* Posts by doughensley

4 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Aug 2013

'I thought my daughter clicked on ransomware – it was the damn Windows 10 installer'

doughensley

In the end, I simply had to give my perfectly good windows 7 computer up for lost. The "update" slagged the file system. Programs couldn't save files to specific folders, only to the main one.

And that was after solid days of struggle just to get back to Windows 7, because 10 just flat didn't work.

A new computer that starts as a clean 10 is another story, but I would advise to never try and update any 7 to a 10.

US Republican enviro-vets: 'Climate change is real. Deal with it'

doughensley

Re: The problem is approach

China has a huge stake in limiting the scope of climate change. They're big enough that their share of the damage due to their own fossil fuel use is greater than what it would cost them to mitigate it. They're also big enough that if they can cut a deal with the US to both reduce emissions, everybody wins.

China also has a big solar PV industry and stands to rake in some offsetting profits to soften the blow of the costs she'll bear in the short term by limiting construction of coal-fired generating plants.

With the US and China on board, it ought to be possible to persuade more of the world to step up as well. Trade advantages and disadvantages could be deployed to add weight to the persuasion.

The cost of transitioning to wind, solar and nuclear is far from ruinous. With some luck in the R&D department, we might even come out ahead. Sunlight, after all, is free. Coal is not.

doughensley

Re: Whatever.

You are in error in the claim that the Mt. St. Helens incident released more CO2 than a decade of world industrial activity. In fact, the release was insignificant by comparison to our industrial output. This can be seen from a glance at the graph of CO2 concentrations, month by month, as measured atop Mauna Loa in Hawaii. The same goes for any other eruption since the beginning of the collection of the CO2 data for that graph.

It shows no significant spike. Certainly nothing comparable to the total of any ten recent year over year changes. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeling_Curve for details.

doughensley

Re: Whatever.

We who agree with the scientists and with some of the policymakers on this point think we have proof. Our reasons may not seem convincing to you but they are reasons, not assumptions. Have you looked at our reasons? Considered them in good faith?

(1) CO2 absorbs IR radiation. This goes back to John Tyndall and the 19th century. Pretty solidly established fact.

(2) The earth's heat balance involves sunlight in and IR out. To balance when the IR has to fight its way through a layer of CO2, the earth has to initially radiate more, at a higher temperature. This is pretty basic thermodynamics and it's confirmed by the fact that the moon, without any CO2 or water vapor to speak of, averages considerably colder than the earth.

(3) Atmospheric CO2 is increasing because of human fossil fuel use. This is pretty solid too. Who can pretend that we don't burn coal for electricity? Who can explain the rise in CO2 over the last century from about 300 parts per million to now near 400, as being a natural fluctuation?

(4) It's warmer than it was a century ago. This might be put down to natural events, but in view of 1, 2, and 3, it seems to us more likely to be our own doing.

(5) This is just a thumbnail sketch. For more details, go to realclimate.org or wikipedia.