Alan Jones... Makes me want to kick his teeth in. [Archive]

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Mad_Aussie

31-05-2011, 09:27 AM

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3230989.htm

And tonight we're going to look at a major climate change breakthrough. Last Wednesday on Sydney radio station 2GB, Breakfast host Alan Jones did his first interview this year with a climate scientist who doesn't reckon that the whole thing is nonsense.

Mind you, it's stretching the term to call Alan's half-hour chat with Professor David Karoly of the University of Melbourne an interview. It was part interrogation, part harangue. Here's a sample:

Ryan1080

31-05-2011, 09:42 AM

As much as I think carbon tax is bullshit, I think alan jones isn't doing the argument any favour by being a pingpingpingping about it.

datsqik

31-05-2011, 04:46 PM

Tim Flannery – Professor bulldust !!

It pays to check out Tim Flannery's predictions about climate change:
Andrew Bolt -- 12th February , 2011 12:00AM

Tim Flannery has had years of practice trying to terrify us into thinking human-made climate change will destroy Earth, says Andrew Bolt.

TIM Flannery has just been hired by the Gillard Government to scare us stupid, and I can't think of a better man for the job.
This Alarmist of the Year is worth every bit of the $180,000 salary he'll get as part-time chairman of the Government's new Climate Commission.

His job is simple: to advise us that we really, truly have to accept, say, the new tax on carbon dioxide emissions that this Government threatens to impose.
This kind of work is just up the dark alley of Flannery, author of The Weather Makers, that bible of booga booga.
He's had years of practice trying to terrify us into thinking our exhausts are turning the world into a fireball that will wipe out civilisation, melt polar ice caps and drown entire cities under hot seas.
Small problem, though: after so many years of hearing Flannery's predictions, we're now able to see if some of the scariest have actually panned out.
And we're also able to see if people who bet real money on his advice have cleaned up or been cleaned out.
So before we buy a great green tax from Flannery, whose real expertise is actually in mammology, it may pay to check his record.

Ready?

In 2005, Flannery predicted Sydney 's dams could be dry in as little as two years because global warming was drying up the rains, leaving the city "facing extreme difficulties with water".

Check Sydney 's dam levels today: 73 per cent. Hmm. Not a good start.

In 2008, Flannery said: "The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009."

Check Adelaide 's water storage levels today: 77 per cent.

In 2007, Flannery predicted cities such as Brisbane would never again have dam-filling rains, as global warming had caused "a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas" and made the soil too hot, "so even the rain that falls isn't actually going to fill our dams and river systems ... ".

Check the Murray-Darling system today: in flood. Check Brisbane 's dam levels: 100 per cent full.

All this may seem funny, but some politicians, voters and investors have taken this kind of warming alarmism very seriously and made expensive decisions in the belief it was sound. So let's check on them, too.

In 2007, Flannery predicted global warming would so dry our continent that desalination plants were needed to save three of our biggest cities from disaster. As he put it: "Over the past 50 years, southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming .

"In Adelaide , Sydney and Brisbane , water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months."

One premier, Queensland 's Peter Beattie, took such predictions - made by other warming alarmists, too - so seriously that he spent more than $1 billion of taxpayers' money on a desalination plant, saying "it is only prudent to assume at this stage that lower-than-usual rainfalls could eventuate".

But check that desalination plant today: mothballed indefinitely, now that the rains have returned. (Incidentally, notice how many of Flannery's big predictions date from 2007? That was the year warming alarmism reached its most hysterical pitch and Flannery was named Australian of the Year.)

Back to another tip Flannery gave in that year of warming terror. In 2007, he warned that "the social licence of coal to operate is rapidly being withdrawn globally" by governments worried by the warming allegedly caused by burning the stuff.

We should switch to "green" power instead, said Flannery, who recommended geothermal - pumping water on to hot rocks deep underground to create steam. "There are hot rocks in South Australia that potentially have enough embedded energy in them to run Australia's economy for the best part of a century," he said.

"The technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward."

Flannery repeatedly promoted this "straightforward" technology, and in 2009, the Rudd government awarded $90 million to Geodynamics to build a geothermal power plant in the Cooper Basin , the very area Flannery recommended. Coincidentally, Flannery has for years been a Geodynamics shareholder, a vested interest he sometimes declares.

Time to check on how that business tip went. Answer: erk.
The technology Flannery said was "relatively straighforward" wasn't.
One of Geodynamics' five wells at Innamincka collapsed in an explosion that damaged two others. All had to be plugged with cement.

The project has now been hit by the kind of floods Flannery didn't predict in a warming world, with Geodynamics announcing work had been further "delayed following extensive local rainfall in the Cooper Basin region".
The technological and financing difficulties mean there is no certainty now that a commercial-scale plant will ever get built, let alone prove viable, so it's no surprise the company's share price has almost halved in four months.

Never mind, here comes Flannery with his latest scares and you-beaut fix.

His job as Climate Commission chief, says Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, is to "provide an authoritative, independent source of information on climate change to the Australian community" and "build the consensus about reducing Australia 's carbon pollution".

That, translated, means selling us whatever scheme the Government cooks up to tax carbon dioxide, doing to the economy what the floods have done to Flannery's hot-rocks investment.

See why I say Flannery is the right man for this job? Who better to teach us how little we really know about global warming and how much it may cost to panic?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incidentally he [Tim Flannery] is on $3,600 a week of our taxpayers money for working just three days a week making up more bulldust

Torquen

31-05-2011, 04:54 PM

Out of interest does anyone one here NOT believe in anthropogenic climate change?

Tre-Cool

31-05-2011, 05:03 PM

Out of interest does anyone one here NOT believe in anthropogenic climate change?
explain... eleborate further..

Torquen

31-05-2011, 05:07 PM

kalais6

31-05-2011, 05:27 PM

I had a laugh at the "straight forward technology" involved in the geothermal gear. I work for a large American pump outfit and our German arm has currently got a government grant covering 50% of the research and development of this technology to assist in Germany's quest for geothermal - their hot rocks are nowhere near as deep as the ones in South Oz and they are still having issues getting it right.

Fukushima

31-05-2011, 05:35 PM

fsbk

31-05-2011, 05:42 PM

I don't believe that as an individual that I can do anything about it.

If I halved 'my' carbon emissions by driving a focus, turning off lights and appliances like an ocd kid, not eating meat, whatever whatever i'm going to have a shitty life while 7 billion other pingpingpingpings ruin the planet anyway.

most of the modern world is cutting their carbon output by as much as 50% in the next 10-20 years, we aren't alone. it's not a matter of if we are going to have to change, but when. better to get on it early!

BOSS 290

31-05-2011, 06:39 PM

Does anyone believe that our actions (as humans) have not/do not affect the planet's climate patterns (i.e. increased emissions of noX gases, CO2, + other greenhouse gases resulting in changing weather conditions).
Just to clarify 'global warming' is an incorrectly used term as there are some parts of the earth that are predicted to get colder with the affects of climate change.

There is a fundemental difference between climate change and environmental destruction, including the poisoning of the air. Yes I believe we are destroying our environment. No, I do not believe in anthropogenic climate change.

One volcano eruption in Iceland will undo 5000 years worth of Earth Hour, and that's just one volcano.

I have no objection to a CO2 tax as long as someone else foots my bill.

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 07:20 PM

most of the modern world is cutting their carbon output by as much as 50% in the next 10-20 years, we aren't alone. it's not a matter of if we are going to have to change, but when. better to get on it early!

So the modern world is not only cutting trees down, they are now taking away 50% of their food?

Torquen

31-05-2011, 07:58 PM

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 08:11 PM

I don't understand how you (people) can think that! lol.
So you think that us polluting shit loads of CO2 + other noxious gases into our environment has zero affect on the climate??

Due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that it isn't doing much damage and the fact carbon is plant food yes.
I think HAARP has more effect on the climate.
The only scientists that say that its extremely bad are the ones paid by the government to say just that.

How is Carbon effecting the climate?

BOSS 290

31-05-2011, 08:26 PM

I don't understand how you (people) can think that! lol.
So you think that us polluting shit loads of CO2 + other noxious gases into our environment has zero affect on the climate??

Wait, are you referring to CO2 or noxious gasses affecting climate? I don't disagree that noxious gasses poison the atmosphere, commonly referred to as air pollution. I question the level of CO2 increase and it's affect on global warming. Isn't the new phrase for global warming now reffered to as climate change to suite the 'new' scientific evidence. Fuck me, the climate has been changing for ever and always will.....

What's lost in this debate is context. Atmospheric gas make up consists of
Nitrogen - 78%
Oxygen - 20.85%
Argon - 0.93%
CO2 accounts for 350-390ppm, or 0.035% to 0.039% of atmospheric gas make up.
Balance is trace gasses.

No I don't believe anthropogenic climate change is having the level of affect purported. Yes, I do believe air pollution exists. Then again, I'm not having the government throw cash my way to generate a report. If it did my opinion would be different to suite my masters.

Torquen

31-05-2011, 08:42 PM

Due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists agree that it isn't doing much damage and the fact carbon is plant food yes.
I think HAARP has more effect on the climate.
The only scientists that say that its extremely bad are the ones paid by the government to say just that.

How is Carbon effecting the climate?

/Facepalm.

Really? That's what you think the 'overwhelming majority' of scientists think... OK then :confused:

Do you understand the basic science behind the 'greenhouse effect' or climate change??

Increased CO2 (+ other gases) emissions will cause many problems ranging from warming/cooling of climates (effecting biodiversity), changes in weather/wind/sea patterns, creating harsh unpredictable extremes of weather, sea levels to rise, increased fire regime, droughts, mass fish mortalities... just to name a few.

BOSS 290

31-05-2011, 08:50 PM

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 08:54 PM

/Facepalm.

Really? That's what you think the 'overwhelming majority' of scientists think... OK then :confused:

Do you understand the basic science behind the 'greenhouse effect' or climate change??

Increased CO2 (+ other gases) emissions will cause many problems ranging from warming/cooling of climates (effecting biodiversity), changes in weather/wind/sea patterns, creating harsh unpredictable extremes of weather, sea levels to rise, increased fire regime, droughts, mass fish mortalities... just to name a few.

LOL do YOU understand the science behind carbon? Climate controls Carbon, not the other way around. As has been stated above, look at how much percentage of the atmosphere actually is C02. I understand people who want to look after the environment, I do to but there is no such thing as global warming - later changed to "climate change" because the world wasn't warming - and carbon is not destroying the planet.
I have not heard one credible (And that means not paid to scare everyone) scientist FROM THE FIELD that agrees with it.
Like I said the majority disagree.
Humans are effecting the planet - yes. But I tell you what, those tectonic plates that just moved have caused alot more of the damage you just stated than carbon ever will.
I don't just believe what people tell me, I do the research myself and so far the overwhelming proof and studies show this.

Fukushima

31-05-2011, 08:58 PM

I have not heard one credible (And that means not paid to scare everyone) scientist FROM THE FIELD that agrees with it.
Like I said the majority disagree.

Incorrect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scienti fic_assessment_of_global_warming

Wikipedia has been putting that list together for 6 years. To put them on that list a scientist merely has to have published a single paper on any topic in a journal. It is not a very long list.

Then there is the list of scientific organisations that have confirmed the theory of climate change

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

This is a pretty decent explanation from the US government

A recent survey of climatologists reveals that 97% of those scientists think that global climate change is occurring presently and that human activity is the primary cause. The myth that scientists disagree about the existence of climate change persists because the scientific method is pitted against an apparent societal need for absolute certainty portrayed in the media.

When faced with a question, scientists first develop a "hypothesis" and then subject their hypothesis to rigorous experimentation and observation. Multiple proven hypotheses may be collected into a "theory," which summarizes several experiments and observations. Theories are lines of thinking that scientist accept as true, but scientists always make room for an exception, or for science to come along with new discoveries that can disprove previously accepted hypotheses and theories. A theory need not have 100% agreement to be valid, and theories seldom achieve unanimous approval. Scientists may disagree about certain aspects of climate change, but this is part of the scientific process, not a sign that a theory is inaccurate. As new facts come to light, science adjusts its theory. A "law" is a predicted set of observations with no significant exceptions. Theories do not "grow up" to be laws once they are proven. In fact, scientists are still refining Newton's laws of gravity.

Let's be clear. Climate change is happening all around us, and human activities are accelerating it. The evidence is overwhelming, and the theory of global warming is sound. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which conducted the survey above, consists of thousands of scientists from all over the world who specialize in difference aspects of climate science. A separate study by the National Academy of the Sciences drew the same conclusions.

As a scientific agency, the National Park Service has learned to adapt our management practices to new evidence as it becomes available. For example, we used to manage forest fires by putting them out as quickly as possible. We now realize that fire is a natural process, and this process must remain active in fire-dependent ecosystems to promote healthy forests, and healthy forests release less carbon into the atmosphere in the long run.

We acknowledge that uncertainty remains over how fast and how much the temperature will increase. Nor are we certain about rainfall levels and the number or severity of storms. Some scientists think that the outcomes will slowly increase like turning a dial; while other scientists think it will be more like flipping a switch. Despite the uncertainty, we believe it far riskier to do nothing. We will move forward with the best science we have today. Our mission demands that we do so.

http://www.nature.nps.gov/climatechange/myths.cfm

But the Australian version smacks of propaganda

http://www.climatechangeaustralia.org/Our_Climate.html#OC1

That the majority of scientists, especially climate scientists disagree with the IPCC is an absolute fallacy brought to you by Rupert Murdoch and other rich honkies with an agenda.

Whether the scientists are correct is another arguement :P

Torquen

31-05-2011, 09:01 PM

And your Ph.D in fuck all makes for pretty credible research! lol. What position are you in to make 'educated' research on the topic?

BOSS 290: I don't disagree that the climate has undergone mass changes (both wart and cold) before, but not at the rate it's happening now. This is the problem with anthropogenic climate change, we increase the rate of change so dramatically that the environment can not keep up and adapt with it. We shouldn't/can't stop the change, but we can keep it at a more controllable rate... therefore allowing the environment a chance to adapt with it.

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 09:04 PM

Incorrect.

Feel free to link me. Although I dont want to find out hes a scientist that specializes in robotics or nanology or something that has nothing to do with carbon half way through the report.

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 09:06 PM

Torquen

31-05-2011, 09:09 PM

http://www.bom.gov.au/info/GreenhouseEffectAndClimateChange.pdf

Give that a read for a general understanding.

wadragracing

31-05-2011, 09:11 PM

Personally I'm just getting sick of climate change being used as a tirade to get rid of whatever industry the Greens choose to focus on for the week. Seriously Australia needs to wake up and stop voting for them...anyway...
Making industry more efficient and so on isn't necessarily a bad thing. But seriously, whatever happens in 100 years, it won't be as bad as it's being made out to be and mankind will continue on. Every generation on the planet likes to think of itself as more important than it actually is. The planet couldn't give a fuck.

Torquen

31-05-2011, 09:13 PM

Anyone is free to read reports, what does your "opinion" from a few things you heard here and there on the radio or read in the paper count for?

I'd question the scientific quality and integrity of the reports you've been reading then. Peer reviewed journal entries or website hack grade quality?

Bachelor of Environmental Science :)

(and before you go ask, no I'm not a hippie/tree hugger/vego etc...) I don't even think that 1/2 the stuff we do will help stop it... but I firmly believe that it is a real problem.

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 09:15 PM

http://www.bom.gov.au/info/GreenhouseEffectAndClimateChange.pdf

Give that a read for a general understanding.

Being a government site it has already lost all credibility. Find a scientific report - from someone who has nothing to do with the government. That's all I asked for.

However I'll still give it a read for a laugh.

EDIT: It doesn't even state who the author of this work is? How can you vouch for their credibility?
Anyway I will continue to read Mr. Anonymous' work.

Fukushima

31-05-2011, 09:20 PM

Feel free to link me. Although I dont want to find out hes a scientist that specializes in robotics or nanology or something that has nothing to do with carbon half way through the report.

Edited my post... but this link alone should keep you busy for weeks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

(128 original sources at the bottom of the page)

and

Doran and Kendall Zimmerman, 2009

A poll performed by Peter Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago received replies from 3,146 of the 10,257 polled Earth scientists. Results were analyzed globally and by specialization. 76 out of 79 climatologists who "listed climate science as their area of expertise and who also have published more than 50% of their recent peer-reviewed papers on the subject of climate change" believe that mean global temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and 75 out of 77 believe that human activity is a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures. Among all respondents, 90% agreed that temperatures have risen compared to pre-1800 levels, and 82% agreed that humans significantly influence the global temperature. Economic geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in significant human involvement. A summary from the survey states that:

It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

^^^ PDF, scientific and shit

Wezz

31-05-2011, 09:22 PM

edit : Long post ahead!

LOL do YOU understand the science behind carbon? Climate controls Carbon, not the other way around. As has been stated above, look at how much percentage of the atmosphere actually is C02. I understand people who want to look after the environment, I do to but there is no such thing as global warming - later changed to "climate change" because the world wasn't warming - and carbon is not destroying the planet.
I have not heard one credible (And that means not paid to scare everyone) scientist FROM THE FIELD that agrees with it.
Like I said the majority disagree.
Humans are effecting the planet - yes. But I tell you what, those tectonic plates that just moved have caused alot more of the damage you just stated than carbon ever will.
I don't just believe what people tell me, I do the research myself and so far the overwhelming proof and studies show this.

1, its been called climate change for ages, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Carbon Change ) has been around since 1988.

2. Some opinions (many from nobel prize winners) about climate change
Shamelessly stolen from S.A.

James Hansen, 70, Head of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, adjust professor in Department of Earth and Environmental sciences at Columbia University.

The scientific method and perspective have relevance that reaches beyond pure science. The urgency of implications for energy policy is not yet adequately recognized by governments, but it must be. The implications for intergenerational equity deserve greater attention…But the human-made rate of change is today about 2 ppm per year, about ten thousand times greater than the natural rate. So the assertion that we should not be concerned about human-made climate change, because there have been much larger natural climate changes is nonsense. There have been larger changes, but on very long time scales. On any time scale of interest to humanity, humans will be in charge of the climate change. The second conclusion is that we cannot burn all the fossil fuels, which would double or triple the amount of CO2 in the air, without setting the planet on a course to the ice free state. It would be a rocky trip, and it would take some time, as the ice sheets collapsed and sea level rose 250 feet. But it should not be doubted – feedbacks work in both directions – ice sheet formation is reversible…The Venus syndrome is the greatest threat to the planet, to humanity’s continued existence….If the planet gets too warm, the water vapor feedback can cause a runaway greenhouse effect. The ocean boils into the atmosphere and life is extinguished…There may have been times in the Earth’s history when CO2 was as high as 4000 ppm without causing a runaway greenhouse effect. But the solar irradiance was less at that time. What is different about the human-made forcing is the rapidity at which we are increasing it, on the time scale of a century or a few centuries. It does not provide enough time for negative feedbacks, such as changes in the weathering rate, to be a major factor. There is also a danger that humans could cause the release of methane hydrates, perhaps more rapidly than in some of the cases in the geologic record. In my opinion, if we burn all the coal, there is a good chance that we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale (a.k.a. oil shale), I think it is a dead certainty.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/...es_20081217.pdf

Milankovic climate oscillations help define climate sensitivity and assess potential human-made climate effects. We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene. Goals to limit human-made warming to 2°C and CO2 to 450 ppm are not sufficient – they are prescriptions for disaster. Polar warmth in prior interglacials and the Pliocene does not imply that a significant cushion remains between today's climate and dangerous warming, but rather that Earth today is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate additional warming. Deglaciation, disintegration of ice sheets, is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. If warming reaches a level that forces deglaciation, the rate of sea level rise will depend on the doubling time for ice sheet mass loss. Satellite gravity data, though too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century. The emerging shift to accelerating ice sheet mass loss supports our conclusion that Earth's temperature has returned to at least the Holocene maximum. Rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed…Augmentation of peak Holocene temperature by even 1°C would be sufficient to trigger powerful amplifying polar feedbacks, leading to a planet at least as warm as in the Eemian and Holsteinian periods, making ice sheet disintegration and large sea level rise inevitable….

We find that simulated western Arctic land warming trends during rapid sea ice loss are 3.5 times greater than secular 21st century climate-change trends. The accelerated warming signal penetrates up to 1500 km inland. BAU scenarios result in global warming of the order of 3-6°C. It is this scenario for which we assert that multi-meter sea level rise on the century time scale are not only possible, but almost dead certain. Such a huge rapidly increasing climate forcing dwarfs anything in the peleoclimate record. Antarctic ice shelves would disappear and the lower reaches of the Antarctic ice sheets would experience summer melt comparable to that on Greenland today…Hansen (2009) points out a negative feedback that comes into play as ice discharge approaches a level of the order of a meter per decade: cooling of the upper ocean by the ice. That negative feedback would be cold comfort. The high latitude cooling and low latitude warming would drive more powerful mid-latitude cyclonic storms, including more frequent cases of hurricane force winds. Such storms, in combination with rapidly rising sea level, would be disastrous for many of the great world cities and devastating for the world's economic wellbeing and cultural heritage…We have presented evidence in this paper that prior interglacial periods were less than 1°C warmer than the Holocene maximum. If we are correct in that conclusion, the EU2C scenario implies a sea level rise of many meters. It is difficult to predict a time scale for the sea level rise, but it would be dangerous and foolish to take such a global warming scenario as a goal…We have presented evidence in this paper that prior interglacial periods were less than 1°C warmer than the Holocene maximum. If we are correct in that conclusion, the EU2C scenario implies a sea level rise of many meters. It is difficult to predict a time scale for the sea level rise, but it would be dangerous and foolish to take such a global warming scenario as a goal

http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.0968

How close we are to destabilizing frozen methane is unclear. There are already signs of an accelerated release of methane from high-latitude tundra and from the larger reservoir on continental shelves. So far the amounts of methane released has been small. But if we continue to increase greenhouse gas emissions, the eventual destabilization of large amounts of methane is a near certainty. We must remember that the human-made climate forcing is not coming on just a bit faster than natural forcings of the past; on the contrary, it is a powerful rapid blow, an order of magnitude greater than any natural forcings that we are aware of….Global chaos will ensue when increasingly violent storminess is combined with sea level rise of a meter and more. Although ice sheet inertia will prevent a large sea level rise before the second half of the century, continued growth of greenhouse gases in the near term will make that result practically inevitable, out of our children’s and grandchildren’s control. (his grandchildren appear to be 4 & 1 year old at the time)….the sun remains in the deepest solar minimum since accurate solar record keeping began in the 1970s…The picture has become clear. Our planet, with its remarkable array of life, is in imminent danger of crashing. Yet our politicians are not dashing forward. They hesitate; they hang back. Therefore it is up to you…It is crucial for all of us, especially young people, to get involved. Source: Storms of my Grandchildren 2009.

Brian Fagan PhD in archaeology and anthropology. Professor emeritus University of California.

A study by Britains authorative Hadley Centre for climate change documented a 25% increase in global drought during the 1990s, which produced well documented population losses. The Hadley’s computer model of future aridity resulting from the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions are truly frightening. At present, extreme drought affects 3% of the earths surface. The figure could rise to as high as 30% if warming continues, with 40% suffering from severe droughts, up from the current 8%. 50% of the worlds land would experience moderate drought, up from the present 25%. The UNEP reports that 450 million people in twenty nine countries currently suffer from water shortages. By 2025, an estimated 2.8 billion of us will live in areas with increasingly scarce water resources. 20% of the worlds population currently lack access to safe, clean drinking water. Contaminated water supplies are a worse killer than AIDs in tropical Africa. If projected drought conditions transpire, future casualties will rise dramatically. The greatest impact will be people living in already arid and semiarid lands, about a billion of us. The number of food emergencies in Africa each year has already tripled since the 1980s, with one in three people across sub-Saharan Africa malnourished….

Today, we are experiencing sustained warming of a kind unknown since the Ice Age. And this warming is certain to bring drought – sustained drought and water shortages that will challenge even small cities – to say nothing short of metropolises like Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Tucson. The Ogallala aquifer, an enormous underground aquifer, that supplies eight states from Nebraka to Texas, is being depleted at a rate of 42 billion gallons a year. When one hears that an expanding Las Vegas is trying to buy up water supplies from the outlying Nevada ranches, one wonders what the future will hold. Will a day come when the hotels on the Strips run dry because the aquifers have run dry?…By 2030, UNESCO estimated the world will need 55% more food, which translates into growing demand for irrigation, which already claims 70% of all water consumed by humans…Now we confront a future in which most of us live in large and rapidly growing cities, many of them adjacent to rising oceans and waters where Category 5 hurricanes or massive El Ninos can cause billions of dollars of damage within a few hours. We’re now at a point where there are too many of us to evacuate, where the costs of vulnerability are almost all beyond the capacity of even the wealthiest governments to handle. The sheer scale of industrialized societies renders them far more vulnerable to such long term changes as climbing temperatures and rising sea levels. Source: The Great Warming 2008.

Steven Chu, 63, 12th United States Secretary of Energy, Nobel Prize in Physics.

In a worst case, Chu said, up to 90% of the Sierra snowpack could disappear, all but eliminating a natural storage system for water vital to agriculture.“I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” he said. We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California. I don’t actually see how they can keep their cities going….He compared the situation to a family buying an old house and being told by an inspector that it must pay a hefty sum to rewire it or risk an electrical fire that could burn everything down.“I’m hoping that the American people will wake up,” Chu said, and pay the cost of rewiring.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/...ifornia-part-2/

Peter Ward Palaeontologist, Professor of Biology and of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington.

Will there be another extinction similar in any way to the events of the deep past profiledin this book [greenhouse & hydrogen sulfide extinctions]? If one is in our future, when might it occur? For the momentlet us accept an affirmative answer for the first and see what (ifany) consensus there already is regarding the second.The latter question was examined in a landmark paper publishedin Nature in 2005. That study estimated that climate changes brought about by global warming will lead to the extinction of more than amillion species by the year 2050. Since there are only 1.6 million species now identified (although many more are yet to be described), such numbers result in an extinction rate of more than 60 percent. To compare this with the past, this number would place the next greenhouse extinction second only to the Permian extinction. And the first million species, if the Nature study is correct, would just be the start of things. As we shall see below, a shift to a new kind of oceanic conveyer current system would create an anoxic ocean, eventually changing into a Canfield ocean. The shift from mixed to anoxic ocean would likely kill off the majority of marine species, just as it has in each of the ancient greenhouse extinctions…..The rise in sea level that has occurred to date is still very low, on the order of a centimeter over the last century. But if either part of the Antarctic (western part) or all of the Greenland ice sheet melts, which would occur (according to climate models) with a global rise in temperature of between 2 degrees and 3 degrees Celsius, the rise in sea level would be 6 meters, or about 20 feet! If both melt, the rise is more than 60 meters, or 200 feet. Good-bye, all coast cities, and goodbye, a good proportion of the planetary agricultural yield, since a very significant quantity of human food is grown in the large deltas such as those found at the ends of the rivers Nile, Mississippi, and Ganges.

All of the deltas and their rich soil would be pretty well inundated with even a 1- to 2-meter rise in sea level. The eventual rise of 25 meters would bring back the old coastlines of the Eocene epoch. Melting of the ice sheets would produce a radically different climate than what we have now. Radically different. As stressed here, what we call climate is made of many individual and largely interconnected systems, and the past evidence of change suggests that these thresholds are both sensitive and can have dramatic consequences, once a critical level is passed…..Warm water has more salt ions, and once it cools, its density is higher than surrounding water. But the injection of fresh water, with a much lower density because of its lack of salt ions, would effectively stop the conveyer or perhaps shift where it starts and stops on the surface. A rising sea level would drowncities, but a conveyer belt shift would kill people, lots of them, because
of the great effect it would necessarily have on climate in European agricultural areas. It can be surmised that a suddenly cooled, cropless European subcontinent with its large population would by necessity look toward still-arable lands to make up food loss. Here’s hoping under this scenario that the Europeans have enough cash in reserve to buy an awfully large volume of food for centuries to come…As any urban geographer can attest, a large proportion of humanity currently resides in coastal or low-elevation riverside locales. All such localities would be affected by even a small rise in sea level, and when we start looking at 25-foot increases (a common estimate for an ice-free world following melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets), we see a reality in which vast populations of humans will have to move to higher ground. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the low-lying country of Bangladesh,which currently has one of the densest populations of humans on Earth and whose population is estimated to double over the next century. Let us look in detail at what a 25-foot rise in sea level would do to that country…

Virtually the entire population of Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, would have to migrate. But who would take the perhaps 200 million people who would need land, food, water, and energy on an unprecedented scale…A 2004 study by scientists at the World Health Organization and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine determined that 160,000 people die every year from the effects of global warming, from malaria to malnutrition, children in developing nations seemingly the most vulnerable. These numbers could almost double by the year 2020….Our world sits on a knife edge of global starvation already. We six billion humans [7 now?], heading toward a far higher number at about the time that rising carbon dioxide levels should begin to stabilize a new pattern of climate, are able to be fed, all of us right now, through the miracle of that long-ago breakthrough of the human mind, agriculture. We need every bushel of grain, however. There cannot be even a single season without harvest in either hemisphere, and this is why there is extreme danger of rapid weather change if there is a Krakatoa-type volcanic explosion or impact of a 100-meter or larger asteroid. Both would put so much dust in the air that one hemisphere or the other (or perhaps both) would have a yearlong or longer winter and thus no crops. Short-term climate change would be nearly as devastating, and in the long run, more devastating. Neurobiologist Bill Calvin, who has written extensively on the dangers and effects of sudden climate change, suggests that a 10- to 20-year event is far more difficult to deal with societally than is a sudden catastrophe. Source: Under a Green Sky 2007

I don’t think climate change can make us go extinct. Unless we produce so much CO2 in the atmosphere that, once again, we shut down the conveyor belt currents. These are the largest scale currents in the ocean. They are from the surface to the bottom currents, not just sideways currents. And so, there the current conveyor that takes oxygen from the top and takes it to the bottom, if we lose that, then the bottoms of the ocean go anoxic and you start down this road towards what we call a greenhouse extinction, which is the hydrogen sulfide events. It would take tens of thousands of years to get to that. But we as a species who have only been around for a couple of hundred thousand years, the average mammal lasts 5 million years. Are we anything less than average? So, we should have a few million years left even if we’re average, and we’re not average. We could be living fossils that last 500 million years. There’s nothing genetically within us that says we have to go extinct, unfortunately, I have these genes in me that are going to kill me and all your listeners too. But as a species we don’t have those genes. Species don’t age out of existence, species are killed off, lose competition, they go extinct because they’re driven to extinction. It’s not inherent. It’s not within them….So we keep track of Mother Earth and do some good engineering and we’re not going to go extinct. But extinction and misery are two different things. Not going extinct doesn’t mean you’re not going to be miserable, and by misery I mean, wholesale, enormous human mortality. The greatest single threat to us, again, is this rapid global warming, in the sense that I am really kept up at night worrying about the slowing of the circulation systems of the oceans and kept up at night worrying a great deal about sea level rise.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/18406

Rajendra Pachauri,70, Nobel Peace Prize, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

...a mean sea level rise of two meters would suffice to virtually submerge the entire country of 1,190 small islands, most of which barely rise two meters above sea level. That would be the death of a nation…....have raised the threat of dramatic population migration, conflict, and war over water and other resources, as well as a realignment of power among nations. Some also highlight the possibility of rising tensions between rich and poor nations, health problems caused particularly by water shortages and crop failures.…He said that since the panel began its work five years ago, scientists have recorded “much stronger trends in climate change,” like a recent melting of polar ice that had not been predicted. “That means you better start with intervention much earlier.” How much earlier? The normally understated Pachauri warns: “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

I think you should research this subject a bit more....

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 09:26 PM

Ouch, you guys are really going to make me work for this, 3 against one. And I'm supposed to be studying for my exam tomorrow...

Torquen

31-05-2011, 09:28 PM

Being a government site it has already lost all credibility. Find a scientific report - from someone who has nothing to do with the government. That's all I asked for.

However I'll still give it a read for a laugh.

EDIT: It doesn't even state who the author of this work is? How can you vouch for their credibility?
Anyway I will continue to read Mr. Anonymous' work.

Lol, you don't understand much about the scientific community then...
Gov reports don't always publish authors as they are often a conglomeration of numerous studies compiled by a whole department.

Wezz

31-05-2011, 09:30 PM

So the modern world is not only cutting trees down, they are now taking away 50% of their food?

Ok , during photosynthesis plants do absorb CO2

6CO2 + 6H2O + light ---chloroplast--> C6H12O6 + 6O2

But you are over simplifing this massively. Plants also respirate CO2 during the night and let off a massive amount when fallen leaves/ branches decompose.

C6H12O6 + 6O2 ---mitochondria--> 6CO2 + 6H2O + ATP(energy)

Respiration occours during the night, and offsets a decent amount of the CO2 absorbed by photosynthesis. Then there is the CO2 from the plants branches de-composing which pretty much balances it all out.

Fukushima

31-05-2011, 09:30 PM

Ouch, you guys are really going to make me work for this, 3 against one. And I'm supposed to be studying for my exam tomorrow...

I'm going to bed, look forward to seeing your proof that a majority of scientists don't believe in it in the morning :)

Dont worry man Brockas usually chimes in whenever a climate change thread is started, he'll back you up.

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 09:32 PM

Lol, you don't understand much about the scientific community then...
Gov reports don't always publish authors as they are often a conglomeration of numerous studies compiled by a whole department.

A department of a government trying to push a carbon tax. You still don't understand how credibility works.

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 09:35 PM

I'm going to bed, look forward to seeing your proof that a majority of scientists don't believe in it in the morning :)

Dont worry man Brockas usually chimes in whenever a climate change thread is started, he'll back you up.

Hopefully he does, like I said I'm studying for an exam at the moment and barely have the time to reply to this thread but it interests me!
Anyway I'll be on break soon and will have a lot more time to bring some proof :)

Torquen

31-05-2011, 09:38 PM

Wezz

31-05-2011, 09:38 PM

A department of a government trying to push a carbon tax. You still don't understand how credibility works.

This swings both ways, Of the few scientists who "dont believe in climate change"
you usually find they are funded by oil and gas companies.

There was a leak of Exxons funding of scientists to deny climate change a while back from memory.

Lump

31-05-2011, 09:40 PM

most of the modern world is cutting their carbon output by as much as 50% in the next 10-20 years, we aren't alone. it's not a matter of if we are going to have to change, but when. better to get on it early!
i know sfa about this, but i thought the worst countries for carbon emmisions (China, india & the US) actually have no plans to reduce emmisons/carbon output, so the cuts you speak of in reality are worth bugger all?

Torquen

31-05-2011, 09:41 PM

A department of a government trying to push a carbon tax. You still don't understand how credibility works.

So anything that suits my argument is tainted evidence... and everything that suits your is A-OK? Surprisingly scientists don't makes reports for the governments agenda (I know the movies and Tony Abbot will tell you otherwise).

Hopefully he does, like I said I'm studying for an exam at the moment and barely have the time to reply to this thread but it interests me!
Anyway I'll be on break soon and will have a lot more time to bring some proof :)

Study for your exam nigga! Continue climate change agruil when you're done! :)

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 09:42 PM

This swings both ways, Of the few scientists who "dont believe in climate change"
you usually find they are funded by oil and gas companies.

There was a leak of Exxons funding of scientists to deny climate change a while back from memory.

This is true. That's why it is important to know who wrote the article/report/journal so you can find out who funds them, although sometimes you can't find out most of the time a simple google search brings up a clear picture.

Torquen

31-05-2011, 09:44 PM

i know sfa about this, but i thought the worst countries for carbon emmisions (China, india & the US) actually have no plans to reduce emmisons/carbon output, so the cuts you speak of in reality are worth bugger all?

Due to the fact those countries you mentioned are still in a developing or 'industrial growth' stage/phase they will continue to increase their CO2 output while the rest of the developed word reduces theirs.

Give me a sec and i'll try dig out this neat little graph/figure I've got of the whole situation.

http://i546.photobucket.com/albums/hh406/jshakersgmailcom/Untitled-5.jpg

So basically the graph shows as the output of a country increases (growth) environmental quality decreases (due to increased CO2, loss of habitat etc). When countries have finished 'growing' they factor in the worth of the environment into policy more heavily, and as such they begin to reduce CO2 emissions. In a nutshell at least :)

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 09:48 PM

So anything that suits my argument is tainted evidence... and everything that suits your is A-OK? Surprisingly scientists don't makes reports for the governments agenda (I know the movies and Tony Abbot will tell you otherwise).

Study for your exam nigga! Continue climate change agruil when you're done! :)

No that's not what I'm saying. For example if I posted you a link like http://www.chevron.com/oilislikevegemiteforsealife.pdf you could hardly believe find it credible.

Anyway you are right time is ticking!

TurboHead

31-05-2011, 10:37 PM

Lump

31-05-2011, 10:48 PM

When countries have finished 'growing' they factor in the worth of the environment into policy more heavily, and as such they begin to reduce CO2 emissions. In a nutshell at least :)
lol

SircatmaN

31-05-2011, 10:59 PM

So how do you explain this?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/

That ice cores show that in past history, temperature increases before CO2 increases and then as temp drops, CO2 drops slower.... so at a given CO2 level during the temp rise cycle, the temp was actually much lower for the same CO2 level on the downward temp cycle..?? very strange.

All this tells me is that the temp cycle is controlled by other outside factors (the sun perhaps??) and CO2 variation just... happens.

Also, What level of CO2 do you think we should aim for? 300ppm? 200ppm? Plants stop growing at around 240ppm and will not live at anything around 150ppm...

Tax is bull crap, what we should be doing is building more from timber.... capture the carbon and then store it for decades + by living in it and on it.

Yes - We can argue all day about whether it exists or not and the effects it may or may not be having but how can you logically Tax the nation on something that hasn't been proven? Not to mention the Labour government has no idea how they are going to implement this and change their story every day.
From what I have gathered lately it seems the Government is going to tax big business polluters. Then The big businesses are going to raise their prices and pass them down to joe public. Since labour is trying to convince everyone that they aren't targeting households they have stated 40-60% (Not sure exactly on the figures?) will be put back into the community to stop this.
So realistically big business plows on like usual. We all pay more for what we already have and the government gives us some sort or rebate and keeps a bit for themselves.

Sounds like a far fetched scheme to make back some money and doesn't really sound like its helping the environment anyway?

Yes I am on a study break, my head is about to explode.

ho57ile

31-05-2011, 11:15 PM

http://reactorfire.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/betterworld.jpeg

Sums it up pretty well i believe

fsbk

01-06-2011, 01:18 AM

i know sfa about this, but i thought the worst countries for carbon emmisions (China, india & the US) actually have no plans to reduce emmisons/carbon output, so the cuts you speak of in reality are worth bugger all?

well sure, in the short term. try and think 50-100 years down the line when we have no more oil and the planet is fucked from mass pollution. It's not just about pollution, we have to stop our reliance on oil and start being a smarter country. the us and china will power head with expensive oil while much of the eu focuses on renewables so when the oil runs out they are king of castle, so to speak.

Lump

01-06-2011, 06:33 AM

well sure, in the short term. try and think 50-100 years down the line when we have no more oil and the planet is fucked from mass pollution.
I am & if the big 3 polluters dont get on with drastically reducing emmisions, what the rest of the world does (including piddly little oz), means sfa.

Torquen

01-06-2011, 06:40 AM

I am & if the big 3 polluters dont get on with drastically reducing emmisions, what the rest of the world does (including piddly little oz), means sfa.

Yes and no. At the end of the day they can do what they like, but political pressure will continue to mount against them if other countries adapt their policies for lower emissions.

The main problem is that being the first is ALWAYS expensive. The issue isn't that people don't want or wouldn't like a cleaner world (climate change or not), it's just that it is a very poor economic decision to be the 'pioneers' of this kind of change. Much cheaper to keep using fossil fuels and not lower emissions levels than to use alternate energy and enforce carbon legislation.
I have a few interesting pieces of literature on this i'll try dig out if anyone's interested.

Lump

01-06-2011, 07:11 AM

Yes and no. At the end of the day they can do what they like, but political pressure will continue to mount against them if other countries adapt their policies for lower emissions.
.
political pressure on china? thats a very big ask.
cheers

Sciflyer

01-06-2011, 07:45 AM

Back on topic, Media Watch is fucking great, it should be required watching for everyone

Alan Jones got fucking owned!

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 08:08 AM

China is actually making huge steps in the fields of alternative technology. In fact they know better than most that their exponential population growth can't be supported by coal power as they have currently. They are investing billions into Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Hydroelectric (although the three gorges dam is a big, BIG fuck up on their part. Apparently the resovior isn't even nearly full (660 square kms), and it's shifted the earths axis by some 8cm... Crazy shit.

India is a concern with their environmental outlook (which is non-existant). And the US, well luckily a good 70% of their manufacturing doesn't go on in their own country these days (hence the giant carbon output of china/inda due to manufacturing American shit... go figure), but their huge oil dependance is creating a mess of things. Give it 20 years though and this could change.

But to sit down and claim that human generated CO2 in the atmostphere isn't having a damaging impact on the climate is just retarded. Yes, the co2/temp on this planet is cyclic, every 500,000 years or so we get a major cooling event... But we aren't due for one. Not for a really, really long time. And we are accelerating ourselves rapidly towards a global cooling due to our current CO2 levels. The international scientific community agrees on this. The people who don't are the ones with large financial and industrial investments that would be impacted by the social move to kerb climate change. The other people who don't believe it is the group of morons (offence intended) who are so gullible, that the propaganda machine these companies run has influenced their squishy marshmallow brains to such an extent, that they swear black and blue that it's all government lies.

Don't want to believe that? Here's a very neat little presentation by Hungry Beast on the Koch Brothers... Have a look at how much money they pour into debunking these legitimate scientific studies.

<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mSgcw5tLenI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

stumps.

01-06-2011, 08:10 AM

Yes and no. At the end of the day they can do what they like, but political pressure will continue to mount against them if other countries adapt their policies for lower emissions.

The main problem is that being the first is ALWAYS expensive. The issue isn't that people don't want or wouldn't like a cleaner world (climate change or not), it's just that it is a very poor economic decision to be the 'pioneers' of this kind of change. Much cheaper to keep using fossil fuels and not lower emissions levels than to use alternate energy and enforce carbon legislation.
I have a few interesting pieces of literature on this i'll try dig out if anyone's interested.

Did you get your "degree" from Murdoch??

Torquen

01-06-2011, 08:16 AM

Did you get your "degree" from Murdoch??

No.

stumps.

01-06-2011, 08:33 AM

Not having a dig, just a lot of my mates that go to Murdoch and regardless of degree have very strong views on the environment.

stumps.

01-06-2011, 08:34 AM

Well technically I was having a dig at Murdoch "degree's" not you personally

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 08:36 AM

It's fairly obvious that when government pays someone to research something, the aim is to come up with a result that supports the government's view. Likewise if a scientist is funded by an oil company or another polluter. Source of funding is the measure of credibility. I honestly wouldn't bother paying attention to anything a 'reputable' scientist says, if their work is funded by a biased party with an agenda.

Personally I don't have any expertise in this, so my opinion on whether it's real or not real isn't worth 2 cents. Real or not, as an average Joe Blow however, it defies logic to me that a small country (based on population) like Australia should be implementing a very costly climate saving measure (whether it would work or not is a seperate issue), when the majority of the populatio0n on the planet, not only don't bother doing anything about it, but in fact pollute a lot more. For argument's sake, if Australia only contributes 1% to the planet's pollution output, and we will not be eliminating our pollution 100% (is the reduction meant to be 20%?). That will benefit the planet by only 0.2%. The cost to Australia will be substantially higher though, with a retarded tax.

Anyone who thinks that this tax will work is a retard. Let me recap how this will 'work'...

1. the govt taxes polluters
2. polluters pass on the extra cost down the chain to final consumer - us
3. to appease to the voting public, labor plans to provide rebates offseting the extra costs of living to the public (lower income presumably)

Net tax in-take seems to be fuck all. Although in reality the higher income earners will cop it. Polluters have no incentive to change, they pass on the costs anyway. Public has no incentive to change, they get a rebate. I think all that will benefit here is the govt bureaucracy...

Also, for anyone who believes that this carbon tax intention is a gonna save the climate, is a gullible labor/greens loving retard. It is mainly there to fill the hole in the govt's budget. That's it! If they govt was really motivated to save the planet and cut down the pollution, firstly they wouldn't have canned the solar rebate, secondly they would have made it compulsory for each house to have one, and provided further incentives to have one installed. Think about it, if all houses had solar panels on the roof, we'd easily be able to get rid of at least a couple of coal fired power plants around the country... but that wouldn't make the govt any money would it? The $900 handout has to be paid back somehow...

SircatmaN

01-06-2011, 08:44 AM

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 08:53 AM

Not agreeing with the 'Carbon Tax' does not mean you shouldn't agree with needing to make a huge environmental change on carbon emissions.

Personally, I can't say too much about the 'Carbon Tax', other than the fact that it's not a tax. It's a framework for an emissions trading scheme, in the image proposed by the Howard government. They are only calling it a Carbon Tax, because that's what the opposition coined it as, and for some reason the name has stuck. It's had to be rushed through due to the oppositions current wrecking strategy, but I can guarantee you, that whatever the Liberals are suggesting, wouldn't be any better. You're kidding yourself if you think it will.

The UK has just adopted an ETS, and this is going to happen everywhere. You have to accept that a price on carbon is going to happen. How we handle it here in Australia, however, is out of my scope. Sure, Labor isn't doing a good job of organizing it, but perhaps it would be better thought out if the opposition provided input to make decent changes (like they're supposed to), instead of the current political power struggle that Abbott is obsessed with.

Both parties should be working on this. But the Liberals clearly do not have the best of the country in mind, all they want is to push the public into believing that Labor is the devil. People like Alan Jones are constructed to do exactly that.

I don't want this to become another shitty Labour vs Liberal debate though, because it's a much larger issue than that. Our government is fundamentally flawed on both sides, and neither is doing fuck all to change that. But a price on carbon is happening, and both sides need to work out how best to handle it for us, not for their own political agendas.

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 09:02 AM

It's a Carbon Tax mad aussie. That's what labor is calling it, and that's what it is. It will subsequently change to ETS a few years later. It will not be an ETS straight away

I still reckon taxing industry is not the way to do it, whether labor or liberal. (just coz I support liberals, don't mean I blindly support all they do) Govt should do the opposite, and provide incentives to go 'green' instead, as opposed to penalties if you're not. Perhaps give a company that creates a 'green' power generating asset, a holiday from paying taxes for say 5 or 10 years. Or give accellerated deductions on capital expenditure, etc etc.

I guess time will tell how successful it is... I have my doubts!

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 09:12 AM

Honestly so do I.

But hey, the economic question could all be proven totally pointless as of late 2012/2013 if we get the 'big one' solar flare NASA is predicting.

<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5_mQm2UVwkw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I hope you all have a battery kill switch on the car, and a gen set at home. You'll have about 30 minutes warning, if that. Last time this happened in the 1800's, telegraph and power poles caught on fire. We don't exactly have faraday cages around our current infrastructure..

Wezz

01-06-2011, 09:13 AM

So how do you explain this?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/3...-and-ice-ages/

That ice cores show that in past history, temperature increases before CO2 increases and then as temp drops, CO2 drops slower.... so at a given CO2 level during the temp rise cycle, the temp was actually much lower for the same CO2 level on the downward temp cycle..?? very strange.

All this tells me is that the temp cycle is controlled by other outside factors (the sun perhaps??) and CO2 variation just... happens.

Also, What level of CO2 do you think we should aim for? 300ppm? 200ppm? Plants stop growing at around 240ppm and will not live at anything around 150ppm...

Tax is bull crap, what we should be doing is building more from timber.... capture the carbon and then store it for decades + by living in it and on it.

Looking at the graph this study bases all its findings on ...

http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/400000yearslarge.gif

there is a number of problems with the vostok data though

1. Its resolution is quite low (every thousand years)
2. The temperature is local and the CO2 measurement is global, which makes them difficultto directly compare.
3. There are other factors, such as other greenhouse gases which could affect these results.
4.There has also been further studies on the Vostok data, "Covariation of carbon dioxide and temperature from the Vostok ice core after deuterium-excess correction" go buy the journal if your really keen. but anyway, it states.

"Here we incorporate measurements of deuterium excess from Vostok6, 7 in the temperature reconstruction and show that much of the mismatch is an artefact caused by variations of climate in the water vapour source regions. Using a model that corrects for this effect, we derive a new estimate for the covariation of CO2 and temperature, of r2 = 0.89 for the past 150 kyr and r2 = 0.84 for the period 350–150 kyr ago. Given the complexity of the biogeochemical systems involved, this close relationship strongly supports the importance of carbon dioxide as a forcing factor of climate.

^ This is a peer reviewed journal too, not just something someone can chuck up on the web in a blog.

So this shows that CO2 IS a major factor in climate change.

Now here is agraph which also includes the current CO2 levels....
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

Wezz

01-06-2011, 09:26 AM

It's fairly obvious that when government pays someone to research something, the aim is to come up with a result that supports the government's view. Likewise if a scientist is funded by an oil company or another polluter. Source of funding is the measure of credibility. I honestly wouldn't bother paying attention to anything a 'reputable' scientist says, if their work is funded by a biased party with an agenda.

I think you should look into what a peer reviewed journal is.... Its not just one person, they need to be reviewed and accepted before they can be published.

Anyone who thinks that this tax will work is a retard. Let me recap how this will 'work'...

1. the govt taxes polluters
2. polluters pass on the extra cost down the chain to final consumer - us
3. to appease to the voting public, labor plans to provide rebates offseting the extra costs of living to the public (lower income presumably)

Net tax in-take seems to be fuck all. Although in reality the higher income earners will cop it. Polluters have no incentive to change, they pass on the costs anyway. Public has no incentive to change, they get a rebate. I think all that will benefit here is the govt bureaucracy...

Yes, they have a massive incentive to change. If they can reduce their CO2 output they can increase their profitability. I have talked to a number of companies in WA which have massive concerns over the carbon tax. (concrete production and titanium dioxide production) Both of these release CO2 as part of the chemical proccessing, which is unavoidable, but they are already looking at ways to reduce their output from their kilns, co-generation etc to help if a Carbon Tax is introduced.

Also, for anyone who believes that this carbon tax intention is a gonna save the climate, is a gullible labor/greens loving retard. It is mainly there to fill the hole in the govt's budget. That's it! If they govt was really motivated to save the planet and cut down the pollution, firstly they wouldn't have canned the solar rebate, secondly they would have made it compulsory for each house to have one, and provided further incentives to have one installed. Think about it, if all houses had solar panels on the roof, we'd easily be able to get rid of at least a couple of coal fired power plants around the country... but that wouldn't make the govt any money would it? The $900 handout has to be paid back somehow...

I do agree, we should be pusing more solar panels. Every house should have them really.

Fukushima

01-06-2011, 09:35 AM

I do agree, we should be pusing more solar panels. Every house should have them really.

How much CO2 is produced during solar panel production?

The good thing about a proper emissions trading scheme is that all the hidden CO2 emissions will have a price...

If it is true that the Prius uses more energy in it's production than will be saved during its lifetime then at least that will be included in its initial cost.

Likewise bottled water has a huge environmental cost compared to tap water and that will at least have a price attached to it

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 09:40 AM

I think you should look into what a peer reviewed journal is.... Its not just one person, they need to be reviewed and accepted before they can be published.

I wasn't referring to peer reviewed journals. Besides, you seriously can't dispute that research results are always favourable towards anyone who funds it in the first place. It's like tobacco companies many decades ago funding research that resulted in no ill effects to health. Or mobile phone companies showing research that there is no adverse effects to anyone's health using a mobile phone. Perhaps if you get all the peers reviewing the research work all on the payroll, you can get youreself a nice paper you can use to push your agenda with. Don't be so gullible :)

Yes, they have a massive incentive to change. If they can reduce their CO2 output they can increase their profitability. I have talked to a number of companies in WA which have massive concerns over the carbon tax. (concrete production and titanium dioxide production) Both of these release CO2 as part of the chemical proccessing, which is unavoidable, but they are already looking at ways to reduce their output from their kilns, co-generation etc to help if a Carbon Tax is introduced.

Being a magnetite minesite, so are we, as we'll use a lot of power to process the ore. The price they place on carbon is too low to make a substantial difference, in our operation anyway. It will hit our bottom line, no doubt, but we can't go off and create renewable energy sources, we're a minesite not a power utility.

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 11:11 AM

Step 1: CO2 in the atmosphere causes the mean temperature of the earths atmosphere to increase...

Step 2: The earths atmosphere increasing temperature causes the ice caps to melt into the ocean...

Step 3: The increase in water in the ocean acts as a big sponge for CO2 reducing the levels in the atmosphere...

Step 4: Reduced CO2 in the atmosphere causes mean temperature to drop and thus the ice caps to refreeze...

Step 5: Repeat Steps 1 through 4

It has happened in history many times, as shown by the Vostok data... We are only approx 20% up on a natural fluctuation. 20% of the natural increase of temperature is a few degrees on average!

The carbon tax is bullshit, if the Australian government was serious about reducing CO2 it they would just convert to nuclear power, but they won't

Sciflyer

01-06-2011, 11:52 AM

Anyone who thinks that this tax will work is a retard. Let me recap how this will 'work'...

1. the govt taxes polluters
2. polluters pass on the extra cost down the chain to final consumer - us
3. to appease to the voting public, labor plans to provide rebates offseting the extra costs of living to the public (lower income presumably)

Net tax in-take seems to be fuck all. Although in reality the higher income earners will cop it. Polluters have no incentive to change, they pass on the costs anyway. Public has no incentive to change, they get a rebate. I think all that will benefit here is the govt bureaucracy...

Sorry dude but that is completely wrong. The tax sets up a scenario whereby any business that can reduce emissions will pay less tax and therefore be more competitive than the business that either absorbs the tax or passes it on to consumers. *That* is the incentive, and how market-based reforms work. And we know it does work because it has done so in several countries that already have some form of carbon tax.

Initially the pricing will be quite low to ease the adjustment and costs of emissions, but the government is suggesting that over time the pricing will be increased and/or investment back into emissions reduction incentives will be increased to make the scheme more effective

Torquen

01-06-2011, 12:27 PM

Being apposed to the 'carbon tax' is very different to being a climate change septic. While I do believe a price should be placed on polluters (whether that be through a CO2 tax or some other way) I don't fully support the proposed tax as it stands atm. As I said before while it may be in the best interest of the environment it is a bad economic decision at the present time unless EVERYONE does it... which they won't. In saying this something still needs to be done, but maybe something that won't be as economically damaging.

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 12:39 PM

Sorry dude but that is completely wrong. The tax sets up a scenario whereby any business that can reduce emissions will pay less tax and therefore be more competitive than the business that either absorbs the tax or passes it on to consumers. *That* is the incentive, and how market-based reforms work. And we know it does work because it has done so in several countries that already have some form of carbon tax.

Initially the pricing will be quite low to ease the adjustment and costs of emissions, but the government is suggesting that over time the pricing will be increased and/or investment back into emissions reduction incentives will be increased to make the scheme more effective

True that, if they can be bothrered doing something about it, and if the economics of reducing their carbon footprint offsets the carbon tax. Most businesses have come out and said that the price is too low for it to make a significant impact. There've been few prominent business people who have said that a carbon price closer to 80 dollars will be a lot more effective, albeit very costly in the short term.

fsbk

01-06-2011, 12:58 PM

The carbon tax is bullshit, if the Australian government was serious about reducing CO2 it they would just convert to nuclear power, but they won't

where would you build such a plant? well actually, where would you build the 10 or so plants needed to have any sort of impact on our emissions?

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 01:01 PM

Digging out and processing uranium also has a significant carbon impact.

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 01:13 PM

http://i.imgur.com/Ypuw0.jpg

BOSS 290

01-06-2011, 02:03 PM

Sorry dude but that is completely wrong. The tax sets up a scenario whereby any business that can reduce emissions will pay less tax and therefore be more competitive than the business that either absorbs the tax or passes it on to consumers. *That* is the incentive, and how market-based reforms work. And we know it does work because it has done so in several countries that already have some form of carbon tax.

Initially the pricing will be quite low to ease the adjustment and costs of emissions, but the government is suggesting that over time the pricing will be increased and/or investment back into emissions reduction incentives will be increased to make the scheme more effective

Based on what information? Are you referring to the 1000 biggest polluters? What about the 10's of thousands of medium and small businesses? They do not get a subsidy granted to them, thus either absorb the cost (unlikely) or pass the extra cost on to consumers (most likely).

Anyone who thinks this tax won't increase the cost of living for all but those on welfare have their heads up their arse.

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 02:10 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/may/31/mining-media-australia-carbon-tax

Interesting to hear what the poms think of all this.

Also, increasing the cost of living? This is an interesting commentry by the Crapologist...

Continuing the theme on his blog, Bolt poses the following question.

With Julia Gillard taxing the emissions caused by the packaging and gas in the drink itself, as well as on the petrol used to bring the Coke to you and the power to cool it, how much more will a can of Coke cost?

For some odd reason he throws this question out there but leaves us hanging on the answer. If this is the game changer he implies that it is, surely Mr Bolt's argument would be even more persuasive with a figure attached. Very strange. Maybe he just finds maths hard.

I like maths, so I decided to work it out for him.

Take the carbon footprint of 170g of CO2 that Bolt quotes on his blog
add the approximately 2.2 g of CO2 in the drink itself (from here)
Take a carbon price of $26 a tonne that Ross Garnaut recommends in his latest report
and spin.

The result.

172.2 g CO2 x 10-6 tonne g-1 x $26 tonne-1 = $0.004 per can of Coke

http://thecrapologist.blogspot.com/2011/05/bolt-cola-now-with-10-less-carbon.html

Quit the scare-mongering.

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 02:36 PM

where would you build such a plant? well actually, where would you build the 10 or so plants needed to have any sort of impact on our emissions?

Why does it matter where they are built?

fsbk

01-06-2011, 02:51 PM

Why does it matter where they are built?

a plan has to be practical. if no state or territory will agree to a nuclear power plant in their state, then what's the point of focusing your energies on it? thousands of wind turbines in everyone's backyard would reduce our emissions by a fuck tonne, but not everyone would agree to having one in their backyard, so what's the point

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 02:55 PM

a plan has to be practical. if no state or territory will agree to a nuclear power plant in their state, then what's the point of focusing your energies on it? thousands of wind turbines in everyone's backyard would reduce our emissions by a fuck tonne, but not everyone would agree to having one in their backyard, so what's the point

I said that it wouldn't happen in my post...

Why no state or territory will agree to have one of the safest and environmentally friendly ways of producing power is beyond me but that's what happens with scare mongering by the media!

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 02:57 PM

I said that it wouldn't happen in my post...

Why no state or territory will agree to have one of the safest and environmentally friendly ways of producing power is beyond me but that's what happens with scare mongering by the media!

People at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Long Island (among others), will disagree, but anyway :P

Torquen

01-06-2011, 03:00 PM

Fujiwara13

01-06-2011, 03:08 PM

There is a fundemental difference between climate change and environmental destruction, including the poisoning of the air. Yes I believe we are destroying our environment. No, I do not believe in anthropogenic climate change.

One volcano eruption in Iceland will undo 5000 years worth of Earth Hour, and that's just one volcano.

I have no objection to a CO2 tax as long as someone else foots my bill.

You really couldn't be more wrong about that. Volcanos that shoot sulphur into the stratosphere actually cool the planet by blocking/absorbing light/energy from the sun.

http://geography.about.com/od/globalproblemsandissues/a/pinatubo.htm

Long read here, but this will tell you more about climate change than you will ever hear by listening to people on television winging about taxes. Basically, the amount of carbon emissions and the like that are already swirling around keeping energy in have a ridiculously long half life, so even if we stop our production immediately, it'll do FUCK ALL. It's already there, already doing it's business. We need to come up with a way to combat that.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6879251.ece

If you were still wanting for more reading, this appears to be Nathan Myhrvold's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold) company's brief on the idea explained above.

http://intellectualventureslab.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Stratoshield-white-paper-300dpi.pdf

Torquen

01-06-2011, 03:17 PM

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 03:18 PM

People at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Long Island (among others), will disagree, but anyway :P

People killed by the Nuclear accident caused by freak of nature in Fukushima = 0

People killed in Chernobyl (which was not a nuclear power accident by the way it was a experimental mistake) = 95

People killed by Three Mile Island accident = 0

http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/SimonR32GTR/Capture-3.jpg

http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/SimonR32GTR/Capture2.jpg

Torquen

01-06-2011, 03:21 PM

Simon, exactly my point. Nuclear power, if done correctly is a very safe and efficient resource.

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 03:25 PM

Especially if we start using Bill Gates's's's's's's new technology, that utilizes almost 100% of the nuclear fuel, and doesn't need refueling for over 100 years...

http://analysis.nuclearenergyinsider.com/qa/gates-nuclear-miracle

Fujiwara13

01-06-2011, 03:25 PM

Technically speaking CO2 doesn't have a half life as it isn't radioactive. It would need to be something like C14 (aka has an active radioactive isotope) to even have a half life. CO2 is persistent for around a 100 years.

Other gases do however have long half life's which is an issue. Also while volcanoes may have an immediate cooling effect, the long term impacts of eruptions increase the greenhouse effect, which in turn will help warm, not cool the earth.

Yeah my bad. Stopped doing chem/anything-to-do-with-radition a long time ago, the gist of it that I understood from those links that the time it'll take for anything we've already produced to subside. It's already there.

The idea that Intellectual Ventures had was to use the same mechanism for cooling. Rather than simulating entire eruptions, just repeat the bits that cooled everything down.

Fujiwara13

01-06-2011, 03:26 PM

Also, time to by shares in companies with uranium mining plans?

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 03:27 PM

People killed by the Nuclear accident caused by freak of nature in Fukushima = 0

People killed in Chernobyl (which was not a nuclear power accident by the way it was a experimental mistake) = 95

People killed by Three Mile Island accident = 0

LOL! No offence, but this is so retarded, I won't even bother arguing.

Simon, exactly my point. Nuclear power, if done correctly is a very safe and efficient resource.

Communism works very well in theory too, if done correctly.

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 03:28 PM

Simon, exactly my point. Nuclear power, if done correctly is a very safe and efficient resource.

Correct, I think around 99% of the deaths due to Nuclear power were caused by Chernobyl. Although they blame the deaths on Nuclear power it wasn't really the production of power that caused the disaster but rather a experiment going very wrong.

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 03:29 PM

Also, time to by shares in companies with uranium mining plans?

No. Invest in either Gates's "Mini Reactors", or better still - invest in some Chinese Fusion companies. We are so, so, so very close to igniting stable fusion... This will be the energy revolution that saves us. I hope.

Torquen

01-06-2011, 03:33 PM

Plus the fact that Australia is one of the most stable (from a tectonic plate POV) places in the entire world with the potential for many suitable nuclear site locations (far far far away from people too). It still baffles me why our government doesn't at least take a real look at using nuclear power!

Fujiwara13

01-06-2011, 03:34 PM

No. Invest in either Gates's "Mini Reactors", or better still - invest in some Chinese Fusion companies. We are so, so, so very close to igniting stable fusion... This will be the energy revolution that saves us. I hope.

Just reading your link now, and the possibility of using depleted uranium is very intriguing. So many problems could be solved at once!

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 03:37 PM

LOL! No offence, but this is so retarded, I won't even bother arguing.

That is retarded but you don't know the difference between Long Island and Three Mile Island?

I'll break it down for you...

Chernobyl: "Thirty one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers.[9] A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests it could reach 4,000"

Three Mile Island: "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

Fukushima: "Reported death 1 (heart attack)"

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 03:39 PM

BOSS 290

01-06-2011, 03:39 PM

Nuclear power would be a win... but the numpties in Australia refuse to look it at as a viable option.

BOSS 290: Business that pollute less will pay less tax. If you want some light reading on this look up a copy of the 'Garnaut Report' - Climate Change Review which is headed by noted economist Prof Ross Garnaut. It looks at an climate change from an economic perspective. Very interesting read if you've got some free time :)

'Garnaut Report', funded by the government one way or another? The man has a credibility issue. And he has decided to engage in the political debate, further eroding his credibility.

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 03:41 PM

Correct, I think around 99% of the deaths due to Nuclear power were caused by Chernobyl. Although they blame the deaths on Nuclear power it wasn't really the production of power that caused the disaster but rather a experiment going very wrong.

Experiments go wrong, accidents happen, shit hits the fan... problem with nuclear power is that when shit does hit the fan, it's a lot more dangerous than non-nuclear, and the consequences can be veeeery long term. You can dress it up as much as you want, but reality is not everything goes to plan, and shit happens. And when it does, I don't want ti in my backyard thanks!

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 03:44 PM

or this!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

Rubbia states that a tonne of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal

Cheers for the link!

It should also be pointed out that the reactors at Fukushima Diiachi are MOX fuelled reactors - they don't run straight uranium but rather a mixture... And they do actually use Thorium at a mixture of around 20%... I don't know the benefits of using mixed-oxide fuels, but I do know that the resulting waste is easier to proliferate as weapons.

BOSS 290

01-06-2011, 03:45 PM

You really couldn't be more wrong about that. Volcanos that shoot sulphur into the stratosphere actually cool the planet by blocking/absorbing light/energy from the sun.

I agree. My point being all our attempts to change the climate thru a carbon tax or ETS is outdone by a couple of acts of nature. Let's not mention an ELE (Extinction Levelling Event) such as a large meteor or asteroid hitting Earth and wiping just about everything out.

Like I said earlier the sheer arrogance of some people to think we can control the climate thru the above mentioned processes is astounding.

Torquen

01-06-2011, 03:45 PM

...if you're going to say anything written by someone who is involved in politics or funded by a government grant is a falicy then you're very closed minded.

Mad_Aussie

01-06-2011, 03:47 PM

...if you're going to say anything written by someone who is involved in politics or funded by a government grant is a falicy then you're very closed minded.

One side of the antilag fence - "governments are telling lies? TINFOIL HAT!!!"
Other side of the antilag fence - "government releases a report? LIES!!!"

le sigh.

Torquen

01-06-2011, 03:47 PM

We're not trying to control the climate, merely stop our influence being as detrimental as it currently is. And read my above post RE: Volcanoes.

Torquen

01-06-2011, 03:49 PM

One side of the antilag fence - "governments are telling lies? TINFOIL HAT!!!"
Other side of the antilag fence - "government releases a report? LIES!!!"

le sigh.

Lol! It's amusing non-the-less :p

BOSS 290

01-06-2011, 03:52 PM

...if you're going to say anything written by someone who is involved in politics or funded by a government grant is a falicy then you're very closed minded.

I believe the term you are after is "Climate change denier", not closed minded, as used by pro-supporters.

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 03:54 PM

That is retarded but you don't know the difference between Long Island and Three Mile Island?

I'll break it down for you...

Chernobyl: "Thirty one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers.[9] A UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests it could reach 4,000"

Three Mile Island: "The average radiation dose to people living within ten miles of the plant was eight millirem, and no more than 100 millirem to any single individual. Eight millirem is about equal to a chest X-ray, and 100 millirem is about a third of the average background level of radiation received by US residents in a year."

Fukushima: "Reported death 1 (heart attack)"

Mis-spelt it, whoopty do, you know what I mean!

Why do you think there was 'only' 95 deaths? (if you can trust russian govt's numbers) They were direct deaths attributed to it in the first couple of days, sure. Mostly firefighters and 'liquidators'. The area's population was shipped out within a day or two. The negative health effects on the other hand has affected thousands of people! A lot of people in the easter europe (not only ukraine, but czechoslovakia, poland, germany even) have been affected by the radioactive cloud. There was an immediate increase in thyroid problems etc. It is not good for you man! Even now, there are babies born with mutations, due to those people's exposure to radiation! Direct deaths may have been fuck all, indirectly tens of thousands of people have been affected by this! Stop being so ignorant!

If you honestly believe it is so safe, move to Chernobyl! Why do you think there is hardly anyone living there right now? Perhaps if they did, they would have been all dead by now.

perthute

01-06-2011, 03:56 PM

just to add a few points sorry if they have been said
if you dont go along with global warming ooops i mean climate change (funny how they all ways think there right ) see how much gov funding you get

also with the nuke power the death count is bull shit , the 3rd world gets this dump'd on them and the health problems are uncounted . and the usa useing depleted uranium in amo fucking the middle east for life times

im all for not polluting btw but we dont need a new tax that doesnt stop the polluting

morgazmatron

01-06-2011, 04:01 PM

I believe the term you are after is "Climate change denier", not closed minded, as used by pro-supporters.

By saying that every gov or gov agency report is false or misguiding. You would be also admitting that any report funded by any organisation is also false or misguiding. There will never be an end to this debate and its silly

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFHLr7VquzU/TI51HG5rWqI/AAAAAAAAAy0/7sayDRiU6TU/s640/arguingOnTheInternet.gif

Torquen

01-06-2011, 04:02 PM

I believe the term you are after is "Climate change denier", not closed minded, as used by pro-supporters.

Same same. Head in sand spec.

Torquen

01-06-2011, 04:05 PM

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 04:12 PM

Not saying nuclear power is without its risks/drawback but it the long run it's the better, safer, cleaner option.

x2

BOSS 290

01-06-2011, 04:14 PM

Same same. Head in sand spec.

This quote from Twiggy just about sums up my thoughts on this Garnaut chap

"Mr Forrest dismissed the work of Professor Garnaut on the policy, saying the economist and former Lihir Gold chairman had also supported the Resources Super Profits Tax proposed by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

“You’ve had Ross Garnaut, the great champion of the Resources Super Profits Tax, come out with all his well considered statements [on carbon]. I just want to remind people that if the RSPT came in, Australia would be in a recession right now,” Mr Forrest said."

Fuck me, we've recorded our worst trading figures in the last 20 years, yet the Federal government wants to impose both a Carbon Tax on the 1000 biggest polluters, and RSPT on the mining industry (coal included), and expect the nation to do well. This country will go to hell in a handbag if something doesn't change.

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 04:17 PM

Chernobyl had a very unrefined and primitive nuclear power setup, as apposed to new systems which are state-of-the-art and are multitudes safer and more efficient.

Not saying nuclear power is without its risks/drawback but it the long run it's the better, safer, cleaner option.

Fukushima was state of the art in comparison, yet...

I bet in 20 years time when something again happens to a reactor built in 2011, people will be saying that it was primitive, and modern reactors are safer, yadda yadda yadda... round in circles we go :)

May be so, but NOTHING designed by man is ever fool proof. If it's not an earthquake, tsunami, or retarded experiment, it could be some other type of accident, that when happens, consequences are severe.

Instead of focusing on 19th century (coal) and 1950s technology (nuclear), we should focus on safer and cleaner energy production. Sure, may not be viable yet, either economically or technologically, but hey, where there's a need there is a way, we should look beyond the square. Talking nuclear = no progress, like coal, it's reaching its use by date.

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 04:30 PM

Fukushima was state of the art in comparison, yet...

I bet in 20 years time when something again happens to a reactor built in 2011, people will be saying that it was primitive, and modern reactors are safer, yadda yadda yadda... round in circles we go :)

May be so, but NOTHING designed by man is ever fool proof. If it's not an earthquake, tsunami, or retarded experiment, it could be some other type of accident, that when happens, consequences are severe.

Instead of focusing on 19th century (coal) and 1950s technology (nuclear), we should focus on safer and cleaner energy production. Sure, may not be viable yet, either economically or technologically, but hey, where there's a need there is a way, we should look beyond the square.

If a Tsunami of that magnitude hit New York it would have probably millions of people!

Now, even though no one has actually died from the Fukushima incident lets assume that millions of people died!

Does that mean Nuclear Power is as dangerous as living in New York (because if either got hit by a massive Tsunami there would be millions killed)... And no one should live in New York or use Nuclear Power?

NO it doesn't, it just means that a freak of nature is exactly that... A freak of nature and there is nothing you can do to stop the loss of life, lets not forget that without a massive natural disaster no one would even know there was a nuclear power plant called Fukushima

Torquen

01-06-2011, 04:33 PM

This quote from Twiggy just about sums up my thoughts on this Garnaut chap

"Mr Forrest dismissed the work of Professor Garnaut on the policy, saying the economist and former Lihir Gold chairman had also supported the Resources Super Profits Tax proposed by former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

“You’ve had Ross Garnaut, the great champion of the Resources Super Profits Tax, come out with all his well considered statements [on carbon]. I just want to remind people that if the RSPT came in, Australia would be in a recession right now,” Mr Forrest said."

Fuck me, we've recorded our worst trading figures in the last 20 years, yet the Federal government wants to impose both a Carbon Tax on the 1000 biggest polluters, and RSPT on the mining industry (coal included), and expect the nation to do well. This country will go to hell in a handbag if something doesn't change.

As I've previously stated, I don't necessarily support the CO2 tax that is being proposed. Just because you don't agree with Ross Garnaut on this issue doesn't discredit his previous work.

Fukushima was state of the art in comparison, yet...

I bet in 20 years time when something again happens to a reactor built in 2011, people will be saying that it was primitive, and modern reactors are safer, yadda yadda yadda... round in circles we go :)

May be so, but NOTHING designed by man is ever fool proof. If it's not an earthquake, tsunami, or retarded experiment, it could be some other type of accident, that when happens, consequences are severe.

Instead of focusing on 19th century (coal) and 1950s technology (nuclear), we should focus on safer and cleaner energy production. Sure, may not be viable yet, either economically or technologically, but hey, where there's a need there is a way, we should look beyond the square. Talking nuclear = no progress, like coal, it's reaching its use by date.

Nuclear power is no wear near it's used by date, let alone passed it.

If you want to use Fukushima as an example... it was built on a island, on the ring of fire, on the coast, near a fault line. Enough said. Australia on the other hand is very stable and has no major tectonic activity, plus if we build it in the middle of of Aus then it'd have to be a mighty big tsunami to reach it :p

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 04:40 PM

If a Tsunami of that magnitude hit New York it would have probably millions of people!

Now, even though no one has actually died from the Fukushima incident lets assume that millions of people died!

Does that mean Nuclear Power is as dangerous as living in New York (because if either got hit by a massive Tsunami there would be millions killed)... And no one should live in New York or use Nuclear Power?

NO it doesn't, it just means that a freak of nature is exactly that... A freak of nature and there is nothing you can do to stop the loss of life, lets not forget that without a massive natural disaster no one would even know there was a nuclear power plant called Fukushima

Whatever triggers the accident, that's my point!

Too early to say, but if Fukushima area becomes isolated just like Chernobyl, then that would be an equally bad disaster as the tsunami itself. Except that instead of couple of thousand, it will be millions of people who would need relocating. And given that there is so much populace in small concentrated area, chances are most of those people have been exposed enough to cause future deformities in babies, as well as cancers and so on, like in Chernobyl. Time will tell, but these effects are never seen immediately. For the sake of those poor people there, I hope it won't.

And same with New York, for instance. Similar size tsunami, and a reactor meltdown right smack in the middle of the city, would make it a vacant area for a couple of hundred years, like Chernobyl.

There are always risks, and for you to claim nuclear is safe... get a grip, or prove it and move to Chernobyl, of course you won't, will you :)

Torquen

01-06-2011, 04:48 PM

...because royally fucking our environment is heaps safer.

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 04:51 PM

Both are bad. Find something new!

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 05:34 PM

There are always risks, and for you to claim nuclear is safe... get a grip, or prove it and move to Chernobyl, of course you won't, will you :)

I didn't claim it was safe, I said it was safer than other methods!

You're reasoning for moving to Chernobyl is illogical!

Try and think of it this way... A Russian Pilot is flying a plane 20 years ago and wants to test if he can recover from a stall, so he shuts down the engines and then realises he can't start them again causing him to crash into a mountain and kill everyone on board. Now fast forward 20 years and tell all Australians that because of the crash 20 years ago no one should ever fly in a plane because it isn't safe. Then when people try and convince you that it is a relatively safe way to travel your argument is to tell them to get in a 20 old plane and try not to crash once your motors wont restart.

Or if you want to use Fukushima as an example, tell people that because this year a plane crashed (and everyone survived) due to once in a lifetime unexpected storm that came with no warning, that it is now not safe to fly in a plane.

Kindly, the internet has given me some real life examples to make my stories more authentic (it was a fluke I just googled it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_7425

http://www.euronews.net/2010/01/25/weather-blamed-for-plane-crash-off-lebanon/

Now my question to you is, is it safe to fly, should Australians be allowed to fly and do you fly in planes?

fsbk

01-06-2011, 06:31 PM

so taking it to the logical nth degree, this plane crashes and destroys all of the habitat in a 10km surrounding area, poisoning water and food supplies and potentially people. then comes a costly cleanup and the destruction of the economy through instability in exports and tourism for a period. i certainly wouldn't be using THAT plane!

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 06:45 PM

syther

01-06-2011, 06:56 PM

think still using Chernobyl and radiation poisoning

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 07:15 PM

think still using Chernobyl and radiation poisoning

The joke, you missed it!

fsbk

01-06-2011, 07:48 PM

Did you just describe a oil spill intentionally to prove my point?!?

an oil spill can be cleaned up fairly quickly. a nuclear "spill" has a half life of several decades and can travel large distances in the air poisoning water supplies and food over a massive area. nuclear, oil spill not same same

Lump

01-06-2011, 08:02 PM

if no state or territory will agree to a nuclear power plant in their state, then what's the point of focusing your energies on it?
allready a small nuke power plant in nsw so dont see why it should be an issue finding other suitable places around our big coal burning cities.
that deaths per watt chart was awesome lol

Torquen

01-06-2011, 08:07 PM

an oil spill can be cleaned up fairly quickly. a nuclear "spill" has a half life of several decades and can travel large distances in the air poisoning water supplies and food over a massive area. nuclear, oil spill not same same

Lol, really! Remember the Exxon Valdez 1989 oil spill... we still haven't cleaned that up fully.

SircatmaN

01-06-2011, 08:35 PM

I came on here to continue arguil about global warming and carbon and now we are talking about Nuclear reactors and Chernobyl?

fsbk

01-06-2011, 08:36 PM

i give up, my arguments are shit

Torquen

01-06-2011, 08:36 PM

Lol, shit moves quickly! How'd ya exam go?

SircatmaN

01-06-2011, 08:42 PM

Lol, shit moves quickly! How'd ya exam go?

Good in the end. When I sat down and read the first 7 questions it must have seriously been the 7 things I didn't study while I was on here arguing with you clowns ;)
Went of the other 2 sections then went back and seemed to remembers bits and pieces from enough lectures to piece together some answers there haha.
One more to go and its 6 weeks of gym, xbox and early nights in my compfy bed after work!

Torquen

01-06-2011, 08:44 PM

One more to go and its 6 weeks of gym, xbox and early nights in my compfy bed after work!

AKA uni heaven :D

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 08:49 PM

I didn't claim it was safe, I said it was safer than other methods!

You're reasoning for moving to Chernobyl is illogical!

Try and think of it this way... A Russian Pilot is flying a plane 20 years ago and wants to test if he can recover from a stall, so he shuts down the engines and then realises he can't start them again causing him to crash into a mountain and kill everyone on board. Now fast forward 20 years and tell all Australians that because of the crash 20 years ago no one should ever fly in a plane because it isn't safe. Then when people try and convince you that it is a relatively safe way to travel your argument is to tell them to get in a 20 old plane and try not to crash once your motors wont restart.

Or if you want to use Fukushima as an example, tell people that because this year a plane crashed (and everyone survived) due to once in a lifetime unexpected storm that came with no warning, that it is now not safe to fly in a plane.

Kindly, the internet has given me some real life examples to make my stories more authentic (it was a fluke I just googled it)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroflot_Flight_7425

http://www.euronews.net/2010/01/25/weather-blamed-for-plane-crash-off-lebanon/

Now my question to you is, is it safe to fly, should Australians be allowed to fly and do you fly in planes?

More like:

Russian pilot is flying over a populated area carrying toxic waste 20 years ago. He performs a manouver and loses control, crashing and spilling all waste, rendering the entire area un-inhabitable for the next few hundred years.

Fast forward 20 years later, and tell all Australians that due to a crash 20 years ago, we will no longer fly toxic waste above populated areas, as even the most modern airplanes crash.

And lol @ safer!... Where would you rather live in, a city that is a radioactive wasteland or a city with smog... or is that 'illogical' to you too, coz it doesn't suit your argument?

SimonR32

01-06-2011, 09:28 PM

More like:

Russian pilot is flying over a populated area carrying toxic waste 20 years ago. He performs a manouver and loses control, crashing and spilling all waste, rendering the entire area un-inhabitable for the next few hundred years.

Fast forward 20 years later, and tell all Australians that due to a crash 20 years ago, we will no longer fly toxic waste above populated areas, as even the most modern airplanes crash.

And lol @ safer!... Where would you rather live in, a city that is a radioactive wasteland or a city with smog... or is that 'illogical' to you too, coz it doesn't suit your argument?

Fair call, but in that case your other option is to drive the toxic waste with trucks that are guaranteed to have motor vehicle accidents and kill 4000 times the amount of people that the toxic waste would have killed... Plus also instead of toxic waste rendering a small area uninhabitable, the oceans aquatic environment is decimated every once in a while when the ship that transports the trucks sink.

PS. Do you really want to pick smog as your answer "Mortality due to air pollution in Australia is higher than the road toll," says Dr Tom Beer from CSIRO Atmospheric Research, one of the organisers of the two-day course. "Each year on average, 2400 of the 140,000 Australians deaths are linked to air quality and health issues - much more than the 1700 people who die on our roads. That's an average of a death every four hours. This number increases if long-term effects of air toxics on cancer are included."

Ryan1080

01-06-2011, 10:46 PM

Fair call, but in that case your other option is to drive the toxic waste with trucks that are guaranteed to have motor vehicle accidents and kill 4000 times the amount of people that the toxic waste would have killed... Plus also instead of toxic waste rendering a small area uninhabitable, the oceans aquatic environment is decimated every once in a while when the ship that transports the trucks sink.

Nah, my reference to 'plane' was electricity generation, and 'toxic waste' was nuclear. So get rid of 'toxic waste' (nuclear), and 'fly' (generate power) something else that is less dangerous. :)

Funny thing you say that, coz right now we have a problem with storing the toxic waste, which just happens to be more dangerous than other fossil fuel getting spilt.

PS. Do you really want to pick smog as your answer "Mortality due to air pollution in Australia is higher than the road toll," says Dr Tom Beer from CSIRO Atmospheric Research, one of the organisers of the two-day course. "Each year on average, 2400 of the 140,000 Australians deaths are linked to air quality and health issues - much more than the 1700 people who die on our roads. That's an average of a death every four hours. This number increases if long-term effects of air toxics on cancer are included."

Dude. What is the mortality rate in a nuclear polluted area? Why do you think they evacuate people right away? Coz you'll die very quickly form constant high exposure! At least with smog it's gonna take a long time for it to catch up with you. Radiation poisoning on the other hand, quick and deadly. Look it up.

Don't know about you, but if I had a choice, I'd rather live in a smog filled city than a nuclear wasteland. At least I will live 100 times longer, and my offspring won't be mutated. Ideally I'd prefer neither, but fossil fuel is a lesser of the two evils imo. Evil nevertheless.

Like I said, we should focus on developing alternative energy. Fossil and nuclear are old and outdated, no point wasting time looking at those. There are plenty of other sources of energy around us we can potentially tap into, that are safe, we just have to work out how to capture it properly and reliably.

Mad_Aussie

02-06-2011, 07:54 AM

Fukushima was state of the art in comparison, yet...

Sorry to jump in late on this, but it wasn't at all.

Fukushima is running General Electric Mk1 Boiler-type reactors, which in the '60's were deemed too unsafe to be built in the US. They had major cooling issues, the waste pond was right on top of the condensers (sits on top of the reactor itself) and was prone to hydrogen buildups. So the US built them in Japan. Every year since a safety audit in the mid-70's they have been told by the IAE to dismantle them, and every year the US pressures Japan into keeping them due to the multi-million dollar contract they have with TEPCO.

Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.

Unfortunately, this event could have been avoided 30 years ago. But thats capitalism for you.

Also, Ryan... The mortality rate from Chernobyl is relatively low for what happened. In fact, there is still a handful of people that live in and around the area that were initially exposed, and are still going. The plants grow wild - albet with some genetic abnormalities - wolves and game animals kick around, and there's even butterflies.
The problem with radiation sickness, is that it's hard to track and pinpoint to an event like that, so a lot of the time it's not recorded - especially in impoverished small nations like these ex-ussr countries. So although most people claim that theres 'x' amount more damage than has been recorded, you'll never find the written evidence you want to support that argument.

What was also said about depleted uranium munitions is also on the money - a lot of this nuclear waste is milled into uranium-tipped proji's, and the Yanks spray them willy nilly all over the shop. They reckon that in Baghdad alone over the last 10 years, there's been more birth defects and cancer cases recorded than in Hiroshima, from the time the bomb was dropped till now. Fucking atrocious.

Ryan1080

02-06-2011, 08:05 AM

Sorry to jump in late on this, but it wasn't at all.

Fukushima is running General Electric Mk1 Boiler-type reactors, which in the '60's were deemed too unsafe to be built in the US. So the US built them in Japan. Every year since a safety audit in the mid-70's they have been told by the IAE to dismantle them, and every year the US pressures Japan into keeping them due to the multi-million dollar contract they have with TEPCO.

Unfortunately, this event could have been avoided 30 years ago. But thats capitalism for you.

I didn't say it was state of the art, I said state of the art in in comparison to Chernobyl... :)

Mad_Aussie

02-06-2011, 08:12 AM

Ryan1080

02-06-2011, 08:13 AM

Also, Ryan... The mortality rate from Chernobyl is relatively low for what happened. In fact, there is still a handful of people that live in and around the area that were initially exposed, and are still going. The plants grow wild - albet with some genetic abnormalities - wolves and game animals kick around, and there's even butterflies.
The problem with radiation sickness, is that it's hard to track and pinpoint to an event like that, so a lot of the time it's not recorded - especially in impoverished small nations like these ex-ussr countries. So although most people claim that theres 'x' amount more damage than has been recorded, you'll never find the written evidence you want to support that argument.

So because the russian govt hasn't recorded/admitted all deaths, it hasn't happened? I wouldn't trust the official numbers russian govt provided, they have a lot of pride. Hell, it took them something like three days to admit to the international community that there has been a nuclear accident, only until the massive cloud went over europe, that they were forced to. If it's so hard to pinpoint, explain why for example Poland's adult population had a massive increase in thyroid sickness in late 80s/early 90s. Back in 86 govt only had enough idodine to supply to kids, adults had to make do without.

I'm not actually sure what you are trying to argue, that nuclear accidents are safe? That is is safe to live there? That is it safe to be exposed to such massive radiation? What are you trying to say? Would you live in Chernobyl? Would you like to raise your kids there and eat food grown there?

Ryan1080

02-06-2011, 08:17 AM

Though it wasn't - the reactors at Chernobyl were actually better ;)
They were just being operated by pisshead Russians..

"Hey, Boris, should we be vorrying about dis flashing light?"
"Nooo Chekov, dis is not in de interest of de state"

No it wasn't. It was an old soviet design with less stable characteristics! Control rods were operated differently etc etc.

SimonR32

02-06-2011, 08:18 AM

What I am trying to say is that if they opened a Nuclear reactor to supply Perth's power, I would offer my services to cut the ribbon for them!

Also if they opened such a plant, would you move away from the area?

Mad_Aussie

02-06-2011, 08:19 AM

So because the russian govt hasn't recorded/admitted all deaths, it hasn't happened? I wouldn't trust the official numbers russian govt provided, they have a lot of pride. Hell, it took them something like three days to admit to the international community that there has been a nuclear accident, only until the massive cloud went over europe, that they were forced to. If it's so hard to pinpoint, explain why for example Poland's adult population had a massive increase in thyroid sickness in late 80s/early 90s. Back in 86 govt only had enough idodine to supply to kids, adults had to make do without.

I'm not actually sure what you are trying to argue, that nuclear accidents are safe? That is is safe to live there? That is it safe to be exposed to such massive radiation? What are you trying to say? Would you live in Chernobyl? Would you like to raise your kids there and eat food grown there?

I'm not arguing anything dude - I'm more or less agreeing with you. I'm just pointing out that although the damage is widespread, there's no official figures to back it up. It's just the way it is.

But in saying that, there has been some devastating accidents globally as a result of coal mining, and oil drilling. In fact, it can be said that oil spills do longer lasting damage environmentally than radiation accidents. There was also a chemical spill in India in the 80's or something that killed half a million people - The Bhopal disaster - and the area is still completely fucked well beyond anything at Chernobyl.

Nuclear power has this horrible boogey-man image attached to it, and I feel it's a bit unfair. In history, there's been three really major nuclear disasters (four, if you count the fact the Yanks accidently dropped an atom bomb on their own soil!)... But in comparison to other industrial accidents over the last 200 years, they are actually relatively small-scale.

The thing is that current Fission nuclear power is a dirty, unrefined way of generating energy. Watch this space for Cold Fusion. It's coming, and it's going to save the world. But I wouldn't be jumping the gun to get a fission plant here.

Ryan1080

02-06-2011, 08:30 AM

Ok, but both have their dangers and downsides, and I am not saying that coal/oil are by far better alternatives.

We should focus on researching other methods of generating power that are safe and clean, because let's face it, neither nuclear nor fossil are clean or safe.

And no official numbers from russian govt is not surprising.

What I am trying to say is that if they opened a Nuclear reactor to supply Perth's power, I would offer my services to cut the ribbon for them!

Also if they opened such a plant, would you move away from the area?

Good on you. Will you be happy to also store the toxic waste in your backyard for the next 500 years too?

I would move away, yes!

Ryan1080

02-06-2011, 08:35 AM

Going back on topic, I was reading BRW magazine this morning, and I saw this article about China, here's an interesitng quote:

In the next decade, China's carbon dioxide emissions will increase by 6000 megatons while Australia, even with all the economic pain and the debate over efforts to reduce emissions, will cut carbon dioxide by just 45 megatonnes in the same period.

Anyone who thinks Australia's carbon tax is going to make any slightest difference to the world is kidding themselves!

Mad_Aussie

02-06-2011, 08:36 AM

We should focus on researching other methods of generating power that are safe and clean, because let's face it, neither nuclear nor fossil are clean or safe.

Nuclear can be extremely clean, and extremely safe - if implemented correctly.
Bill Gates's 'mini reactor' design burns depleted uranium, leaving no waste. There's an Italian team that claim they've found a way to run a nuclear reaction using "non-nuclear" fuel in their "energy catalyzer", which is exciting news. Fusion - also a nuclear reaction - generates nearly limitless energy with the only waste products being heat and light.

The race is on between the Chinese and the Yanks to initiate stable cold fusion, the US reckons that their facility should be starting a stable reaction by 2013, and the Chinese just dumped some 40-billion dollars into their program to try and do a sputnik on them.

Interesting times ahead.. Once we have the energy levels that a couple of Fusion reactors will provide, we can start mass-producing carbon nanotubes on an industrial scale... then, hello space-elevator.

SimonR32

02-06-2011, 09:32 AM

Good on you. Will you be happy to also store the toxic waste in your backyard for the next 500 years too?

I would move away, yes!

Yes, I would actually... If you remember a few years ago the government was pondering if they would allow nuclear waste to be stored in the Australian deserts for large sums of cash! I was for it then as well :)

Do you fly out of town every time a nuclear powered US aircraft carrier or sub comes and docks in Freo? I doubt it!

Ryan1080

02-06-2011, 10:02 AM

Yes, I would actually... If you remember a few years ago the government was pondering if they would allow nuclear waste to be stored in the Australian deserts for large sums of cash! I was for it then as well :)

Do you fly out of town every time a nuclear powered US aircraft carrier or sub comes and docks in Freo? I doubt it!

No. It's here only temporarily, so chances are so remote I won't bother. Same when I travel, only there temporarily, so if it goes boom when I'm there, I guess it's meant to be lol

Why would you want to have a nuclear waste dump in your background? Can I rock up to your house and dump some unhealthy rubbish then? You should be all for it!

Mad_Aussie

02-06-2011, 10:06 AM

No. It's here only temporarily, so chances are so remote I won't bother. Same when I travel, only there temporarily, so if it goes boom when I'm there, I guess it's meant to be lol

Why would you want to have a nuclear waste dump in your background? Can I rock up to your house and dump some unhealthy rubbish then? You should be all for it!

Man, you don't really understand how they store nuclear waste.

And you do know that the HIFAR (High Flux Australian Reactor) ran from 1958 - 2007, with five other DIDO class reactors running in the same complex for the same amount of time. None have ever had any problems. Now there's only one there - OPAL - a 20mW reactor, and is running fine.

Guess you'll never visit NSW again right?

Torquen

02-06-2011, 10:07 AM

Because we have a fuck load of unused space, which is doing fuck all, and is not near fuck all :)

Mad_Aussie

02-06-2011, 10:10 AM

They bury spent nuclear waste deeper than the uranium was mined from in the first place. It's also stored in vast cement and lead sarcophaguses separately so that no further reactions can occur. In a lot of ways, storing the spent fuel is safer than enriching the raw fuel in the first place. It's not a shed full of yellow drums leaking green jelly like you see in cartoons.

Ryan1080

02-06-2011, 10:19 AM

I know about the medical reactor in NSW. I've never lived in NSW lol

Fukushima

02-06-2011, 01:00 PM

Somewhat related - I didn't know how Labor were going to pull the carbon tax off until I read this

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/02/3233965.htm

Basically they think they'll have it up and running and everyone getting tax cuts before the next election. Making it about as hard as the GST to undo.