Sorting Out Science

Global climate change — the risk management approach: 6 Comments

1. Eurotrash wrote,

   That’s a good video. I’m going to get others to watch it.
   But I wonder if it will help. I think most regular folk (me included) want the solution handed on a plate without it requiring much effort. For exemple, I like my car. Most days I could go to work by train and communal transport, but I prefer being stuck in traffic on my own each morning to having to sit in a train carriage. And I don’t think I’m alone, otherwise my comute would be much quicker.
   So I’m passively waiting until someone hands me a car that is equivalent in all ways but very green. I’d have no problem switching to the greener solution then, but until then I don’t seem to be bothered enough to lower my comfort level a tiny bit to save the planet.
   I’ll probably go to Limbo (or worse) after I’m dead because of my egoism, but I’ll be in the company of most of my compatriots.

   Link | October 20th, 2007 at 11:53 EDT

2. Sam Wise wrote,

   Eh… I suspect (but am doing research on this) that while we can each do “our bit” on an individual level to buy time, the ultimate solution to climate change will have to come at a more industrial level. It helps if people can carpool, or ride the bus, but when push comes to shove, there are a lot of people on this planet that are waiting for their own version of a “western” lifestyle. We’d better make sure to re-engineer that lifestyle (grid power from renewable sources, more efficient cars / appliances, etc.) such that when the 3rd world can afford it, the world’s climate can handle the load.

   Link | October 20th, 2007 at 17:21 EDT

3. Eurotrash wrote,

   What’s your take on nuclear power as part of the solution? That’s maybe an idea for a podcast. The pro’s and cons of it.
   P.S. Thanks again for the site and effort it must take.

   Link | October 21st, 2007 at 09:45 EDT

4. Sam Wise wrote,

   My take is that it’s awfully difficult finding “straight” numbers for nuclear power’s carbon footprint.

   While a nuclear power plant generates no CO2 in operation, you’ve got to account for all the CO2 released during mining & refining of the fuel, reprocessing (if any) of fuel, disposal of spent fuel, etc. The pro-nuclear lobby has one (likely optimistic) set of numbers, the anti-nuclear lobby has another (much more bleak) set.

   I want to do a podcast episode on exactly that topic, but haven’t made it to the bottom of this mess yet.

   Link | October 21st, 2007 at 13:24 EDT

5. Eurotrash wrote,

   Here is my “big” but totaly non worked out idea to get rid of some of the admospheric carbon.

   This idea only works in regions with old underground cole/mineral mines.

   Every year thousand and thousand of tonnes of grass are mown in gardens and fields. This grass is then composted or burned releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Of course this process is carbon nutral because grass uses that same carbon to grow again.
   But since we want to remove some of the carbon and methane I think it should be collected and put back in the old cole mines. That way it goes out of the cycle.
   After having filled the mines, they should be sealed, or if they produce methane it could be extracted and used as fuel, replacing “new sources” of gass.
   Of course this theory falls down if more greenhouse gass is produced in this process than it removes. But I think it could be a low tech method of carbon sequestration.

   Link | October 21st, 2007 at 14:29 EDT

6. Sam Wise wrote,

   Could be — my concern would be over how much CO2 gets emitted in the process of hauling all that STUFF to coal mines. I don’t know about you, but it’s a good 200 miles from my house to the nearest coal mine.

   What you can do, though, is recover methane from landfills (there’s a setup like this just a few miles from my house) — you keep the methane (a potent greenhouse gas) out of the atmosphere, and get an energy source (from trash!) in the bargain.

   Link | October 21st, 2007 at 16:12 EDT

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