The all-purpose heavy duty Climate Chaos thread (sprinkled with hope).

brianlux

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Lerxst1992

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

static111

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

Well we could just reduce the abuse and actually replant forests but not as a token gesture to cut them back down in 30 more years.  Research a way to make solar panels as efficient as leaves when it comes to collecting the sun's energy.  Or continue this path of kicking the can down the road until complete ecological disaster and figure out how to build something better out of the chaos.

We think we can keep doing things the way they have always done and just switch to a cleaner way of producing energy.  We measure everything in terms of carbon and nothing in terms of our destruction of soil and ecosystems by other means.  We continue to think that quarter over quarter growth and profit is what makes a success.  Switch from fossil fuels all you want.  If we do everything else the same we are going to consume the earth into a desert anyway.  We need a radical realignment of how we interact with the planet.

Buying the same cheap crap over and over getting new electronics at a greater rate every year consuming more precious and toxic rare earth minerals and just switching to solar and wind still kills the planet.  We need to stop being a consumer society.   

I realize this sounds vaguely like the unabomber or what have you, but I just don't believe anything short of complete chaos is going to get us to make any necessary changes.   We can't on one hand celebrate the growth of the stock market and chastise the destruction of the environment. Those are not two independent things.  What causes the market to rise is literally what's killing the environment.  A consumer society built on buying crap food, crap products, crap dreams.

brianlux

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

static111

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

I was going to tell you the same about this point.  Your statements are much more well thought out and put together than mine.  I can be all over the place.   It's just so frustrating that no one wants to do a behavior or culture adjustment and think we can science, technology, and government our way out of this.  Unfortunately the level of change necessary at the individual level is almost insurmountable unless you want to become homeless.   We should have never climbed out of the trees!

Lerxst1992

static111 said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

Well we could just reduce the abuse and actually replant forests but not as a token gesture to cut them back down in 30 more years.  Research a way to make solar panels as efficient as leaves when it comes to collecting the sun's energy.  Or continue this path of kicking the can down the road until complete ecological disaster and figure out how to build something better out of the chaos.

We think we can keep doing things the way they have always done and just switch to a cleaner way of producing energy.  We measure everything in terms of carbon and nothing in terms of our destruction of soil and ecosystems by other means.  We continue to think that quarter over quarter growth and profit is what makes a success.  Switch from fossil fuels all you want.  If we do everything else the same we are going to consume the earth into a desert anyway.  We need a radical realignment of how we interact with the planet.

Buying the same cheap crap over and over getting new electronics at a greater rate every year consuming more precious and toxic rare earth minerals and just switching to solar and wind still kills the planet.  We need to stop being a consumer society.   

I realize this sounds vaguely like the unabomber or what have you, but I just don't believe anything short of complete chaos is going to get us to make any necessary changes.   We can't on one hand celebrate the growth of the stock market and chastise the destruction of the environment. Those are not two independent things.  What causes the market to rise is literally what's killing the environment.  A consumer society built on buying crap food, crap products, crap dreams.

I agree that from frustration comes innovation. However, if we try to change behavior, we may be tilting at windmills. A nudging is possible, but the population just isnt into radical realignment. Heck, considering jan six and all of the climate warning signs of the past few years, trump is polling better than ever now. Climate concerns are not moving the needle away at all from from the climate denial party. Our best chance of success is to quickly implement the most effective tools that currently exist. If the electorate is not seeing the danger from all of the recent wildfires and hundred degree winter heat in S America, they never will.

 My question above was more towards energy generation, if we don’t have solar or wind, we are left with fossil fuel. It took a long time to get renewables viewed favorably. Implementing the current tech is difficult and time consuming. We need to move that needle as fast as possible.

The unfortunate part of renewables is yes they can be ugly. The fact that they keep the neighboring greenery intact is creating a dangerous dynamic ugly and beauty side by side. But oil fields are even uglier. 

brianlux

static111 said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

I was going to tell you the same about this point.  Your statements are much more well thought out and put together than mine.  I can be all over the place.   It's just so frustrating that no one wants to do a behavior or culture adjustment and think we can science, technology, and government our way out of this.  Unfortunately the level of change necessary at the individual level is almost insurmountable unless you want to become homeless.   We should have never climbed out of the trees!

I so share your frustration!

The sad thing about not being willing to adjust our behaviors is that eventually the limits of resources will force us to make adjustments that will be punishing rather than a little uncomfortable or inconvenient.  And there are so many simple things we could do right now that would help a lot and would not affect out lives in harsh ways.  To name just a few:

-Reduce travel.  Instead of flying somewhere, explore on own region.  My wife and I find new and interesting things to do right here in El Dorado County.

-If you have to travel, take the train.  Trains carry more weight per energy unit than any other form of transportation besides walking.

-Walk!

-Buy used items including entertainment.   I must confess, I do purchase an occasional new release of an album, but the vast majority of my record collection are used LPs.  That may mean sometimes having to wait a while.  I recently finally scored a really nice used copy of Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus. I just kept watching and eventually one came up.

-Purchase durable products.  Yes, they cost more, but in the long run they save us money because they last longer. 

-Adjust the thermostat to save energy.

I'll bet everyone here could easily add to this list simple ways to save energy, lower carbon output, and reduce consumption.

Lerxst1992

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Wow, anthropocentric? Serves me for discussing topics with the literary class!

I will keep Kunstler in mind. As much as I agree with static and your point, we need to move the needle as quickly as possible with the assets we have. Specifically, these assets are 1) tech and 2) political might. 

Implementing solar/wind is turning out to be more difficult than envisioned a few years ago. 

Regarding point 1) Projects need to be reviewed carefully. Considering wildfires, we know electricity transmission is inherently  complex and dangerous. The challenge with renewables are that they are much smaller in scale than the old fashioned gas fired plants, meaning more projects to generate the same amount of power = time consuming to plan and approve. And there are tons of other issues implementing the tech we have

Regarding 2) if we start telling our “freedom loving” Americans what to do, we might just get ten more years of trump, or however many years until he gracelessly leaves this planet. His next presidency would certainly hurt the climate. People will not accept being told to modify consumption, until it’s too late. They will run towards the climate denial party in droves. So imo, better we use the tools we have, but at a much quicker pace

Halifax2TheMax

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

static111

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is corporate greenwashing BS

Halifax2TheMax

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is corporate greenwashing BS

How so?

static111

Halifax2TheMax said:

static111 said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is corporate greenwashing BS

How so?

Who manages it? Where does the money go? Do they replant trees and buy previous old growth forests land and allow it to grow wild and untamed? Or does it get invested into "green energy" products that serve to enrich investors in those fields but nothing actually happens in the form of conservation or regeneration of the earth.  Carbon credits and carbon tax is one of the cloudiest things out there.   If it's just a "punishment" tax for people existing but the money doesn't go into cleaning up the environment and regenerating the earth, it's just more money paid against the guilt of destroying it all.

brianlux

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Wow, anthropocentric? Serves me for discussing topics with the literary class!

I will keep Kunstler in mind. As much as I agree with static and your point, we need to move the needle as quickly as possible with the assets we have. Specifically, these assets are 1) tech and 2) political might. 

Implementing solar/wind is turning out to be more difficult than envisioned a few years ago. 

Regarding point 1) Projects need to be reviewed carefully. Considering wildfires, we know electricity transmission is inherently  complex and dangerous. The challenge with renewables are that they are much smaller in scale than the old fashioned gas fired plants, meaning more projects to generate the same amount of power = time consuming to plan and approve. And there are tons of other issues implementing the tech we have

Regarding 2) if we start telling our “freedom loving” Americans what to do, we might just get ten more years of trump, or however many years until he gracelessly leaves this planet. His next presidency would certainly hurt the climate. People will not accept being told to modify consumption, until it’s too late. They will run towards the climate denial party in droves. So imo, better we use the tools we have, but at a much quicker pace

I don't think of anthropocentric as a literary term.  I don't know what else you call it. 

Agreed with needing to move the needle quickly, but I see long-term as equally important.

Agree not to tell people what to do in terms of modifying their habits.  But show them what the results will be and maybe they will figure it out for themselves.  Education, not authoritarianism! 

Oh, and of course, fuck 45!

brianlux

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is wishful thinking at best.  It hasn't moved the needle.

Tipping point is past, yes.  The question is, how far do we want to fall and for how long.  We need to think long-term of forget it.

static111

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is wishful thinking at best.  It hasn't moved the needle.

Tipping point is past, yes.  The question is, how far do we want to fall and for how long.  We need to think long-term of forget it.

Didn't a great author from New Mexico say that trial and error is a good way to build an airplane but a terrible way to build a civilization?

brianlux

static111 said:

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is wishful thinking at best.  It hasn't moved the needle.

Tipping point is past, yes.  The question is, how far do we want to fall and for how long.  We need to think long-term of forget it.

Didn't a great author from New Mexico say that trial and error is a good way to build an airplane but a terrible way to build a civilization?

Yes, but I think you mean Colorado Springs, right?  Yeah, that's it.  Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

(I doubt anyone here is old enough to get the joke.  )

static111

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is wishful thinking at best.  It hasn't moved the needle.

Tipping point is past, yes.  The question is, how far do we want to fall and for how long.  We need to think long-term of forget it.

Didn't a great author from New Mexico say that trial and error is a good way to build an airplane but a terrible way to build a civilization?

Yes, but I think you mean Colorado Springs, right?  Yeah, that's it.  Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

(I doubt anyone here is old enough to get the joke.  )

I thought he was from and living in Madrid New Mexico when he wrote it.  That's what some locals at the Mineshaft Tavern told me and apparently he and his wife also had some type of shop there. I guess they moved right before his big success. But yes that is to whom I was referring

brianlux

static111 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is wishful thinking at best.  It hasn't moved the needle.

Tipping point is past, yes.  The question is, how far do we want to fall and for how long.  We need to think long-term of forget it.

Didn't a great author from New Mexico say that trial and error is a good way to build an airplane but a terrible way to build a civilization?

Yes, but I think you mean Colorado Springs, right?  Yeah, that's it.  Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

(I doubt anyone here is old enough to get the joke.  )

I thought he was from and living in Madrid New Mexico when he wrote it.  That's what some locals at the Mineshaft Tavern told me and apparently he and his wife also had some type of shop there. I guess they moved right before his big success. But yes that is to whom I was referring

Yes, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn for those confused by what were talking about.  Definitely worth reading!

Lerxst1992

static111 said:

brianlux said:

Halifax2TheMax said:

brianlux said:

Lerxst1992 said:

brianlux said:

static111 said:

brianlux said:

I wind power really the answer?  As much as I am pro "green energy", I have real hesitations about wind power.  At what point is it worth sacrificing the aesthetic beauty of our environment, the sounds of nature, the lives of birds, to support 8+ billion humans on the planet? 

I just can't see doing this to our environment as being a reasonable solution:

I'm with you Brian, it seems like every time we try to fix things we create more problems.  Thrashing ecosystems to put up wind farms is probably not the best idea.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  With reduce of course being first.  It is insane that this country was covered with old growth forests and we cut almost all of them down and don't really let the old areas regenerate, just replant straight rows of monocrops instead of mixed forests. We are stupid. I have a feeling nature will cull the human herd to a more manageable level at some point.  We can't solve every problem with granular scientific thinking. uh oh I am about to start a rant.  Better stop now!

Well said!

"They cut the forest down to build a piece of crap

(PIECE OF CRAP)"

-Neil Young and Crazy Horse

Wow, almost has a feel of maga nation taking over AMT despite that great song reference!

Would a solar farm look any better?

Without wind and solar, whats left other than fossil fuel?

Fortunately, some good news-

“ Critics of wind and solar routinely raise concerns about how much land would be required to decarbonize the US power sector. Fortunately, the answer is relatively little. A recent National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows that it would take less than 1 percent of the land in the Lower 48—that’s an area comparable to or even smaller than the fossil fuel industry’s current footprint. And when wind and solar projects are responsibly sited, the environmental and public health impacts would be far less harmful than those from extracting, producing and burning fossil fuels.”

https://blog.ucsusa.org/steve-clemmer/how-much-land-would-it-require-to-get-most-of-our-electricity-from-wind-and-solar/

MAGA Nation taking over AMT!               

Hardly, my friend, hardly!  You have to know by now that I am hard-core pro environment.  But my commitment to the environment stems from a biocentric viewpoint, and wind farms and the equally hideous solar farms stem from an anthropocentric viewpoint.  Those arrays serve merely to meet the never-ending voracious and ravenous appetite of humans for the amount of power necessary to continue to live in ways that, in the long run, are unsustainable. A major premise of that desire for power is the on-going false assumption that we can continue to live as a car culture and live based with the predominance of suburbia as a doable lifestyle based on an economy of consumption rather that conservation.  That is simply not going to work over time, and as the rest of the developing world strives to follow suit, the closer we edge ourselves towards an inevitable collapse. 

Perhaps read James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency.  I'm not a fan of Kunstler's politics, but when in comes to energy and how our quest for never-ending consumption affect the planet, he has it pegged and explains it all in cleat language.  Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute has written extensively about all this as well.

I have a great deal of frustration over this issue because after studying this stuff for the last 3 or 4 decades, I'm more convinced than ever that we are heading down a blind ally toward imminent collapse.  I sincerely believe our desire to continue living an unbalanced consumer oriented lifestyle is wishful thinking and believing that solar and wind farms are going to allow us to continue living that way is a fools fantasy.

I would love to be proved wrong, but highly skeptical that I will be.

EDIT:  And I am in complete agreement with what static111 wrote above.  Well said!

Did any of the authors discuss a carbon tax for every product from cradle to grave? While totally politically unfeasible, it seems to me to be the only way to drive consumer behaviour.

Regardless, I don’t see the climate changing for the better and think we’ve already passed the tipping point. Server farms to hold everyone’s social media content and crypto mining is guaranteeing that.

Carbon tax is wishful thinking at best.  It hasn't moved the needle.

Tipping point is past, yes.  The question is, how far do we want to fall and for how long.  We need to think long-term of forget it.

Didn't a great author from New Mexico say that trial and error is a good way to build an airplane but a terrible way to build a civilization?

Trial and error is a good way to build an airplane? Oops, built it wrong, sorry you crashed!

Halifax2TheMax

I look at a carbon tax to encourage buying/supplying local and using the proceeds to reinvest in green technology and the environment and changing consumer behavior. Of course, the collected funds have to be managed properly and not used to give tax breaks. Thats what elected representatives held accountable are supposed to do. I went to the supermarket yesterday and purchased tangerines produced in South Africa. I don't know whether they were flown or shipped but if I had to have had to pay substantially more due to their carbon footprint costs, maybe I would have been fine with just local apples.

Interesting A-Z climate change factoids and whats going on out there but it'll ultimately come down to "consuming" and reducing it and consuming products with less carbon baked in. Not easy, I get it but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Climate Change from A to Z | The New Yorker