The solar village
 

This year we have experienced stronger storms, more frequent floods, droughts, forest fires, rising seas, melting glaciers, etc. Most people will agree that global warming, caused by the release of carbon dioxide into the air, is a primary driver of catastrophic weather events that will seriously impact the quality of life our children and grandchildren will inherit from us. The Villages is uniquely positioned to lead the nation in remediating the harmful effects of ongoing carbon dioxide pollution.

It would be a source of pride for all Villagers if the developer of The Villages, the preeminent builder in central Florida, and an enormously profitable business, would announce one of its forthcoming villages would be a “Solar Village.” Every house and public building in the solar village could be partially solar-powered.

As it has led in planned community development, The Villages can lead the nation in sustainable community development.

The Top of the World retirement community already stresses solar power and very high insulation levels in their houses. It surprised us to hear that and yet see almost no solar power in houses in The Villages. We see plenty of solar water heating for swimming pools but very few solar panels for electricity. Given that The Villages outsells Top of the World (and everybody else in the retirment community), I wonder if they made the calculation that too few people are willing to pay the initial bump in housing prices to incorporate solar power to warrant widescale inclusion.

Please tell me that is a tongue in cheek joke, please. No one, perhaps with the exception of Al Gore, should believe any of this "global warming" garbage that is being shoved down our throats, although PT Barnum was right when he said that there is one born every minute. I have explained at least a dozen times that we have been in an ice age for 4+ million years with cyclical periods of glaciation and thaws (and therefore periods of warming and cooling). We have been through both the warming and cooling limbs of this cycle at least 2 dozen times in that period and 2 things are true-----
1) we are still here
2) It HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SUV'S OR ANY OTHER ACTIVITY OF MAN

Our kids and grandkids?????? Not likely, although our descendants in about 15,000 years will live at the peak of the warming cycle and our coastal cities will be under 100 feet of water. But don't break out the sunscreen and swim trunks just yet, because 30,000 years after that, NY City will again be under 2 miles of ice.

But, if anyone doesn't understand the simple science behind paleoclimatology, then by all means let's spend 100 trillion dollars over the next 40 years to combat "global warming" What a joke!

PS: This is not to denigrate solar power---it is a good thing and there are plenty of reasons to utilize it. However "global warming" is NOT one of them

I like your style!! Hmm you seemed to rattle a few cages too :popcorn:

OP, are you suggesting that every house and building in an entire village have solar panels installed on the roof? Do you also want the taxpayers to fund tax credits for these systems? It would be much more efficient and effective for the power company to produce some of their power using solar panels at their plant. Solar systems for individual houses in The Villages are not sensible or cost effective.

There are more holes in the global warming hoax than in Swiss Cheese. Ole P.T.B was right.

Think the esteemed developer should get rid of the cattle they keep on land they already own. Why?..call it farm land and cheaper taxes.

Dont they know cow flatulence is killing the environment!!!.

All these cows are melting the polar ice caps and we will be drowning soon.

Solar power...as a young kid, i already knew that the sun had power. I burnt many an ant with a magnifying glass.

I grew up on a farm where we had a lot of cows. They do not fart, they cannot fart! Cows have a ruminant stomach comprised of 4 separate compartments. If an animal with a ruminant stomach eats fresh clover hay, gas will build up in the stomach and eventually swell the stomach to where it will interfere with breathing and stop the heart causing death. The animal with a ruminant stomach cannot pass the gas. Horses are different case, they fart loudly and often.

*yawn* when science doesn't match up with your world view....just change the science eh?

That was to be expected.

Unfortunately, the powers that be have inundated and permeated the people's thinking that they are not capable of discerning the reality of our climate.

Joseph Goebbels put it best:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Besides not being cost effective, I think solar panels are unsightly and actually deface the home. We will NEVER have solar panels on any home we own.

Well, how about a lecture on subject from MIT scientist. Maybe you will learn something.
2018 Annual GWPF Lecture - Prof Richard Lindzen - Global Warming For The Two Cultures - YouTube

Should include a picture of your roof that is obviously covered with solar panels. Wait, what do you mean you don’t have solar panels?

You are wrong about "most people." How about learning something from long time MIT scientist. Most of what you list are short term "weather" events. Not climate change. They lost the debate on "man made global warming" and had to leave that behind for "climate change." Now, of course there is climate change, but you guys leave out the sun and rotation of the earth.
Learn something here: 2018 Annual GWPF Lecture - Prof Richard Lindzen - Global Warming For The Two Cultures - YouTube
And, I am sure if I was to meet you, I would see that you have solar panels (not sustainable or biodegradable), electric car and keep your thermostat at the low 80s, correct?

No thanks.

And, surely, you have a phd in the area. Would you like to hear from an MIT scientist on the subject. Go debate him:
2018 Annual GWPF Lecture - Prof Richard Lindzen - Global Warming For The Two Cultures - YouTube
Learn something.

Another stupid post to ignore

There's a development on Lake Ella road jus past Rolling Acres that is totally solar powered...

:ho::ho::bigbow:

Since the thermometer is only about 150 years or so, not more than 200 years, the historical records really don't exist, so climate change is based upon analysis and theory, and only that. but long term is really more than 200 years. . . .

The most likely reason for long term climate change is most likely related to changes which are too small to measure over thousands of years. . .

Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth's Climate – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

however, there are regional climates which change due to human behavior, such as creating more heat sinks from city construction, so if anything might be the recent cause of surface global temperature rise, it comes from the heat sinks which humans have created by turning cattle fields into roads and houses. . .

remember, anything related to money or funding of any sort is subject to abuse. .

True, and the polar ice caps that he stated would be gone by 2010 are actually growing slightly. (receding in some places, growing in others but overall a net gain)

Not to get in the middle of this, but a degree (ie. PHD) does not mean someone is 'smarter' or has more intelligence than those without a degree. IMHO

Maybe these things are happening because we are getting closer to the rapture.

Yes put on 5 layers of masks that do not stop viruses. See if that works.

Do we really know the damage solar panels will cause in the next 20-30 years?

Solar City
 

Nothing is free. Remember all solar panels will be in land fills in about 25 years, they do not last forever. China burns tons of coal fired mills to make the panels. The electrical infrastructure in the USA is about 1/2 of what we need at this point to charge the anticipated electrical cars we will all owns some day. Solar and wind generation will not be enough. If you want to do something, start at home. Look at the garbage we all throw out. All bought and paid for and will end up in a land fill or burnt.

THE FACTS: Cows fart. That contributes to global warming. But cow burps are worse for the climate.

“Cows are pretty disgusting eaters, with methane coming from both ends,” said Christopher Field at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “But most of it comes from burping.”

Field cited the “classic quote from the technical literature” on the topic: “Of the CH4 (methane) produced by enteric fermentation in the forestomach 95% was excreted by eructation (burp), and from CH4 produced in the hindgut 89% was found to be excreted through the breath.’”

In a nutshell, belches are bad news.

At Tuscia University in Viterbo, Italy, environmental scholar Giampiero Grossi said methane emitted by ruminant livestock accounts for about 5.5% of the greenhouse gasses that come from human activity. More than 70% of livestock emissions are from cattle, he said.

“Ruminants are a significant source of methane,” which traps more heat than carbon dioxide but doesn’t last as long in the air, said Kristie Ebi, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington in Seattle. “The belches have to do with digesting their food” in the stomach compartments, not intestines, and that fermentation produces methane.

The “science” is not understood by most people. Most get it wrong. In fact, the term “greenhouse effect” is misleading as the physics of why a greenhouse stays warm is different than the physics in the theory of anthropogenic warming. For the record, there has been anthropogenic warming. This is indisputable. Exactly how much is hard to say - probably not a lot. It is difficult to know exactly where we are since some surface observations have been homogenized. Anthropogenic warming is also a permutation on the longer time scale natural climate variability. For example, we are still in an interglacial period and will continue to experience warming. So, here is the exact science and the theory. Increases in CO2, from whatever source, impact the net longwave radiative loss to space. This is pretty well understood and can be calculated with some precision. However, this will not cause enough warming to be of concern. This warming must produce a positive feedback on the atmospheric/oceanic system to force enough additional warming, to be of concern. This is what climate models attempt to simulate. A climate model is a computer program that integrates the equations that describe the atmospheric, oceanographic, and land properties forward in time. The problem is that, in my opinion, the models are still a research effort and not ready for use as a tool for developing public policy. The models have had some issues with anomalous warming in the mid tropospheric equatorial regions during retrospective runs. There is no guarantee that the models have the physics correct. The interactions are subtle. For example, if you create some initial warming then the atmosphere can hold more moisture and this can result in more clouds that reflect more solar radiation and lead to cooling. But the clouds will also impact the longwave radiation and lead to warming. In the atmosphere, negative feedbacks are the norm: you “push” the system and it rebounds instead of amplifying the initial “push”. You have to believe that positive feedbacks are dominant over negative feedbacks to have faith in climate model predictions of significant anthropogenic warming. So, why have so many people pushed the panic button? One possibility is that the climate model simulations are correct, to some degree. I suspect we will wind up on the lower limit of the projections, as a worst case scenario, and man will adapt, as he always has. Another possibility is the political angle. I’ll let others expand on that.

Go ahead OP.. go solar ...
does anybody ever price this stuff before making a comment like this?
The last place in the world Solar would pay off , is in a retirement community...

We're from NJ where solar is installed for free with the company taking a %of the profits from the energy collected. Super surprised this is not available in the Sunshine State

Don’t agree

This article cherry picks stats. Such as most experts, without identifying who those "experts" work with or are paid by. Further if you go back through the past 25 years you will find those that were hotter and had more storms. As usual this type of climate change commentary is based on selected experts with things that "most" people believe.

Excellent article. Thanks for the link.

Mr. Ed or the other one?

The premise that solar is the savior of the planet is irritatingly ignorant. Do the physics. It's not green and it's not renewable. You've been sold a bill of goods. First, where do you think most PV cells come from - China. Second, what are you going to do for power when the sun don't shine or at night? Batteries you say - not possible. The battery capacity would have to be so massive it would shift the Earth's orbit.

So, after the 20 year lifespan of a solar panel, then what? There is no recycling capacity for solar panels, and what about all the heavy metals in the PV cells? When you need a new roof do you really want to pay for your inefficient solar array to be removed and then reinstalled over the new roof, and let's not even get into roof leaks or panels shorting out before their full lifespan. Oh, and did you know that solar panels lose between 1 to 2 percent of their efficiency every year?

So, on a sunny day you have all these panels producing electricity. What are you going to do with the excess capacity since it cannot be stored? then the sun goes down and BOOM now you have to stoke up the coal plant. Not an easy thing to do if you know anything about power generation.

There is only one solution even if you don't believe the dire predictions about global warming/climate change and that is to invest in 4th generation nuclear power run on Thorium (which we have at least a 1000 year supply in the US). It's clean, efficient, incredibly safe, virtually no waste , and non-proliferative. Additionally, its excess power can be used to purify water, and pull carbon dioxide out the the air and reduce it to hydrocarbon fuels - now that's renewable energy!

Common sense
 

The earth does run in cycles. Most definitely….BUT, what you seem to always miss in the science is that since the industrial age, where man has created the combustion engine, science has tracked that the cycle has accelerated significantly. Is that a coincidence? No such thing as a coincidence in science. Mankind has added additional stress to those normal cycles. Thereby, mankind needs to curb their contribution to the cycles to stop its accelerating. Plus, that’s just common sense that you add extra CO2 to the earth, it’s going to have a reaction. Cause and effect. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see it.

Just follow the money!

The heat sink idea is totally valid and proven on a small scale by my incessant nighttime bike riding in multiple areas. Official thermometers tend to be in built up areas. As an example, I believe the official temperature for The Villages is from the east side of Sumter Landing. When I ride through that area, the thermometer on my bike almost always agrees with reported temperatures within a degree or so. However, if I ride up to the polo fields the temperature will usually be as much as 5 to 10 degrees cooler then that being reported for The Villages.

This happens in city after city, thus I believe our reported overnight low temperatures are considerably overstated.

Yes to solar and Villages as example
 

It is definitely time for the Villages to not just think about.... but act on decisions that have a positive environmental impact and lead by example. Solar is a beginning. We have the perfect climate for moving forward more aggressively. We have a responsibility to future generations. And no one seems to be addressing all the sprinklers that run throughout the day... in the middle of the day burning the grass and the worst are the sprinklers running in the middle of rainstorms! And then their is the fact that the Villages are the pesticide capital of the world.