Just 5 years left to stop climate change

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by applejuice

The whole debate about what is really happening to the global climate could have been over a long time ago if the data and methods used by the IPCC were openly released for revision.

This is conspiracy thinking. The IPCC is merely the institution that tries to bring scientific results to politics. It does that job not perfectly, but the underlying science is not depending on the IPCC for the overwhelming majority of projects. The studies about climate, climate change and human impact are incredibly numerous and funded by all kinds of agencies. There were even some funded by "climate change deniers" that came up with the same results as the others ones. Overall, the measured impacts and changes in climate do match or even exceed the estimates of scientific modelling done many years ago. One constant is that "it happens faster than we thought".
And re this article - it is from the freaking IEA - a bunch of guys who always used to tell us that there is no problem in the next few years.

Originally Posted by Human No More

Nobody wants massive wind turbines ruining their view, making noise and killing all the local birds, nobody wants a large expanse of land cleared, flattened and covered in mirrors and PV cells,....

Oh yeah - it is much better to have stuff in the own backyard that destroys things elsewhere, by putting out CO2 or by producing nuclear waste that has to be buried elsewhere.
I dont think NIMBY is a problem so much. Actually people next to nuclear power plants do not always mind it - in some cases they are well paid. But the impact of it ranges farther. Honestly I think those who profit from something should also have to live with the impact. If someone wants nuclear power, they should not mind living next to a nuclear plant and nuclear waste storage. If someone wants solar or wind, they should not mind those contraptions built next to where they live. There is no clean and no-impact source of energy. And if one actually experiecnces the impact of it oneself, one may be much less inclined to waste energy or to create stuff that uses even more energy. This is only too easy if one can drop the trash on someone elses land or on everyone elses land.

Only for the last decade or so, and we are significantly closer then - just see NIF or JET. In the 90s, lasers of the power level regularly used in fusion experiments today had not even been thought of.

Interestingly it seems that despite those power levels never thought of do not make that 20 years timeframe decline. Seriously - the mean value of predictions of when fusion power will be available is always 20 years over the past 25 years or so that I can remember (and possibly even before that). Some optimists who do not understand the problems in detail claim 10 years, others say it will never work, but the general number is always 20 years ([url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEMO]DEMO is said to start running in 22 years, and it is based on the assumption that ITER will produce positive results in about 15 years).
If they make it - good for them. I will accept new situations when they arise, but I would not bet the world on it. Basically there are 2 possibilities we face if we change the way we use and produce energy now - a) DEMO will work in 20 years and fusion poower will happen on a large scale in 40-50 years, then we have invested some money in energy sources that have become obsolete by then - after a lifetime of 40-50 years and have produced cleaner energy in that time - people have learned to value energy more and consume less. Not a big loss I'd say. Or fusion does not work in that timeframe but takes 60, 80, 100 years or never works as cleanly and safe as hoped for - then at least we already made some good steps. I think nothing can be lost by acting now under the assumption that fusion will not come in time.