@Dandy

I think there are a handful of companies that make solar powering windows. Here is one company. http://www.xsunx.com/news32.htm Output of the window is ~1/2 that of a solar panel. Cost to buy window is ~1/4 that of a solar panel.

@Dandy

Quote:

Tell that to the people that were killed at Chernobyl or caught the radiation syndrome there or at "Three Miles Island"...

would you support cleaning up Chernobyl if some technology exists?

what are your thoughts concerning this?

Slashdot article

Quote:

"Researcher Judy Wall is experimenting with bacteria that can cleanse the radioactivity from toxic areas by rendering the heavy metals into non-toxic, inert versions. The technology is not without its flaws (the bacteria can't exist in an oxygenated environment yet), but it does have the potential to cleanse some of the world's hazardous sites. From the article: 'The bacteria Wall is studying are bio-corrosives and can change the solubility of heavy metals. They can take uranium and convert it to uraninite, a nearly insoluble substance.'"

Bacteria to cleanse

Last edited by Interesting on 14-Sep-2009 at 01:09 AM.

_________________
"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

@Interesting

Quote:

Time lapse photography of glaciers LINK and your concern here is what?

One might say watch it and see, but perhaps you have. I wil develop the photographer's theme in what for some may be an unexpected direction.

I s climate change real to you? What will make it real?

I was a teacher. A fundamental concern in teaching maths is what is called numeration - the understanding of numbers. In object rich cultures a child may arrive at school for the first time with this understanding already developed, analogue clocks frequently referred to at home for instance. Infant maths teaching is mainly focussed on numeration, not on manipulation.

We will all have known persons who freak out the moment a simple manipulation is required: "I'm no good at maths! You do it!" they say. They did not have a good grounding in numeration. Some will have got well beyond basic arithmetic yet come to a dead stop at some point. I was thrown into total confusion when the teacher introduced imaginary numbers - aren't all numbers imaginary? How can you have a number for something that doesn't exist?

People make life choices to avoid maths. It is an educational platitude that without a good grounding in numeration a student will be unable to progress beyond elementary rote manipulations. Nor will they be able to see alternate ways to do calculations other than the few drilled into them. Even in advanced classes there will be students with a sense of failure for this reason, yet not lacking in intelligence.

Therefore, regardless of the maturity of the class, a teacher who is aware of this will spend the first five minutes of a lesson working at numeration. It is usually popular with the students and gives them a sense of power, confidence in handling number, a conviction of reality rather than a confusion of abstractions. It seems so easy. There will be a lot of questions relating numbers to perception of the immediate environment. In very junior classes the first numeration session in a period will be regarded as play, with blocks, leggo, fitting shapes together.

So we hear all sorts of statements about glaciers. To quote from the video "You could stand out here your whole life and you would never see this" With time lapse photography of something that moves "glacially", we can relate the numbers to visual and temporal perceptions so the statements become real. It is only a small slice of the glacial picture. I would like it to go a lot further but that is where this effort has got to so far, it continues.

Another way in which the numeration of climate change can be developed is through tracking the shift of the seasons, and the migration of flora and fauna to adjust, or their failure to adjust. A paper just published explores this question relative to the Arctic:
Ecological Dynamics Across the Arctic Associated with Recent Climate Change. Science,, 11 September 2009: 1355-1358\ DOI: 10.1126/science.1173113
Story here: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090910142348.htm
A few examples are given but I can safely say that the effect of the paper and the press release on the public will be almost negligible because of lack of presentation in a way that can take the issue out of the world of complex abstractions and build up the weight of evidence in the public mind.

Denialists exploit this gap in communication to confuse issues - weather with climate, for example, lots of strawmen arguments, accusations against climate scientists that reflect their own behaviour - generating doubt any way they can. They do not have to be right, or consistent, or scientific, they only have to pretend to be. Most people won't be able to judge without being able to see the weight of evidence in ways they can understand.

Umisef's fridge experiment is a numeration exercise for the arctically impaired.

Back to migration of species then, there is a book published this year in the US that makes it real in a delightful way, being a pleasure to read, and the lady knows her science. In Early Spring, Amy Seidl of Vermont tracks climate change via walks with her young daughters in her garden, adjacent forest, meadows, expeditions on lakes, freeze and thaw, focussing mostly on the arrival of spring - 14 days earlier now, the mismatch between species that time spring by temperature and those that time it by day length - Lilac Time? For me it gave a better sense of the reality of climate change than the many reports I have read on the same theme.

Noel

Edit: corrected quote after watching video yet again

Last edited by NoelFuller on 12-Sep-2009 at 09:29 AM.
Last edited by NoelFuller on 12-Sep-2009 at 05:43 AM.

Oops! This ought to stir up some action

The quality of some beers are reducing - hops are being affected by climate change.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327253.400-climate-change-depresses-beer-drinkers.html

I note Greenpeace reported loss in quality of French wines because of warming too. Meanwhile NZ wines seem to be doing well - not that I care one way or the other.

Noel

@NoelFuller

It's amusing to read people bellyaching about GW even though we have seen since the LIA an average of 1C-1.2C increase every century. We have not reached the temperatures peaks that were gained during the Medieval Warming Period, we have not seen a repeat of the 1998 peak of temperatures even though the eeeeevil CO2 PPM has been increasing since then.

BTW, I have failed to read this thread religiously over the past couple of weeks, was Total Solar Energy energy transfer debated already?

_________________
Dammy

@damocles

What you cite as facts are fabrications of the denialists in their campaigns of deception. How about reading the actual science rather than stuff ful of graphs from which global warming trends have been removed, concealed or misrepresented, There are many but an excellent example is shown earlier in this thread. Follow this trail:
Page 19:
a. #375 from BrianK on human fingerprint - see evidence
b. #375 from TMT 2 graphs the first to compare with a later post, the second uses the
opposite strategy of choosing a scale that misleads the eye to imply nothing happening.

Page 23: #448 from me - 2 links, the BBC story includes a trend line on the graph. Compare with p19/b above

Page 24: #466 from TMT - an animated graph purporting to show no climate trend in high arctic

Page 26: #502 deconstruction of animation (using exact same data) by umisef displaying the previously concealed warming trend.
Page 27: #539 related fridge experiment from umisef
Page 29: #550 - explanation of the issue from umisef

The mainstream scientists are the ones producing the data. Be better informed. Most pet ideas about climate issues from the denialist camp can be checked out at this site:
http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/

Watch the time lapse video showing the faces and flow of some glaciers refered to in several posts. to get a feel for what is happening. It is here (76 MB)

Noel

Last edited by NoelFuller on 14-Sep-2009 at 04:54 AM.

@damocles

Quote:

we have not seen a repeat of the 1998 peak of temperatures even though the eeeeevil CO2 PPM has been increasing since then.

Oh yes, great play is made of this. If you examine graphs covering at least a 30 year period you will see the El Nino Southern Oscillation flowing through them. Recently there has been an apparently cooling La Nina effect, now El Nino is on its way and the temperature graph over the next few years will show that effect plus the legacy of building CO2, although the temperature response is to the CO2 level about 3 decades previously. The trend will contine up and will show an acceleration. Even if we stopped all fossil fuel based emmissions immediately (which is quite improbable, temperature would continue to climb for some time.

Noel

Edit: I forgot to add the increase in solar ativity (sunspots) for half of the solar cycle. Over a multi decadal period ENSO, NAO, sunspots have no trend. Nevertheless there will be a bit of a boost of temps with them all combined.

Last edited by NoelFuller on 14-Sep-2009 at 08:23 AM.

@BrianK

Quote:

TMTisFree - So why not using the reliable satellite data? BrianK - Leading question with a false assumption. Satellite data is indeed used.

A belated response. We gather that the proof that more CO2 results in more heating relates to experiments and measurements that have resulted in the vast field of radiative transfer physics. This physics is built into every climate model - we see how much TMT deplores it. So fast forward to "reliable satellite data" - those that measure surface temperature for instance. The satellites concerned carry onboard computers wherein the same radiative transfer physics is built in. Via this processing come reliable readings.

I thought some people would like to know this. :)

There is very little explanation for the public of the NASA Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE) on the net: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/erbe/ASDerbe.html
Hence ERBE data is another field for cherry picking now being exploited by Lintzen et al. There are parts where more radiation is emmitted than received and other parts where the opposite is the case, overall less is emmitted than is received, therefore global warming. If you wanted to prove the opposite to the public, where would you concentrate your attention?

Noel

Last edited by NoelFuller on 14-Sep-2009 at 04:46 AM.

@Interesting

Quote:

Interesting wrote: @Dandy Quote: Tell that to the people that were killed at Chernobyl or caught the radiation syndrome there or at "Three Miles Island"... would you support cleaning up Chernobyl if some technology exists?

Of course.
But would that also help the victims?

Quote:

Interesting wrote: what are your thoughts concerning this? ...

Pure ScienceFiction up to now, I'd say:
"The bacteria can't exist in an oxygenated environment yet"

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

@Interesting

Quote:

Interesting wrote: @Dandy Quote: Lies (in the form of a paper payed for by the US nuclear lobby - the author Bernard L. Cohen is/was member of the "American Nuclear Society" and won the American Nuclear Society "Walter Zinn"-Award) of Jan. 1983 are not going to contain any more truth if you repeat them in 2009. hmmm much anger in this one.

Not on my side...

Quote:

Interesting wrote: Quote: In strong contrast to you I worked on the fast breeder back then and have a deeper insight in what happened than you will ever have... maybe so, but are you a Nuclear engineer?

I'm an engineer that worked for Interatom (in the structural steelwork field) back then and was concerned with the structural calculations of e.g. the walkable covers of the sodium cooling basins of the SNR-300 (Fast Breeding Reactor in Kalkar).

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

@Dandy

Quote:

Pure ScienceFiction up to now, I'd say: "The bacteria can't exist in an oxygenated environment yet"

Not to mention that whatever the bacteria do, it's chemistry --- which means it's all about electron shells, and not about nuclei.

On the other hand, radioactivity is all about physics, or more precisely the number of neutrons in the nucleus, and how stable (or not) the nucleus is as a result.

Thus, bacteria are not going to do *anything* about the radiation --- simply because bacteria do not change nuclei, but rather molecules.
What the bacteria *can* do is to bind the radioactive stuff (and just as much the non-radioactive isotopes of the same elements) into molecules which are in some way more "stable". Not in a radioactivity sense, of course (nuclei don't care what molecule they are in), but in a "may not be water soluble anymore, thus not leech into the ground water, but rather stay where it is" sense.

Which, if one is honest about it, is not quite the same as "cleaning up". It's more along the lines of being better at quarantining the dirty stuff. Think of Chernobyl right now as 8 week old Chinese takeaway in your fridge, in its original (and by now thoroughly soaked through) paper takeaway box. Chernobyl-after-the-bacteria would be the same 8 week old takeaway, still in your fridge, but now in an airtight tupperware container. Better, for sure, but very very far from "good".

@umisef

Quote:

Chernobyl-after-the-bacteria would be the same 8 week old takeaway, still in your fridge, but now in an airtight tupperware container. Better, for sure, but very very far from "good".

Classy explanation, but what have you done to me? I'm going to be going around visualising bacteria as tupperware boxes :) I used to know a molecular biologist who headed up a team that discovered high temperature bacteria living in our abundent thermal pools (100°C plus) and started a big if esoteric industry in tailoring them for catalyzing continuous industrial processes. I wrote a big story for a trade magazine about it. I got to see bacteria as toolbags carrying every conceivable device for assaulting the neighborhood.

Noel

Last edited by NoelFuller on 14-Sep-2009 at 01:49 PM.

@Dandy

Quote:

Of course. But would that also help the victims?

the victims are living in contaminated areas so they need the help. If you care there are many jobs that could be available for years for this remediation.
.Chernobyl radiation map 1996



Quote:

Pure ScienceFiction up to now, I'd say: "The bacteria can't exist in an oxygenated environment yet"

See this is where you and I differ. I find oxygen as the safety mechanism to kill the bacteria once the work is done. I really don’t care to have this new bacteria out in the environment. These bacteria should be used as a new tool, used then put away

_________________
"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

@umisef

Quote:

Which, if one is honest about it, is not quite the same as "cleaning up". It's more along the lines of being better at quarantining the dirty stuff. Think of Chernobyl right now as 8 week old Chinese takeaway in your fridge, in its original (and by now thoroughly soaked through) paper takeaway box. Chernobyl-after-the-bacteria would be the same 8 week old takeaway, still in your fridge, but now in an airtight tupperware container. Better, for sure, but very very far from "good".

Recently viewed something on tv about soil “Remediation” after being contaminated with diesel oil for some years. The remediation process was accomplished in many steps. So in my view this new bacteria might be only the first, of several necessary steps.

At the moment the concern is that the quickly built sarcophagus is going to crash, and radioactive dust put back into the enviroment. We are looking at a future Chernobyl II. The danger being the spread of radioactive materials again.

The real key as I see things is the oxygen
Why is the concrete etc going to fail? Corrosion caused by oxygen and water leaking and rusting out the metal within the concrete, among other things. So in my view building another cover is not fixing the problem, just delaying it. Further, the bateria only lives in an oxygen free enviroment, win, win!

I have questions about how bacteria will react with Graphite and other elements included in the mix, and the finished product being produced ? But no matter what Remediation Rather than containment should be looked at?

_________________
"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker

"Climate change deniers are all leaf and no plums"

Ian Plimmer challenged Monbiot to a debate. He was relutant to accept as it takes 30 seonds to make a false statement and 30 minutes to refute it. Eventually Monbiot accepted on condition Plimmer respond with written answers to his questions and vice versa. An account of the result has been published in the Guardian and can be found here:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/14/answers-come-there-none/

We know what he is talking about.

Noel

@Interesting

Quote:

Interesting wrote: @Dandy Quote: Of course. But would that also help the victims? the victims are living in contaminated areas so they need the help.

As far as they survived at all...

chapter6:
"...
How many people died of radiation? No one knows - not even approximately. The official casualty reports range from 300 to 300,000 and many unofficial sources put the toll over 400,000.
The final toll will not be known in our lifetime, and maybe not our childrens either.
..."


B.T.W. - contaminated areas have been evacuated. Cities have been given up and are ghost towns now:

Chernobyl - ghost tows

Quote:

Interesting wrote: If you care there are many jobs that could be available for years for this remediation. Chernobyl radiation map 1996

Now that sounds rather cynical.
Would you be glad about a job where you have to risk your health or even your life by being exposed to radioactivity?

chapter7 - The Liquidators:

"...
The Liquidators are those people who were recruited or forced to assist in the cleanup or the "liquidation" of the consequences of the accident.

As a totalitarian government the Soviet Union forced many young soldiers to assist in the cleanup of the Chernobyl accident, apparently without sufficient protective clothing and insufficient explanation of the danger involved.

Over 650,000 liquidators helped in the cleanup of the Chernobyl disaster in the first year. Many of those who worked as liquidators became ill and according to some estimates about 8,000 to 10,000 have died from the radioactive dose they received at the Chornobyl Power Plant.
..."

Quote:

Interesting wrote: Quote: Pure ScienceFiction up to now, I'd say: "The bacteria can't exist in an oxygenated environment yet" See this is where you and I differ. I find oxygen as the safety mechanism to kill the bacteria once the work is done. I really don’t care to have this new bacteria out in the environment. These bacteria should be used as a new tool, used then put away

I'd rather say those bacteria should be researched in depth and scrutinised first.

_________________
Ciao

Dandy
__________________________________________
If someone enjoys marching to military music, then I already despise him.
He got his brain accidently - the bone marrow in his back would have been sufficient for him!
(Albert Einstein)

@Dandy

Quote:

Would you be glad about a job where you have to risk your health or even your life by being exposed to radioactivity?

Strangely there are people who do just that in the radioactive area around Chenobyle voluntarily and for scientific reasons, as the many reports relating to the area attest. One that springs to mind investigated rumours that wildlife was thriving in the human abandoned area - if the birds can do it, is the radiation that bad? So in they went to find out how birds were coping with radiation. As I recollect they found that birds with highly coloured plumage were not doing well in comparison to their dowdier cousins. The argument goes that anti-oxidents provide some front line of defence against radiation poisoning, for what its worth; but the anti-oxidents are the very same that provide the bright colours. Therefore birds with bright plumage are sacrificing this natural internal protection to external display.

I don't recall the overall conlusion.

Noel

@NoelFuller

Quote:

"Climate change deniers are all leaf and no plums"

Good links. Thanks.

World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change
http://www.worldbank.org/wdr2010
The full text PDF is 365 pages, but it is possible to get it in parts.

An advance version of this report was released September 15. I'm just beginning to plow through it, interest heightened because so many nations are staking out positions prior to the December Copenhagen conference and the ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) that may result.

There are several news stories already running on it, on the BBC for instance. An already oft quoted statement goes "Development will get harder, not easier, with climate change".

Our current NZ government has just published a proposed scheme that is spectacularly weak kneed, claiming that the cost to the citizens will be lowest and "balance" is needed. So what does balance mean? People are doing their sums and concluding that the taxpayer will be subsidising the big emmitters, particularly big overseas investors, and this subsidisation is going to get more costly rather than less as time goes on.

Apropos to all this is an article published online here:
http://paulgilding.com/cockatoo-chronicles/cc20090910paralleluniverses.html
"The Parallel Universes of Climate Change. Where do you live?" In 20 years children will be asking, "What did you do in 2009 and why?" The author suggests 2009 is to climate change as 1939 was to World War II. He concludes with a quote from Churchill that seems to sum up our politicians, and the current situation aptly:

Quote:

"They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent . . . Owing to past neglect, in the face of the plainest warnings, we have entered upon a period of danger.  The era of procrastination, of half measures, of soothing and baffling expedience of delays, is coming to its close.  In its place we are entering a period of consequences . . . We cannot avoid this period, we are in it now . . ." Winston Churchill, November 12, 1936

Hmm . . .
Noel

@Dandy

Quote:

B.T.W. - contaminated areas have been evacuated. Cities have been given up and are ghost towns now:

yes I know thats why i said "the victims are living in contaminated areas so they need the help. " I saw a map of the contamination area (lost the link). These people need help.

Quote:

Would you be glad about a job where you have to risk your health or even your life by being exposed to radioactivity?

that's why I asked you the question? "Would you support cleaning up Chernobyl if some technology exists?"

You replyed: Quote:

Of course. But would that also help the victims?

so in your own words:
Quote:

Now that's what I call hypocrite!

You are afraid of a little Radiation when the long term health of the entire area is at risk? Talk is cheap, besides you work with Radiation protection equipment.

Quote:

I'd rather say those bacteria should be researched in depth and scrutinised first.

yet you buy into the GW "quick fixes" for a problem that might not exist.

_________________
"The system no longer works " -- Young Anakin Skywalker