{"id":5584,"date":"2014-02-13T08:52:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T08:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=5584"},"modified":"2014-02-13T08:52:44","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T08:52:44","slug":"simple-thinking-about-complex-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/02\/13\/simple-thinking-about-complex-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Simple thinking about complex questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"line-height: 18px\">I had an email the other day which assumed that just because I favour alternative technologies \u2013 I engaged in some mild-mannered activism in relation to Wiltshire Council's policies on (that is to say, <em>against<\/em>) wind farms \u2013 I must, therefore, be absolutely against in all circumstances the extraction of gas by hydraulic fracturing of <span style=\"line-height: 18px\">rock<\/span>. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 18px\">How simple people's minds can be, even as they go on and on about how complex the world is. \u00a0Fracking may be a complicated and controversial process, but so are people's opinions about it, and it seems clear from listening to many anti-fracking activists that it is not so much the technology and process they object to, but the gas itself, thinking that burning more natural just gas adds to our problems; others say it buys time. \u00a0Meanwhile, others who are more or less worried about the technology, think the process might be worthwhile if it relaxes the iron grip that corrupt russian oligarchs have on our gas prices. \u00a0Some hope, I suspect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Here's a sobering chunk of data to chew on.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000080\">According to the <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/leaders\/21595903-government-gives-its-davids-sling-use-against-polluting-goliaths-small-breath-fresh\">Economist<\/a><span style=\"color: #000080\"> this week, China will emit as much CO2 between 1990 and 2050 (at presents rates) than the whole world did from the start of the Industrial revolution to 1970. \u00a0That is, 500 bn tonnes.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000080\">The current global annual emission rate of <span style=\"color: #000080\">CO2<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000080\">(e)\u00a0is ~50 bn tonnes.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000080\">According to the IPCC, \u00a0to have a &gt;50% chance of keeping warming below +2<\/span><sup>o<\/sup><span style=\"color: #000080\">C, further total emissions will need to be below 1,210 bn tonnes of <span style=\"color: #000080\">CO2<\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #000080\">(e).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000080\"> <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had an email the other day which assumed that just because I favour alternative technologies \u2013 I engaged in some mild-mannered activism in relation to Wiltshire Council's policies on (that is to say, against) wind farms \u2013 I must,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}