Wind Power - Contributor to Global Warming?

[CitizenBBN]

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/artic...thought-it-was

This one's for Dan, who has a keen interest and insight on these issues.

Turns out if you take energy out of winds, which is transferred to turbines, you change wind and air flows. That actually creates warmer temperatures, both locally around wind farms and down the line. It actually warms the atmosphere.

Apparently solar has less impact and is a better choice. It also discusses how wind just doesn't gain enough watts per meter of land to make it work well.

Doesn't mean it isn't an option, and isn't better than other options, just thought it was interesting how nothing is a free lunch.

and that's not to mention the environmental impact locally on birds and thus the entire food chain. These farms are killing a LOT of protected and endangered birds as well.

[Catonahottinroof]

Somehow I though this link was going to be about cow flatulence....

[CitizenBBN]

lol.

[KeithKSR]

The Climate Change politicians worshippers aren’t concerned with global warming, they are concerned with global control. If Obama and the left were concerned with global warming they would have spent the money that went into Solindra and other wasted green ventures on solar panels for American homes. A trillion dollars would have put solar systems on over 33 million homes.

[dan_bgblue]

The study probably investigated this and took it into account but there is no mention of it in the article. The disruption of the prevailing winds affects rainfall and cloud cover in the area and down wind of the farms. Lack of cloud cover increases sunlight reaching the soil which increases the temperature of the earth's heat sink, and therefore it remains warmer at night. Decreasing rainfall decreases the evaporative cooling in the area which makes the average temps in the summer higher.

[DanISSELisdaman]

I took a trip West in August and saw multiple wind farms. Every farm we passed, had probably 5% or less of the windmills operating. One of the guys with us said he had been there 3 or 4 years ago, and there was many more windmills at that time than there is now. It sounds like the government put a lot of money into a crawdad hole to me.

[kingcat]

Whatever causes it our descendants are in for a rough haul. I just hope we are not proven to blame and our generation is looked back on kindly.

[dan_bgblue]

Whatever causes it our descendants are in for a rough haul. I just hope we are not proven to blame and our generation is looked back on kindly.

I think it is safe to say that we are the only generation to be able to claim that the next ice age AND the ending of life as we know it due to global warming have occurred during our lifetimes.

https://harpers.org/archive/1958/09/the-coming-ice-age/

[CitizenBBN]

The world will change and be different, but I have a feeling the longest term negative impacts this era will leave are more subtle. Rising mercury and other toxin levels in the food chain, the clear cutting of our ocean life, development of super bugs due to rampant use of antibiotics. Those will be the things that come to bite us hardest IMO.

[dan_bgblue]

The world will change and be different, but I have a feeling the longest term negative impacts this era will leave are more subtle. Rising mercury and other toxin levels in the food chain, the clear cutting of our ocean life, development of super bugs due to rampant use of antibiotics. Those will be the things that come to bite us hardest IMO.

I agree with you, but will add that the current lack of social harmony between the races, men and women, and the military powers of the affluent nations will leave a lasting negative mark among the people of the world.

[CitizenBBN]

I agree with you, but will add that the current lack of social harmony between the races, men and women, and the military powers of the affluent nations will leave a lasting negative mark among the people of the world.

No argument.

We're close to reaching a point where the price of war will be much lower b/c we won't have to put humans on the front lines. I'll be curious to see what happens when that day comes full force. Much easier to go kill the enemy when you arent' risking anything but equipment.

Within the US I agree the growing chasm between the two sides is only going to widen, as the two views are in the end simply incompatible. So long as we agreed to give and take around the basic American principles it was OK, but there is absolutely nothing in notions like socialized medicine and open borders that is able to coexist with individual liberty and limited government heavy on self-reliance.

The center simply cannot hold.

[KeithKSR]

If the planet gets warmer it also gets wetter and greener.

[kingcat]

Not everywhere. The somewhat dry and hot areas get dryer and hotter. While the dry, hot areas become unable to sustain life. Extreme heat kills more Americans each year, on average, than hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and lightning combined.
And the number of billion-dollar weather disasters like severe storms, floods, drought, and wildfires will rise.

Heavier rains cause streams, rivers, and lakes to overflow, which damages life and property, contaminates drinking water, creates hazardous-material spills, and promotes mold infestation and unhealthy air. A warmer, wetter world is also a boon for food-borne and waterborne illnesses and disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks.

Rising temperatures also worsen air pollution by increasing ground level ozone and also significantly increase airborne pollen. Dirty air in turn presents higher death rates for asthmatics. It also worsens the health of people suffering from cardiac or pulmonary disease


A 2015 study showed that animals with backbones, like fish, birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles—are disappearing 114 times faster than they should be, a phenomenon that has been linked to climate change, pollution, and deforestation.

Average temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere on earth, and the world's ice sheets are melting fast. This not only has grave consequences for the region's people, wildlife, and plants; its most serious impact may be on rising sea levels. By 2100, it's estimated our oceans will be one to four feet higher, threatening coastal systems and low-lying areas, including entire island nations and the world's largest cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Miami..

These things are happening and more. But we can hope that a volcano or two, (or worse) blot out the sun and cool temps I guess.
And whatever the cause, this is real.

Yet the Lord teaches that men's hearts will fail them for fear of the things coming upon the world. But God is in control and has not appointed his children to wrath. So Christians have faith in a new heaven and new earth to come when this old one is changed or passes away. And it will.

[CitizenBBN]

Been following this issue since the 1970s. Back then it was the ice age coming, and that was real too, and the studies showed it. Now they show the opposite.

There's no doubt pollution is a problem for the food chain. But that's easy enough to see, and it's not based on something as hard to understand as the earth's temperature and weather patterns. We keep putting poison in the food chain, and you won't get a good result.

Climate is far more difficult to understand. So are its impacts. I've seen a ton of research on this over the years, and it continues to shift a lot and contradict a lot.

I'm all for humans reducing their pollution of the planet, in every way. So far I haven't seen any serious attempt to do that in a meaningful way, and bc it's a global issue we're going to have real problems doing much of anything about it.

[kingcat]

I see it as commonly understood by scientists worldwide what the effects will be except for an insignificant handful. Over nine of ten scientific minds is pretty convincing. And NASA was the decisive factor for me to believe it wholly..

Not as much on what caused it or if we can prevent the devastation we are leaving to the next generations..although there is pretty much a consensus there too.
As for the ice age, the warming will take effect before that happens, but it is a part of the same natural progression. A progression which we have aided and advanced imo

[CitizenBBN]

I know the research. I also know how research works, and how groupthink works in scientific circles. I know how the people who for years clung to the theory the dinosaurs were killed by a meteor were laughed out of every corner of the scientific community, until they were finally proven correct. I know how research grants get done too.

Now that doesn't mean we don't have climate change. Of course we have climate change. We've always had climate change. whether we were here or not we'd have climate change.

Separating what is from humans from other causes, and figuring out what to do and what will happen, that's much more muddy.

This thing is an onion with a ton of layers, esp. the questions about the impact. I don't have time to scratch that surface. Suffice to say we can all agree it's safest to have as little impact on the environment as possible, but it's also true we have very limited control over that situation. With China and India now industrializing, and with many times our population, we in the US have very limited options.

our best hope is finding a dilithium type power source, but that's unlikely. Or a plague eradicating half the population like Thanos' plan, which would also work albeit with some pretty dire consequences.

[kingcat]

I know the research. I also know how research works, and how groupthink works in scientific circles. I know how the people who for years clung to the theory the dinosaurs were killed by a meteor were laughed out of every corner of the scientific community, until they were finally proven correct. I know how research grants get done too.

Now that doesn't mean we don't have climate change. Of course we have climate change. We've always had climate change. whether we were here or not we'd have climate change.

Separating what is from humans from other causes, and figuring out what to do and what will happen, that's much more muddy.

This thing is an onion with a ton of layers, esp. the questions about the impact. I don't have time to scratch that surface. Suffice to say we can all agree it's safest to have as little impact on the environment as possible, but it's also true we have very limited control over that situation. With China and India now industrializing, and with many times our population, we in the US have very limited options.

our best hope is finding a dilithium type power source, but that's unlikely. Or a plague eradicating half the population like Thanos' plan, which would also work albeit with some pretty dire consequences.

Rigel 12 right? Mudd’s Women still run that?

[KeithKSR]

I see it as commonly understood by scientists worldwide what the effects will be except for an insignificant handful. Over nine of ten scientific minds is pretty convincing. And NASA was the decisive factor for me to believe it wholly..

Not as much on what caused it or if we can prevent the devastation we are leaving to the next generations..although there is pretty much a consensus there too.
As for the ice age, the warming will take effect before that happens, but it is a part of the same natural progression. A progression which we have aided and advanced imo

NASA is prone to contradicting their public man made global warming with data that doesn’t jive with the political side of things.

Cooler temps make deserts bigger.

[dan_bgblue]

Greening of the Desert

Greening of the desert to increase hurricane activity?

[KeithKSR]

Greening of the Desert

Greening of the desert to increase hurricane activity?

4A008EE1-04FF-4E1C-B422-DB180A25415A.jpeg

Few areas with decreasing foliage.

[CitizenBBN]

I'm no expert, but I have been reading this research since the late 1970s. it's stunning how many layers it has, and how they contradict.

I've read studies showing that increased warming = increased plant production, and then that's contradicted by notions of offsetting factors like increased insect populations due to warmer winters.

It goes on like that, move and counter move, and in the end we dont' really know b/c there are too many variables, too many interactions.

But while I imagine there will be good and bad, I find it hard to believe the zone we've known, within just one degree, is the only one in which the human race will survive and thrive. That's a pretty myopic view.

[CitizenBBN]

But it would be funny if we ended up re-foliating the rain forests by increasing CO2 an warmth, leading to saving of countless very narrow species in the region. I'd laugh and laugh....