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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

For a different view:

http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21591748-th...

> The sudden abundance of natural gas has drastically reduced American energy bills while curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, since gas is cleaner than coal.

This is the key point worth acknowledging, in my opinion. It's difficult to maintain a balanced perspective when sources like these emphasize almost entirely positive effects and sources like OP emphasize almost entirely negative effects.

Lets be clear: Burning natural gas (CH4) still puts carbon into the atmosphere. It's true that natural gas put less "black carbon" and other things into the atmosphere. It's much more clean than coal. But it will still enhance the greenhouse effect that is warming the planet. It is still a fossil fuel.

Lets be clear: not everyone is convinced that putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is even a problem.

97% of climate scientists agreeing not good enough for you?

100% of priests agree there is a god.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

That's not actually true. There are plenty of atheist priests as it's a job just like any other. More to the point if you survey the worlds religions you don't actually find much consensus of any kind. Just ask a shinto priest how the world was created and compare that with the native Australia dream time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime Even more enlightening 'God' as a concept aka a supreme higher power does not even translate into every language.

PS: Restrict it to christian priests and you still don't really find consensus. "More than 80 per cent were happy with the idea that God the Father created the world." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1403106/One-third-of-...

Existence of god is largely a question of belief and faith, not scientifically verifiable data, and I suspect nearly all priests would agree to that as well.

97% of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic carbon emissions are the cause of very significant changes in our global climate. They probably also agree that it's an economic and social problem (as do I!), but they have no privileged perspective on that aspect of things (beyond an acceptance of scientific reality, which is unfortunately rarer than one might hope).

In 1543, 97% of learned men agreed that the sun revolved around the Earth.

Consensus alone means nothing.

The sun does revolve around the earth. Remember there are no privileged viewpoints in General relativity.

Of course it doesn't, but how that consensus was reached is. New data indicating otherwise would eventually change minds in the scientific community, as it did then. But it starts with data, not belief, or political agendas.

If it's used as a drop-in replacement for dirtier sources, and doesn't stop any cleaner sources from being developed or used, isn't it a strict win?

Maybe switching to a somewhat cleaner source would slow down movement towards green sources, but it seems like using CH4 is an overall win given what it's a substitute for.

Coal->Natuaral Gas? Good.

Natural Gas being deployed instead of solar or wind? Bad.

Natural Gas being deployed along side solar and wind? Best case.

One day the price of natural gas is going to rise again and people are going to be stuck with combined cycle natgas generators that are too expensive to run.

I wouldn't mind wind if we started protecting the birds. I'm fond of solar, but until wind power is less destructive, I don't see why we should deploy it anywhere but off the coasts.

Cats kill more birds every year than wind turbines: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-06/u-s-eases-turbine-b...

Cats don't kill eagles, hawks, and geese.

Citation needed.

Really? How many friggin house cats can kill eagles? Hawks? Hell, a goose can damn near kill a human much less a cat. How about you find a cite for super cat the eagle slayer.

I've seen a cat take a small hawk. Eagles, probably not, but I've been surprised before.

That's got to be a damn big, atypical cat. Eagles take out foxes. Wind energy needs to address the problem it causes because it sure isn't good for the birds.

Raptors typically pounce on prey and kill it quickly. A bird on the ground (eating, say) that is surprised is far less lethal than a bird attacking. Like I said, though, probably not eagles.

I don't think you can find one bit of statistical evidence that cats kill more hawks than windmills. Windmills should be limited to places with no birds or be redesigned to not kill off the birds. Put them offshore.

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