Ken Fabian

But the link supports 60% of enhanced greenhouse coming from increased water vapour as a consequence of warming due to increase in other GHG's, ie water vapour as feedback. It is implicit rather than explicit - and the title, whilst impactful, could be misleading. Without the changes induced by change to other GHG's there would be little change to water vapour ie it does matter how the capacity to hold water vapour got increased - As for termites, I expect the total water vapour evaporating from an area of land to be quite large even in deserts and the contributions of termites via methane oxidation to be relatively small in comparison. Just to exist termites need and use water (carrying it up from underground sources), with significant amounts of water vapour apart from methane's oxidation. I just don't think it can be a big proportion or big contributor to local air humidity or to global warming - not zero, but not highly significant. I would also note that whilst more downwelling IR in lower troposphere is a consequence of Greenhouse Effect it is a local effect that doesn't directly impact the overall global heat balance; it is Top of Atmosphere - high troposphere to mid stratosphere where IR can radiate directly to space - that is most significant. Raised CO2 raises the altitude where that occurs, where such air is thinner and colder and radiates less. @Peterkin I still expect more loss of overall termite activity from forest and ecosystem destruction than any increase of termite species of concern eating construction timber in buildings. More broadly any cultivated land will have little opportunity for termites and grazing will limit available food for grass eating species. I don't know if there have been studies of changes to global termite numbers. Using wood in ways that lock up carbon make some sense, including selective harvesting of natural grown as well as plantations; as always, sound management is essential. Made more difficult for forestry because of climate change and the long time scales for forest growth. We are in a post-drought, post-fires climate phase around here - there is a lot of dead wood around; whilst many local tree species are drought and fire hardy there were still a lot of dead trees amongst the survivors. Lots of food for termites. Some will get eaten hollow and become animal habitat before the termites eat it all. I am seeing disruption to ecosystems from global warming that mean what comes back is not all the same as what came before.

I was thinking deforestation and agriculture brings overall reduced opportunities for all kinds of species, including termites. For grass eating termites I would expect overgrazing to reduce their food supply. I understand the economic impacts; I'm in a forested part of Eastern Australia in a home NOT well built - it's been the wettest Spring for a long while and they are very active in the forest around us and well within reach. Whilst fence posts and rough sheds in the bush are expected to be temporary structures... if a house gets destroyed that would be our fault - poor design, materials, construction and/or lack of care. Mostly now building standards require resistant or chemically treated plantation timber framing - with those barriers. Or steel framing - with those barriers. Which are not considered absolute preventatives; vigilance is still needed, especially in the tropics. There can still be a lot of wood in a house here. I like wood. It is just a personal observation that the forest ecosystem around here has a lot of termites - many nests of a range of species, whilst in the cities and towns - and in the farmers' fields - they are hunted down and slaughtered relentlessly wherever they appear. And I think modern design and construction is very good at keeping them out.

A lot of effort goes into preventing termites eating buildings and wood products. Building codes around here include significant requirements including physical barriers (eg crushed stone layers and stainless steel mesh) as well as chemical treatments. Posts and piles have to have "inspection" plates - they aren't so much barriers as forcing them to make external routes that make them visible, to allow follow up treatments. Poor construction remains vulnerable but well made structures should manage to keep them at bay. I suspect we have less termites because of humans, not more, and mostly by deforestation and agriculture but if anyone has evidence otherwise I'd be interested. I am always a bit dubious when natural GHG sources are cited as significant compared to human emissions without including the bigger picture - ie The Carbon Cycle - that includes processes that take them out of the atmosphere. Methane breaks down to CO2 plus 4x H2O - but I don't see it significantly adding to water vapor or greenhouse potential from raised water vapor. The overall increase in water vapor is from warmer air - ie from global warming from CO2 and CH4 mostly - which will far exceed such direct contributions, which, like all water vapor, will have a short turnover time in the atmosphere. I don't think the linked reference supports the idea that the water vapor from methane combustion (oxidation) has significant impacts - rather, that water vapor feedback accounts for about 60% of the overall increase in greenhouse potential - "It's water vapor. " Yes, but because of and in addition to raised CO2. Burning fossil fuels of all kinds release water vapor when used - from water content of the fuel or produced by combustion but still small compared to water vapor feedback.

I couldn't find any examples of electrocution from EV accidents but I would be surprised if there none and, yes, I expect vehicle repair and emergency services people to have training, as they should for dealing with ICE fires. Like the fire hazard claim I'd like to see evidence of overall heightened risks. Any evidence of manufacturers doing this, on purpose? Manufacturers considering (say) 10 years as sufficient working life - and possibly an achievement - but failing to do what it takes to make that 20 doesn't look like planned obsolescence to me. As far as vehicle life goes, surely Teslas are up there and it doesn't look like chip failures, planned or unplanned are proving a problem, irrespective of how many chips they use. Leaving aside technological progress that comes with turnover of vehicle stocks, whether it is overall better and more cost effective to build endlessly repairable cars or endlessly replaceable ones could be a question for another thread...

The video was of a battery pack deliberately set on fire. I agree there is a very high risk of catching fire under such circumstances... I had a look for info on EV fires and failed to find support for high incidence. Whilst I will take Elon Musk's claim that ICE vehicles are 11 times more likely to catch fire than a Tesla with a grain of salt - there are other factors involved including average age of vehicles - it did appear based on real statistics that haven't been disputed, 5 fires per billion miles vs 55 per billion for ICE. Over what period wasn't clear. Mostly I found experts unwilling to give definitive answers to whether the fire risk is higher or lower - mostly because not enough data - but they are NOT saying there is any evidence of extreme risk, which they would if crashes have a high incidence of fires. This is not referring to recent and is specifically referencing fatal crashes - I expect fire risk to be less than this in more modern electric vehicles, due to better design - ( https://www.counterpointresearch.com/electric-vehicles-safe/ ) - Don't EV's go through crash testing? Such a vulnerability would be impossible to disguise under such circumstances and would surely earn a zero star rating. I thought my comment was reasonable. I questioned a very strong statement you made that does not appear to have a sound basis. I asked if you had evidence but a video of setting fire to a battery pack isn't evidence and laptop/mobile phone battery fires seems tangential to fire risk of EV's in accidents - did they catch fire when something collided with them?

There is no going backwards. Too many vehicle capabilities - ICE as well as EV, as well as design and manufacture - now rely on them. Yes, more optional and unnecessary (but not necessarily unwanted) features become easy to add because chips make it easy and low cost but a lot of important functions are possible at low cost because of them. Some of those functions probably cannot be done at all without them. The nostalgia for good, old, simpler and more reliable doesn't reflect how much manufacturing costs and vehicle reliability have improved, in large part because of computer chips. EV's look like being amongst the most reliable cars currently available; I don't see how the use of chips can be considered flawed. Between the pandemic upsetting economies and supply chains and vehicle sales recovering better than expected manufacturers (chip and vehicle) underestimated demand but I don't see why this should be a long running problem. It isn't a design problem, just a parts supply problem, that will almost certainly be temporary. Do you have any evidence to support claims of extreme - or even heightened - fire risk? My understanding is there is less fire risk than ICE vehicles (which contain larger amounts of energy in their fuel tanks than EV's have in their batteries). As one expert on EV safety put it, any EV fire is newsworthy, but ICE fires are only newsworthy if they stop traffic. I also note that not all EV's use battery chemistry that is intrinsically flammable and ongoing battery R&D is a major "industry" in itself; we haven't seen the best of all possible batteries yet.

I expect manufacturing and distribution will get over it's current problems and there won't be any enduring chip shortages due to growth of EV usage. Or other growing uses; I look around this desk - laptop, mouse, router, guitar tuner, phone (that can have a guitar tuner app). Thermometers, pH meter, clock... Demand is too strong and growing and microprocessor manufacturing is an innovative industry with opportunities.. They may not be absolutely essential (except for all those uses that aren't really possible without them) but they are the best and/or least cost way (and often most reliable) to do so many things that not making use of them seems foolish.

Is an hermaphrodite form that combines both male and female a different sex? Is an asexual form - neither male nor female - a different sex or not a sex at all? Both occur widely in nature. Epigenetic processes seem to blur any absolute made-from-male+female Chromosomes distinction. Parasitism (and symbiosis) can involve reproduction that is absolutely dependent on other species, including co-opting the biological systems of a host; might it be narrowness of definition that names the hosts as different species rather than, in specific circumstances, a third sex of the parasite?

With zero friction a flywheel should keep spinning indefinitely - but when you draw any energy from it, eg by using it to power an electrical generator, it will slow down. You won't evade the laws of thermodynamics.

My knowledge of the underlying theory is surely weak, however I note the original post posited a simple DC circuit, without transformers. Energy crossing between coils isn't the same thing. If electrons don't shift around then how does energy in a DC circuit flow? Or AC without any moving of electrons back and forth? How do capacitors work if there is no accumulation (or absence) of electrons? I will have a view of the video - although I'd prefer the OP had a summary of what it says.

Off the top of my head (and without watching the video)... leaving aside resistance across such a distance, ie with superconductivity, and absence of electromagnetic fields (the solar system having them) I would expect the initial wave of current flow to proceed at C. An electron doesn't have to travel the full length before there is a current. It should be a bit like water in a primed hose (with water already along it's length) where the flow doesn't begin when the water entering at one end reaches the other end, but begins when the pressure change does (in that case, at the speed of sound). When that pressure wave (is that correct terminology?) reaches the end the water nearest that end flows out first.

Just saying I think flat earth "theory" is pure nonsense. I don't feel any need to justify why I think mainstream science has it right. Moving on...

A disappointing OP. Seriously? Do you use roads? Water supply? Have you or your family received taxpayer funded education? Health services? Do you receive benefits from taxpayer funded Defense services? Law and order? Financial systems that protect property rights and investments? Even if you feel confident you can afford to pay for all the services you need yourself you are doing so in a nation with a functioning government; all that confidence won't do you any good in a nation without one. I am constantly amazed that people cannot see the advantages to them of other people - neighbors, fellow workers, employees for example - being educated and healthy or of having their basic needs met. Don't you want others to avoid dire poverty and desperation and prevent entrenched social inequalities that are breeding grounds for crime, militant protest and revolution? Can't you see any value to you from social stability that basic welfare to others provides. Even the lazy opportunists ultimately aren't winners, even where welfare programs give them some benefit of doubt. Their children, if not them, need basic needs met - and it is worthwhile to offer education, to provide as much opportunity for as many as possible to become productive, with wider benefits than to them alone. I think it is wrong to conclude that free enterprise competition always does things best - or that governments would be better run by successful business people, like a business. A nation is not a business and even the standout business successes don't represent the totality of business efficiency; whilst the inefficient and failed companies and the human toll of their failures don't appear on a winning company's books they are on the nation's books. There is no 'firing' the unproductive citizens to make the nation's books look better. Surely the economic framework that makes such business success possible at all are in large part down to taxpayer funded governments programs and services. The reality is that many nations do many important and essential services better than competitive private enterprise can eg the UK and many other nations do health care using taxation much more cost effectively than US commercial medicine and insurance does it. Their successes should be appreciated more. It is always a case of vigilance and to do government better and to prevent or eliminate corruption - but there are places in the world where you won't have to pay taxes for anything and governments are powerless to make you. They are as far from utopias as it is possible to imagine.

Convection from the tropics doesn't carry air to the poles, just to mid-latitudes - with global warming causing the Hadley cells to expand to higher latitudes, something of concern here in Australia, as Hadley cells are associated with the high pressure systems that bring dry weather and push hot air from Australia's inland to the coast and are making the dry zones bigger. Not sure if enough warming could cause merging of Ferrel and Hadley cells or otherwise change this basic pattern of air circulation - messing with the climate has consequences -

The changes to the climate and weather patterns from global warming will have a bigger impact on winds, local and global average, than the atmospheric impacts of wind farms.

Usage defines words and ultimately trumps any prior dictionary definitions. Even the compilers of dictionaries must bow to common usage - ie even 'standard' and agreed meanings of words get revised (usually by adding a numbered alt definition) according to how people actually use them in practice. If you are engaging in discussions and debates about atheism you need to accept that there are no absolute rules about word usage and if what someone means is not explicit or apparent from context you should ask for clarity. I am not sure it serves any purpose to argue over those differences when it is usually easy to work out what is actually meant so you can argue about that. A bit like how I think arguing about calling anthopogenic climate change "global warming" or "climate change" for common usage is a distraction from what is important and serves no real purpose. .

I too have had bad experiences with Microsoft, eg having to buy a new copy of Windows because the reinstall option went missing from the harddrive - "talk to manufacturer - your original may have been 100% legal but no, you cannot download a copy". Out of manufacturer warranty of course - although I may have had a case, since a previous warranty repair appeared responsible for the missing hidden partition. But I wanted it going again asap. Only to go through the entire new install (with no going back) and near the very end - "Hardware not compatible with this version". Don't know which was worse - paying for that copy or the time wasted.

My first thought was something to do with technical drawing - reminded me of parts from an antique compass or parallel rule, but brass parts were in all kinds of tools and instruments. I have a jar full of odd brass screws, including knurled knob types like shown (but without the other bit), with original purposes unknown. Perhaps paper binding (like externet mentioned) or for mounting worksheets on a drawing board. Just guessing - I have no idea.

I think he merely baits his opponents - usually well below his rhetorical weight - with a keen sense of what buttons to press and coming off as sane and reasonable in comparison to what his trolling stirs up. When I listened to him discussing climate issues - issues I do follow keenly - the accurate content and evidence of actual understanding just wasn't there. From very misleading "facts" to outright wrong. And as Politically Correct in his own way with those talking points as any Left Warrior's conformity of Left rhetoric; you'd have thought getting worked up about climate change at all was Left idiocy - backed by using the wrong talking points of Right idiots. Any sense this was someone who really knows what he's talking about or should be listened to as a great intellect - or at all - was gone.

In my experience it isn't usually the trees that burn or that are the principle hazard, it is leaf litter and undergrowth (that will include seedling/sapling trees); it takes the right (wrong?) conditions for forest canopy fires, ie trees to burn. Reducing the undergrowth reduces opportunities for fires to find their way into canopies (laddering), although if conditions are severe enough they can do it regardless and (with Australian and I suspect SW USA vegetation) readily cross large gaps in canopy. They can also burn across areas where hazard reduction fires have been recently done. Early European explorer accounts of the area I live in cited very large, mature trees with grassy areas underneath, but these were not natural; they were the consequence of centuries of humans using fire as land management tool. After 2 centuries of tree harvesting and clearing the numbers of trees is greater, but they are smaller and with denser undergrowth. Thinning of larger trees is probably not going to help and that is what I think of for "thinning"; others might think of it undergrowth removal I suppose. Short term removal of trees leaves a load of dead tree tops unless those get cleaned up, which makes the exercise more difficult. Longer term the breaks in forest canopies from tree harvesting become areas of maximum undergrowth. Hazard reduction burning is done in large part because physical removal is not viable - too much of it and too much of it inaccessible. When drought has been ongoing the opportunities to do that hazard reduction burning safely is reduced. And warmer temperatures also reduce those safe opportunities. I think raised dewpoint temperatures are critical in that; the old style light it and leave it "burning off" by Australian farmers that aped Aboriginal practices relied heavily on cool overnight conditions laying down natural fire retardant - dew and frost - that meant the fires reliably (mostly) went out by themselves. With global warming there will be less of those opportunities, ie more vigilance, labour and equipment to be safe.

No, it is closer to 1/3 making most of the global warming; it isn't a direct relationship. Rather it is a direct relationship between total fossil fuel use and climate change - and fossil fuel use can be avoided. From original thread, not copied over -

I think using zero emissions energy decouples global warming from population. Not entirely but the biggest part of it. Population matters but I think global warming is not an unavoidable consequence of high population - and it is unhelpful as well as wrong to presume it. Unhelpful because believing it true means believing there is no solution that doesn't involve significant population reduction and there aren't any nice ways that can happen quickly and even the ways to do it as a global priority by controlling birth rates still risk crossing over into crimes against humanity territory. Unhelpful because it supports the argument that the cure will be - must be - worse than the disease and committing - really committing - to fixing the problem must lead to global tyranny that regulates fertility. But it is an avoidable consequence of high population and committing - really committing - to fixing the climate problem can accommodate the natural human urge and desire to have children and climate policy can butt out of people's family lives. There will be issues arising from high populations and continued population growth but they don't have to be climate issues. A high population using clean energy can make less emissions and global warming than a low population using dirty energy and (as others have noted) education, access to medical services and contraceptives have proven effective at reducing birth rates - even within communities with religious prohibitions against them - so economic development that is based around clean energy looks like a win-win.

Maybe I'm a bit sensitive - I'd encountered people making the "cure worse than problem" argument citing renewable waste recently. As an argument for not making and selling and using things that are in demand citing future waste obviously doesn't work very well anyway - and their position ultimately depended on presuming climate impacts from fossil fuels to be exaggerated. Sigh. Even so I think too few people, even reasonably well informed ones, realise just how much problem waste fossil fuel use produces - and it is worth highlighting how much less the total volumes using renewable energy can be expected to make. Dealing with waste too often has come as an afterthought, or perhaps as and after the waste problems present themselves. I would expect manufacturing wastes at large scale to present as a problem quite quickly and safe disposal becomes a working necessity, with relatively few high volume sources making it hard to ignore. End use waste becoming the user's problem presents less directly or immediately. RE will be at scales that are off the scale if they are to work for 10 billion people, so yes we will need to deal with the wastes responsibly. I see building an abundance of clean energy as the best thing we can do and it surprises and astonishes me that wind and solar have emerged as a cost effective action - such that we can and are using them in serious volumes. If renewable Hydrogen is to have a significant role it requires that clean energy growth and more, so committing to more solar and wind right now makes sense. And this appears to be happening and is cause for cautious optimism that, despite appearances, that we can make a real difference. From 1.7% of global electricity in 2010 Wind and Solar have grown to 8.7% of a larger total in 2020; by any measure that is extraordinary growth, but I think we ain't seen nothing yet, because crossing a crucial tipping point on costs (in most places during that decade) has not fully flowed through. How much energy storage can grow is a question but batteries are emerging as serious contributors. I note that about 20 times more electricity supply batteries (grid and domestic) have been built in Australia since 2016 than predictions at the time. Power companies that previously assumed a growing role for gas as backup are choosing to use batteries and are questioning those plans. Ongoing R&D and support for pilot programs for many other contributing technologies and options is essential because Wind and Solar can't do it all. Hydrogen is one. Energy storage of all kinds is another - battery R&D has gained it's own momentum and high levels of commercial funding. So is growing interconnections across ever wider electricity grids something I think worthwhile - whether it is Africa to Europe, Australian to SE Asia (SunCable tm) or the UK linked to Iceland hydrothermal power (due for completion soon?).

But I don't think it is that good a point, which is why I urge you - and urge Studiot too btw - not to buy into the alarmist fears of renewable energy wastes. Maybe the big bold heading "a serious waste problem" was a copy and paste, not you warning of the dangers of committing to renewable energy - but I think it deserved some qualifications, if only to make clear your opinion. I don't necessarily follow links, but I was aware of that study on battery waste in Australia and see it as evidence the problems with waste are not being ignored. And maybe the strength of my response was less about you and more about the widespread use of those alarmist fears to undercut confidence in committing to clean energy. We probably agree on more than we disagree; just more likely to get exchanges of views where we disagree. It seems to me we have passed the point where weighing up our future options is the best use of our resources - we have options that work, if imperfectly, and pathways that are clear for the near term, even if less clear for the longer term. (A general observation, not specific to any posts). Battery electric looks like the current best option for transport but any commitment to it doesn't lock us into anything we cannot change; it looks flexible to me and that flexibility looks more important than waiting on a clear and unambiguous overarching "plan". If Hydrogen does emerge as cost effective for transport that will be good but holding out on commitment to low emissions transport whilst we wait for it will squander the opportunities we have now.

"True costs" of batteries... compared to what? The whole climate issue is about including true costs that otherwise don't get counted. Replacement costs vs the utility? I think Li-ion is doing well on that scale and battery tech is still a work in progress. My understanding is that most of the earliest Tesla's still have the original batteries and most can expect a longer working life with less maintenance than ICE drivetrains. But I don't expect Li-ion to stay the same or to be the only viable chemistry. It is disappointing that you aren't putting those numbers into perspective. I think there is a strong thread of alarmist fear about the resource requirements and wastes of renewable energy that is being encouraged by opponents of climate accountability and supporters of fossil fuels and I don't think it is warranted; I urge you not to buy into it. It is not that there are not problem wastes from RE but that the problem wastes from fossil fuel burning are so, so, so abundant as well as intractable. Australia makes 12.5 million tons a year of serious problem waste in the form of coal ash - 125x expected battery waste in a heavily RE and battery dependent 2036 - and 4,000 times as much CO2 as that. Neither waste is amenable to recycling - I am not convinced including fly ash in concrete can be scaled sufficiently, nor that it won't leave an enduring legacy of heavy metals contaminated concrete. CCS (with 2-3 tons of CO2 for each ton of FF burned) can't scale up and is just Greenwash. There is recognition of the need for solutions to RE waste - and supporters of fossil fuels won't stop reminding us. Renewable energy industry overall tends to accept the need to develop recycling/safe disposal and appears open to inclusion of pre-payment for disposal in initial purchase. I don't think recycling/safe disposal is even possible for fossil fuels wastes but the industry fiercely opposes any accountability. I would note that EV and large scale batteries are very unlikely to enter ordinary waste streams and it is small consumer item batteries that are a fire risk. No vehicle recycler is going to be stupid enough to put them in the crusher (well, let's hope not) and no ordinary landfill will accept them. We will deal with the wastes - that will be in much reduced volumes compared to FF's and, foreseeing the issues, will probably do so better at it than we've handled problem wastes in the past.