Hate Summer? Just Wait Until Global Warming Really Kicks In
By Thom Hartmann A...
If you think summer is unbearable now, just wait until the end of the century. According to “Risky Business,” a report released on Tuesday by a bipartisan group of scientists and officials that included former Treasury secretary Hank Paulson and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, global warming is going to make it so hot and so humid over the next 80-plus years that going outside in the summer will be pretty much impossible.
In fact, it will be downright deadly. Climatologist Robert Kopp, the lead scientist behind the report, told Reuters that, “As temperatures rise, toward the end of the century, less than an hour of activity outdoors in the shade could cause a moderately fit individual to suffer heat stroke.” In other words, if you try to take a run on a hot day in the year 2085, there’s a good chance that it will kill you.
But if we don’t do something now to stop global warming, heat stroke will be the least of our worries. That’s because according to Michael Mann, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, we only have until 2036 - 22 years - to prevent the Earth’s temperature from rising 2 degrees Celsius.
After that, global warming will lock in with devastating consequences for every single living thing on this planet. Serious scientific bodies are even debating whether or not industrial civilization can survive such a drastic temperature increase and the type of crazy weather, wildfires, and drought that will come with it.
Other scientists, like James Hansen, have an even gloomier view of how much more warming the planet can take. Hansen now argues that we need to lower the limit of “acceptable” warming by a whole degree to 1 single degree Celsius - a number we’re already eight-tenths of the way to reaching. At this point, there is really only one thing we can do to prevent a total climate catastrophe along the lines of what James Hansen and Michael Mann are predicting: we need to keep carbon in the ground. And the best way to keep carbon in the ground is to put a price on it.
Right now, the fossil fuel industry is the only industry in the world that doesn’t have to pay to clean up its own waste. Instead, it passes on the costs of that waste (carbon pollution) to everyone else in the form of what economists call "negative externalities," which include things like the costs of cleaning up from climate-change driven severe weather events, and the costs of pollution-related health problems.
Because the fossil fuel industry can dump its waste on the rest of the world without ever having to pay a dime, its businesses costs are artificially low. This creates a vicious cycle in which the fossil fuel industry has absolutely zero incentive to change its ways because doing so would cut into its profits margins.
A national tax carbon would flip the script. By actually putting a price on carbon, it would create an incentive for Big Oil, Coal and Gas to keep carbon in the ground. It really is that simple. Even a small carbon tax of around $10 per metric ton of carbon emitted would have big results.
According to a report put out by the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), a $10 carbon tax would cut greenhouse gas emissions by around 28 percent of 2005 levels. That’s 11 percent more than the cut proposed by the EPA in the Clean Power Plan it announced earlier this month. But that’s not all. The CCL’s report also found that if the money collected from a $10 carbon tax were given back to the American people in the form of a tax credit sort of like Alaska’s Permanent Fund, it would give a jump start to the economy that would, in the long run, lead to more jobs at every income level.
And at the same time, a $10 carbon tax would also save hundreds of thousands of lives over the next few decades by keep toxic carbon pollution out of our atmosphere. By 2036, it would result in around 14,000 fewer premature deaths every year. Remember: all this is from a very small carbon tax of $10 per metric ton. A higher carbon tax would have even better results, and would more accurately reflect the actual costs of carbon pollution.
Whatever the amount, a carbon tax is the single best way to both crack down on the fossil fuel industry freeloaders and save our planet from total climate devastation. As former Bush administration Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson - yes, that Hank Paulson - put it in a recent editorial for the New York Times, “We can debate the appropriate pricing and policy design and how to use the money generated. But a price on carbon would change the behavior of both individuals and businesses.”
Time is running out. If we don’t stop the fossil fuel industry from pumping toxic greenhouses into the atmosphere, planet Earth - the one planet we can call home - will become unrecognizable by the end of the century, if not mid-century. It’s time to make the fossil fuel industry pay for the destruction it’s doing to our planet and our society. It’s time to keep the carbon in the ground.
It’s time for a national carbon tax.
Comments
#2
Heat and crazy weather is the LEAST of our worries. Even if we are not already into runaway global warming the ELE potential increases because as it warms, more and more methane replaces carbon dioxide. Plants can't breathe methane. Plants use CO2 and exhale oxygen. When plants no longer have adequates amount of CO2 due to methane increasing , mammals including humans will have less oxygen.
Green stuff will die. Heat will denature plant proteins and disrupt synthesis of plant nutrients. No plants, no animals. No plants and animals, no food for animals. No food, contaminated water, decreased oxygen, and no humans... And just think we may have tecnologically and economically destroyed our own habitat to the point of extinction.
Bad weather outside? Who will be left alive to complain?
#3
No solutions mentioned will probably occur in time. NONE. NADA. ZILCH. CAPITALISM AND INDUSTRIAL GREED IS A RELIGION now... As such, true believers will never believe or accept the reality of global warming and imminent destruction and thanks to greed and marketing by the West, most of the world are now also very faithful, economic sycophants. Besides fringe communities and a few ecological groups, who is left to turn the ship around?
I agree with what COULD HELP, but... I have to point out the unliklihood that greed will allow industry puppet masters, nor government puppets to stop what we are doing in time.
Humans and GREED are truly hoisted by our own petard.
#4
Quote Queenbeethatsme:I agree with what COULD HELP, but... I have to point out the unliklihood that greed will allow industry puppet masters, nor government puppets to stop what we are doing in time.
Queenbeethatsme ~ Unfortunately, I must agree with you. In fact, there is a plethora of solid archaeological evidence to support your opinion. However, I am optimistic that the perpetual loop of doom that the human race has obviously trapped itself into can be broken. Whether or not that will happen this time around--or EVER--remains to be seen.
Ooparts: Out of place artefactsQuote Article: Everything We Have Been Taught About Our Origins Is A Lie:In June 1936 Max Hahn and his wife Emma were on a walk beside a waterfall near to London, Texas, when they noticed a rock with wood protruding from its core. They decided to take the oddity home and later cracked it open with a hammer and a chisel. What they found within shocked the archaeological and scientific community. Embedded in the rock was what appeared to be some type of ancient man made hammer.A team of archaeologists analysed and dated it. The rock encasing the hammer was dated to more than 400 million years old. The hammer itself turned out to be more than 500 million years old. Additionally, a section of the wooden handle had begun the metamorphosis into coal. The hammer’s head, made of more than 96% iron, is far more pure than anything nature could have achieved without assistance from relatively modern smelting methods.
Quote Article: Everything We Have Been Taught About Our Origins Is A Lie:In 1889 near Nampa, Idaho, whilst workers were boring an artesian well, a small figurine made of baked clay was extracted from a depth of 320 feet. To reach this depth the workers had to cut through fifteen feet of basalt lava and many other strata below that. That in itself does not seem remarkable, until one considers that the very top layer of lava has been dated to at least 15 million years old!Quote Article: Everything We Have Been Taught About Our Origins Is A Lie:In 1944, as a ten year old boy, Newton Anderson, dropped a lump of coal in his basement and it broke in half as it hit the floor. What he discovered inside defies explanation based upon current scientific orthodoxy.Inside the coal was a hand crafted brass alloy bell with an iron clapper and sculptured handle.
When an analysis was carried out it was discovered that the bell was made from anunusual mix of metals, different from any known modern alloy production (including copper, zinc, tin, arsenic, iodine, and selenium).
The seam from whence this lump of coal was mined is estimated to be 300,000,000 years old!
Quote Everything We Have Been Taught About Our Origins Is A Lie:Out of place artefacts (Ooparts) are so named because conventional scientific wisdom (an oxymoron if ever there was one) states that these artefacts shouldn’t exist based upon currently accepted beliefs regarding our origins and history. These discoveries are “out of place” in the orthodox timeline of human history.
The known examples go on, and on, and on. It's deja vu all over again! Now that we know why they are lying about it and covering up, might I suggest that the truth might help set us free?
Malta: Everything We Have Been Taught About Our Origins Is A Lie
#5
I don't think the public is cognizant of the problem with global warming, in denial of any evidence gathered by experts, and unwilling to change their lifestyle. Sad but true...and we are all guilty !
Each and every one of us including the experts who have warned us about the problem. Who will be the first among us to deny our participation in power consumption until we have no alternative ? Uh Huh ! I thought so ! We have developed a culture of unsustainable consumption and as the population
increases the problem grows exponentially. I don't see this problem getting solved short of mass extinction. I don't want to be negative but I have little faith in humanity. They don't have a good track record. On the bright side I personally welcome a new agrarian lifestyle with superfluous technology
where we may find reward in hard work, security from our immediate community, and comfort in less competitive and stressful lifestyle. Of course it will be challenging and difficult, but that will be the case regardless.
#6
we need to keep carbon in the ground. And the best way to keep carbon in the ground is to put a price on it.
I agree that that is the best first step.
The next step would be to develop a way to get carbon out of the atmosphere. First stop adding more, then start cleaning up what's there.
On a side-note: houses would be much more efficient if they were underground (no need to heat and cool them). This would also leave more room for plants or solar panels above ground. Someone should be developing these things right now.
I also like Thom's personal method of living on a boat. Water has a cooling effect in the summer and warming effect in the winter. Plus you could always just sail to nicer weather.
If worst comes to worst, underwater homes could be an option.
#7
In my opinion, energy, like education and healthcare, is a sector that should be non profit and controlled by the citizens. The will of the people to not destroy our planet would certainly trump the revolting greed of a few out of control oil tzars.
#8
Amazing that they can tell me what the tempature is going to be in 1085 but they can't tell me if it is going to rain tomorrow or not.
#9
The solutions to these dire issues are often so simple. Affordable too. But as usual, politics get in the way and capitalism calls the tune. I'm glad I haven't had any kids to inherit the toxic shit hole these decision makers have created, with the help of our complacency and mindless consumption. Frankly Tom, I think it's gonna take more than a carbon tax to keep us from going off the proverbial cliff. At least it's a start, though. - Aliceinwonderland
#10
Quote ChicagoMatt: If worst comes to worst, underwater homes could be an option.
ChicagoMatt ~ If worse comes to worse, we are already living in underwater homes. However, I do like your idea about underground homes. It wouldn't be the first time humans have had to seek shelter in holes in the ground.
Quote 2950-10K:In my opinion, energy, like education and healthcare, is a sector that should be non profit and controlled by the citizens.
2950-10K ~ Well said! I agree!
Quote Kend: Amazing that they can tell me what the tempature is going to be in 1085 but they can't tell me if it is going to rain tomorrow or not.
Kend ~ 2085 Kend, not 1085. Anyway, you're only off by 1000 years. On the bright side, that's pretty good for you.
#11
Wow Alice. I didn't think you would be one who didn't have children. Blogs like this are interesting Because we kinda thing we know other bloggers and the truth is we don't. For what it's worth you would have been a great mom. although I almost disagree with you on everything you write. I sincerly believe with your passion you Would have raised some fantastic little lefties.
#12
Underground or underwater homes would be interesting, for a while, as long as you can come out and breathe in fresh air once in a while. But if we are all forced underground, like the Morelocks, and having to drag down an Eloi or two for dinner, then I think I'd better watch a different movie. Oh, I know, What Dreams May Come! Naw, tried that once and had to walk out of the theater...never did watch it to the end...too stupid. And I really liked Robin Williams, too. But not in that movie.
I had a couple of uncles and aunts who built underground homes (at least 3/4 of them were underground) that I remember back when I was a kid. They subsequently, many years later (after living in it for many years), built houses on top of them. The previous "homes" became a basement. I don't think they had temperature stability in mind though. I guess they were not technically "underground". I read about some guy in a desert in California that did build an underground home...had shrubs growing on top of it. Only the front of the house was visible as a structure. It was built in such a way to minimize the sun's heat in the summer and maximize it in the winter. I guess if you don't mind coyotes and rattle snakes slinking and slithering around then that might be ideal.
#13
Hey Kend, thanks for the left-handed compliment! - AIW
#14
Ya, But don't think I am getting soft. Lol Good night All
#15
Aliceinwonderland ~ Kend does have a point. I too once wanted kids real bad. I think it lasted for a month or two then I got over it. Now, whenever I'm around relatives who have kids I wonder what was I thinking? Anyway, to make a long story short we both feel the same way. The consequences of that decision can only be best illustrated by the intro to the movie, "Idiocracy." Here is a link to that intro. Check it out, you'll get a big kick out of it I guarantee. It helps to explain a lot about our modern and future society.
#16
DAnne. That was great.
Speaking of relatives I heard a good one the other day. "freinds are Gods way of apologizing for relatives".
Interesting. A lot of what I think and say here is based on what I want for my children's and grandchilderens future. But is is more leaned towards economic things as I think I always worry that they are taken care of where you and Alice seem to be more worried about the earth And the bigger picture.
#17
Kend ~ I think it is safe to say that we all want your grandchildren to be taken care of. They are going to need a planet to live on if they are going to enjoy any money. Of course it's only natural to worry about what you have control over. Your grandkids are pretty lucky to have you there for them. Have a good evening, buddy!
#18
Palindromedary ~ One last thing before I turn in. I know you are a 9/11 buff. You should find this most interesting. A few blogs ago I discussed the Israeli film crew and it's implications. I found an article, entitled, "Hoax of the Century" that expounds on that story I thought you might find interesting. It talks about the crew, the company they worked for, what happened to them after the attacks, and a picture of the van that was at the scene that has a mural painted on it that you will not believe. Anyway, check it out when you have time. I'm going to bed but will check back to see if you have any comments tomorrow.
PS Sorry for getting off topic.
#19
DAnneMarc: Be careful now, JDL and AIPAC will sick Obama's Drones on you. ;-}
I have watched the video showing a truck with a mural, on the side of the truck, of the WTC towers with an airplane crashing into them. I don't know if this was "the" truck or just an artists conception or reproduction based on the police audio conversations that say that there was a truck like that with that mural on the side associated with the Israeli men. In other pictures of a truck it shows a plane crashing into the WTC towers but it is a different size with different coloring and on the other side of the truck.
It's kind of odd that, when you look at the diagram at 4:10 into the video showing the two plane's orientation, when they hit the towers, that the plane that hit WTC1 was on the side facing WTC7. The major force would have been away from WTC7. WTC6 was right below and I could see where some falling debris would possibly set a fire in it. But What started the fire in WTC7, so much further away?
In other videos I have seen of the impacts, not knowing any kind or orientation, I saw what looked like a jet engine fly out of one WTC tower...went right through the building and out the opposite side...in the direction the plane traveled. But that would not have hit the WTC7 building. If it was WTC2, the engine or any other debris would have wound up in the Plaza. If it was WTC1, the engine or other debris, would have ended up on top of WTC3...on the opposite side from WTC7. Just looks mighty fishy that WTC7 even had a fire.
Of course, I may be overlooking that the fire in WTC7 wasn't started until the collapse of WTC1 when it forcefully ejected lots of debris. But it would have taken the explosive force of a demolition to hurl debris as far as WTC7. And that may be just what happened. In the videos you can see just how forcefully that debris is ejected and you can also see the squibs that indicate explosive charges going off.
The fires in the WTC towers were not capable of being hot enough to melt or weaken steel significantly. But we did see evidence in one spot where molten metal, the color of which was indicative of molten steel (bright yellowish to white) and not aluminum (which would just look like silvery liquid**), was pouring out of the building. Was this a timing error? One charge, one nano-thermite charge went off too soon? So, something caused molten steel...but jet fuel or office fires are not hot enough to do that...not even close. And even if it were true that the steel was weakened or melted at the location of the fire...the crash site...it doesn't explain how the whole substructure could have been weakened to the extent that the building totally collapsed at near free-fall speed. That can only happen in a demolition.
** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30OVAvg1aGQ
be sure to watch to the end of the video!
** http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmuzyWC60eE
** http://www.ae911truth.org/news/41-articles/347-high-temperatures-persist...
#20
The Twin Towers' destruction exhibited all of the characteristics of destruction by explosives:
1. Destruction proceeds through the path of greatest resistance at nearly free-fall acceleration
2. Improbable symmetry of debris distribution
3. Extremely rapid onset of destruction
4. Over 100 first responders reported explosions and flashes
5. Multi-ton steel sections ejected laterally
6. Mid-air pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete & metal decking
7. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic-like clouds
8. 1200-foot-diameter debris field: no "pancaked" floors found
9. Isolated explosive ejections 20–40 stories below demolition front
10.Total building destruction: dismemberment of steel frame
11.Several tons of molten metal found under all 3 high-rises
12.Evidence of thermite incendiaries found by FEMA in steel samples
13.Evidence of explosives found in dust samples
The three high-rises exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire:
1. Slow onset with large visible deformations
2. Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, intact, from the point of plane impact, to the side most damaged by the fires)
3. Evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel
4. High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer-lasting fires have never collapsed
http://www.ae911truth.org/news/41-articles/347-high-temperatures-persist...
#21
QB, while you are right about plant/methane metabolism, methane as a greenhouse gas is around 23 times more potent than CO2. If summer heat hits around 130 degrees for any length of time the reproductive tissues of many/most crop plants will denature. That tissue is a) necessary for next year's crop and b) is most of the biomass we consume as nutrients. So, what we have with increased methane is the old, proverbial "double whammy."
#22
Palindromedary ~ All good points! The lag of high temperatures in the debris is probably the oddest piece of evidence in the whole mix.
However, I've studied metal technology at the university level and I can see doubt spread on those plums of molten red metal poured out of the top floor of the WTC. First, it is very true that aluminum melts as the color silver. Second, it is very true that the melting temperature of aluminum is far below iron and steel. The furnace in the metal department at the university I attended was huge; yet the best temperature they could achieve was to melt aluminum. In one lesson we all took turns casting our own paper weights.
One note is that to properly cast pure aluminum additives need to be included to insure purity and smoothness of consistency. This is a very controlled process. I can understand the skeptics who will cite--and correctly so--that any molten aluminum pouring out of the WTC is going to be heavily contaminated with who knows what. It is not going to act, or look, like a controlled melt of pure aluminum. Also, the exact parameters of the WTC event is not something easily recreated in a laboratory. Nevertheless, I agree that whatever molten substance was pouring out of the corner on that floor and stayed molten hot was not steel.
As you may have suspected we also forged high carbon iron in our labs. We never used steel because it was too difficult to work without much heavier lab equipment. Nevertheless, the lessons learned with iron are similar. First lesson is conductivity of heat. When you concentrate heat on one area of iron the heat travels slowly through the iron. The color of the iron indicates the temperature. White is the hottest, then orange, red, blue and violet. In order to shape iron it has to be at least orange. Then you can mold it by pounding it with a hammer against an anvil or applying force to bend it. You can also adjust the hardness of the iron with the speed by which you cool it. Iron takes a while to cool in air and thus cooling it this way leaves it soft. If you want it hardened you have to cool it quickly by quenching it in cold water. In the open, iron cools to room temperature in matter of minutes--NOT DAYS!! Pulling molten iron or steel out of the wreckage several days later is definitely not explainable with the official story.
Nevertheless Palindromedary, most basic high tech metallurgy is beyond the grasp of most Americans. We don't have to go that far to ask questions and raise doubts that require a thorough investigation. That photograph of the Israeli "film crew's" van and their story is more than enough evidence to reopen this case. First, this wasn't even a film crew. This was a moving company. Why is a moving company filming anything during work hours? Why does their van have a mural on both sides of a plane crashing into the world trade center before 9/11 even happened? Why is a moving company with such a mural set up in place and filming the disaster on the morning it happened and high fiving each other? Why were they all from Israel? Why did they all fail to pass lie detector tests? And, above everything else, why did the Bush administration order their release and return to Israel during the 9/11 investigation? These are simple and important questions that I'm sure all Americans can appreciate and get behind.
Certainly Palindromedary, if we can not succeed at answering these simple and blatant questions satisfactory, then we are wasting our time even discussing the more esoteric questions raised by the architects and engineers who have studied the physics involved in the collapse of the WTC. Don't you agree? Most Americans just are not that well educated.
#23
We must understand the exponential factor of global warming. Current rates are changing rapidly. The estimates now for the Thermus Maximus event and mass extinction is now closer to 17 years not 50. In order to change the rate of global warming that leads to mass extinction we must do the following:
The next Kyoto or international agreement must be to ban the manufacture and export of all petrol chemical burning vehicles. Switch to electric air flight with propellor planes. Eliminate coal burning. Remove the plastic mass swirling in the oceans and replace with plankton farming using alkalizer substrates. Re-freeze the polar caps by shading with orbiting nets. Nets would have to be elastic enough to withstand incoming debris and deflect sunlight 70%. End the cutting of rainforests and oldgrowth. End the use of trees for paper and pulp products. Replace with hemp. Plant a trillion trees a year for 100 years. Sounds easy? Without this political will humankind is doomed. Are you feeling lucky? Do you trust our politicians and the science community to do the right thing?
When the Carter's put up solar panels on the white house they knew this forecast of the future. Reagan-Bush and the oil baron's took them down. Notice the Clinton's did not put them back up? When Jimmy Carter stands with the former president's, notice he stands a distance apart everytime. This is important body language. Notice Clinton stands with the Bush's. Hillary has said little concerning global warming which is the most important issue facing mankind. She is more concerned with her image as a wealthy person. We need Bernie Sanders, Al Gore, Barbara Boxer, Jackie Speier, to step forward. These are true democrats that are leaders on this important issue. We are weary of the corporate media annointing an heir apparent. People on the west coast are tired of the east coast repocrats running our democratic party.We need progressive leadership. We don;t have much time.
#24
I agree! Here's what I suggest we do.
First, these are all the power generating facilities (most of them burning fossil fuels or using nuclear power) that MUST be shut down if we are to provide a viable biosphere for future generations. You can find the Fracking polluter sites now poisoning aqifers on the map as well. Tell everyone where they are. The interactive U.S. Government map has a wealth of information that people need to be aware of. Twenty four hours a day, these facilities are damaging the environment and providing profit to those who buy our politicians and provoke resource wars to our detriment.
http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm
We have to pressure our government to take major action to stop the degradation of the biosphere from climate change. It's time to eliminate the excuse our fossil fuel loving oligarchy uses for "resources" wars for oil that bring nothing but misery to us and profits for them.
Let's make oil a liability, not an asset!
Why? Because that is what itactually is! Burning fossil fuels is killing us. the sooner we stop "valuing" that poison, the sooner we strip the power away from the war lovers that wield it. Our very democracy is in jeopardy because of centralized energy corporations. That's right; it's just as much about political power as about energy.
Demanding 100% Renewable energy is the way, not only to the extremely important goal of a viable biosphere, but absolutely essential to regaining our democracy from the fossil fuel industry that buys our politicians with the profits from pollution producing fuels while said politicians keep fossil fuel and nuclear power plant "subsides" (taxpayer theft!) to tilt the energy playing field against renewable energy.
This is a chart of the fossil fuel subsidies versus renewable energy! If that isn't a "level" energy playing field that looks like an alpine slope, I don't know what is.
http://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/legacy/userfiles/federal-subsidies-chart-550(1).jpg
I started a petition on Care2: Demand Liberty From Fossil Fuels Through 100% Renewable Energy WWII Style Effort. Thom Hartmann was kind enough to feature it in "Hot Form Topics" here yesterday. Thank you, Thom! I'm hoping that if enough people sign my petition, we can make a difference. Will you help me collect more by adding your name?
Posters to download and print to publicize the petition:
http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200614004325.png http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-190614205808.png
Here's a link to the petition: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/Ai3Tb
Thank you and please pass it on. We'll have real traction against the polluters if we can get 100,000 to several million signatures by September when the petition is to be delivered to the White House.
P.S. A sample of my posts on the interent in defense of the pressing and vital need (if we are to survive and thrive) to Transition 100% Renewable energy:
From a knock down drag out between some nukers and some responsible humans at this link:
A. G. Gelbert
June 24, 2014
Final Statement to Bill the "biologist" who, in so many words, is repeating the mantra that the solution to nuclear pollution is dilution. This totally ignores food chain realities expressed by the ingestion and concentration of radionuclides in bivalves and other bottom of the food chain filter feeders which are then ingested by fish, thereby increasing the concentration, not decreasing it (as Bill claims) in higher order life forms like Homo sapiens.
Cardiovascular disease and death increases in that area you claim "only" had increases in thyroid cancer are linked DIRECTLY to guess what radionuclide that is distributed uniformly in human muscle tissues? You obviously haven't looked at the Chernobyl effects data very closely. Also, you claim that my statement that 1 in three persons will get cancer at present is false. Google it! And yes Bill, the increase in cardiovascular disease and deaths, though you nukers will deny it, is definitely linked to radionuclide absorption in muscle tissue. It's not just about cholesterol and sugar! The radionuclide Ce-137 deposition map of the USA is public information LONG before Fufkushima.
Do you want to prepare a graph showing cancer and cardiovascular disease rate increases in this country and Ce-137 deposition from power plants and nuclear bomb tests? Probably not. You prefer to reach for your "correlation is not causation" straw.
If you really think my answer was long or disjointed and irrelevant, you have never read a research paper. If you want to descend into nitpicking minutiae to muddle the issues so I can be accused of getting "off topic" by the anonyMouse Steven, only for you to leap back to generalizations after I give you proof in a detailed answer, that again shows you are into propaganda, not science.
So, for the readers, I will present a really brief summary of the points I made . The proof is in that "long" answer I gave for those who have scientist level attention spans.
1. Mutagenicity of ionizing radiation was proven as far back as the discovery that Drosophila melanogaster has DOUBLE or more the mutation rate (none of said mutations beneficial, by the way) in an abandoned uranium mine. Of note to the readers is that Insects are more resistant to ionizing radiation than mammals because of the higher percentage of water in our tissues. One of the PRIMARY targets of therapy for cancer caused by radiation (Acute Radiation Sickness) are the non-receptor and receptor tyrosine kinase enzymes because of the PROVEN link between radionucllde exposure and tumorigenesis.
2. Target theory, as opposed to LNT is the only way to accurately measure damage from ionizing radiation. The damage is inversely proportional to the distance of the emitter. That is nuclear physics 101. Ingestion of radionuclides is far more damaging than the LNT standards people like Bill and AEC accept (wrongly and inaccurately) because the distance is in nanometers. I can give you a web sight where you can do the math on the group of photon energies for any radionuclide. At nanometer distances, it AIN'T PRETTY, Bill.
3. The main subject here, energy sources and COST, is defined rather selectively by the nukers to exclude AND minimize the health costs to, not just human populations, but the biosphere as a whole that we require to be a viable species, never mind a few centuries of baby sitting used fuel rod assemblies on the taxpayer dime.
The facts prove that, not only is Renewable Energy cheaper, it is the only sustainable alternative because of it's potential for zero waste products that damage the life forms in the food chain vital to our existence. The only nuclear powered furnace we need is the sun. We not only can scale up to 100% renewable energy, any other option is unsustainable and undermines the viability of the biosphere and that of future generations of Homo sapiens.
If you agree, please sign this petition to President Obama:
Demand Liberty From Fossil Fuels Through 100% Renewable Energy WWII Style Effort
Here's a link to the petition: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/Ai3Tb
We did it with the Liberty Ship massive building effort in WWII; we can do it again with Renewable energy technology and infrastructure.
Anthony G. Gelbert
Green Leaf Star American in the Service of Future Generations
#25
Well said. President Carter is a great man.
This is what President Reagan did to thwart Renewable Energy in the service of fossil fuel profit over planet!
How Ronald Reagan Turned Out the Lights on Solar Power
In an excerpt from his new book, John Perlin reveals how one of the first actions of the new Reagan administration was to dim the lights on the solar energy program.
SNIPPET:
Dr. Barry Commoner, a distinguished scientist and strong solar advocate, was "surprised and troubled by the smallness of both the proposed solar research budget and expected results." He wanted to see the data from the National Science Foundation that supported the Atomic Energy Commission’s dismal view of the future of solar power, especially since Solar Subpanel IX, the scientific panel that appraised photovoltaics’ contribution, was made up of, in Commoner’s judgment, "a distinguished group of experts." A report by Solar Subpanel IX contained their findings, the scientist learned; when Commoner asked to see a copy of the report, the Nixon administration denied that such a report existed. Not believing the response credible, Commoner enlisted the support of Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota, a strong supporter of solar energy.
He received the same runaround. Finally, a solar-energy friendly "Deep Throat" told the senator that a copy existed and could be found at the Atomic Energy Commission’s document reading room. According to Commoner, "This turned out to be a dim photocopy of a hazy carbon; but it has brilliantly illuminated" the discrepancies between the science and politics of energy.
Unlike the author of The Nation’s Energy Future, the subpanel recommended an outlay of almost six times more money than the Atomic Energy Commission had requested for research and development of solar cells[/i]. Furthermore, the National Science Foundation had great expectations for solar electricity, predicting that with its suggested outlay of funds for photovoltaics, solar cells would supply "more than 7 percent of the required U.S. electrical generation capacity by the year 2000," even though the expenditure for the solar option would be 16 times less than for the nuclear choice.
The subpanel also found the solar option more appealing because "in contrast to problems incurred by nuclear plants, photovoltaic systems would find wide public acceptance because of their minimal impact on the environment."However, the report warned, if underfunded, "photovoltaics will not impact the energy [situation]" in future times.
http://www.alternet.org/how-ronald-reagan-turned-out-lights-solar-power
The planet and the biosphere, according to serious, objective, proven environmental science, will become uninhabitable if we do not stop burning fossil fuels within a couple of decades . As things are right now in June of 2014, the scientific community has estimated that it will take over one thousand years, even if we stopped all dirty energy use today, to get our atmosphere back to 350 ppm of CO2. And that is without even taking the other greenhouse gas dangers like methane into account.
The intransigence of the fossil fuel industry in this matter is a given. They wish to avoid liability for the damage they have caused so they have, for several decades, (See the George C. Marshal Institute) launched a campaign of disinformation to claim there is NO climate threat whatsoever.
Not only do they deny climate change, they scare monger people into thinking we are running out of oil! Well, hello? We are supposed to stop using it, aren't we? Now who do you suppose would want us to feel we were "running out" of something so we would VALUE it more? The truth is that oil is a liability, not an asset. But that is precisely what the propagandists work mightily to prevent the people form realizing. If somebody tells me we are running out of a something that , when you burn it, poisons the atmosphere, I'm rather pleased we are running out of it! But for some amazing reason, that obvious truth never makes the news either.
The worsening weather will be the ONLY thing that will spur change and even then we already passed the point a couple of decades ago when bioremediation was going to be fairly straight forward.
Dr. Hansen said oceanic inertia (acidification from CO2) is nearly 100 years. I had thought it was only about 30 years. That means we are experiencing NOW the effects of our generated pollutants (if you say the incubation inertia conservatively is half of 100 years) as of 1964!
Consider all the pollutants that have poured in to the biosphere since then and you start to understand why brilliant people like Guy McPherson are so despondent. There is NO WAY we can stop the pollution/bad weather clock from CONTINUING to deteriorate for another 50 years (or 100 if Hansen is right) even if we STOPPED using all fossil fuels today.
I'm not in charge and neither are you. But clinging to this fossil fuel fantasyland of cheap power and all we "owe" it for our civilization is not going to do anything but make things deteriorate faster.
If enough people reach the 1%, maybe they will wake up. It's all we can do in addition to trying to foster community.
The system, as defined by the fossil fuel fascist dystopia that currently runs most of the human affairs among the 1 billion population in the developed world that is saddling the other 6 billion, who are totally free of guilt for causing it, with this climate horror we are beginning to experience, IS quite stubborn and does not wish to change the status quo.
Mother nature will force it to do so.
Whether it is done within the next two decades or not (i.e. a switch to 100% PLUS bioremediation Renewable Energy steady state economy) will dictate the size of the consequent die off, not only of humans but thousands of other species as well.
We are now in a climate cake that has been baked for about 1,000 years according to atmospheric, objective, proven with experimental data, science.
If the crash program to switch to renewable energy is to begin soon, I expect the trigger for the crash program will be the first ice free arctic summer (according to my estimates) in 2017.
So I would use that future melting now as a rallying point to wake people up and join in the effort to ban fossil fuel burning and internal combustion engines from planet earth. Expect the fossil fuelers to counter that polar ice melting catastrophic reality with propaganda about what a "wonderful" thing it is to have a new ocean to shorten ship traveling (i.e. TANKERS) distances. So it goes.
If things, by some miracle, go well for humanity and the 1% galvanize to save the biosphere and their stuff, we will witness the dismantling of the centralized fossil fuel infrastructure, it's use and, more importantly, the relinquishing of political power worldwide by big oil.
15 April 2013
James Hansen
1. Exaggeration?
I have been told of specific well-respected people who have asserted that "Jim Hansen exaggerates" the magnitude and imminence of the climate threat. If only that were true, I would be happy.
"Magnitude and imminence" compose most of the climate story.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130415_Exaggerations.pdf
The main reason that large dirty energy industries DO NOT want to transition to Renewable energy is because It has NEVER been about ENERGY beyond CONTROLLING the spigot to we-the-people.
That's why the fossil fuel industry simply didn't switch to the much more profitable and economical renewable energy technologies long ago (they certainly have the money to do so); they simply could not figure out a way to retain POWER and CONTROL with a distributed, rather than a centralized energy system.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr: In the next decade there will be an epic battle for survival for humanity against the forces of ignorance and greed. It’s going to be Armageddon, represented by the oil industry on one side, versus the renewable industry on the other.
And people are going to have to choose sides – including politically. They will have to choose sides because oil and coal, they will not be able to survive – they are not going to be able to burn their proven reserves.
If they do, then we are all dead. And they are quite willing to burn it. We’re all going to be part of that battle. We are going to watch governments being buffeted by the whims of money and greed on one side, and idealism and hope on the other.
The fossil fuel industry and those who side with it, regardless of appearing to take a pro-environment position in their personal lives, are hurting our chances for a viable biosphere.
Those who, instead, simply stand their ground on the settled climate science and state unequivocally that fossil fuels must be BANNED from human use forever and the fossil fuel industries dismantled while a massive transition to a lower carbon footprint and 100% plus renewable energy economy takes place, are the only hope Homo sapiens has.
The question is, which side are you on?
Typical phases of resistance to renewable energy, as described by Dr. Herman Scheer are as follows:
Phase 1 – Belittle & Deny the Renewable Energy Option
Phase 2 – Denounce & Mobilize Against the Renewable Energy Option
Phase 3 - Spread Doubt & Misrepresent the Challenges in the Disguise of General Support
(Note: reaching Phase 3 doesn’t mean that Phase 1 & 2 will disappear.)
I wrote the following about a year ago. It was key to my realization that there MIGHT be hope for us to transition rapidly and safely out of dirty energy for the sake of future generations. I sent a copy to Senator Sanders of Vermont last November. I have not heard anything back.
Note: The idea of the Green Leaf Star American on my petition came later when I saw a Blue Star Mother WWII poster.
Historic proof that manufacturing all the renewable energy machines and infrastructure needed to transition to a 100% Renewable Energy world economy can be achieved in two decades or less: The mass produced Liberty Ships of WWII.
The other day, a knowledgeable mechanical engineer I know stated this concern about the colossal challenge and, in his opinion, impossibility of switching to renewable energy machines in time to avoid a collapse from an energy to manufacture and global industrial capacity limitation in our civilizational infrastructure.
He said:
I admire your enthusiasm, and I agree with many of the points you make. Yes internal combustion engines waste high EROEI consistently, yes fossil fuels and conventional engineering has a warped distorted perspective because of the internal combustion engine, and yes we have an oil oligarchy protecting its turf.
However say we hypothetically made all the oil companies disappear tomorrow and where able to suspend the laws of time and implement our favorite renewables of choice and then where tasked with making certain all of societies critical needs were met we'd have a tall order. The devil is in the details and quantities.
Its the magnitudes, its 21 million barrels per day we are dependent on. Its created massive structural centralization that can only be sustained by incredible energetic inputs. Not enough wind, and not enough rare earth material for PV's to scale and replace. We have to structurally rearrange society to solve the problem. Distributed solar powered villages, not big cities and surely not suburbia. I fear we'll sink very useful resources and capital towards these energy sources (as we arguably have with wind) when the real answer is structural change.
I have shown evidence that there are several multiples of the energy we now consume available just from wind power. This data came from a recent study by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Scientists.
He thinks we CAN'T do it even if we had enough wind because of the colossal challenge and, in his opinion, impossibility of switching to renewable energy machines in time to avoid a collapse from an energy required to manufacture and global industrial capacity limitation in our civilizational infrastructure.
His solution is to survive the coming collapse with small distributed energy systems and a radically scaled down carbon footprint. Sadly, that option will not be available to a large percentage of humanity.
Hoping for a more positive future scenario, I analyzed his concerns to see if they are valid and we have no other option but to face a collapse and a die off with the surviving population living at much lower energy use levels.
I'm happy to report that, although the mechanical engineer has just cause to be concerned, we can, in reality, transition to 100% Renewable Energy without overtaxing our civilizational resources.
This a slim hope but a real one based on history and the word's present manufacturing might. Read on.
http://www.skylighters.org/troopships/libshipschematic1.jpg
I give you the logistics aiding marvel of WWII, the Liberty Ship. It was THE JIT (just in time), SIT (sometimes in time) and sometimes NIT (never in time because it was torpedoed) cargo delivery system that helped us win the war.
This was a mass produced ship. These ships are a testament to the ability to build an enormous quantity of machines on a global scale that the U.S. was capable of over half a century ago.
The Liberty ship model used two oil boilers and was propelled by a single-screw steam engine, which gave the liberty ship a cruise speed of 11 to 11.5 knots. The ships were 441.5 feet long, with a 57 foot beam and a 28 foot draft.
[img width=640 height=480]http://www.nps.gov/nr/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/116liberty_victory_ships/116images/116coverbl2.jpg[/img]
[img width=640 height=480]http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/liberty2/libertyshipsforitaly.jpg[/img]
The ships were designed to minimize labor and material costs; this was done in part by replacing many rivets with welds. This was a new technique, so workers were inexperienced and engineers had little data to go on. Additionally, much of the shipyards' labor force had been replaced with women as men joined the armed forces. Because of this, early ships took quite a long time to build - the Patrick Henry taking 244 days -
but the average building time eventually came down to just 42 days.
[img width=640 height=480]http://www.skylighters.org/troopships/libertyship-hi-new.jpg[/img]
A total of 2,710 Liberty ships were built, with an expected lifespan of just five years. A little more than 2,400 made it through the war, and 835 of these entered the US cargo fleet. Many others entered Greek and Italian fleets. Many of these ships were destroyed by leftover mines, which had been forgotten or inadequately cleared. Two ships survive today, both operating as museum ships. They are still seaworthy, and one (the Jeremiah O'Brien) sailed from San Francisco to England in 1994.
http://www.brighthubengineering.com/marine-history/88389-history-of-the-liberty-ships/
Today, several countries have, as do we, a much greater industrial capacity. It is inaccurate to claim that we cannot produce sufficient renewable energy devices in a decade or so to replace the internal combustion engine everywhere in our civilization.
The industrial capacity is there and is easily provable by asking some simple questions about the fossil fuel powered internal combustion engine status quo:
How long do internal combustion engine powered machines last?
How much energy does it require to mine the raw materials and manufacture the millions of engines wearing out and being replaced day in and day out?
What happens if ALL THAT INDUSTRIAL CAPACITY is, instead, dedicated to manufacturing Renewable Energy machines?
IOW, if there is a ten to twenty year turnover NOW in our present civilization involving manufacture and replacement of the internal combustion engines we use, why can't we retool and convert the entire internal combustion engine fossil fuel dependent civilization to a Renewable Energy Machine dependent civilization?
1) The industrial capacity is certainly there to do it EASILY in two decades and maybe just ten years with a concerted push.
2) Since Renewable Energy machines use LESS metal and do not require high temperature alloys, a cash for clunkers worldwide program could obtain more than enough metal raw material without ANY ADDITIONAL MINING (except for rare earth minerals - a drop in the bucket -- compared to all the mining presently done for metals to build the internal combustion engine) by just recycling the internal combustion engine parts into Renewable Energy machines.
3) Just as in WWII, but on a worldwide scale, the recession/depression would end as millions of people were put to work on the colossal transition to Renewable Energy.
HOWEVER, despite our ABILITY to TRANSITION TO 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY, we "CAN'T DO IT" because the fossil fuel industry has tremendous influence on the worldwide political power structure from the USA to Middle East to Russia to China.
IOW, it was NEVER
1. An energy problem,
2. A "laws of thermodynamics" problem,
3. A mining waste and pollution problem,
4. A lack of wind or sun problem,
5. An environmental problem,
6. An industrial capacity problem or
7. A technology problem.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE ABOVE excuses for claiming Renewable Energy cannot replace Fossil Fuels are STRAWMEN presented to the public for the express purpose of convincing us of the half truth that without fossil fuels, civilization will collapse. It was ALWAYS a POLITICAL PROBLEM of the fossil fuel industry not wanting to relinquish their stranglehold on the world's geopolitical make up.
It drives them insane to think that Arizona and New Mexico can provide more power than all the oil in the Middle East. Their leverage over lawmakers and laws to avoid environmental liability is directly proportional to their market share of global energy supplies. They are threatened by Renewable Energy and have mobilized to hamper its growth as much as possible through various propaganda techniques using all the above strawmen.
It is TRUE that civilization will collapse and a huge die off will occur without fossil fuels IF, and ONLY IF, Renewable Energy does not replace fossil fuels. It is blatantly obvious that we need energy to run our civilization.
It is ALSO TRUE that if we continue to burn fossil fuels in iternal combustion engines, Homo sapiens will become extinct. This is not hyperbole. We ALREADY have baked in conditions, that take about three decades to fully develop, that have placed us in a climate like the one that existed over 3 million years ago.
We DID NOT thrive in those conditions or multiply. This is a fact. We barely survived until a couple of hundred thousand years ago when the weather became friendlier and even then we didn't really start to populate the planet until about 10,000 years ago.
The climate 3 million years ago was, basically, mostly lethal to Homo Sapiens. To say that we have technology and can handle it WHILE CONTINUING TO BURN FOSSIL FUELS is a massive dodge of our responsibility for causing this climate crisis (and ANOTHER strawman from Exxon "We will adapt to that" CEO).
Fossil fuel corporations DO NOT want to be held liable for the damage they have caused, so, even as they allow Renewable Energy to have a niche in the global energy picture, will use that VERY NICHE (see rare earth mining and energy to build PV and wind turbines) to blame Renewables for environmental damage.
In summary, the example of the Liberty ships is proof we CAN TRANSITION TO RENEWABLE ENERGY in, at most, a couple of decades if we decide to do it but WON'T do it because of the fossil fuel industry's stranglehold on political power, financing and laws along with the powerful propaganda machine they control.
In other words, what happens, if my petition or some other effort does NOT succeed in getting our government (and several others too) to engage in a massive Transition to 100% Renewable energy NOW?
What can we expect from the somewhat dismal prospects for Homo sapiens?
1) Terrible weather and melted polar ice caps with an increase in average wind velocity in turn causing more beach erosion from gradually rising sea level and wave action. The oceans will become more difficult to traverse because of high wave action and more turbulent seas. The acidification will increase the dead zones and reduce aquatic life diversity. But you've heard all this before so I won't dwell on the biosphere problems that promise to do us in.
2) As Renewable Energy devices continue to make inroads in fossil fuel profits, expect an engineered partial civilizational collapse in a large city to underline the "you are all going to die without fossil fuels" propaganda pushed to avoid liability for the increasingly "in your face" climate extremes.
3) Less democracy and less freedom of expression from some governments and more democracy and freedom of expression from other governments in direct proportion to the percent penetration of Renewable energy machines in powering their countries (more Renewable Energy, more freedom) and an inverse proportion to the power of their "real politik" Fossil Fuel lobbies in countries. (more Fossil Fuel power, less freedom).
The bottom line, as Guy McPherson says, is that NATURE BATS LAST. Nature has millions of "bats". Homo SAP has a putrid fascist parasite bleeding it to death and poisoning it at the same time. The parasite cannot survive without us so it is allowing us to get a tiny IV to keep us alive a little longer (a small percentage of renewable energy machines). It won't work.
But the parasite has a plan. The IV will be labeled a "parasite" (the villain and guilty party) when Homo SAP finally figures out he is going to DIE if he doesn't fix this "bleeding and poison" problem. Then the real parasite will try to morph into a partially symbiotic organism and Homo SAP will muddle through somehow.
I think that the parasite doesn't truly appreciate the severity of Mother Nature's "bat".
Three future Scenarios:
1. If the parasite (as a metaphor for a fossil fuel powered civilization) does not DIE TOTALLY, I don't think any of us will make it.
2. If the parasite takes MORE than 20 years to die, some of us will make it but most of us won't.
3. If, in 2017, when the north pole has the first ice free summer, all the governments of the Earth join in a crash program to deep six the use of fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine within a ten year period, most of us will make it.
A word about political power and real politik living in a fossil fuel fascist dystopia.
It simply DOES NOT MATTER what the 'real world", "real politik" geopolitical power structure mankind has now is. It DOES NOT MATTER how powerful the fossil fuel industry is in human affairs. The internal combustion engine and fossil fuels have to go or Mother Nature will kill us, PERIOD.
As a Christian, I take very seriously the commandment to respect my fellow human beings as myself. Because the life giving biosphere is God's creation, I take equally seriously our responsibility to be good stewards of our home. We have not been good stewards. Help me with this petition and future generations will thank you. We really, really ARE all in this together.
Will a massive public outcry born of demands like the one I make in the petition (link at close of post) make a difference?
I think so. I know doing nothing is not optional for a caring human population. It is our thankless task to convince the powers that be that they are on a course for planetary suicide that can only be changed with a paradigm shift involving respect for all life, not just human life.
If we change, if we act to leave dirty and centralized, political power concentrating energy behind, we will give future generations a chance to live in a Viable Biospshere AND a political democracy.
If we don't, we will perish.
Anthony G. Gelbert
Renewable Revolution Forum/blog
http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/index.php
Petition to Demand a WWII Style Massive Effort to Transition to 100% Renewable Energy within a decade: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/Ai3Tb
Thank you and please pass it on. The Bisophere you save may be your own.
#26
DAnneMarc: I too have had experience in melting aluminum and bronze...it was a hobby. I made pieces of artwork...statues, and other things using the lost wax method. I know what you are saying about adding a deoxidizer and degassifier to aluminum in the crucible. Didn't have to do this with bronze. The very high temperatures it would take to melt steel or iron is just not as easily achievable as with bronze or aluminum. One thought I had when I saw that glowing yellow liquid pouring out of the one corner of the WTC tower was that maybe it was gold. There were vaults inside the WTC towers where they stored gold although I would imagine they would be inside steel vaults.
Melting point of:
(in degrees F.)
Aluminum: 1220
Bronze, Gold about: 1900
Structural Steel about: 2750
#27
And at this web site ( http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/how-hot.htm ) you will see more evidence that the office fires and jet fuel fires were oxygen starved (cooler fires) and the Jet fuel fire only lasted a couple of minutes leaving the office fires to continue longer at a reduced temperature (since the jet fuel was burned out within a couple of minutes).
If you skip down past all of the mathematics and formulas here are the summations:
Quote 911research:So, the jet fuel could (at the very most) have only added T - 25 = 282 - 25 = 257° C (495° F) to the temperature of the typical office fire that developed.Remember, this figure is a huge over-estimate, as (among other things) it assumes that the steel and concrete had an unlimited amount of time to absorb the heat, whereas in reality, the jet fuel fire was all over in one or two minutes, and the energy not absorbed by the concrete and steel within this brief period (that is, almost all of it) would have been vented to the outside world.
"The time to consume the jet fuel can be reasonably computed. At the upper bound, if one assumes that all 10,000 gallons of fuel were evenly spread across a single building floor, it would form a pool that would be consumed by fire in less than 5 minutes"
Quote from the FEMA report into the collapse of WTC's One and Two (Chapter Two).
Here are statements from three eye-witnesses that provide evidence that the heating due to the jet fuel was indeed minimal.
Donovan Cowan was in an open elevator at the 78th floor sky-lobby (one of the impact floors of the South Tower) when the aircraft hit. He has been quoted as saying: "We went into the elevator. As soon as I hit the button, that's when there was a big boom. We both got knocked down. I remember feeling this intense heat. The doors were still open. The heat lasted for maybe 15 to 20 seconds I guess. Then it stopped."
Stanley Praimnath was on the 81st floor of the South Tower: "The plane impacts. I try to get up and then I realize that I'm covered up to my shoulder in debris. And when I'm digging through under all this rubble, I can see the bottom wing starting to burn, and that wing is wedged 20 feet in my office doorway."
Ling Young was in her 78th floor office: "Only in my area were people alive, and the people alive were from my office. I figured that out later because I sat around in there for 10 or 15 minutes. That's how I got so burned."
Neither Stanley Praimnath nor Donovan Cowan nor Ling Young were cooked by the jet fuel fire. All three survived.
Summarizing:
We have assumed that the entire 3,500 gallons of jet fuel was confined to just one floor of the World Trade Center, that the jet fuel burnt with perfect efficency, that no hot gases left this floor, that no heat escaped this floor by conduction and that the steel and concrete had an unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat.
Then it is impossible that the jet fuel, by itself, raised the temperature of this floor more than 257° C (495° F).
Now this temperature is nowhere near high enough to even begin explaining the World Trade Center Tower collapse.
It is not even close to the first critical temperature of 600° C (1,100° F) where steel loses about half its strength and it is nowhere near the quotes of 1500° C that we constantly read about in our lying media.
"In the mid-1990s British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed a series of six experiments at Cardington to investigate the behavior of steel frame buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story building. Secondary steel beams were not protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beams reaching 800-900° C (1,500-1,700° F) in three of the tests (well above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600° C (1,100° F), no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments."
Quote from the FEMA report (Appendix A).
Recalling that the North Tower suffered no major structural damage from the intense office fire of February 23, 1975, we can conclude that the ensuing office fires of September 11, 2001, also did little extra damage to the towers.
Conclusion:
The jet fuel fires played almost no role in the collapse of the World Trade Center.
So, once again, you have been lied to by the media, are you surprised?
And remember, these buildings were designed to withstand raging fires caused by airliners smashing into them. Even if the temperatures were such that it would weaken steel by half it's strength, this was built into the design. No other steel building in history has collapsed due to fires, even ones that were way hotter and lasted way longer.
#28
Well said, Craig Bush! I agree! Not in a million life times would I vote for Shillary.
#29
Craig, Palin- Me neither! The Clintons suck. - AIW
#30
Palin - Love the Time Machine reference. I love teaching that novel. The students hate it though - the language is dated.
One of the first things NASA realized when considering permanent colonies on the Moon or Mars was that those people would have to live underground because of all of the solar radiation. That logic might apply to Earth in the future as well.
Mining towns in the Australian outback often have underground homes. The temperature there is usually well above 100 every day, so living underground (always in the 70s) just makes sense. I went out West once to Wind Cave and Mammoth Cave, and even though it was hot those days, they told us to bring jackets, and they were right. It was in the 50s in some of the lower areas of the caves.
BTW - Tall guys and caves are not a good combination.
Supposedly they have heating and AC systems that work by pumping water through pipes way underground and then through your house. You only have to power the pump - the Earth does the heating and cooling for you.
And, of course, houses underground means more room for plants above ground. Imagine entire cities where, when viewed from overhead, look like prairies with little dots (doors to houses). It'd be cool.
#31
ChicagoMatt: Many years ago, when I lived in California, I tried to visit the Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno but got there too late..it was closed. So, I never did see it. It was originally 10 acres underground and they had fruit trees growing down there with skylights to let in the sun. It was patterned after the ancient catacombs.
http://www.forestiere-historicalcenter.com/Undergroundwonders.html
And I remember traveling through SW Colorado where some American Indians lived not only in caves on the side of cliffs but in deep holes they dug into the earth. The holes were in the shape of a bottle...narrow opening above widening out below.
I guess there is a good reason why a lot of those homes in the Southwestern US are built out of adobe. I remember traveling through Tucson and Phoenix when it was so hot that it felt like an oven...110 degrees...and I understand it gets even hotter. When I lived and worked in Saudi Arabia it got pretty darn hot as well...although I was lucky that I didn't have to work in the Rub' al Khali desert oil fields. I did skirt them once, though, in an air conditioned vehicle when I traveled down south from Dhahran.
The problem with living underground would be the potential of flooding. One would have to choose wisely just where they dug their homes. We can't even avoid big floods like they are having in Minnesota right now. If it's not earthquakes, or wild fires, or tornadoes, or hurricanes, it's the floods that are going to get us. And then there are the microscopic creatures that can kill us, or the poisoning of our atmosphere and water. But, enough of all this happy talk. I've got to finish reading agelbert's interesting tome (and I thought I was the only one that got carried away). ;-}
#32
Palindromedary ~ I'm sold that the molten metal in the substructure that continued glowing weeks after the disaster--along with the diagonal cut beams--are clear evidence of foul play. However, what puzzles me is the red molten liquid dripping out of the top of the building. The only thing I could imagine it to be is contaminated molten aluminum. it is strange how it pours out as though from a huge crucible. What is the engineering speculation as to what that might have been?
#33
I do my own little part for the environment on the really hot days by retreating to my basement and forgoing air conditioning the house during the daytime hours. It's fun, if you let it be - like camping out in your own house.
If the goal is just more open space for plants, and shade for cooling, we could also just cover existing neighborhoods with giant "living roofs". Think like the Chicago "el", but on a much bigger scale. It would probably be cheaper to cover what you already have built, rather than redo everything.
Which is something that needs to be considered when it comes to alternative fuels. The holy grail would be a non-fossil, renewable fuel that works like gasoline or diesel and can be used in the machines we already have. I've read an article or two about bacteria-based fuels that might do the trick. But, like all of the other really cool things I read about, that won't be realistic until my time on this Earth is over.
I made a mistake in post 31. Mammoth cave is in Kentucky. I was at Jewel cave, which is near Rushmore. I've never been in Mammoth cave, but I'm guessing it's also always the same tempterature inside.
#34
DAnneMarc: You think that the liquid that poured out of the WTC tower was "red"? It may have had some orange-red around some edges but the center of the flow was more yellowish. And the other photo of the first responders gathered around the pit below shows a white-yellow color. And the photo of the crane bucket, just having dug up a bit of what was below, was glowing orange-yellow....still hot. Even the satellite photos showed extremely high temperatures, far higher that what a jet fuel/office fire could have produced, weeks after 9/11. All of this is proof that temperatures far higher than a jet fuel/office fire created a hell of a lot of molten steel and it couldn't have come from the jet fuel/office fires.
It didn't look red to me. It looked yellowish-white right where it first flowed out of the building, with some orange color around the edges, out then remained bright yellow as it fell past the many floors below. There is the one photo (taken from the video) of where it oozed out of the building and there is another photo (taken from the video) that showed the molten metal showering down maybe 40 or so stories below.
#35
agelbert ~ Thank you for your participation and your passion. Your petition has been signed and passed on.
#36
ChicagoMatt: I usually just take a cold shower, but very brief cold shower (marine shower to conserve water), and then wear a swim suit around the house. I always get a "great job!" on my utility bill year-round because I use less energy than a similar sized house that is considered an "energy efficient" house. I conserve on water in another way as well in using my "hillbilly grey water system". It is a bucket that I use to collect the water while waiting for the water to warm up when I want to take a hot shower. (Maybe, one day, I'll modernize and put in a real grey water system...with pipes.) And then, I take a marine shower, where I get wet, turn the water off, soap up, then turn the water back on to rinse off. I use the water in the bucket (which is pure, clear water) on my plants.
#37
agelbert: Very interesting stuff! Thanks! Very scary, indeed!
#38
Palindromedary ~ I saw all the photos. I also read all the captions. It only speculates that it might have been contaminated aluminum from the fuselage of the plane caught in a container and spilling over. I take it the engineers weren't sure as to what it is either; and, that you don't have a guess too. Of course the notion that it was molten steel or iron is impossible... Or is it. It would certainly explain the color and how it could remain molten in free fall. However, that wouldn't make a lot of sense. Why melt the upper structure corner when there are charges in the main substructure columns?
You don't suppose it may have been molten glass from the windows? I don't know much about glass when it melts--especially tempered or tinted glass. I think most glass melts under 1000 degrees F. In these images melting glass does indeed have a yellow reddish hue.
Oh well! I guess we will never know. I do hate a mystery though.
#39
DAnneMarc: According to http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/SaiLee.shtml the melting point of glass (depending on the composition) is 2600-2900 °F (1425-1600 °C).
I suspect that one of the nanothermite charges, that had been previously planted along with all the rest. went off prematurely, perhaps because of the fire, perhaps due to a timing error. Thermite burns at 4000 degrees F.
Quote ae911truth.org:When ignited, the energetic Al-Fe thermite reaction produces molten iron and aluminum oxide, with the molten iron reaching temperatures well in excess of 4000° F. These temperatures are certainly high enough to allow cuts through structural steel, which generally has a melting point of around 2750° F.There is also a variant of thermite known as thermate, which is a combination of thermite and sulfur, and is more efficient at cutting through steel. This form of thermite is believed to have been used in the demolition of World Trade Center Building 7. Although conventional thermite has the capability to cut through structural steel, it is technically an incendiary and not an explosive.
Nanothermite (also known as superthermite), simply put, is an ultra-fine-grained (UFG) variant of thermite that can be formulated to be explosive by adding gas-releasing substances. A general rule in chemistry is that the smaller the particles of the reactants, the faster the reaction. Nanothermite, as the name suggests, is thermite in which the particles are so small that they are measured in nanometers (one billionth of a meter).
http://www.ae911truth.org/news-section/41-articles/646-faq-8-what-is-nan...
http://www.instructables.com/id/Thermite/
#40
A brilliant solution. Make it cost money. Hitting them in the profit margin is the only way to get their attention.
Unfortunately, passing any such law is impossible while citizens united is still in effect, and those with the most money (big oil) to bribe... er, I mean *incentivize* politicians get their say.
#41
Palindromedary ~ Thanks for that theory. Actually, that makes perfect sense. I assume that the chemical reaction can be sustained indefinitely when sealed below rubble with an abundant amount of steel fuel accounting for the molten steel pulled out of the wreckage a week later? It certainly explains that lava flow pouring out of the top floor. That 4000 degree F liquid metal would flow like water either melting or disintegrating everything in it's path and neither air or water would cool it. I can only assume that inside that stuff was melting its way through the floors to the basement, All in all some very nasty stuff. My only problem is why oh why would some bone head post the recipe on the internet? I can just imagine the stories when some kids get ahold of that.
#42
Quote DAnneMarc:My only problem is why oh why would some bone head post the recipe on the internet?I know, I thought the same thing. I watched a youtube video showing some young men, probably teenagers, (a foreign language...Poland?) gathered together in the back yard who set off a termite reaction in a flower pot buried in the snow. They did seem very aware of how powerful it would be and were very skittish and made sure they were some distance away. It was quite a demonstration...if it had not been for the snow they would most likely have set the community on fire. It looked like an explosion but didn't make a lot of noise ...it lit up the whole yard. And that was just thermite...not nano-thermite (nano-thermite is not easy to get...controlled by the military).
I saw another youtube video of someone setting a small thermite charge on top of the hood of a car. The thermite charge, when ignited, melted right through the hood, through the engine block, and to the ground. Themite (with an "i") has been around for a long time...so has thermate (with an "a") which is more explosive than just melting at high temperatures like thermite does. Nanothermite, or Superthermite, also sometimes called High-tech thermite, has only been around since about 1990, and invented in Lawrence Livermore Labs. It is used almost exclusively for Military use...blowing up steel bridges, tank killers, etc. So, since micro-particles of thermite (micro chips of thermite..ie: nano-thermite)...were found in the 4 dust samples taken around the WTC towers and tested in a laboratory, along with the micro-spheres of steel/iron (which can only have been created under extreme temperatures and hurled through the air at high speed..as in an explosion), it is pretty darn good evidence that the 3 buildings were demolitions. They wanted the towers to come straight down and not risk falling over on a bunch of other buildings in the area so they planted both nano-thermite and conventional explosives to make sure it did just that..come straight down in their foot prints.
I've seen other youtube videos of thermite rapidly melting a hole through thick steel beams creating the kind of excessive slag that can be seen in the diagonal cuts in photos of the wreckage of the WTC towers. And to those who say that those photos showed the cutting of vertical beams as a result of clearing out the mess by workers...it would make little sense to make such diagonal cuts when cranes are attached to the upper beams to remove them after a cut. Welder's cuts are a lot cleaner and a diagonal cut would waste effort and time and money. It would make more sense to cut straight across if cranes were used to lift the upper beams. If people had cranes attached to trees, when they cut them down, they wouldn't need to do angle cuts to make them fall in a certain direction. But they have to use angle cuts like that in demolitions to get the building to come straight down.
#43
Kend -- Do you know what probability is?
#44
Pal -- Once again, there has never been a building like the WTC, before or since. Building 7 has the electrical substation for all of lower manhattan. Building 7 could have brought down the other towers. I think these two things can explain everything but the thermite.
#45
agelbert -- I think a carbon tax would be powerful. Do you know if any country has ever tried it, and what the results were?
#46
chuckles8: I've long ago stopped reading Popular Mechanics since they came out with their faux scientific report on 9/11.
All those buildings were designed to take a crash of a jet liner carrying a full load of fuel and the subsequent fires from such crashes. Just because they were designed differently than previous steel buildings doesn't explain why those steel buildings came straight down at near free fall speed when the crashes and fires were way up near the top. It doesn't explain how a jet fuel fire, from less than full tanks, that burned up within about 3-5 minutes leaving just an office fire, that could not possibly have been hot enough...or burned long enough to create temperatures necessary to even weaken steel sufficiently to cause a structural failure even at that level. The planes crashed into one side, and the top part didn't even bend over toward the side of the jet entry, as one would expect. How can all those lower, supporting levels crumble without having lost, through some mechanism (like a fire intense enough to weaken them)? It looked just like demolitions because they were demolitions. And Building 7 was not of the same design as the towers anyway yet it crumbled the same way that the towers did except it didn't even get hit by a plane.
I don't know why you keep bringing up a substation...what the heck would that matter, anyway?
The Brits conducted a study of an 8 story steel building, even without any kind of insulation around the beams which exposed the beams to more heat than without the insulation. They let those fires rage for a lot longer than the WTC buildings and they didn't show any kind of malformation due to weakening of the beams.
The WTC tower's beams had insulation around them...which was a problem in another way...it was asbestos.
It had long been realized that the WTC buildings contained dangerous asbestos and that it would cost a fortune to clean it all up. True, an airliner crashing into the building would have scraped some of the asbestos off of the beams (but only at the crash site and not on the entire level) and would have caused the beams to absorb more heat...but that would have been only on some of the beams. And the building, if the fires were hot enough (which they weren't) then the top part of the buildings should have buckled over toward the direction of where the planes crashed.
What caused all of that molten steel to collect in the basements? The jet fuel and office fires could not have melted steel like that.
In WTC7, since there was a "gaping hole" in the south side, why didn't WTC7 fall over to that gaping hole side...why did it come straight down? Demolition specialists would never put explosives on just one side and expect it to come straight down.
Could it be that all tall buildings, especially in New York, are pre-wired for demolition in the event some catastrophic accident happens? It would make sense from the standpoint of trying to prevent those tall buildings from tipping over and taking out a lot of other buildings. I sure wouldn't want to be working in a tall building that was pre-wired for demolition. Yes, the people in the tall buildings would be killed if they had not been given enough warning and time to evacuate. But think of how many people could be killed when those building topple over on top of them...think of the extra costs involved in damage to the other buildings that get destroyed.
But giving those people a warning to get out of the building wouldn't make a "terrorist attack" such a psychological mind f#ck would it? The people in those buildings were told just to stay where they were. People wanted to leave, some did, but many obeyed orders to stay put.
#47
And by the way, Chuckle8, the sub station was built before WTC7 and was put there for the purpose of supporting WTC7. It was designed to be a safer and more solid base support than without it.
Also, I've read debunkers try to say that Nist has claimed that the vertical beam support #79 was the first beam to weaken and collapse and that it would have taken 9 pounds of dynamite to cut it. But, they say, there was no evidence of windows being broken and squibs shooting out which they believe would have happened if 9 pounds of dynamite was used to cut the beam. But they overlook the possibility of nano-thermite used in conjunction with smaller amounts of conventional explosives. They also overlook the fact that they have belittled the idea of explosives having caused the many squibs shooting out of WTC1 and WTC2. So, which is it? In the WTC7 case they try to say that demolition, which would have used dynamite, couldn't have happened because there were no squibs. But in the case of WTC1&2 there were very obviously, as caught on video, a number of squibs... but they say that isn't evidence of explosives. Problem is with the video of WTC7 collapse...the camera angle was such that other buildings blocked the view of windows on that side of the building at the lower levels. So, how could they know that the windows weren't blown out showing squibs?
All of those beams had been sprayed with a fire retardant...asbestos...so it just doesn't make sense that any of those buildings came down like that due to fire. Even NIST said that the fire in WTC7 wasn't hotter than 750 degrees F...which is way below the point of weakening steel beams. Even if there was no insulation on the steel beams, the fire wasn't hot enough to weaken steel beams.
#48
Here is a scene from inside of the WTC1 building, in 1995, that shows the beams covered with asbestos fire retardant.
Skip to minute 3:00 for the scene. See the side panel for a lot of other videos that show other floors as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Devadpwgcaw
Here's a video from the 85th floor of WTC2. This video was shot on March 8, 2002....5 months before 9/11. Looks like there was a program underway to remove the old asbestos. The guy mentions the beams having been cleaned..then goes on to show beams that had not yet been cleaned.
#49
Pal -- The WTC being built different than any other building before or since, does not explain they way they collapsed straight down. At least it does not explain it to me. However, it does mean that one cannot use the line of reasoning that since no other building has collapsed like the WTC that it therefore was a controlled demolition.
Due to photoshop and video editors, I really do not want to waste my time looking at pictures.
#50
Quote Chuckle8:... it does mean that one cannot use the line of reasoning that since no other building has collapsed like the WTC that it therefore was a controlled demolition.
No other steel building has ever come straight down like that due to fires....and there have been way more intense fires burning for a lot longer time in those buildings. Like I said before, the designers designed these buildings to absorb the impact of a jet liner with tanks full of jet fuel. These airliners had far less than full tanks by the time they hit the WTC buildings.
All of the beams, horizonal, braces, and vertical were all covered with SFRM (Sprayed-on Fire Retardant Material) as you can see in the links to the Videos I gave.
So now, are you trying to say that all of the photos that have been out since 9/11 were photoshopped? Which ones do you believe have been photoshopped?
Have you gone to the web site ae911truth.org and checked out what they have to say? I don't think they would photoshop photos or edit the videos on that site. The original videos and photos have been around a long time and if any photoshopped or edited video ever did show up, they can be compared to the already existing media.
I have already expressed my doubt about photos of that white van that had a mural of a plane crashing into the WTC towers that those "dancing" Israelis had. Although, there was an audio of the NYC Police communications that said there was such a van that had such a mural on it's side.
But it was no surprise to many people that the WTC towers were going to be rammed by planes. Even a young school child, a couple of days before 9/11, was asked by his teacher why he was staring at the WTC Towers (as the school had a line of site to the Twin Towers). He told his teacher that planes were going to crash into them.
Well connected people, some politicians, were told not to fly on that day because something big was going to happen. Many people who worked in the WTC towers called in sick that day...many more than usual. And Bush sure didn't look too surprised when he was interrupted reading to a 1st grade class.
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I agree the solution is to keep carbon in the ground. However, I don't know if taxes, or even fines, is enough to do the trick. I think a better strategy would be an all out ban on fossil fuel. Of course, taxes and fines might be the logical first step to an all out ban. Any burning of fossil fuels is unacceptable. It unbalances the natural carbon cycle and damages the environment. The only solution to this environmental problem is to change our source of energy completely. The only viable alternatives are biomass, wind, solar, hydroelectric, and geothermal. The best source of all is biomass because during the growth cycle of a plant CO2 is removed from the air and replaced with O2. It is the only source of energy available that can actually clean the air and reverse the greenhouse effect.
http://thehempsolution.blogspot.com/