"The main barriers are social, political and getting industries to change. One way to overcome the barriers is to inform people about what is possible," said Jacobson, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy. "By showing that it's technologically and economically possible, this study could reduce the barriers to a large scale transformation." (...)
"When we did this across all 50 states, we saw a 39 percent reduction in total end-use power demand by the year 2050," Jacobson said. "About 6 percentage points of that is gained through efficiency improvements to infrastructure, but the bulk is the result of replacing current sources and uses of combustion energy with electricity."
Like most areas of complex research, predictions of how climate will change as greenhouse gases accumulate in Earth's atmosphere aren't free of uncertainties. But unlike economic forecasts – which are often taken at face value by the public despite proving wildly inaccurate most of the time – climate predictions are criticised for having error bars. They have become a stick with which to beat climate science and delay political action.
As a result, climate researchers spend a lot of time apologising for what they don't know, rather than confidently stating what they do. Even without these distorting influences, the communication of uncertainty is still a big challenge.
Vela wrote:Those charts illustrate quite clearly that in the case of global warming/CO2, correlation does indeed prove causation.
Vela wrote:http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-whats-warming-the-world/ Pay attention, @DynamiteReady Those charts illustrate quite clearly that in the case of global warming/CO2, correlation does indeed prove causation.
(After becoming PM h)e immediately moved to dismantle Australia’s limited carbon reduction systems, scrapping its fledgling carbon trading scheme, disbanding a climate advisory body and lowering its renewable energy target.
But without a majority in the upper house, Abbott was unable to pass legislation disbanding the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which is making a profit on the money it lends to clean energy schemes.
So instead, this week his government ordered it to stop investing in wind and small-scale solar operations.
Facewon wrote:@vela talk to me about this Labor target and the $600 million that the daily tele are banging on about.
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