COP21 Climate Change Summit Reaches Deal In Paris

Well, we have to remember that even if we go through a mini ice age, there is still enough heat stored in the ocean depths to kill off most of humanity!

True. A recent article from a British reporter said Americans obsess about the weather more than the climate, Perhaps it's because you live in a mainly temperate zone and when you get extreme weather from time to time it's a big deal, more so than us. I suppose in the UK we expect it to be rainy, cool and overcast most of the time and see a sunny day as a bonus. But, when that bonus comes and lasts a while then it really comes home how ill prepared we are for it.

On the bad weather side though, we have all our electricity on 100 ft steel pylons and rarely lose power for long. No 20 feet wooden poles next to trees.

Yep, there's been some bad investments, but there's been far more good ones. Let's not simply cherry-pick the losers.

We also don't need to prop up Big Oil with a lower tax rate than competing energy industries get, especially considering Big Oil is the most profitable industry in the history of man kind.


And there's a number of creative people making huge improvements with green energy.


As I've pointed out a number of times before, Elon Musk's batteries may solve many of the energy storage problems. Super salts also store heat from solar very well and can be used to generate steam to power generators long after the sun is down. Combined, they offer a lot of promise.


And oil needs drilling and transportation, refining, etc.


Yes, there's a number of potential solutions. For fuels it will also come down to emissions as well as things like taking resources away from producing food, etc.



Fossil fuels being "cheap" is only if we ignore the real costs. If the tax breaks and health costs are factored in, they aren't so cheap. This doesn't include the military expenses we have spent, and continue to spend, protecting Big Oil's interests in the Middle East. And these expenses are not just monetary, they also include lives and limbs.


And none of my points have even take into consideration Global Warming, which possibly has caused lots of weather related destruction and will likely cause even more in the future.


Carbon based fuels aren't nearly as inexpensive as the price at the pump makes many of us believe. There's many other expenses that aren't included.


On top of all of this is China has finally realized the true costs of all their pollution. This has caused them to greatly increase their production of solar cells/panels, causing the cost of solar systems to drastically fall.


And, this decrease in solar prices from China is a primary factor in many of the US solar manufacturers to fail. So it isn't really accurate to say that some US solar businesses have failed due to technology. They've actually failed because of economics and the low costs of Chinese solar systems.


You can now get solar panels for about 75 cents per watt, and in some cases even cheaper. Add this to education about being more energy efficient (like using black window shades in winter and white in summer) and we can greatly reduce our pollution.


There's also things like coal powered electrical plants and wasted energy. It's more effective to keep the generators running all the time than turning them off, then back on. At night, very little electricity is used compared to peak day time hours, but the generators keep running, producing electricity that isn't used.


With Musk's industrial battery systems to store electricity, along with encouraging people to use electricity during off peak hours (like putting timers on washers and dryers and charging electric cars), we can use a lot less fuel while still using the same amount of electricity.


How about encouraging businesses not to let every worker off at the same time so there is less traffic congestion during "rush hour"? There's a lot of energy wasted because everyone tries to go home at the same time.

So, we should keep on propping up fossil fuel companies, including, but not limited to, invading foreign lands to maintain the supply of said fuels.

We need that even less.

We are on the cusp of a new industrial revolution. A lot of companies, technologies and ideas will emerge and die as they have with every new wave of technological advancement.
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Look at how many car manufacturers rose and died in the early 1900's. Look at how many dot coms rose and died at the turn of this century. Look at how many search engines there were not so long ago.

This is no different. A lot of ideas both good and bad will emerge and die over the next decade or so. Eventually we'll be left with the best of these ideas and we'll wonder how we ever managed without them. Just as we did with cars, the internet, smartphones etc., etc., etc..

The only difference between then and now is that what was replaced wasn't going to kill most forms of life on the only home we have.

Adapt or perish.

Tesla circuit.