An Inconvenient Truth

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

I would do solar domestic pre-heat, so you can use the solar energy, year round. And for heating, I would heat a separate radiant panel with a small load independant of your existing system. I live in Lowell and I would be happy to show you my system, and help you figure out what options may be best for you. Bob Gagnon

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Dan_15

Just got back from watching this eye-opening film about global warming. I feel like I have been lied to all this time. I learned a lot of stuff I never knew. It made me want to run out and buy a hybrid car now--immediately. I already have the most efficient heating system I could afford at the time: Buderus G215 with indirect tank, outdoor reset and indoor reset. But the film got me thinking, what would be involved with attaching solar panels to a hydronic heating system? Is this even advisable in the Northeast and where do I go to find the experts? Anybody have any experience with solar panels?

Thanks, Dan

EJW

Global warming

Your not falling into Al Gores trap are you? Did he say its all your fault for grilling those steaks last week? EJW

Mark Hunt

Ah geeze


Please do not bring this here.

You liked the movie..... good.

It made you feel good??? Great.


Go discuss it at the daily kos. You'll find a bunch of like minded folks there.

This is HH.com. HEATING HELP.

Thanks for the critique, nothing to see here, move along.

Mark H


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Dave Stroman

That was a good one, Mark.

Dave in Denver

DanHolohan

He's asking

about the feasibility of hydronic with solar panels.

Wayco Wayne_2

It's on my list

to see. I think most of us are already concerned and doing what we can. When I read the book, The Long Emergency, I was ready to go live in the unibombers cabin in Montana and await the end of civilization, but my wife talked me down and I sell high efficiency hvac and boilers as my part. I need to renew my interest in Solar though. BTW, I saw the movie, "Over The Hedge" this weekend. It's the funniest cartoon I have seen since Looney Toons. Near the end I almost hurt myself laughing. WW

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Jim Burke comfort zone

solar power

Dan i would be glad to talk to you about solar panels that can be used with your hydronic system or electric power.
Many new products are now avalible for this i don,t know why my you were chased away by some of the other pros on this site
i thoght we were into giving ways to save cust. money and maybe find ways to clean energy to boot.
This way of thinking is going to be the future and some people just don,t get it we need to find and use what ever methods we can find to stop our dependence on gas or oil that is the facts.Please e mail me i am listed in find a pro on this site along with many other pro's who are here to help not bash .

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DanHolohan

Thank you.

Dan_15

I thought The Wall was in favor of efficiency. My mistake. All that praise of Vitodens and mod/cons and radiant heating and all that talk about poop power, etc. must have been interpreted wrong by me. I am hugely disappointed to be chided here, of all places, for wanting to discuss ways to supplement my oil- fired hydronic heating system so as to reduce my contribution to carbon emissions. I was expecting more from this group of experts in the way of advice, support and creativity.

By the way, I am not exactly an Al Gore fan, and I did not know what to expect when I walked into the film; but you dont have to like Al Gore to understand the message. The film was suprisingly neutral about Gore; he came across more as a concerned citizen than a politician with an agenda. To me, it was like watching a 90 minute special on the Discovery Channel. The film was purely about science, and I thought the scientific evidence was overwhelming and convincing.

Dave Yates (PAH)

stick around

All points of view are welcome here (if Dan doesn't mind my speaking up!).

I'm anxious to see the film too and I'm also working on solar initiatives. Check out Viessman and their solar equipment. They're bringing PV to our shores in the near future too.

The one thing missing in Al Gore's interview in Newsweek and Hillary's ditty that followed in the papers was any reference to solar or wind. They droned on about biodiesel and hydrogen, but ignored the only truely renewable energy resources we have available.

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John Ruhnke

I saw the movie too/I'm all for solar...

Dan,

I saw the same movie this weekend. I believe Al Gore. I have been listening to a few of the experts at ASHRAE give me some of the same warnings. I have been trying to conserve energy for a few years now. It makes me think. I am now scared to think that my plan for overall heating efficiency isn't enough. We need more drastic measures. I know this country. We will do nothing until that large antartic shelf falls into the ocean and the worlds ocean rise 20 feet. I actually believe now that it is going to happen. I just don't know when. It could be twenty years from now or it could be tomorrow.

Please everbody go see An Inconvenient Truth it is a real eye opener.

Dan, I will be glad to design and install a solar system for you, if you live near my area. I had another client ask me about solar too. I have installed my first geothermal system into my own house. I am studying up on both solar and geothermal and am real interested. I feel they are a great solution.

John Ruhnke
JR@ComfortableHeat.com

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Mad Dog_2

Was this a Michael Moore Movie??????????

Look, I am all for Solar and many of the "Green" approaches. Jim Burke (who also posted) and I have some solar jobs in the works as we speak. We definitely should be moving in that direction - fast, but fear-mongering is not necessary. If we are all so terrified that the world is going to end in ten-20 years, why bother doing anything about it? One step at a time. Mad Dog

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Mad Dog_2

You did come to the right place, Dan

Don't you want some divergence of opinion, so you can form your own? I think so. The Wall IS all about the cutting edge approaches and differing opinions. The Global Warming debate is very worthwhile to address, but there are many scientists on both sides that have their "evidence." In the past few years the pendulum seems to be swinging back away from the gloom and doom side. Conserving fuel and cutting pollution is a good thing regardless, so let's keep moving in that direction, but let's not let it panic us. Mad Dog

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John_19

no fear mongering, just appeal for action

The message has been out there for years, but it is inconvenient to confront something so profound as changes in our long-term weather. This film approaches it a bit more artfully, which helps it be convincing. Government folks in Miami are already trying to figure out how to protect that city from rising sea water, and how much that'll cost. Some are taking this very seriously; the rest will have to adapt and adjust as their lives grow more inconvenient.

Dan_15

Mad Dog, you are a smart guy and I have enjoyed reading your posts on The Wall for a long time. Thanks for your support and advice.

I have to say, I am a highly skeptical person by nature and I question everything that I hear. I am not one to jump to conclusions and succumb to fear-mongering. But, that film left me feeling vulnerable. The film was 100% science, the message was not political. Michael Moore had nothing to do with it. Do I think that Greenland is going to melt up and drop into the ocean tomorrow? I am skeptical, believe me. But on the other hand I was blown away to have learned from the movie that an arctic ice shelf had recently melted apart and disappeared in only 35 days, and that the exact same symptoms are showing up in other ice shelfs on the polar caps. Or, what about those classified documents about sonar soundings taken by the US military to determine where nuclear submarines can surface underneath the polar ice cap. I was blown away to have learned that the ice is only several feet thick in wide areas, compared to 10s and 100s of feet thick only decades ago.

I was also disturbed to have learned that the US lags behind every other country in the world on emission standards; in fact, we cannot even sell American cars in China because their auto emission standards are so high.

Those are just a few of the things I remember from the film. It really did cut through the political BS and make the point that nature does not lie. It left me feeling vulnerable.

Brad White_9

China has high auto emission standards?

New one on me. Bituminous coal is their mainstay fuel with oil becoming a close second. Hardly a paradigm of clean air standards for a country exempt from Kyoto.

Besides, I doubt the average Chinese could afford an American car, if they even wanted one. That might explain our low sales volume.

I have not seen the movie but will soon enough. I have seen the Gore lecture though, on video and on which I am told the movie is based. He does not from what I have personally seen and read, acknowlege that there is as much evidence for global cooling as for warming. Very one-sided. Maybe 50% science?

We cannot predict the weather two weeks from now. How can we claim do so ten, twenty, fifty years hence?

Greenland was once agriculturally developed and supported Norse settlements for a few hundred years. Chicago and Boston were under glaciers not so long ago. The greatest climate fear when I was in grade school and even high school (1960's and 1970's) was "the coming ice age".

CO2 is marginal as a greenhouse gas compared to water vapor.

The long and short of it is, the earth may be warming, returning to it's "normal" cycle after recent ice ages. Everything happens in a cycle and we are on an upswing in some areas and a downswing in others. City temperature bases are higher but the heat island effect has to be considered. Overall many areas are holding steady or dropping. Ground temperatures and atmospheric temperatures seem to cancel out. Deserts ebb and flow. There was a dustbowl in the midwest in the 1930's that seems to have disappeared of late. The Sahara is getting larger in some areas and is retreating in others.
The earth was warmer and colder in the past. It does this with or without us. What hubris to suggest that we control the climate one way and not the other. We can really do neither.

Sorry for the off-topic rant, but the notion that one side of the argument has all the merit without consideration of history and alternate views has me irked a bit.

Be skeptical, make use of your intelligence and use common sense in any endeavor.

Always in good cheer,

Brad

Mark Hunt

Question


What caused the last ice age to end?

Mark H



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John Ruhnke

The movie is real convincing.......

Brad,

Are you up to date on your science reports? Out of 780 scientific reports, all conclude that the average earth temps are getting warmer and humans are responsible. 0 thats right 0 disagree. Maybe some older reports done decades ago may show different, not any of the modern science studies though. Yes, plenty of politicians and reporters have nonscientific articles disagreeing but who are you going to believe? The scientists or the reporters and polititians?

JR

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jackchips_2

A good cheer

for Brad.

Hip, hip hooray.

Jack

ScottMP

Well Said Matt

I agree, lets keep Doom and Gloom in perspective.

The Wall should be about whats effecient and how we as a trade can do our part.

Scott

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Dan_15

Brad, I always took you for someone with a finger on the pulse. I'm not so sure anymore. The film shows a study of temperature and CO2 levels obtained from ice core samples going back 650,000 years, during which the planet sustained 6 ice ages, i.e., cylcing from warmer to cooler climates six times over a period of longer than half a million years. The study shows that the last 50 years show a spike in C02 and corresponding temperature that is more than DOUBLE the baseline for the earth's normal cycle. There is no disagreement among scientists about this evdience. It is pretty convincing, even for a skeptic.

Brad White_9

Up to date

Well, I am up to date on common sense and my ability to filter out agendas and propaganda. I also know enough to say what I do not know. I wish others would do the same. There is a lot we do not know and to take an uptick in temperature (giving the benefit of the doubt to that notion) tells me that we are on an upswing. Nothing about causation or the future.

As for "modern studies" they need a foundation like all science. A basis or a point of refutal from which new findings spring forth. If not based on previous findings then computer modeling is used. Enough on that.

I am an independent thinker and see both sides. That so many scientists agree only tells me that so many scientists were asked. I can sample any group selected to give me any result I want.

If I wanted to follow the crowd, I would have been born a penguin. I do own a tuxedo with tails so perhaps there is an element of risk here.

Scientists in today's grant-driven world are defacto politicians. I have no illusions here.

I do know enough about cycles and long term history, ice core samples, gas diffusion and effects on enclosed environments. The studies I have read of are based on NOAA data, National Meteorological Society and the body of data used to support Kyoto Accords. Besides I am a weather nut to use a term. The NOAA and NMS data is inconclusive, meaning that the warming-cooling argument could go either way.

The CO2 issue is fascinating in that the earth generates more CO2 by far than mankind ever could. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is fractional (350 to 500 PPM with certain urban spikes). This is only one half of one hundredth of one percent of the atmosphere. The highest naturally recorded CO2 levels in volcanic regions are several time that, dwarfing any industrial area. Remember that African village wiped out in their sleep by CO2 some years back? Yet the worlds CO2 levels remain fairly constant. Plant life feeds like crazy on the stuff and give back oxygen in the bargain. Plants are good. Think balance and cycles.

Water vapor has a far greater greenhouse effect than CO2, by a percentage factor in the thousands. Only when water vapor is removed from the equation does CO2 figure into the 90 percentile range. Methane and other gasses make up the rest. Put water vapor back into the mix and you will see that good old H2O in vapor form does about 99.4 percent of the so-called greenhouse effect.

Again, selective sampling will get you the results you want. I am a realist. Water vapor cannot be just removed from the equation and have it represent reality.

Sorry to go on, John, but you asked a question

S Ebels

Efficiency is not about Global Warming

It's about Macro-economics and being energy independent.

Global warming can be debated endlessly as proven by our little dicussion here. Many opinions, much science pointing in both directions, skeptics vs save the planet types etc. etc.

Long term destruction of the environment, the wealth of this country, our ability to function and live life as we know it are all things that will change drastically if we don't get back to the point of energy independence here in the good ol USA. The wags in Washington have been, and are talking about this in hushed tones so as not to panic the masses but it's true. If we are no longer in control our energy destiny and are buying the basic life blood of our economy from people that hate us, what does the future hold? Simply put, it holds the transfer of the vast majority of the wealth of this country into the coffers of the countries we buy our energy from. We will witness the relentless destruction of our economic base unless we, as a nation, learn to conserve and develop alternatives to importing our energy needs.

Global warming will take care of itself in that we will find ways to deal with the afore mentioned rising oceans and expanding/contracting deserts. Those are questions for engineering types at this point. I don't think we can alter the fact that the climate on earth changes and does so with or without we puny humans.

So it comes back to being a matter of economics. Will we spend our future in servitude to the energy rich countries or will we find and develop alternatives along with learning to modify our life styles and consumption?

Just do the math. At today's crude price, every million barrels we import costs the US economy $70,000,000+. Now, how many million barrels a day do we import and what does that come to when you multiply that by 365? It's a truly staggering number. What if all, or even a fraction of that money was applied to helping people upgrade the insulation and windows in their homes, R&D for development of new energy sources, upgrading heating and cooling systems, flourescent bulbs in all buildings?

Pretty simple eh?

Here's an example from today's news, copy and paste.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3683270/

John Ruhnke

Co2 levels are no where near constant!!

Brad,

Are you looking at the same data that I looked at? The data that I looked at show that CO2 levels are way higher then anything ever and this is over a 600,000 year period. Yes 600,000 years!!

We are heading for trouble!

Go see the movie. I felt the same way you do a couple of years ago. When I went to ASHRAE in 2005 I spoke with many people about climatic Data for my Overall Heating Efficiency Project. All of them warned me about global warming. They all knew it was happening. These were top professors and engineers in our industry. Nobody at the conference disagreed. It changed my opinion on things. Now after the movie Inconvient Truth, I feel things are even worse then I thought they were!!

Yes it is fixable and yes we do have many decades to do it in but we better start now before things get even worse. It will take decades just to find livable solutions.


John Ruhnke
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Brad White_9

Ice core samples and normal cycles

Ice core samples tell you what was in any air entrained in ice at the time it froze and in one location, less any diffusion to the atmosphere. CO2 as a gas does not freeze at anything close to ice temperatures nor is CO2 and the air itself impregnable within that ice. CO2 is soluble in water but only under pressure. "Air capsules" have proven to not be so. A few years back lead coffins were exhumed of Maryland's first families and air samples taken to see what the composition of air was back then. Either they were using CFC's back then or the airtight lead coffins buried so far down were not as tight as assumed. Bubble in ice? Anyone's guess.

Normal cycles... undefinable. What is "normal"?. Take any period of time and average it.

But the point remains, water vapor is one thing over which only nature controls and is far and away the biggest retainer of solar energy we know of.

I am not a Luddite nor an ostrich nor a chicken little. I like to use what I know, learn what I do not know, and kick it around in my head. When I depart from that is where I have gone astray before. My mind is open (full of useless trivia no doubt!).


My best advice?

Relax.

Unknown

Yes, relax. For instance, there was little need to actually do anything about oil dependancy until now, right? We'll get through ok. No problem. What could possibly go wrong?

Brad White_9

Oil dependency

Different issue than global warming, natural versus man-made which was what I was writing about. Of course we should conserve, make it last and use it as well as we can. Use of solar? Absolutely.

Unknown

Similar sentiments have been expressed about oil dependancy for 30 years now, as is still being expressed about global warming. First the denials were that it was happening at all. Then it became about what was actually happening. When it's finally too much, it's too late.

I would suggest that perhaps we would want to start learning from our mistakes and stop waiting until we're in the thick of things to do something to avoid potential problems.

Maybe not. But next year when you're paying $5/gallon for gas... assuming our supply chain is not disrupted in the meantime... suddenly all those things all those hippies were saying for the last 30 years makes some kind of sense, doesn't it? Might be a similar kind of situation here, don't you think?

Dan_15

I agree with you on that. I would love nothing better than to disconnect myself from the public supply and make my own energy.

Garret

Interesting article I read this weekend... Indiana has funded a small rural town to go completely off the grid as a test case. Everyone's buying ethanol or biodiesel vehicles, and the town is building a power plant that can run on animal waste.

http://tinyurl.com/lwc94

Tony_23

Brad, I'm with you.

A movie by a politician not politically motivated ? Yeah, RIGHT.....

ANYBODY can make a movie, load it up with data and studies, make it sound convincing and call it a "documentary".

The notion that man can control the environment, especially on a global scale, is a hoot.

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Dave Yates (PAH)

Excellent point!

Man can't control the environment - tis true. However, man has repeatedly demonstrated his inate ability to screw up the environment.

I'm more concerned with severing ties to the middle-eastern countries for our economic and energy needs, which is why my primary focus is on moving my customers away from their fuel-sucking appliances to highly energy efficient ones while looking to solar as one of our future mainstay offerings.

Global warming may or may not be as real as Gore and others say. But, moving away from an addiction to oil will help if that's the real deal.

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Paul Pollets

On a similar point...

I posted "Gas Guzzling Rewards" on the Heating Efficiency section of The Wall. I would urge all to read it. It may be not so "convenient" to hear how our government and large corporations support waste and dependency on foreign oil.

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singh

but we can

"The notion that man can control the environment,especially on a global scale,is a hoot."
But we can!
A little off topic, but one of our nuclear subs, with only twelve tridents with merv heads that split off into multiple heads striking over 60 strategic locations simultaneously is over 1000 times more powerful then Hiroshima.
It has been said, if they ever launch it WILL change the environment and weather for 100++ years. Not that it matters, nobody will be around. Scary huh? How's that for what man can do?
Now if we put our best and brightest on actually making the world better, instead of devices as I stated above, just maybe we'll have a chance.
I think A. Gore is delivering a message , no other politician is sincerely doing right now. I did not see the movie, but I don't think he's telling us we have to do this or that, but let's get our best and brightest toghther thinking, let's as a nation help slow things down, if not reverse, lets not be part of the problem, but let come up with some solutions.

As for solar collectors, as soon as I replace my roof, one will go in my house.
It is truly "green" and not the best mod/con out there can come close.
Go for it Dan.
What ended the last ice age? A shift in the strength/orbit of earth and of the polar magnet fields,
it comes and goes in cycles,(milkonvitch cycles)I believe I read somewhere. We live in a dynamic world.



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Rich W

Brad

I'm in your camp 100%. I read Mother Earth in the '70s and my teachers all talked about that same ice age...OOPS! Let us not forget the population bomb. We were supposed to be out of food,fuel,water and air a long time ago according to these fearmongers.All the records of our history don't add up to a fraction of a blip on the radar of time. Kind of like taking a 1-second sample of a 100 year data log and making decisions based on that information. We can all see what is happening- my living in a cave wrapped in skins won't stop it. I guarantee the people responsible for that movie produce much more waste and pollution living their lives than you and I do...I must say, I still want to save on my fuel bill regardless of what the nuts say. I disagreed with the politics but I still went to school for solar in the late '80s.

Brad White_9

Exactly, Rich

I think we went to the same schools or at least had the same textbooks You nailed it with the sample data. We really do not know if the earth is warming or not, or if man is causing it or not. All data available to me says that the anthropogenic (human-based) contribution is negligible.

It also follows the Harvard Rule of Arts and Sciences: "Under the most stringently controlled aspects of temperature, humidity and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases".

The other part of my skepticism meter is, "does the proponent of a particular view at some level have an eye for my tax dollars?". Sometimes I think I am the only one who sees how a call for action regardless of cause, will cost me money. Part of the mix in filtering the discussion.

Cheers always,

Brad

Brian_18

Global \"COOLING\" ???

In an effort to keep things in perspective, take a look at this.
http://www.junkscience.com/mar06/Time_AnotherIceAge_June241974.pdf

I was a 1974 Time magazine article, which scientists then, basically said the opposite of what we're hearing now, and were very serious about it. In a matter of 32 years, the brightest scientific minds did a 180 turn on the subject.

So, let's see, the greatest minds of the era said:
"the world is flat"
"the Earth is the center of our universe"
"Radium toothpaste is good for you"
"we're going to run out of oil in 20 yrs", (said 25 yrs ago)
"etc."

The facts are, we humans are on this planet, and use resources in order to survive. If we didn't find and learn how to use fire, we'd still be living in caves. We all should follow the lead of our parents, (or grandparents) who lived through the great depression. DON'T WASTE.

My 2¢

Mark Hunt

Interesting read


Here

Mark H

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John Ruhnke

Over thirty years old..............

Brian,

You said "I was a 1974 Time magazine article, which scientists then, basically said the opposite of what we're hearing now"

That study you found is over 30 years old. In the last thirty years the temps and CO2 levels have risen dramatically and at a faster pace then any in the last 650,000 years. Not one scientist disagrees with that. I was at the ASHRAE conference in 2005. I spoke personally to the scientific comunity. They all 100% agreed that the earth temps are getting warmer and humans are the cause. Thats 100%!!!!!

JR

N

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John Ruhnke

Republican Politician garbage......

Mark,

Talk to any leading scientist today they all agree that the earth is getting warmer and that we are the cause.

The paper you are reading is a good example of the political unscientific garbage that is in direct conflict of what the scientists today, in 2006 believe.

I was at ASHRAE and I talked to them. I know what they are saying.

JR

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