Global Warming?

Global Warming/Climate Change

People seem to want to deny global warming/climate change, claiming there are no “facts”.  What facts do they want?  That the glaciers and ice caps are not melting? That the sea levels are not rising? But those are facts. Perhaps there is some explanation other than global warming? What would that be, then?

The fact that some people like Al Gore are making money from it doesn’t change the facts. It adds the fact that Gore, along with other people, are opportunists. Of course he won’t debate it because he is not a scientist and not equipped to do so. He is simply an opportunistic politician (a redundancy, I know) that serves as a front man because of his visibility and it does make money for him. Evidence of his hypocrisy is in his personal lifestyle of a 20,000 sq ft house, executive jet travel, and other environmental sins.

Nonetheless, AG’s hypocrisy and opportunism doesn’t change the facts of global warming. His inability to debate it doesn’t alter the fact the there are plenty of real scientists qualified to do so and that are debating it every day. So are the proponents of alternative energy sources scammers? Some are, no doubt. Follow the money. Others are only misguided and painfully unaware of basic physics.

The total causes of global warming are not totally clear. Even ardent supporters of it concede that. That the exponentially increasing use of energy by humans is at least partially to blame is also clear. What I believe is that a total change from fossil fuels is not the answer. That ignores the law of conservation of energy. All energy use, from whatever source, eventually becomes heat. If every car, bus, boat, train, and even plane in the world were powered by electricity created only from wind, hydro, and solar sources, it would not reduce the heat output by any significant amount. It would only shift the cause from one thing to another. Nor would using hydrogen be any different.

All of these sources create heat when making electricity. A generator or electric motor becomes hot when turning. A battery becomes hot when charging or discharging. Manufacturing any of these creates more heat as well as chemical pollution. The big thing is heat pollution. So what’s the answer to that? Let’s look at the problem. More and more people using more and more cars, refrigerators, TVs, computers, etc.

As the global standard of living rises, as it is in the most populated areas like China and India, the energy consumption also rises.

The solution? Fewer people. Reduce the seven billion people on the planet to three or four billion and most of the problem disappears. How do we do that? By genuinely having a separation of church and state, something that certainly has never existed in the USA or most of the world. Religions that promote endless reproduction are not only self-serving at the expense of humanity, they are contributing to the destruction of the environment as we know it.

As I have said many times, most of the problems of the world are, and always have been, caused by religion. Add to those crimes, the destruction of the environment.

Another Look at Green Energy

We are seeing a lot of proposals about pollution, global warming, fossil fuels, and alternative energy sources. I think they are all missing the point. The real problem is too many people on the planet using too much energy. The most basic law of physics is the law of conservation of energy. All energy, from whatever source, eventually becomes heat.

If you create electricity from hydroelectric plants, cleaner even than nuclear plants, making the electricity creates heat. Turning the turbines creates heat, running the generators creates heat. Transmitting the electricity through wires creates heat from the electrical resistance. Using the electricity creates heat. For that matter, building the dams, turbines, and generators all create heat and often other environmental pollutants.

It’s an unavoidable law of nature. All energy creation and use makes heat. Reduce the number of people on the planet by maybe 1/2 and most environmental problems are solved.

Wind energy? The bird kill problem would be solved by a different design for windmills. Vertical axis designs have been demonstrated that are more efficient, do not kill birds, and are cheaper to make. Even so, when you build them and their necessary generators and electronics, you create heat and other pollutants.

So the real problem is heat pollution, yes, there is accompanying problems of CO2 emissions, particulate pollution and all of the others. Each of those is possible to solve. But the heat pollution will remain and will continue to get worse until the world population is substantially reduced.