You know, economists keep saying that the profit motive is what drives technological development, but whenever I heard from a scientist or student they say they chose in large part for moral reasons. Most people prefer a job that pays less but lets them feel good about themselves when given the option to do so without starving.
So maybe the reason solar and battery tech are developing a lot faster exactly when climate change's results are becoming so obviously clear, is because the two are causally related. The career choice argument is theoretical, but the correlation between global awareness of a problem and technological development is empirical evidence. I think those together make a pretty strong case that the economists are wrong. Again. People aren't actually primarily driven by greed, it can just seem that way because we don't want to starve from a lack of money.
You know what the most depressing part of this realisation is? That we could have gotten so many more technological advancements in ethical fields if the assumption of the profit motive wasn't the driving force behind research funding. For too long we only funded research into profitable technology, which is exactly backwards because research often makes a technology cheaper! If instead of giving profit chasing machines (this is a valid way to describe companies) all the power and freedom they want we had given people the water, food, shelter, community, and security they need to feel safe, a lot more of them would have been doing solar research decades earlier, plus a lot of other fields would have developed faster! Not to mention we would have more art, which isn't my thing but I do understand lots of people love it.
1. Yes it does, kinetic energy compresses ice, and compression heats stuff up. Repeat that a million times and the ice melts. Also, tiny grains of ice act exactly like water. Also too, friction generates heat too, pulverising stuff tends to be heavy and fast so that's a lot of friction.
2. A collapsing glacier is the sudden removal of a lot of mass from a system that has been under that pressure for eons. It is called post-glacial rebound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound
3. Don't confuse a lack of knowledge on your part for a plan on someone else's part. That's the part of your brain that sees faces in clouds running wild.
2. I know what a glacier is and I know it's not part of the bedrock, and that the relieving of pressure shouldn't cause an explosion. But under the right circumstances I suppose it could, the mountain could. But they specifically said bedrock and that has a specific meaning. I find the spontaneous mega explosion unlikely. I just do. Even accounting for rebound.
1. Too early for me to follow your thoughts on water, but I'm skeptical.
2. You can just ask a geologist. Or if it is a properly sourced article you can trace it back to the scientific paper and read what it says (bring a scientific dictionary). That way you can respond to the actual source instead of reporting of reporting of reporting of reporting.
This morning I read about a project in Great Britain where a community is using the water from an abandoned and flooded mine to provide energy for hot water heating. Heat pumps chill the water by 5 degrees C. The hot exhaust warms fresh water to 80 degrees C. (about 190 F.) that is piped to houses through the village. It avoids using petrol to warm the water but does consume electricity which can come from renewables. I'm not sure how profitable their plan is, but it's a cool idea.
Heat pumps need a temperature gradient, the bigger the difference the more efficient the heat pump. I can imagine the water in a flooded mine being a lot colder than the surrounding area.
When all you base your decision making process on are emotions, character over content, and dis- and misinformation, all the logic, facts and truth in the world cannot penetrate the ignorance you have imprisoned your intellect inside.
When Biden was in office, he had a lot of programs started to build up alternate energy sources, but Trump wiped allof them out. Trump is just stealing all the money for himself and his family, while the oil companies get richer! Too bad for the people who aren’t billionaires!
"a plot by Democrats, who, as Laura Ingraham said this week, are “coming for your money, your gas-powered car, your air conditioner. Everything you love. Your private health insurance. And they're gonna take it from you, period, end of story.”"
* If the Dems are coming after our money it's for a completely different reason than the RINOs. The Dems will likely just squander it improving the lives of all and reweaving the social safety nets the RINOs have torn asunder. When the RINOs come for our money it's to give it to billionaires, to increase the evil being perpetrated by their tribe, or for corporate largesse.
* It's not the Dems and libs coming for gas powered vehicles; sales of gas/diesel cars/trucks have seen decreasing while sales of electric and hybrids are growing (especially hybrids):
> "◾ Market Share Growth: Traditional hybrid electric vehicles reached a record 16% to 17% of light-duty vehicle sales, driven by spikes in fuel costs.
◾ Surging Demand: According to data from Edmunds, hybrid sales jumped roughly 20% year-over-year and nearly 50% following gas price increases.
◾ Gas-Powered Vehicles: Standard internal combustion engine market share dropped below 80% for the first time recently, though short-term gas car sales saw temporary bumps of around 11% during fuel price surges.
◾ Manufacturer Shifts: Major automakers like Toyota have capitalized on this trend by phasing out gas-only options in popular models like the Camry and RAV4 in favor of hybrid setups.
[...]
◾ Used Market Strength: While new EV sales lag behind hybrids, used EV sales have surged due to lower off-lease inventory and lower price points under $30,000." AI generated from prompt: "trends in sales of gas powered vehicles compared to electric or hybrids"
* Ingraham, as usual, is full of shit, this time about air conditioners. The ac's that the gubmint is coming after -- or at least was prior to the Fulvous Fuckwad -- are using refrigerants known to damage the ozone layer:
> "For decades, R22 was the gold standard of home air conditioning refrigerant. Developed in the 1930s, R22 is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) that was later discovered by scientists to be harmful to Earth’s ozone layer. [...]
As R22 was phased out, R410A emerged as its replacement. Today, most home air conditioning units, including many installed since the late 90s, use R410A refrigerant. Unlike R22, R410A is a hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) and contains no chlorine, giving it an ozone-depleting potential (ODP) score of zero. [NB: R410A is being phased out as also contributing to climate change.]
* If I'm not mistaken, it has been the RINOs coming after health insurance, both private and public. But don't worry, I'm sure there will be a carveout for private insurance companies which have contributed a sufficient amount to the RINOs.
Our roof is now completely covered with solar panels. In addition to making our electricity, we actually have negative $1000-ish with National Grid, which should help out when it starts to get cold. We try to shop locally whenever we can. Every bit helps. I hope some of it makes up for my long commute, which I can't change right now.
Our roof is covered too, the net zero system with the grid paid for itself in a couple of years but in the last couple of years our electric rates have tripled. Last year we added batteries for back up in outages and to run on at night. It's a cushion that's getting thinner.
Net zero deals with the grid can't last forever, here in the Netherlands they're being stopped because the massive peak of electricity when the sun shines is harming the grid. Which is where batteries come in, any electricity you store when it is sunny is electricity that isn't harming the grid.
Our system recharges the batteries before it uploads any overage to the grid, it also keeps batteries charged when there is any severe weather in the area. It's like magic:-)
Paying for batteries with the money you save from having solar energy is smart investing.
Make sure to do the maths for replacing them every 20 years and put some of the profits into a savings account and investments for that, so when it breaks you're not immediately flat broke. They are likely to last longer than 20 years so you don't actually have to replace them when they're still good but better safe than sorry.
When I was in college I had a History prof. who was a retired Air Force officer. A Colonel or Lt. Col. iirc. One day in class the topic of global warming came up somehow and of course there was a denier in the class. I'll never forget the look on both the denier and the professor's face when the prof. said with a stone cold glare, "If it wasn't real the military wouldn't be preparing for it. I assure you the military is preparing for it and takes it seriously and so should everyone else." This was in 2000. We had plenty of warning but the majority of people wanted to continue to party like it's 1999 so here we are.
Heck, I was collecting signatures in the 1970's to help close the ozone hole. (And that meant going door to door...No internet back then.) We knew back then: but big oil buried any opinions, much less research. We also know big ag, big pharm, big business are poisoning our land and water, but apparently there aren't enough people with power to stop it. Seems we are funding our own slow demise: as well as several generations that will be struggling to find enough potable water and food for their family.
We have never experienced what we are going through now...because we never had a climate crisis like this one. :(
I mean, the entire point of preparation is that you should also prepare for the less likely outcomes, not just for the one most likely outcome. Any military strategist that doesn't have a plan for when the enemy has a different position than expected is not a good strategist.
Maybe the fact that we have 9 billion humans on the planet is a bad idea.
You know, economists keep saying that the profit motive is what drives technological development, but whenever I heard from a scientist or student they say they chose in large part for moral reasons. Most people prefer a job that pays less but lets them feel good about themselves when given the option to do so without starving.
So maybe the reason solar and battery tech are developing a lot faster exactly when climate change's results are becoming so obviously clear, is because the two are causally related. The career choice argument is theoretical, but the correlation between global awareness of a problem and technological development is empirical evidence. I think those together make a pretty strong case that the economists are wrong. Again. People aren't actually primarily driven by greed, it can just seem that way because we don't want to starve from a lack of money.
You know what the most depressing part of this realisation is? That we could have gotten so many more technological advancements in ethical fields if the assumption of the profit motive wasn't the driving force behind research funding. For too long we only funded research into profitable technology, which is exactly backwards because research often makes a technology cheaper! If instead of giving profit chasing machines (this is a valid way to describe companies) all the power and freedom they want we had given people the water, food, shelter, community, and security they need to feel safe, a lot more of them would have been doing solar research decades earlier, plus a lot of other fields would have developed faster! Not to mention we would have more art, which isn't my thing but I do understand lots of people love it.
I think that wall of water was well over 50 feet, if the land on the other side of that wall was the same hight.
FYI we have been in a mini ice age for almost a decade now.
It's called the Eddie Minimum
Any official disaster relief from the Stupid States of America other than attempting to rename Mt. Everest as Mt. Epstein?
Per the Vichy Times:
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘜.𝘚. 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 $500,000 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘕𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘭, 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘜.𝘚. 𝘌𝘮𝘣𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘕𝘦𝘱𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘥, 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘴, 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘵𝘰 𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘢𝘮 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘴𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘴.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/08/28/world/nepal-tibet-flash-floods/db9f0308-207e-5532-8cd6-7480913fc0fd?smid=url-share
Well I have my tin foil hat on bc
1. Ice does not pulverize to water.
2. A collapsing glacier doesn't take the mountain, the BEDROCK, with it.
3. What even was that? I think it's more than simply mother nature.
1. Yes it does, kinetic energy compresses ice, and compression heats stuff up. Repeat that a million times and the ice melts. Also, tiny grains of ice act exactly like water. Also too, friction generates heat too, pulverising stuff tends to be heavy and fast so that's a lot of friction.
2. A collapsing glacier is the sudden removal of a lot of mass from a system that has been under that pressure for eons. It is called post-glacial rebound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound
3. Don't confuse a lack of knowledge on your part for a plan on someone else's part. That's the part of your brain that sees faces in clouds running wild.
2. I know what a glacier is and I know it's not part of the bedrock, and that the relieving of pressure shouldn't cause an explosion. But under the right circumstances I suppose it could, the mountain could. But they specifically said bedrock and that has a specific meaning. I find the spontaneous mega explosion unlikely. I just do. Even accounting for rebound.
1. Too early for me to follow your thoughts on water, but I'm skeptical.
3. Very possible. Maybe probable.
2. You can just ask a geologist. Or if it is a properly sourced article you can trace it back to the scientific paper and read what it says (bring a scientific dictionary). That way you can respond to the actual source instead of reporting of reporting of reporting of reporting.
I wouldn't laugh at Al Gore. He's totally cereal.
This morning I read about a project in Great Britain where a community is using the water from an abandoned and flooded mine to provide energy for hot water heating. Heat pumps chill the water by 5 degrees C. The hot exhaust warms fresh water to 80 degrees C. (about 190 F.) that is piped to houses through the village. It avoids using petrol to warm the water but does consume electricity which can come from renewables. I'm not sure how profitable their plan is, but it's a cool idea.
Heat pumps need a temperature gradient, the bigger the difference the more efficient the heat pump. I can imagine the water in a flooded mine being a lot colder than the surrounding area.
yes! Such "district heating" is really effective done with heat pumps.
When all you base your decision making process on are emotions, character over content, and dis- and misinformation, all the logic, facts and truth in the world cannot penetrate the ignorance you have imprisoned your intellect inside.
Coming soon to a theater of war near you.
That's what I'm thinking.
When Biden was in office, he had a lot of programs started to build up alternate energy sources, but Trump wiped allof them out. Trump is just stealing all the money for himself and his family, while the oil companies get richer! Too bad for the people who aren’t billionaires!
"a plot by Democrats, who, as Laura Ingraham said this week, are “coming for your money, your gas-powered car, your air conditioner. Everything you love. Your private health insurance. And they're gonna take it from you, period, end of story.”"
* If the Dems are coming after our money it's for a completely different reason than the RINOs. The Dems will likely just squander it improving the lives of all and reweaving the social safety nets the RINOs have torn asunder. When the RINOs come for our money it's to give it to billionaires, to increase the evil being perpetrated by their tribe, or for corporate largesse.
* It's not the Dems and libs coming for gas powered vehicles; sales of gas/diesel cars/trucks have seen decreasing while sales of electric and hybrids are growing (especially hybrids):
> "◾ Market Share Growth: Traditional hybrid electric vehicles reached a record 16% to 17% of light-duty vehicle sales, driven by spikes in fuel costs.
◾ Surging Demand: According to data from Edmunds, hybrid sales jumped roughly 20% year-over-year and nearly 50% following gas price increases.
◾ Gas-Powered Vehicles: Standard internal combustion engine market share dropped below 80% for the first time recently, though short-term gas car sales saw temporary bumps of around 11% during fuel price surges.
◾ Manufacturer Shifts: Major automakers like Toyota have capitalized on this trend by phasing out gas-only options in popular models like the Camry and RAV4 in favor of hybrid setups.
[...]
◾ Used Market Strength: While new EV sales lag behind hybrids, used EV sales have surged due to lower off-lease inventory and lower price points under $30,000." AI generated from prompt: "trends in sales of gas powered vehicles compared to electric or hybrids"
* Ingraham, as usual, is full of shit, this time about air conditioners. The ac's that the gubmint is coming after -- or at least was prior to the Fulvous Fuckwad -- are using refrigerants known to damage the ozone layer:
> "For decades, R22 was the gold standard of home air conditioning refrigerant. Developed in the 1930s, R22 is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) that was later discovered by scientists to be harmful to Earth’s ozone layer. [...]
As R22 was phased out, R410A emerged as its replacement. Today, most home air conditioning units, including many installed since the late 90s, use R410A refrigerant. Unlike R22, R410A is a hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) and contains no chlorine, giving it an ozone-depleting potential (ODP) score of zero. [NB: R410A is being phased out as also contributing to climate change.]
[...]
With R410A going the way of R22, the new standard refrigerant contenders are A2L-class refrigerants R32 and R454B." https://www.airflowdesigns.com/blog/important-changes-coming-air-conditioning-refrigerants/ [see chart for comparison of R410A to R32 and R454B]
* If I'm not mistaken, it has been the RINOs coming after health insurance, both private and public. But don't worry, I'm sure there will be a carveout for private insurance companies which have contributed a sufficient amount to the RINOs.
fnord
Our roof is now completely covered with solar panels. In addition to making our electricity, we actually have negative $1000-ish with National Grid, which should help out when it starts to get cold. We try to shop locally whenever we can. Every bit helps. I hope some of it makes up for my long commute, which I can't change right now.
We’ve lived totally off the grid for 30+ years now and I can’t think of anything important that we’ve had to do without in all that time.
That's amazing.
Our roof is covered too, the net zero system with the grid paid for itself in a couple of years but in the last couple of years our electric rates have tripled. Last year we added batteries for back up in outages and to run on at night. It's a cushion that's getting thinner.
Net zero deals with the grid can't last forever, here in the Netherlands they're being stopped because the massive peak of electricity when the sun shines is harming the grid. Which is where batteries come in, any electricity you store when it is sunny is electricity that isn't harming the grid.
We are not in any danger of having so many homes with net zero deals that we harm the grid. Not in my lifetime anyway.
I hadn't even thought about the battery backup, but it's a good idea. From what we were paying before we added more panels, I'll take it.
Our system recharges the batteries before it uploads any overage to the grid, it also keeps batteries charged when there is any severe weather in the area. It's like magic:-)
Nice!!
Paying for batteries with the money you save from having solar energy is smart investing.
Make sure to do the maths for replacing them every 20 years and put some of the profits into a savings account and investments for that, so when it breaks you're not immediately flat broke. They are likely to last longer than 20 years so you don't actually have to replace them when they're still good but better safe than sorry.
I'll do that - thanks!
But what if it’s hoax and we make a cleaner, better world for nothing?
Don't you just hate when that happens?
When I was in college I had a History prof. who was a retired Air Force officer. A Colonel or Lt. Col. iirc. One day in class the topic of global warming came up somehow and of course there was a denier in the class. I'll never forget the look on both the denier and the professor's face when the prof. said with a stone cold glare, "If it wasn't real the military wouldn't be preparing for it. I assure you the military is preparing for it and takes it seriously and so should everyone else." This was in 2000. We had plenty of warning but the majority of people wanted to continue to party like it's 1999 so here we are.
Heck, I was collecting signatures in the 1970's to help close the ozone hole. (And that meant going door to door...No internet back then.) We knew back then: but big oil buried any opinions, much less research. We also know big ag, big pharm, big business are poisoning our land and water, but apparently there aren't enough people with power to stop it. Seems we are funding our own slow demise: as well as several generations that will be struggling to find enough potable water and food for their family.
We have never experienced what we are going through now...because we never had a climate crisis like this one. :(
It was being discussed back in the late 1970s when I was in forestry school.. We knew.
I mean, the entire point of preparation is that you should also prepare for the less likely outcomes, not just for the one most likely outcome. Any military strategist that doesn't have a plan for when the enemy has a different position than expected is not a good strategist.
My Dad was career military. Always have Plan A, always have at least one back up plan - or more, and always adapt as needed.
And the Republican Party actually STOPPED the military's preparations because preparing for climate change is too woke.
Just wait til Antarctic is gone. Life imitating art-Kim Stanley Robinson's books.
Don't have to wait for that. When the ocean currents that are slowing down presently, stop: every country will be affected. :(
That is not surprising, Robinson based his books on science, and Science is the measure of reality.