If this survey is real the messages these young people are receiving are completely wrong.
We need to reduce our impact on our planet but CO2 is a complete red herring. The current ECS (temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere) is centred around 3°C (IPCC AR6). The 2°C will destroy civilisation is simply made up.
Peter,
‘BTW, thanks for clarifying your position on the Stott contention. I wonder why you haven't written it up and submitted it to ASL?’
Because I have had enough of the peer review process. It is designed to maintain the status quo of the peer group.
A lot of the data on radiation effects, as you say, come from the atomic bomb victims. Some also comes from other accidents. All this data is for short term exposures and does not relate to long term exposure to low level radiation. The best data for long term low level exposures comes from the Taiwanese apartment blocks that were built with rebar contaminated with Cobalt 60. Around 10 000 occupants received elevated doses of radiation. As with the atomic bomb victims the doses had to be reconstructed so this brings a significant source of variability but published studies suggest minimal health effects at lower dose’s and some possible health benefits. The data certainly does not support the Linear No Threshold theory and collective dose which are currently used.
This is important as realistic dose limits are required for sensible planning of nuclear power plants and the storage and processing of used fuel.
The British Green Activist George Monbiot had an interesting experience when he started looking into the anti-nuclear movement. They were mostly making it up as they went along with no scientific basis.
https://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/22/how-the-greens-were-misled/
https://www.monbiot.com/2011/04/04/evidence-meltdown/
I did challenge George to carry out a similar investigation into AGW but he wouldn’t at the time.
There are good engineering and safety reasons for not reintroducing nuclear fission power plants which have nothing at all to do with any of the issues about climate change and neither do they have anything to do with scaremongering. There is first of all the operational safety; second, the waste problem, which has not been solved in seventy years. But that is not the topic of this thread.
At the risk of stirring, I disagree.
operational safety is good - a handful of accidents over 75 years with more than 500 land base full size power stations running today, perhaps 100-200 small ones in submarines, not to mention small nuclear sources on using radioactive decay for direct heat of remote weather stations and so forth, from a few hundred watts to kW - a few of those are on satellites (no new launched for a while though)
Waste - you need a big car park. It is only a problem if you try and make the waste less radioactive than the background - a lot of low level waste you could sit on all day. Some you could not- but we are not very grown up about the difference.
Compare to mining accidents or leaks of nasty chemicals that have killed folk over the same period that seem to have a few a year, (Bhopal disaster, Exxon Valdez, Probo Koala, Aberfan, Sago mine, Flint Water scandal ..)
mike
Jon Steward:
Vested interest parties are all over this CO2 net zero 'big time'!!!
There are vested interests on every side of every big public and political discussion. The trick is to use your experience as an engineer to look hard at the science and try to figure out which scientific contentions are right and which are wrong. Let me invite you to try doing so.
There is science of this going back many, many decades which has not been “hijacked” by anybody. Significant anthropogenic effects on the atmosphere have been known - I emphasise the word “known” - since the 1960's, starting with the ozone layer. An eminent colleague tells me about his relative, an eminent spectroscopist, who was concerned that the emissions which were affecting the ozone layer were actually doing greater damage through their absorption in the near infra-red. I hazard a guess none of us were around for such discussions but that is where the greenhouse effect arose.
Many, decades ago the planet was said to be cooling and proven wrong, truth is we barely understand the planet and how it works. Early days I'd say. So why scare the sh1t out of everyone and hold the world to ransom unless of course there's money and power to be gained, which is exactly what going on. I wonder when the world is going to wake up to this!
If you don't engage with the science in order to substantiate your inclinations, then the world may be well advised to carry on sleeping until you do. I do agree with you that it can be pretty hard to find out when and if people have good reason for believing what they believe.
Let me put the same question to you as I did to Roger. What is wrong with Karoly and Stott's contention that the CET has risen by 1° since 1950, and that this is very probably (with the percentage given) due to anthropogenic warming? If you think it's wrong, what is your counterargument? Is it sufficiently robust that you can publish it?
When we are done with that, let's go to the work on the European heatwave of 2003, the chances of which Stott, Stone and Allen estimated to a confidence level of greater than 90% had doubled due to anthropogenic effects on climate.
The basic premise of protect our planet by reducing our consumption of finite resources, reducing waste and sensible use of land and sea is good and defensible. Unfortunately this has been hijacked by the CO2 brigade
I agree with this statement. Vested interest parties are all over this CO2 net zero 'big time'!!!
There is science of this going back many, many decades which has not been “hijacked” by anybody. Significant anthropogenic effects on the atmosphere have been known - I emphasise the word “known” - since the 1960's, starting with the ozone layer. An eminent colleague tells me about his relative, an eminent spectroscopist, who was concerned that the emissions which were affecting the ozone layer were actually doing greater damage through their absorption in the near infra-red. I hazard a guess none of us were around for such discussions but that is where the greenhouse effect arose.
Many, decades ago the planet was said to be cooling and proven wrong, truth is we barely understand the planet and how it works. Early days I'd say. So why scare the sh1t out of everyone and hold the world to ransom unless of course there's money and power to be gained, which is exactly what going on. I wonder when the world is going to wake up to this!
Roger Bryant:
The development of the whole climate change scenario bears a resemblance to the low level radiation risks problem.
The science was interfered with on supposedly morally defensible grounds which has had and will have long term detrimental effects.
Well, actually no.
BTW, thanks for clarifying your position on the Stott contention. I wonder why you haven't written it up and submitted it to ASL?
In the case of low level radiation the effects were accentuated with a view to stopping atmospheric nuclear testing.
Actually, no.
The cohort studied for the effects of radiation on the human body was and is the Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivors. Most of what is known comes from such studies. Many of those studies are published (for free) by the National Academies Press of the US National Academy of Sciences (BTW, there is more on this subject there, for free, than anyone will ever get to read unless they specialise). I last got into that about twenty years ago. There is no trace of any political agenda. After all, the facts of what happened to those poor people are pretty accessible; you can't manipulate the data set.
The issues with low-level ionising radiation are straightforward. There are lots of confounding factors and it is exceptionally hard to factor them out. No one has yet succeeded. There are two possible conclusions you can draw. One is that the influence of ionising radiation below the level at which we can control for confounding factors is, as luck would have it, biologically negligible. The other is that the effects we see at higher levels which we can distinguish are broadly thus-and-so and it makes sense to extrapolate these to low levels also. Since the basic causal mechanism and physiology is known - particle hits cell; genome gets zapped, cell does weird things - it does seem to most people that extrapolating downwards is the better of these two alternatives.
The science was and is obviously wrong
Maybe you should write to the National Academies explaining this?
The basic premise of protect our planet by reducing our consumption of finite resources, reducing waste and sensible use of land and sea is good and defensible. Unfortunately this has been hijacked by the CO2 brigade
There is science of this going back many, many decades which has not been “hijacked” by anybody. Significant anthropogenic effects on the atmosphere have been known - I emphasise the word “known” - since the 1960's, starting with the ozone layer. An eminent colleague tells me about his relative, an eminent spectroscopist, who was concerned that the emissions which were affecting the ozone layer were actually doing greater damage through their absorption in the near infra-red. I hazard a guess none of us were around for such discussions but that is where the greenhouse effect arose.
The same scaremongering techniques are used in both cases, although there are generally less anti-nuclear protests the fear instilled in people is still there. The climate change fear being generated was the reason for starting this thread.
There are good engineering and safety reasons for not reintroducing nuclear fission power plants which have nothing at all to do with any of the issues about climate change and neither do they have anything to do with scaremongering. There is first of all the operational safety; second, the waste problem, which has not been solved in seventy years. But that is not the topic of this thread.
The development of the whole climate change scenario bears a resemblance to the low level radiation risks problem.
The science was interfered with on supposedly morally defensible grounds which has had and will have long term detrimental effects.
In the case of low level radiation the effects were accentuated with a view to stopping atmospheric nuclear testing. Apparently a good thing but has resulted in 10’s thousands of deaths due to unnecessary evacuations and unnecessary abortions as well as many deaths relating to the fossil fuel industry and associated pollution that could have been avoided by the greater uptake of nuclear power.
The science was and is obviously wrong when you look at the lack of effects from the large variations in natural background radiation levels. If LNT was correct it would be visible in it’s effects in high radiation areas of the world. There are people still looking but have not come up with anything yet. Others are researching the opposite, that low level radiation is beneficial or necessary.
Higher levels of radiation (more than 100 mSv short term dose) have detrimental effects and above 1 Sv are definitely harmful.
The basic premise of protect our planet by reducing our consumption of finite resources, reducing waste and sensible use of land and sea is good and defensible. Unfortunately this has been hijacked by the CO2 brigade who are using incomplete ‘science’ to promote their view that we need to use vast amounts of our finite resources to promote inefficient ‘renewable energy’ sources. In most cases reality is simply ignored and everything is blamed on man-made climate change. Property destruction due to wildfires is caused by stopping natural burning of waste material and building evermore in and close to forests. Flooding is very often caused by building in floodplains or by bad land management removing run off areas.
The same scaremongering techniques are used in both cases, although there are generally less anti-nuclear protests the fear instilled in people is still there. The climate change fear being generated was the reason for starting this thread.
Peter,
As I said above for the given data from 1950 (why was 1950 the chosen startpoint?) the natural effects must be significantly greater than any man made forcing to allow the drop in temperture. Therefore he is wrong, we are both wrong or the datset is incomplete/incorrect.
Peter Bernard Ladkin: Which is it?
Two side of the fence we sit. One saying we're doomed unless we blow all our hard earned on discredited CO2 green agenda. The other saying hang on a minute are you really sure about that.
One Example.
In the UK last week scotish wind farms were paid 1.8 million quid from tax payers to stop the turbines for 3 days as the infrastructure is not in place to distribute the energy to where it was needed.
I'm sharpening my pitch fork for that reason alone.
Roger Bryant:
I think that your question may be a little simplistic.
The question was absolutely clear. The answer is “yes”, or the answer is “no”. Or, maybe, “I don't know”.
If I understand what you say, you are manifestly disagreeing with Karoly/Stott about the results of the paper I cited. You are both talking about exactly the same data set. Either you are right and they are wrong, or they are right and you are wrong, or you are both wrong. Which is it?
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