Post by cjm on Dec 10, 2013 16:55:06 GMT
www.noseweek.co.za/article/3090/Dear-Editor,
Letters
Warming theory is not science
The Noseark article “Denialism: the argument overheats” (nose169) falls far short of your usual high standards. I don’t know what scientific training its author, Adam Welz, has but to simply try to write off the “denialists” as nihilistic hedonists is cheap, unscientific and unedifying. And to suggest David Gleason’s criticism lacks basic logic simply confirms the author’s lack of it.
That man-made CO² emissions cause global warming is a theory that not all scientists concur with and to consider counter theories as simply a joke reveals Welz’s lack of an open mind.
It is certainly not true that low-carbon electricity generation technologies are as cost competitive as he suggests. A lot of funny accounting and hidden subsidies are used to do this. Wind turbines in Germany, the country with the highest percentage of its power generated in this way, put out an average of only 17% of their installed power rating and need to be backed up by normal coal burning power plants to balance the fluctuating wind. This now burdens Germany one of the costliest electrical power prices. See www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9559656/Germanys-wind-power-chaos-should-be-a-warning-to-the-UK.html
For some 'denialists' thoughts see www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/solar-cycles/Archibald2007.pdf and www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-policy/science-and-policy/Curry-Consensus-distorts-the-climate-picture.pdf
Richard Becker
Midrand
The Los Angeles Times recently took an editorial decision not to publish climate change-denying rubbish any more, but this is Noseweek, so I’ll take the time to reply. I’ll ignore your baseless accusations about my presumed lack of basic logic, an “open mind” and scientific qualifications, and get on to your references which you say support your claims. None come from peer-reviewed scientific journals. One is by an anti-environmentalist, anti-government newspaper opinion columnist with no apparent qualification in anything; another is a seven- year-old presentation by a mining company executive to a “think tank” set up precisely to deny the science of climate change, and the third is an opinion column written by (gasp) an actual scientist who actually agrees with the basic premises of the theory of human-caused climate change.
Market research and consulting firm Frost and Sullivan recently conducted a study that found that, in South Africa, solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants would provide electricity at a far cheaper rate than coal – possibly at less than half coal’s price – by 2020. These are not massively subsidised, government-owned plants. Other studies show wind also becoming cheaper than coal, and Eskom is addressing the intermittency problem inherent in solar PV and wind by piloting Concentrated Solar Power plants that can provide baseload electricity. (If you hadn’t noticed, renewable energy is booming in South Africa.)
Over 97% of working scientists have been found to agree that human-caused climate change is real. If you’d like to side with the less-than-3% of scientists who think it isn’t real, the bullshitter columnist/pundit/blowhards and the fossil fuel company-funded whackheads, be my guest. Sometimes those in the minority are just plain wrong. – Adam Welz