’t hunt them into extinction, climate irregularities probably did. A change in vegetation & their food source disappears & they can’t adapt to another. The herbivores disappear, the predators prey on them go as well.
And all land animals don’t scale particularly well. The larger the animal, the greater the proportion of its body mass is required for the structure – skeleton or exoskeleton – to hold it up against gravity. So they become progressively less efficient.
@M
If you got the area/mass ratio right, you could stably maintain a sunshield/solar sail anywhere in the solar system. It maintains its distance from the sun by utilising light pressure/ the solar wind & its radial velocity & steering by tilting & tacking. You’d need a disc of very strong but thin & light material spun up to maintain its shape. A few thousand square miles of it. Currently, I think labs are capable of knocking something similar up around the size of a postage stamp.
Grikath, Bloke in Wales, ta.
The horror of it is a Spud video link ‘The wealthy think they’re different’ and the poster asked ‘Does he have a point?’ I don’t have the stomach to watch it. Before that a ‘no Justice’ video titled ”Spud’ brought FACTS to this inheritance tax debate’, all on a thread about farmers and IHT.
Except for all the technological fixes that we’ve already been implementing for 40 years.
He seems to think that ‘climate change’ is just one big thing, not innumerable tiny things added up, and that one big fix is what to expect rather than the development of innumerable tiny ones, added up.
@M
Quite right I meant L1 (L2 is getting a bit cluttered with telescopes).
@BiS
I wasn’t thinking about an ion thruster in a forced orbit (which would run out of propellant, sooner or later), but the need to adjust for pressure from sunlight and the solar wind (these sunshields would be quite similar to a solar sail), which consumes much less ΔV.