Climate change? Yes, for the last 4bln years or so.
Global Warming? Maybe...or maybe not, depends on your timeframe.
Anthropogenic Global Warming? Possible.
What do do?
a) Tax people into the stone age, oppress them with "Sactimoaning" and control their lives even more.
b) Subsidise feeble, impractical "alternatvies" like biofuel (10x the land needed to fuel the car than feed the driver...) and ugly windmills?
c) Invest in research for Fusion power - e.g. the Bussard electric containment system
d) Build the infrastructure and arrange the nation to cope with the consequences of climactic unpredictability.
I am a c) and d) man, myself.
Over at the Telegraph, they report some Gore Sanctimoaning. In the comments I noticed this gem:
Al Gore reminds me of a second hand car salesman and a fairground shouter!Well said, Stef.
Want an easy answer? too stupid to understand the complex issues? are you a guilt ridden self hating middleclass handwringer? Are you jelous of people who have more than you? Then Al Gore is the man for you! He will tell you all you need to know in easy to understand words! He will tell you who you should blame and persecute! Roll up, roll up folks, come and see the greatest con on earth, all you have to do is listen and obey without question and good ole Al will save you all from the evil capitalist swine who swan around in their big cars and fancy homes! CO2 is to blame for all your woes he shouts! If someone is not convinced, heretic he cries!
Al Gore will stir up the mob and tell them who to blame as long as you DO NOT question his wisdom and he will lead the huddled masses to a socialist utopia and paradise just as long as you do exactly what he says with no questions asked! Hail the great and all knowing Al Gore! Hail the greatest scientist the world has ever seen! Vote for Al and you need never bother to think for yourself ever again because he will do all your thinking for you! HOORAY! - Stephanie Clague, 10:18AM.
Gore and his ilk know how religion works. They want a piece of that mind-control pie.
7 comments:
Here is one promising technology that is not getting the backing it needs to make or break it:
Bussard Fusion Reactor
Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion
So I have decided to do an end run around the government by designing an open source fusion test reactor.
Any one care to help? You can start here:
IEC Fusion Newsgroup
IEC Fusion Technology blog
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Why is Britain placing all its bets on ITER when IEC Fusion is showing promise at much lower costs?
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BTW nice to see you up to speed on Dr. Bussards work.
Bussard is a hero of mine on many levels.
Tenacity, dry wit, lateral thinking and bloody smart. His 1hr talk on this subject at Google was fascinating. Tenacity means no angel, for sure, but hey.
The State places its bets with ITER as it is the kind of thing Statists understand.
Big budgets.
Vested interests
Grants.
Discussions/meetings/flights/hotels.
Tax funded.
Plus, when a new idea comes up, they ask their Fusion heads who are already sold on ITER, it being their rice-bowl.
Bussard was pragmatic about the effect of ricebowlers, so knew it must be funded outside the State.
However, if I have anything to do with it, in a Libertarian UK, we would build the thing. £100m? Come on, Gordon Brown sprinkled away £3bln via the CPA. You could raise that kind of money by firing about 1500 useless paper shufflers out of the 900,000 he has employed in the last 10 years - i.e. 1 in 600.
The first round might be a competition, A Churchill X prize series for the first group to get one running steady state, then break even then finally hefty net output (at 7m dia?). Limitation: IP and base for programme must be UK domiciled.
p.s. thanks for the links!
It's not 900,000, it's almost exactly one million between Summer 1997 anhd Winter 2005.
See here.
Tim Worstall reckons this IEC is a hoax, BTW.
Is he? I've flag-waived IEC on his blog a few times and he has not responded.
Google Tim Worstall ICE does not show anything either.
Mark,
I have looked into the Drs. work and was an admiring sceptic.
So far my doubts have been dispelled by actual independent research I have found.
As to whether it is worth it to go on. That question could be answered for 5 or 10 million pounds ($10 to $15 million American).
At a certain point the math gets so complicated and the assumptions so deep that the only way to be sure is to do the experiment. Which is the only sure test in any case.
BTW if Tim W. wants to discuss IEC please invite me to the show.
Rog, I looked up IEC on ye olde Interweb and it seemed "too good to be true" I'm no scientist but it all rang a bit hollow. It wasn't BORING enough. So I emailed Tim and he agreed it seemed a bit like a hoax as well. But like M.S. says, we waste so much money on other crap, why not chuck a few million at this and find out once and for all.
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