Beware of the Train

atreic

1. Is there much money to be made by convincing everyone that climate change is real when it isn't?
2. Is there much money to be made by convincing everyone that climate change isn't real when it is?
3. Who has the money for a big campaign of disinformation, the establishment or the green movement (or whoever their shadowy bankrollers might supposedly be)?
4. Has the fossil fuel industry displayed any evidence of scruples before, ever?

1. Yes, a bit: wind turbines, insulation, etc.
2. Yes, a fsckload.
3. The establishment.
4. No.

robert_jones

The problem with this "debate" is that there is potentially a lot of money to be gained and lost, and so people are able to lay down massive amounts of pharmaceutical-grade bullshit to confuse and deceive. You can try to follow the climatological literature and critically read the writings of the deniers: but ultimately, both sides have accused the other of outright fabrication of data, so if you really want to know you'll have to go to Antarctica and repeat the key experiments yourself. Much as I'd like to go to Antarctica, this would be a bit tricky to fit into my teaching schedule. It's at this point that the kind of simplistic, ad hominem, follow-the-money line of argument that I outlined becomes quite valuable. Is the kind of climate instability we're noticing significant and unprecedented, or is it just part of an ordinary cycle, like the Medieval Warm Period (or whatever)? I'm not qualified to judge. I am, however, qualified to listen to others and guess at their motivations, and thus at whether they're likely to be lying to me or not.

[I'd also dispute your claim that doing things in a carbon-efficient way is going to be more expensive than doing things in a carbon-inefficient way. Most low-carbon technologies require higher up-front investment, but pay for themselves in the long term. One of the major obstacles to the improvement of, say, energy-efficient lightbulbs has been that the patents are held by the same people who hold the patents for incandescent bulbs, who don't want to endanger their revenue.]

[Just so we're all on the same page: I'm talking about Japanese folding fans, IMNSFHO the best kind. Following the Wikipedia article I've just linked to, I'm going to call the paper bit that moves the air the "leaves", the things that hold this in place the "spokes", the thing around which the spokes rotate the "axle", and the heavy bits at the end of the leaves the "guards".]

The basic idea is to use thinnish wire for the spokes instead of slats of bamboo. Then the leaves can rotate freely around the spokes, allowing them to open in either direction. I've come up with a solution to the problem of attaching the leaves to the guards, but this still leaves the following problems:

1. Attaching the spokes to the axle. You could maybe beat the ends of the wire flat, then punch a hole through, but if the metal's soft enough to be beaten like that it's probably too soft for use as a spoke. You could maybe attach the spoke to some sort of rotating block, but how? Remember that any such block would have to be less than a millimetre thick.
2. Making the guards. Bamboo's ideal for this, but where do you get it from? And how do you work it? Are there any other good materials you could use?
3. Decorating the fan. I'm thinking Chinese characters, because they look cool. Specifically, I'm thinking of using the kanji for "kanji". Self-reference in the finest tradition of Douglas Hofstadter :-)