Global Warming, Full Quivers, and Social Irresponsibility

[Woody]

If the vacuum thing is plausible then I would like to see some evidence.

[Bravus]

touché

[there buster]

from Tennessee Center for Policy Research :

Quote:

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh--more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh--guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore's average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore's energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore's extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore's mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

[Woody]

Thank you Ed. That tells us a lot about the environmentalists.

[Bravus]

Um, no, that tells us that Al Gore is a wealthy American. Yes, it's inconsistent, and he probably should (a) divest himself of some of his properties and ( put some of his wealth into energy-efficiency for the remainder. But his energy use is typical for people of his wealth, if not lower than most.

But I don't mean to come to his defense: he has that argument to make. The point is, climate change is not Al Gore and Al Gore is not climate change. Al Gore could be convicted of eating babies and it wouldn't change the science.

[Bravus]

PS You guys might enjoy some of the arguments made in this discussion:

http://williamgibsonboard.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/880007756/m/7031096992

[Dr. Shane]

Maybe he should put some of that wealth into alternative energy sources for his mansion. Like solar heat and wind generators. Maybe he should watch H&G TV's "Living With Ed". I love that show. Half the time he runs his house off the electric grid.

[there buster]

It just illustrates the liberal/socialist mindset.

"We are the wise ones. It is our job to tell you how to live." While at the same time, they are exempt from the very things the want others to do. It speaks far less about hypocrisy than about lack of integrity and lack of real conviction.

I learned long ago that real conviction changes the one convicted, while false conviction becomes a necessity for everyone else.

[bevin]

Quote:

Half the time he runs his house off the electric grid.

which may or may not decrease his actual energy use and global impact, depending on how he generates the electricity

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

which may or may not decrease his actual energy use and global impact, depending on how he generates the electricity

Watch the show.

[Bravus]

On the Gore energy story: http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/eye-of-the-electrical-storm/2007/02/28/1172338709247.html (read to the end)

In the same vein as Ed's characterisation of the liberal mindset: apparently the conservative mindset is about the half-researched 'gotcha' ad hominem attack...

[Dr. Shane]

I was thinking of this very thing today. Here in Texas we can choose to buy our energy, or part of it, from companies generating power by wind. And then I thought of the show "Living With Ed" and thought to myself, with all of Al Gore's money, I am surprised he hasn't made a solar farm some place. Then a little light came on inside my head and I thought, "How do you know he hasn't?" I thought, maybe he has some kind of solar farm that is pumping as much power into the grid as he is taking out.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I thought. Shane, I told myself. You are not a top. You do not spin. But I didn't take the time to search and discover anything about it.

Thanks for the research, Bravus. My hat is off to you, exposing my bald spot.

[Bravus]

Grrr, I *really* wish it were possible to edit our posts here. My tone in the one above is harsher than I wanted to be, on reflection... guess this is 'be sure your sins will find you out' in practice. I apologise, Ed, for the tone.

[there buster]

scorecard for global warming predictions

Buying "green power" is just rearranging the deck chairs, buying power that would have been in the energy mix anyway. It's like buying the green M&M's when no one else cares what the color of their M&M's are.

[bevin]

Yeah - the tragedy of the commons again

This is why it takes either (a) government regulation, or ( private ownership - the public ownership & no regulation situation leads to disaster

/Bevin

[Bravus]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-roberts/talking-points-on-the-gor_b_42335.html

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

By yesterday morning, Mr Gore's team was pulled into the controversy. His environmental adviser, Kalee Kreider, said Mr Gore's fuel bills failed to tell the whole picture. All the energy used for the Nashville home came from a green-power provider to the Tennessee Valley that drew its energy from solar, wind-power and methane gas supplies, among other sources.

The Gores were installing solar panels on the roof of their home, Ms Kreider added, and Mr Gore had adopted a "carbon-neutral" life.

I agree that buying "green" power that is being produced by others doesn't help much because it will be purchased by someone somewhere anyway. However installing solar panels on the roof of their home will make a difference by producing power themselves that would not have otherwise already been in the grid.

What really helps is making one's home energy efficient. In Gore's home, for example, it is likely that many rooms are heated and air conditioned that are rarely used. The home's ductwork can be installed to create zones with dampers and computerized controls and likely cut the heating and air conditioning bill in half, if not more. Mini-chillers are also coming on the market for residential use and while they up-front cost is much more than the typical split or packaged system, they use a lot less energy in the long run.

[Bravus]

It's not true that buying green power is irrelevant, because as more people request/demand this option, utilities companies will expand their capacity to produce it.

You'd think those with great faith in the benign power of the market would understand this... and in fact be more excited by it as an alternative to more coercive/legislative approaches.

[bevin]

The other way is to bill the electricity companies for the damage their waste products do to the environment - and hence to the property of others

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

It's not true that buying green power is irrelevant, because as more people request/demand this option, utilities companies will expand their capacity to produce it.

In theory that would be true however in reality there are not enough people demanding green power to make such an impact nor do we know if there ever will be. So in a practical sense, it doesn't make much difference at all. This seems to be an area that supply and demand capitalism isn't going to solve the problem. The legislatures have to make laws regarding power generation and energy efficiency.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

The other way is to bill the electricity companies for the damage their waste products do to the environment - and hence to the property of others

This would result in the price of electricity increasing and lower income people not being able to air condition their homes or afford other electical luxeries.

Or it would result in increased regulation which results in power shortages and rolling brown-outs.

Punishing a company = punishing the consumers of that company's goods or services.

[bevin]

This is not "punishing" the company - it is simply making the price of things reflect there true cost.

Consider farming. We make farmers BUY their LAND! This raises the cost of food! Poor people can't afford as much. Does this mean that LAND should be free, so food will cost less? No - because there is a limited amount of air.

Consider steel. We make the steel factories BUY their fuel. This raises the cost of cars. Poor people can't afford as much. Does this mean that FUEL should be free, so food will cost less? No - because there is a limited amount of fuel.

Well, the same applies to waste products.

We make farmers pay to get rid of the waste products - they can't just go and dump the feces in the town square.

We make the steel companies pay to get rid of the slag - they can't just go and dump the slag in the town square.

Why do we let the farmers, steel companies, and power companies dump their CO2 into the atmosphere for free? We don't let them dump over gases that we used to - acid rain was caused by this. Why should CO2 be different?

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Farming is a bad example. The government plays with market forces in an attempt to prop up prices at times and lower them at other times. Farming does not reflect true market forces.

Steel is another poor example. Domestic steel has protective terriffs to artificially prop up its value. These are eased and made stricter from time to time depending on world demand. Certainly not an example of free market forces.

Quote:

We make farmers pay to get rid of the waste products - they can't just go and dump the feces in the town square.

No, they dump it on their fields which they use to grow the food which is later sold at the town square.

Quote:

We make the steel companies pay to get rid of the slag - they can't just go and dump the slag in the town square.

Actaully most steel slag is recycled as aggregate and used in construction. So it may actually be the base material under all that pavement at town square.

No matter how anyone tries to spin it, making power companies pay for "disposing" their CO2 into the environment is going to end up increasing the cost of electricity or cause electrical shortages. There are much better ways to deal with the problem.

[bevin]

I agree. We are currently not paying the true cost of many things because we are not paying for restoring the damage to the environment that is involved in their manufacture, use, and disposal

When there was only a few hundred million of us polluting the world in this way, it did not matter, because it was not causing a significant level of damage.

Now there are 6B of us, it does matter, because we have the capability to make the world uninhabitable.

/Bevin

[there buster]

Quote:

Mr. Gore is reported to have purchased 108 blocks a month for the last three months, which accounts for 88% - not 100% - of his average monthly usage for 2006 (18,400 kWh). And even if only 12% of his consumption is less than green, that's still equivalent to the entire electricity use for 2.5 average American households (888 kWh/month per household).

What's maybe even more interesting is the gas bill, reported to average $1,080 a month over the last year (none of these figures, first released by a Tennessee free-market think tank, have been disputed).

Nobody else seems to have done so, so it's interesting to see what that translates into in terms of emissions.

We learn from the US Department of Energy that Tennessee residential gas prices were around $13.50 per thousand cubic feet last year. So $1,080 would buy about 80,000 cubic feet. That dollar amount is an average monthly figure, so that would account for 960,000 cubic feet over the course of the year.

One cubic metre equals 35.29 cubic feet, so that translates to 27,200 cubic metres.

One cubic metre of natural gas emits 1.891 kg of CO2 (see page 13), so this represents a total of 27,200*1.891 = 51435.2 kg (51.4 tonnes) of CO2 emission.

By striking coincidence, this is within a whisker of total CO2 emissions per average US household - including household operations, automotive uses, and "indirect emissions" - which amount to about 118,000 pounds (53,636 kg).

The point bears repeating. Mr. Gore's natural gas-based emissions alone account for as much warming as the total due to electricity, heating, transport and "indirect" factors of an average American household.

But that's OK, isn't it? After all, the Gore family purchases carbon offsets - "a concept the right-wing fails to understand".

It's not just the wingnuts that fail to understand carbon offsets, however. Mr. Gore's understanding seems to elude professional doom-monger and media darling Mark Lynas as well. He approvingly cites green campaigners Carbon Trade Watch (no right wingers, they), who - in their publication The Carbon Neutral Myth (PDF) - compare offset purchases to medieval indulgences, and call the approach "fundamentally flawed".

A little more research. Let me know when it exceeds "half."