by Judith Curry
On the politics of global warming policy.
Here is a good topic for Sunday’s discussion:
Roger Pielke Jr. has published an interesting essay in Foreign Policy, Climate of Failure. Excerpts:
The heady days of early 2009, when advocates for global action on climate change anticipated world leaders gathering later that year around a conference table in Copenhagen to reach a global agreement, are but a distant memory. Today, with many of these same leaders focusing their attention on jumpstarting economic growth, environmental issues have taken a back seat. Leaders’ attention to climate policy is not coming back — at least not in any form comparable to the plans being discussed just a few years ago. A rising GDP, all else equal, leads to more emissions. But if there is one ideological commitment that unites nations and people around the world in the early 21st century, it is that GDP growth is non-negotiable.
Stabilizing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would require more than 90 percent of the energy we consume to come from carbon-free sources like nuclear, wind, or solar. Policymakers often discuss reducing annual emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels. But emissions today are already more than 45 percent higher than in 1990, so that higher level implies a need to cut by more than 90 percent from today’s levels. Put another way, in round numbers, we could keep at most 10 percent of our current energy supply, and 90 percent or more would have to be replaced with a carbon-free alternative. Today, about 10 percent of the energy that we consume globally comes from carbon-free sources — leaving a long way to go.
Consider this: If the goal is to stabilize the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a low level by 2050 (in precise terms, at 450 parts per million or less), then the world would need to deploy a nuclear power plant worth of carbon free energy every day between now and 2050. For wind or solar, the figures are even more daunting.
For several decades, the dominant view among climate specialists was that imposing a high price on carbon emissions — whether through a tax or a traded permit system — would create the economic incentive necessary to stimulate the green energy innovation needed. Unfortunately, the track record of such schemes is not encouraging. Any policy that depends for its success on creating economic stress on consumers (or voters) to motivate massive change is a policy doomed to fail. Voters typically respond to higher energy prices by voting out of office any politician or party who is perceived to be working against their economic interests. Supporters of carbon pricing have no good answer for the politics.
Science and nature provide enough varied data to paint anyone’s political ink blot, ensuring that the debate over the weather sustains without end. In this debate ostensibly about the science, the opposing camps have created names for one other — “alarmists” (who say the costs of inaction will be high) and “deniers” (who say that the costs of inaction will be low or even zero). The end result has been neither to win the debate nor secure a political mandate, but to politicize the science itself.
So what’s the next step? For years — decades, even — science has shown convincingly that human activities have an impact on the planet. That impact includes but is not limited to carbon dioxide. We are indeed running risks with the future climate through the unmitigated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and none of the schemes attempted so far has made even a dent in the problem. While the climate wars will go on, characterized by a poisonous mix dodgy science, personal attacks, and partisan warfare, the good news is that progress can yet be made outside of this battle.
The key to securing action on climate change may be to break the problem into more manageable parts. This should involve recognizing that human-caused climate change involves more than just carbon dioxide. This is already happening. A coalition of activists and politicians, including numerous prominent scientists, have argued that there are practical reasons to focus attention on “non-carbon forcings” — human influences on the climate system other than carbon dioxide emissions. The U.N. Environment Program argues that actions like reducing soot and methane could “save close to 2.5 million lives a year; avoid crop losses amounting to 32 million tons annually and deliver near-term climate protection of about half a degree Celsius by 2040.”
Some of these opportunities are political. For instance, in the United States, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a loud and theatrical opponent to most action related to climate, supports action on non-carbon forcings, particularly efforts to reduce the amount of particulates in the air. As he explained to the Guardian “Al Gore probably would be against automobile accidents and I am too. This has nothing to do with the CO2 issue.” The lesson here is that if Gore and Inhofe can find common political ground on one important aspect of the issue, then there is plenty of hope for progress. [T]he global demand for huge amounts of energy in coming decades provides a compelling rationale for energy technology innovation independent of the climate issue.
Natural gas is not a long-term solution to the challenge of stabilizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, because it is still carbon intensive, but the rapidly declining U.S. emissions prove an essential policy point: Make clean(er) energy cheap, and dirty energy will be quickly displaced. To secure cheap energy alternatives requires innovation — technological, but also institutional and social. The innovation challenge is enormous, but so is the scale of the problem. A focus on innovation — not on debates over climate science or a mythical high carbon price — is where we’ll make process.
The vast complexity of the climate issue offers many avenues for action across a range of different issues. What we need is the wisdom to have a constructive debate on climate policy options without all the vitriolic proxy battles. The anger and destructiveness seen from both sides of this debate will not be going away, of course, but constructive debate will move on to focus on goals that can actually be accomplished. To paraphrase the great columnist Walter Lippmann, politics is not about getting people to think alike, but about getting people who think differently to act alike. The climate issue will never be solved completely, but it’s still possible for us to make things better or worse.
JC comments: Pielke makes a strong argument for the existence of two constraints on climate energy policy:
- there is one ideological commitment that unites nations and people around the world in the early 21st century, it is that GDP growth is non-negotiable.
- Make clean(er) energy cheap, and dirty energy will be quickly displaced.
Given these, Pielke argues that there are two overall solution strategies related to climate/energy policy:
- To secure cheap energy alternatives requires innovation — technological, but also institutional and social.
- focus on goals that can actually be accomplished and getting people who think differently to act alike.
Well, this makes alot of sense to me. It constrains the politically viable solution space quite a bit. Focusing on non-CO2 components of the problem (e.g. methane, black carbon) would be a good place to start; in fact that strategy received JC’s 2012 story of the year Climate Fast Attack Plan.
This post also serves as a lead in to tomorrow’s post on Professors, Politics, and Public Policy.
I quote from Roger Pielke “We are indeed running risks with the future climate through the unmitigated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and none of the schemes attempted so far has made even a dent in the problem.”
Sorry, no sale. There is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever, that adding more and more CO2 to the atmosphere does any harm. There are many indications that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the better.
I see pros and cons. But… can it be demonstrated that there is a point where CO2 concentration fails to further antagonize the green house effect? What about in concert with other GHGes?
IPMeng, you write “But… can it be demonstrated that there is a point where CO2 concentration fails to further antagonize the green house effect.”
That is not the issue. I have no doubt that at low concentrations CO2 is a significant greenhouse gas. Howevert, no-one has provided any empirical evidence that shows that increasing CO2 concentrations above those that prevailed in pre-industrial times does any harm whatsoever, and there is evidence up to say 1500 ppmv, the more CO2 we add the better.
According to the Cripwell Criteria, the evidence has to be directly measurable in the context of the actual environment. It can’t be a hypothetical guess based on a small scale laboratory setting.
Cripwell fails his own test criteria. So what else is new.
Yes Jim C., please provide your solid scientific evidence that any CO2 levels up to 1500 ppm would be beneficial.
WHT, you write “Cripwell fails his own test criteria. So what else is new.”
I have no references, but the effect has been measured. The users of greenhouses have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere inside the greenhouses where plants grow for decades if not centuries. This is where my figure of 1500 ppmv comes from. The evidence is unequivocal that plants grown with levels of CO2 up to 1500 ppmv, grow faster and stronger than those at normal concentrations.
Major fail there Jim C. Pitiful to see you demand proof for everything anyone else says and ten fall flat on our face with such a hollow vacuous proof to back up your unsupportable utterances. Truly pitiful.
Cripwell, your reasoning is faulty, because you can’t prove that increasing CO2 is beneficial as it scales to the size of the earth.
In the past, it was you that has stated that CO2 can’t be proven to act as a GHG with an effect “indistinguishable from zero” because there is no global evidence for this. You say this even though laboratory evidence does exist that CO2 has warming radiative properties.
What has happened is that you have been hoisted on your own petard. The Cripwell Criteria is pure argumentative rhetoric.
I’ve heard 1200ppm, what professionals use in their not usually green but more like transparent houses. But that’s just the plant food stuff. There’s the increased total life and increased diversity of life all sustained by a warmer world. The benefits of any man caused warming far exceed the harms; look at the last 2 deg C of warming.
In closure and disclosure I should mention that the harms of cooling, which if more likely in the short, the medium, and the long term, far exceed the benefits.
Why are we betting against the House of Gaia, who hold all the cards and the wheels and the dice?
================
Well, Heck: ‘cooling, which is more likely, more likely’.
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WHT, you write “Cripwell, your reasoning is faulty, because you can’t prove that increasing CO2 is beneficial as it scales to the size of the earth.”
Again, I do not have the reference, but satellite data shows that the world is getting greener as CO2 levels have risen. No, it is not a controlled experiment, but I know of no evidence that adding CO2 to the stmosphere causes any harm at all. There is a strong indication that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is beneficial to plant growth.
Also beneficial to melting glaciers and rising sea levels.
yes big fail by Cripwell by his own criertia
“Sorry, no sale. There is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever, that adding more and more CO2 to the atmosphere does any harm. There are many indications that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the better.”
Note Notice how he shifts from “evidence” to “indications”
That is when he wants to argue against the harms of C02 he demands
measurements and evidence. When he needs to prove the benefits
he relies on “indications”
Then he shifts to this
” Howevert, no-one has provided any empirical evidence that shows that increasing CO2 concentrations above those that prevailed in pre-industrial times does any harm whatsoever, and there is evidence up to say 1500 ppmv, the more CO2 we add the better”
When asked about this evidence he says
“I have no references, but the effect has been measured. The users of greenhouses have been adding CO2 to the atmosphere inside the greenhouses where plants grow for decades if not centuries. This is where my figure of 1500 ppmv comes from. ”
So here we have the man who demands references, unable to provide them for his own beliefs. Again, we see the double standard. which is lovely from somebody who is so dedicated to “science”
Also note;
His claim was that adding C02 to the atmosphere was beneficial.
When asked to provide evidence he provides hearsay about c02 added to greenhouses.
Imagine if I tried to prove to Jim that adding C02 to the atmosphere was harmful by locking him in a green house and pumping up the C02 to
really high levels. Or imagine if I tried to prove the harm of adding it to the atmosphere by showing the warming effect in a lab. Or showing it as roy spenser has in his “woods” experiment.
What would jim say? “jim would say the greenhouse wasnt the atmosphere, he would say the lab effect was not the same at the atmospheric effect. Yet, when it comes to HIS evidence FOR the benefit where does Jims rigor and where does his skepticism go?
It goes out the window.
Now lets look at the last argument
“Again, I do not have the reference, but satellite data shows that the world is getting greener as CO2 levels have risen. No, it is not a controlled experiment, but I know of no evidence that adding CO2 to the stmosphere causes any harm at all. There is a strong indication that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is beneficial to plant growth.”
1. He cant provide the reference, but he waves his hand towards
a CORRELATION.
2. He looks at about 30 years of data. I will remind Jim what arguments people make when folks look at 30 years of Ice data.
When they look at the ice loss they argue, sure the ice is lower, but we cannot be sure it the warming planet. There has been less Ice in the past. Lets use that same argument. Sure the planet is greener now, but we cannot be sure it is the C02, plants need water and sunshine and nutrients, maybe THOSE THINGS caused the increase.
And the planet has been greener in the past, once upon a time there were palm trees at the north pole. So we have no proof it was the C02
And again, note the switch from requiring evidence when you dont believe something ( C02 causes harm) to RELYING on “indications”
when you do believe in something ( C02 brings benefits )
This is known as SELECTIVE SKEPTICISM.
for the hazards of C02 to plants and humans in closed environments
Jim C this
http://www.novabiomatique.com/hydroponics-systems/plant-555-gardening-with-co2-explained.cfm
Now this gets more interesting
“Ambient levels of CO2 are approximately 350 ppm. Some plants are more sensitive than others, but generally you can have up to 1500 ppm in a growing space before you hit diminishing returns in plant growth.
Safety requirements depend on the method of CO2 injection you plan to use. From what I have read, OSHA specifies an eight hour weighted time average of 5,000 PPM, while short term exposure of fifteen minutes not exceeding 30,000 ppm. An excess of carbon dioxide is harmful to plants also, in addition to being a waste of money, so controlling injection into the grow space is pretty important. Commercial growers would probably use a Nondispersive Infared sensor to constantly monitor co2 levels, in additon to to controlling the timing of injection to be coordinated with air ventilation and circulation.”
So Jim C why do you think these guys use a IR sensor to monitor C02 levels?
What science tells them that this measuring device works to detect
C02 levels? Do you accept the physics behind this measuring device?
In other words. You point to people using C02 in greenhouses as evidence of the benefit. And you now know that these people use a device which measures C02 levels. Like all measurement devices
This device relies on a physical theory to create a reading of C02 levels.
Do you accept that physical theory and all its implications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NDIR
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm
“In greenhouse production the aim of all growers is to increase dry-matter content and economically optimize crop yield. CO2 increases productivity through improved plant growth and vigour. Some ways in which productivity is increased by CO2 include earlier flowering, higher fruit yields, reduced bud abortion in roses, improved stem strength and flower size. Growers should regard CO2 as a nutrient.
For the majority of greenhouse crops, net photosynthesis increases as CO2 levels increase from 340–1,000 ppm (parts per million). Most crops show that for any given level of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), increasing the CO2 level to 1,000 ppm will increase the photosynthesis by about 50% over ambient CO2 levels. For some crops the economics may not warrant supplementing to 1,000 ppm CO2 at low light levels. For others such as tulips, and Easter lilies, no response has been observed.
Carbon dioxide enters into the plant through the stomatal openings by the process of diffusion. Stomata are specialized cells located mainly on the underside of the leaves in the epidermal layer. The cells open and close allowing gas exchange to occur. The concentration of CO2 outside the leaf strongly influences the rate of CO2 uptake by the plant. The higher the CO2 concentration outside the leaf, the greater the uptake of CO2 by the plant. Light levels, leaf and ambient air temperatures, relative humidity, water stress and the CO2 and oxygen (O2) concentration in the air and the leaf, are many of the key factors that determine the opening and closing of the stomata.
Ambient CO2 level in outside air is about 340 ppm by volume. All plants grow well at this level but as CO2 levels are raised by 1,000 ppm photosynthesis increases proportionately resulting in more sugars and carbohydrates available for plant growth. Any actively growing crop in a tightly clad greenhouse with little or no ventilation can readily reduce the CO2 level during the day to as low as 200 ppm. The decrease in photosynthesis when CO2 level drops from 340 ppm to 200 ppm is similar to the increase when the CO2 levels are raised from 340 to about 1,300 ppm (Figure 1). As a rule of thumb, a drop in carbon dioxide levels below ambient has a stronger effect than supplementation above ambient.
During particular times of the year in new greenhouses, and especially in double-glazed structures that have reduced air exchange rates, the carbon dioxide levels can easily drop below 340 ppm which has a significant negative effect on the crop. Ventilation during the day can raise the CO2 levels closer to ambient but never back to ambient levels of 340 ppm. Supplementation of CO2 is seen as the only method to overcome this deficiency and increasing the level above 340 ppm is beneficial for most crops. The level to which the CO2 concentration should be raised depends on the crop, light intensity, temperature, ventilation, stage of the crop growth and the economics of the crop. For most crops the saturation point will be reached at about 1,000–1,300 ppm under ideal circumstances.”
It’s illogical that emitting an unlimited quantity of anything will not produce some sort of unintended consequence…I.E..If we turned 80% of the atmosphere to pure oxygen somehow I think fires might end up being a problem. Would changing the O2 content from 20.95% to 20.96% o 20.94% make a difference…I don’t have a clue…
If we bring China,India,Africa and South America up to US energy consumption levels on the back of coal then we are looking at a world coal consumption number somewhere north of 20 billion tons per year.
Personally I think coal extraction and transportation costs will become prohibitive long before anywhere near that amount of coal consumption occurs..but if I look at the various ’emission scenario’s’ of alarmists that is exactly what they are predicting.
The Chinese are investing good sums of money in gen IV nuclear..IMHO it’s because they are well aware that the trend in coal extraction costs outside of Wyoming and Australia are headed up, up and up.
The size of the Chinese energy market is big enough to support multiple nuclear fuel cycles and multiple ‘full scale’ demonstration projects.
Sadly from my nationalist pride perspective…the USA is not going to lead the ‘clean and cheap’ energy revolution.
He said “unmitigated”, not “unlimited”. Huge difference.
“Unlimited” my blue bippy. Not all the CO2 sources humanity could/would/will ever have access to are more than minor noise in the global cycle.
harrywr2,
I agree with all of this comment. Regarding your last sentence:
I agree that is the way it looks at the moment and has looked for the past 20 or 30 years. But history shows the USA can change course very quickly when necessary or when the markets sends the signals. The problem is that the market signals are being thwarted by the anti-nukes and the nuclear paranoia they have generated in the voting population. that could quickly be reversed, IMO, if the self claimed ‘Progressives’ stopped blocking progress and turned to being progressive.
Peter;
‘Progressive’ in the political lexicon derives from the Eugenics theories of the Fabians et al, who anointed themselves as the more evolved versions of humanity, fated to replace the lower, earlier versions. By forcible de-population if necessary, but by politically induced suicide by preference.
The name is ironic, skulls grin at the joke.
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I agree, Jim.
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
Hear, hear! P. Jr. and other luke-warmists always start out with the bland suggestion of giving away the farm, and carrying on from there. The Null (H0) remains ‘Natural Variation, no Anthropogenic emissions impact’. Disproof of that is the first step — that will never happen.
Jim Cripwell…quote: “There is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever, that adding more and more CO2 to the atmosphere does any harm.” I can find no support for your statement, perhaps you could explain, with links.
What I have found, in their book ‘The White Planet’, Jouzel, Lorius and Raynaud, clearly correlate CO2 with Earth temperature. And, since Scripps Research Institute has Mauna Loa CO2 measurements going back to 1958 ((315 ppm) to now (over 400 ppm), while average Earth temp has risen (according to BEST results); this disagrees emphatically with your statement. So, do a good job of explaining, please.
Also, please note that the book mentions that, during the Young Dryas, a temperature rise of 7 C was found within a time frame of 50 years. I mention this because, while arguing continues, SHOULD such a temperature rise occur, it is very likely that most of humanity may not survive.
Walter, you write “What I have found, in their book ‘The White Planet’, Jouzel, Lorius and Raynaud, clearly correlate CO2 with Earth temperature.”
Precisley. Correlation and not causation. I suggest you find Beenstock et al, which shows that there is no CO2 signal in modern temperature/time data. Also find Murry Salby on why increased temperature causes increased CO2, not the other way round. I dont keep references readily available.
The fact of the matter is that because it is impossible to do controlled experiments on the earth’s atmosphere, climate sensitivity cannot be measured. So no-one has the slighest idea what it’s value is. All of which I have written many times. There is no empirical data to show that as CO2 levels increase from current levels, that this causes global temperatures to rise. And with no empirical data, CAGW is a hypothesis. And a hypothesis cannot be considerd as scientific evidence that anything is happening.
If you can prove that CAGW is anything more that a hypothesis I would be interested, I would point out that paleodata cannot be used to prove that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes global temperatures to rise, since it is im possible to measure time with sufficient accuracy, and an equally likely explanation is that Murry Salby is correct..
Murry Salby’s explanation doesn’t work because he wouldn’t expect the ocean to be acidifying, but in fact the reverse. So if acidification is proven, Salby is already wrong.
What a weird idea Jim. Salby suggested that a portion of the increase in CO2 resulted from increasing temperature. This is undeniably true. To the extent that temperature increase was natural – part of the increases the increase is reversible.
With his weird theories, Salby should stay in Australia.
Salby in fact attributed the vast majority of CO2 rise to a temperature increase. There is nothing original in asserting Henry’s law for the slight fractional increase of CO2 due to ocean warming. He went for the Big Kahuna and failed miserably.
CH, Salby’s CO2 was coming from the ocean as far as I can tell. De-acidification.
Idiots on either end of the argument. Henry’s Law of solubility is not sufficient and Henry’s law should be increasing pH and it isn’t.
Most of the CO2 response to heat is biological. About 50% of anthropogenic emissions from soil respiration and tropical vegetation alone. What happens in the oceans? Does that change the ocean biological pump? Most of the temperature increase seems quite natural.
pH – at any rate – is like the mythical radiant imbalance. What changes with CO2 in the atmospheric is temperature – not toa emissions. What changes with ocean CO2 in solution is not ph but aragonite saturation.
A natter of the clueless leading the uncomprehending.
Salby’s theory was somewhat incomplete, so we don’t know where his CO2 was coming from. We just know it wasn’t from thin air.
So why assume the oceans? We have estimates for the soil respiration and tropical biology.
I don’t think the land has that kind of reservoir unless you count fossil fuel burning which I believe he deliberately didn’t acknowledge.
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/july/tropical-ecosystems-boost-carbon-dioxide-as-temperature-rises/#.UiQS1z_4JmM
http://judithcurry.com/2013/06/07/soil-carbon-permanent-pasture-as-an-approach-to-co2-sequestration/
Check a carbon budget sometime.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
CH, do you agree with his decision to neglect, or perhaps he just forgot, fossil fuel burning when it accounts for twice the rise in atmospheric CO2? I never saw the reasoning for that, so perhaps you have it.
The guy is a freakin’ atmospheric physicist – who was checking some assumptions abotu CO2 in the atmosphere. You’re sure you are not just seeing what you want to see?
It is easy to be fooled by the temperature correlation, and he was just the latest skeptic in a line who did that. This correlation is better explained as the natural sequestering being less efficient in warmer conditions. That way, you can also allow for emission rates in the equation that don’t depend on temperature.
You mean you get more respiration in warm weather? Duh.
‘Soil respiration, RS, the flux of microbially and plant-respired carbon dioxide (CO2) from the soil surface to the atmosphere, is the second-largest terrestrial carbon flux. However, the dynamics of RS are not well understood and the global flux remains poorly constrained. Ecosystem warming experiments, modelling analyses and fundamental biokinetics all suggest that RS should change with climate.’
Most of the recent warming was quite natural – the best scientific hypothesis is for the next decade or three is non warming -or even cooling. The question is how much of the trend is quite natural and how much is anthropogenic. A valid question to ask – other than for warminista groupies. Webby’s reaction is instructive. An utter idiot committed only to spinning a tale and leaving steaming piles of invective.
As most of the warming was quite natural – CO2 is of significantly less interest over time spans of decades to a century.
Chief, I am not as much of an idiot as YOU to predict temperature trends for the next three decades. The invective is all from you as you treat science like a Kleenex.
Who came up with “the best scientific hypothesis” ?
How would you determine “the best scientific hypothesis” ?
No wonder that The Chief has never authored a scientific paper. With that kind of carefree attitude to making claims of scientific certitude, he would get rejected each time.
‘Using a new measure of coupling strength, this update shows that these climate modes have recently synchronized, with synchronization peaking in the year 2001/02. This synchronization has been followed by an
increase in coupling. This suggests that the climate system may well have shifted again, with a consequent break in the global mean temperature trend from the post 1976/77 warming to a new period (indeterminate length) of roughly constant global mean temperature.’ Swanson, K. L., and A. A. Tsonis (2009), Has the climate recently shifted?, Geophys.
Res. Lett., 36, L06711, doi:10.1029/2008GL037022.
You are utterly hopeless webby.
The data is what it is.
Reflected SW declined and outgoing long wave increased to 1999?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/WongFig2-1.jpg.html?sort=3&o=52
Ocean heat content peaked in 1998?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=132
The ARGO warming is not sufficient to turn that around?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=132
Cloud data shows exactly why that is?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&
And really – as much as a hypothesis based on scientific insight is a prediction then guilty as charged.
It is a testable prediction that keeps being validated year after year.
Here’s ARGO again if anyone missed it – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/vonSchuckmannampLTroan2011-fig5PG_zpsee63b772.jpg.html?sort=3&o=43
Big Chief Hydro, the armchair warrior.
Jim C…”Precisley. Correlation and not causation.”
Until some scientific process clearly establishes that global warming, which has happened in concert with increased CO2 over the past seventy years, has been caused by a separate mechanism (and, note that almost ALL meteorologists and climatologists blame CO2), I believe that it is in humanity’s best interest to curb CO2 increases. BTW-I forgot to note that when the glaciologists found the 7C rise during the Young Dryas, Greenland lost it’s ice sheet; resulting in the 6.6 meter rise of ocean levels. So, Jim, with worldwide devastation a distinct possibility, do you still not want to consider CO2 more causation than correlation?? I would refer you to Matt Guzman’s book ‘Overheated’.
Walter, you write “do you still not want to consider CO2 more causation than correlation??”
Absolutely not. I rely on what I learned in Physics 101. Until the value of climate sensitivity has been measured, CAGW remains a hypothesis; no matter how many books are written and how many peer reviewed papers are published. And I am dead against politicians trying to ruin my very comfortable lifestyle, based largely on the consumption of fossil fuels, because there are a bunch of activists who are trying to “decarbonize” the world.
Jim C. So, you refuse to think that CO2 causes global warming. AND, you don’t want to see natural gas substituted for coal, because it might cost more. I think that nat gas would cost LESS than coal, AND, it has far few pollutants (think mercury). With less than 40 % of US electricity produced by coal, converting the remaining (aging) coal burners would be a win-win-cost less for energy and pollute less.
The biggest failure has been in the alarmist camp. The alarmists should be shouting “nuclear power” from the roof tops. Instead they shout “carbon tax” instead.
They can’t do that, at least not, “conventional” nuclear power, because a larger portion of their constituency is anti-nuclear. Then they have the anti-coal, anti-oil, anti-frakking, anti-chemical, anti-genetically modified, anti-animal protein, anti-logging, anti-capitalism and pro-anti anything groups that have to be herded.
The best thing to do is let them hit bottom so they can get with the program.
“Make clean(er) energy cheap, and dirty energy will be quickly displaced.”
This solution requires real R&D and a free market without subsidies. The above equation is perverted by most CAGW proponents and their political supporters into the following:
“Make dirty (meaning all conventionally generated, including nuclear) energy more expensive” and clean (politically correct) energy will become affordable by comparison.
The latter equation means lets get poorer and suffer first, so we can then be forced into using the politically correct types of energy
Capt,
You should add to your list anti-progress and anti-human.
They would be…
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/high-radiation-readings-found-at-fukushima-tanks
but they are still dealing with the dirty dishes.
That’s like saying we shouldn’t have moved to integrated circuits because some discrete transistors fail.
Slightly better analogy: we need to prevent silicon transistors, because germanium transistors have problems (people forget that germanium transistors came before silicon).
@WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | September 1, 2013 at 11:51 am |
It has little to do with climate because environmentalists have killed it. Energy use isn’t going away. Put that in your differential equation and integrate it.
jim2, You have clearly illustrated one of the flaws with nuclear science today. Horse, pigs… tell it to the kids.
Fukushima is a good example of when economy of scale meets too big to fail.
The compound Silicon-Germanium transistor came after both. As it turns out, SiGe transistors have better performance for high-frequency applications than Si.
I don’t know what your complete point is, but my point is that applied science moves forward, yet does not take anything for granted. Yes, germanium transistors are hopeless for performance — it has too small a bandgap and lacked a good native oxide, but that didn’t prevent scientists from realizing that silicon had the better semiconductor properties. By the same token, that did not mean that combining silicon with germanium would automatically bring down the performance in comparison to silicon. In fact, the reverse was true.
That kind of innovation is continuing with the current growth in photovoltaics that we are seeing.
BTW. I was working in the IBM lab on SiGe when it first caught on. The concern troll Springer can verify this if you ask him.
Let me spell it out for you, Web. The first commercial transistors were germanium, just like the first commercial nuclear plans were uranium boiling water reactors. Unlike the semiconductor industry, which developed and developed and developed, the nuclear industry was strangled in the crib by activists. The reason why most of the plants in the world are old and not as safe as they should be is R&D basically came to a halt after TMI. This creates a self-fulfilling prophesy. No new technology in the pipeline means that all the old plants just keep getting older, and little new coming along to improve safety.
No serious money has gone into nuclear R&D in 40 years, and the unsafe plants are a self-fulfilling prophesy. It’s roughly as if we arrested semiconductor technology at the germanium transistor.
We’d still be slapping our vacuum-tube TV’s in the side to get the vertizontal hold to stop rolling. This is roughly the state of nuclear technology today.
Here is another one Harold. Like silicon, germanium has an indirect bandgap, which makes it less than useful as a optoelectronic material. Way back when, someone suggested that we could add elemental tin to the germanium and convert it to a direct bandgap material, which would make it useful for infrared photonic applications. This is theoretically possible because the crystal lattice diamond structures match.
I was the first to create a partly-crystalline germanium-tin material, and since that time, there has been slow progress in demonstrating lasing from a direct group IV semiconductor , e.g. see this article from this month: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/prj/abstract.cfm?uri=prj-1-2-69
(p.s. I am cited twice in the references)
Like I said, nothing is guaranteed to work. Yet applied science is still seeking creative avenues to improve technology.
The same can be said for nuclear power. Research is being funded, and countries like France believe in nuclear power, so it is not forgotten.
Yeah so? I was working in the Rockwell “Collins” Lab in Newport Beach, California ten years before that in 1978. We made prototype integrated circuits there. It was all fun and games until someone got a whiff of phosphine in the clean room. What’s your point?
That’s how you tell the sheep from the goats. The handful, like Hanson, who are proposing nuclear, are the true believers in the dangerousness of CO2. Everybody else, who knows what their real agendas are?
… least of all them.
So are you an alarmist, jim2 ?
We know why you are shouting “nuclear power” every chance you get, and it has little to do with the future of the climate.
Settle down now, jim2. You keep on shouting “nuclear power” every chance you can, because you realize that the era of high-grade fossil fuel is nearing its end, and you guys in the oil industry need some roundabout way of pushing for alternative energy strategies.
I don’t have problems with this, it’s just that you always have to be so deceptive about the actual situation.
@WebHubTelescope (@WHUT) | September 1, 2013 at 12:40 pm |
I DO realize fossil fuels aren’t infinite in supply. And … well … so what? No one I know of believe there is an infinite supply of petroleum, nat gas, and coal. I’m just not for a carbon tax or other government regulation because of it. The price of oil, as determined by the free market, compared to other energy sources will decide the course of energy development. At $100 – 110 dollars a barrel, the price is high enough to get people who want to make money finding alternatives. And some have already – see Joule Unlimited.
See, jim2, it isn’t hard to preface your alarmist statements about “nuclear power” with that acknowledgement.
You have essentially admitted that the transition to alternatives has more to do with increasing cost of conventional fossil fuel production due to scarcity, and has less to do with climate change hysteria.
Well, WHT, although you seem to have difficulty comprehending this fact, it is still true that nuclear energy is part of the solution to our energy needs.
Yes, indeed, nuclear is part of the solution, as a nation like France will certainly agree with.
It is you that is having difficulty in separating your anti-climate-science hysteria from the reality of transforming our economy from fossil-fuel-based to alternative energies.
IOW, don’t use your dog-whistle so much. Some of us can hear it.
I’ll see your French nuclear pom-pom and raise you a Japanese/German raspberry.
Nuclear electric is conveniently made-up to be pseudo bad by people who choose not see the proven badness of the full-cycle, front-to-back utilization of coal.
And those who ignore that the US has a fleet of aircraft carriers with nuclear reactor power; also a fleet of nuclear submarines. The anti-nuclear group still live in the TMI/Chernobyl times-not in the 21st century.
You are right, Jim.
Energy is neither good nor bad, but the ability to do either.
Nuclear energy was first used to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
That same energy could have been used instead to sustained the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
FEAR, GUILT and REMORSE instead drove society into it’s current state of insanity.
Oliver K. Manuel
OPINION
No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There’s no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to
‘decarbonize’ the world’s economy
. . . . . . .
+100
The decarbonization of the world’s economy is happening anyways due to the increasing scarcity of inexpensive, high-grade fossil fuels such as conventional crude oil.
Nature is having the last say on what “drastic action” means.
This old letter (the 16 scientists) hinged its whole argument on the pause. The pause is a myopic illusion.
“The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2. “
“Nature is having the last say on what “drastic action” means.”
You guys all do the same thing, without even realizing it. Nature is not a person, it has no fever, it has no desire to exact revenge, and it says nothing. Your fire and brimstone, apocalyptic thinking is deeply primitive, and rather pathetic.
Drastic action means–e.g., cutting off an infected limb to save the body, we need to realize the Left believes capitalism is the infection and the limb to be cut off is comprised of the productive.
The WSJ link doesn’t say so, but this is Jan. 26, 2012.
Not that it isn’t as true to day as then.
Economic growth is dependent on the continued availability of cheap energy in a dense, liquid form. That is the driver of the global economy and is interchangeable with money and wealth. Historically, this cheap energy comes from fossil-fuels, which last time I checked is a naturally derived environmental resource.
What does “environmental issues have taken a back seat” mean in this context?
The environment got us into a comfortable position, and now that we are seeing the finite limits of crude oil, harnessing the environment in different ways is the only way we will be able to maintain a comfortable way of life. That is the ongoing environmental challenge and the only way to jumpstart economic growth, no matter how the Redeniers wish to reframe it.
Why did the oildrum die a death?
I can’t totally speak for The Oil Drum, but my old blog on oil depletion http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com was put to rest in 2011 because I had enough material pulled together to aggregate into a book. Once I finished the book, I put the blog into a dormant state, as if it was an old set of lab notes. That part was done and did not need to be messed with any more. I figured that The Oil Drum has similar reasons and said this in my guess post there from last Friday:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/10221
“So everyone that mourns the closing of The Oil Drum has to remember that progress marches on, and something else will spring from the analysis and research that went on here.”
Very rare for a blog to actually compete with the peer-reviewed journal style of research, but The Oil Drum certainly held its own.
TheOilDrum notice of moving to archival status (July 3, 2013) http://www.theoildrum.com/node/10059”
… due to scarcity of new content caused by a dwindling number of contributors. Despite our best efforts to fill this gap we have not been able to significantly improve the flow of high quality articles.”
You don’t get it. Anything more expensive than light sweet crude will not jumpstart the economy. It’s a war of atttrition. More expensive energy is better than no energy. It means survival not prosperity. It’s a step backward not forward.
Phuck you’re stupid, Pukite. By your logic we could jumpstart the ecoomy by abandoning semiconductors and making computers with vacuum tubes. Imagine how many jobs would be created. Incredible.
The economy also depends on electricity – the energy source does not have to be a liquid.
Yes, it does. Our transportation fleet can’t run on electricity. Impractical for trucking and farm machinery and impossible for aircraft. Not to mention there isn’t enough niodymium for the magnets in efficient wheel motors, no suitable batteries even for general personal transportation, and not enough transmission lines to handle the greatly increased demand of everyone recharging their cars. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah. Writing off trillions of dollars worth of vehicles with internal combustion engines and god only knows how much industrial equipment dedicated to building internal combustion engines.
We need liquid hydrocarbon fuels that are drop-in replacements for existing infrastructure. Write that down.
No, it doesn’t. Electricity can be made with coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, or a variety of other energy sources; only some of which are liquids.
Wow. Looks like you single handidly solved the energy problem. You’re a genius!
I am referring only to making electricity, not powering vehicles.
Dyson worked with Einstein — he replaced Einstein — and knows a little something about what we do and do not understand. Dyson just does not believe climatologists “understand the climate,” and says, ”their computer models are full of fudge factors.” Dyson also says, “I think any good scientist ought to be a skeptic.”
“Dyson also says, “I think any good scientist ought to be a skeptic.””
—
Duh. Especially of their own findings. Once you think you’ve found the truth, do everything you can to try and disprove it.
Two celebrated standard bearers of scientific skepticism today, Freeman Dyson and William Happer, weighed-in giving their views about the motives and plain ignorance of global warming alarmists. “There are people who just need a cause that’s bigger than themselves,” Happer observed. “Then they can feel virtuous and say other people are not virtuous.” Going to the matter of competence, Dyson was no less sparing of brainwashed climate scientists. “The models are extremely oversimplified,” says Dyson. “They don’t represent the clouds in detail at all. They simply use a fudge factor to represent the clouds.”
Not understanding, because that’s the very last thing these guys are about to do. Surely you know that.
Why should I share my date with you when you’re only going to use it to prove I’m wrong.” Wonder what Einstein would have said about that.
Oops. Not just my date but my data too.
“Two celebrated standard bearers of scientific skepticism today, Freeman Dyson and William Happer, weighed-in giving their views about the motives and plain ignorance of global warming alarmists. ”
But wait, isn’t this just another appeal to authority?
“But wait, isn’t this just another appeal to authority?”
You guys with your poorly or not at all understood logical fallacies, are like little kids playing with firecrackers. You can’t wait to shoot them off.
“You guys with your poorly or not at all understood logical fallacies…”
So what poorly or not understood logical fallacy does that comment represent?
So when FOMD appeals to the authority of a celebrated climate scientist like James Hansen, you would say…. Hey, that’s not an appeal to authority. Wouldnt you? Don’t you think the message Wagathon is projecting when he says…
“Dyson just does not believe climatologists “understand the climate,” and says, ”their computer models are full of fudge factors.”
Is a message of ‘if Dyson thinks that’s so, you should think so also cause he’s so darn smart… He’s freeman Dyson, celebrated skeptic’?
That’s called an appeal to authority. If expert X says so, you should also think so. Isn’t that the gist of Wagathons comment? ‘If Dyson and Happer say its all fudge, well then you would be silly to think otherwise.’ How is that not an appeal to authority? What part of that is not an appeal to authority? ‘Dyson and Happer are celebrated skeptics, if you are skeptical you should agree with Dyson and Happer. ‘ Do I have something wrong here? Wagathon was not saying that?
Heh, Dyson also thought nuclear powered rockets was the way to go to space… He of course had personal bias in that idea since he was a team leader of Project Orion. Of course the skeptics of that program saw nuclear fall out and radiation as a problem which even Dyson could not ignore. He made a pretty erroneous judgement call, not because of the scientific reality, but because he wanted Orion to fly. He was invested in it. He was biased toward the program. Should we appeal to that type of thinking? That is part of Dyson too.
I think Roger has given a well-reasoned perspective. With CO2 tied so closely to the “non-negotiable” GDP growth, it certainly does make some sense from a political perspective to focus on non-CO2 parts of the “problem”. That’s what reasonable people would do. That will at least give some momentum to finding longer-term solutions. There are dangers in this approach, in that time could be lost in tackling the 900 lb. CO2 elephant, and when we (if we) ever get around to it, we find it is now 1800 lb. and has grown very ill-tempered. Also of course the religious extremes of both sides of the issue, the “deniers” and the “alarmists”, won’t much care for any solution not involving their extreme positions. The deniers don’t see there being a problem in the first place (more CO2 is better, etc.) and the alarmists would say that we’re either screwed already, or we will be without a radical de-carbonization of the global economy. Ignoring the extremes and focusing on the non-CO2 parts of the problem will allow for another international step toward true Anthropocene Management.
Also I suspect the soot and methane lobbies will start to mobilize when they see government regulation coming in their direction. They may point to CO2 as the bigger problem in the long term.
“Science and nature provide enough varied data to paint anyone’s political ink blot, ensuring that the debate over the weather sustains without end. In this debate ostensibly about the science, the opposing camps have created names for one other — “alarmists” (who say the costs of inaction will be high) and “deniers” (who say that the costs of inaction will be low or even zero). The end result has been neither to win the debate nor secure a political mandate, but to politicize the science itself.”
Apparently, Pielke, Jr., uses the language of a peace maker in this paragraph, especially when he suggests in the last sentence that the two sides are equally responsible for rancor in the debate and equally responsible for politicizing the science. No skeptic can accept that equation. It would imply, for example, that Dr. Lindzen has not been a neutral critic of climate science but has politicized his own science and used it to support his politics. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The politicization of climate science began in the eighties when some climate scientists, most notably NASA employ James Hansen, claimed that climate science is a mature science, that the historical temperature data was a near pristine record, and that this combination of a mature science offering pristine data pointed to climate catastrophe in the near future. The truth is that climate science is not mature and that our data record is not trustworthy at the level required. All that skeptics have done is point out the lack of maturity in the science and the dubiousness of the temperature record.
The politicization of climate science achieved its apogee when scientists endorsed the claim that the science is settled. How could a science be settled when the science is not mature? The only way that rancor can be removed from the debate over climate policy is for climate scientists to recognize the immaturity of climate science and to acknowledge to the public that climate science is not a mature science that can offer a record of successful prediction about changes in the climate. The mystery that is the 17 year flat-line in temperature records is no mystery at all when one recognizes the immaturity of climate science.
+100
Jim (and all), check out Barry Brill’s superb piece on the IPCC possibly (likely?) excluding the recent spate of published papers in their upcoming report which in his words, “devastate the IPCC orthodoxy.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/31/can-the-ipcc-do-revolutionary-science/#more-92826
pokerguy, you write “Jim (and all), check out Barry Brill’s superb piece”
I already have, and have commented on that piece at WUWT.
I don’t know what agenda he’s been pursuing since 1997, but I very much doubt it’s “neutral critic of climate science“.
AK “neutral critic of climate science“”
Neutral in what sense? He clearly has a point of view based on his interpretation of the science. But you seem to imply some a priori, politically motivated bias. Perhaps he has one, If so, I’d like to hear about it…
.
@pokerguy…
All I know is that since his 1997 PNAS piece he’s left out factors that were obvious even to me. As “neutral science” it’s
verysuspiciously careless. See, for instance, Mosher’s comment about his latest op-ed or whatever it was.AK writes:
“All I know is that since his 1997 PNAS piece he’s left out factors that were obvious even to me. As “neutral science” it’s very suspiciously careless. See, for instance, Mosher’s comment about his latest op-ed or whatever it was.”
Lindzen has always been aware of the immature state of climate science. Of course he will leave out things that are lionized by the idealists who claim that the science is settled.
Theo, excellent.
“Today, with many of these same leaders focusing their attention on jumpstarting economic growth, environmental issues have taken a back seat. Leaders’ attention to climate policy is not coming back — at least not in any form comparable to the plans being discussed just a few years ago. A rising GDP, all else equal, leads to more emissions. But if there is one ideological commitment that unites nations and people around the world in the early 21st century, it is that GDP growth is non-negotiable.”
This is naive in the extreme.
Name one progressive government that has given up on decarbonizing the global economy?
And “one ideological commitment that unites nations and people around the world in the early 21st century, it is that GDP growth is non-negotiable?” Are you kidding me? Europe is on the verge of economic collapse and keeps electing the same brain dead socialists. Barack Obama has overseen the continued collapse of employment in the black community in the U.S., and was handily re-elected. Not to mention Egypt, Turkey, Nicaragua and other “one man – one vote – one time” democracies.
People vote for the false sense of security that comes from totalitarianism all the time, over the growth that comes from freedom. That is why scare tactics like CAGW are so popular, and effective, for progressives.
The US EPA in particular is forging on with its various regulatory attacks on the energy economy. And Obama has promised to “by-pass” congress on future environmental regulation. Like the good authoritarian he so desires to be.
The collapse of Copenhagen forced a tactical change on the CAGW progressives, not surrender.
Good again, Gary. While Roger Pielke Jr has much merit, he is clearly neither an economist nor a political scientist. “Sticking to one’s knitting” is generally good advice.
” . . . deliver near-term climate protection . . . ”
Newspeak. Doubleplusungood.
And then they go so far as to make a quantified prediction “of about” 0.50 C in less than 27 years.
Double plus nonsense. And they don’t understand why they haven’t gotten any traction.
A question. Does the paragraph beginning, “Stabilizing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would require more than 90 percent of the energy we consume to come from carbon-free sources like nuclear, wind, or solar.” address all forms of energy consumption, including like for all modes of transportation, or only electrical?
Has anyone seen any numbers on the period of time that might be required to displace / replace all the internal combustions engines in use around the world?
We don’t actually have to replace internal combustion engines. Assuming we need to limit CO2, we would only have to replace the fossil fuel with a renewable liquid fuel.
No, we should just mass produce Mr. Fusion powered engines like the one from Doc Brown’s DeLorean in Back to the Future II. Quick, someone pass a law requiring them to be installed in all cars by 2018. Somebody call Jerry Brown in California, he’ll get ‘er done.
Problem solved!
“we only need to”
Seems an unfair assessment of the difficulties…
“we would only have to replace the fossil fuel with a renewable liquid fuel”
Have you ever run the numbers?
Seriously, have you worked out the volume of air you would need to suck into your “renewable liquid fuel” factory?
Which numbers are you asking about, Doc?
“…we should just mass produce Mr. Fusion powered engines like the one from Doc Brown’s DeLorean in Back to the Future II.”
— GaryM
Better that we should resurrect Tesla’s WardenClyffe Tower.
Would building our nuclear capability make America stronger nation? Because if so, the Left will never agree to that. Sure, sure, nuclear is okay for France; and, the Left would Iran have North Korean-made nuclear power plant than for Kansas to have one made by Westinghouse.
“alarmists” (who say the costs of inaction will be high) and “deniers” (who say that the costs of inaction will be low or even zero).”
False equivalency,. “Denier” is a scurrilous, cowardly, ignorant term used for the express purpose of shutting off debate.
I do not always open up debate, but when I do, I use “alarmists”.
Willard, I honestly don’t see “alarmist” as a pejorative term in the way “denier” is. Generally speaking, I’d much rather be accused of being an alarmist who after all are often/usually well intended, than a “denier” with all it’s historically nasty connotations….
Also, your implications are simply false. Deniers crave debate. On the alarmists blogs? Not so much.
How many alarmist scientists are willing to debate on a public stage? How many skeptics?
The Boy Who Cried Wolf raised an alarum. This is not complicated.
================
Denier or Alarmist may both be used in the pejorative, but each represent the religious (in the sense of based of belief) extreme of their respective sides. Both resent being called such in most cases, as they view themselves as the “pure” ones, untainted by the filthy middle ground where positions are fluid and based on actual new data rather than belief.
Sorry, but the term ‘alarmist’ does not have anything like the pedigree of the term ‘denier’. And the term ‘denier’ is always used with the full force of its negative history and associations.
Different pedigrees yes, but each term is used in the pejorative toward the opposite side and the certainty of their positions gives them more in common with each other as belief systems than they might otherwise have in common with the middle ground of true skepticism.
“Different pedigrees yes, but each term is used in the pejorative toward the opposite side and the certainty of their positions gives them more in common with each other as belief systems than they might otherwise have in common with the middle ground of true skepticism.”
You seem to dismiss pedigree. So, you think the “N” word and “Redneck” are roughly equivalent?
I think you are the first person I have known to call skepticism a middle ground. That is roughly equivalent to calling science a middle ground.
Alarmists screech in fear and guilt, remorse and horror; deniers are skeptics, calm and outraged.
=====================
Languages seem to be loosing words, when they are used in one connection.
The word “denier” has surely been a part of the English language for very long referring to a person who denies something. Now this fully natural part of the language should not be used for anything else than deniers of the holocaust.
Does that make sense?
Is that true more generally, or is that just an excuse used by those who for other reasons don’t like being called deniers?
So what is it that skeptics deny? Most of us deny future catastrophe from AnthroGHGs, and affirm present and future catastrophe from mistaken policy. Those who first invented and applied ‘denier’ to honest scientific skeptics did it with malice aforethought, and, we note, afterthought.
=================
Pekka Pirila,
Are you denying that “denier” is being used by CAGW Alarmists as an intentionally pejorative term?
Real skeptics are open for most and deny very little, many people who prefer being called skeptics deny very much and even things that are as certain as anything is on this Earth. Most climate change skeptics are somewhere in-between, a sizable fraction showing almost no sign of skeptical attitude.
I love the phrase ‘real skeptics’.
=======
Peter,
I do claim that it’s the most accurate brief expression in many cases. At least I don’t no any natural alternative.
Surely it’s used also as a pejorative just as “alarmist” is used as pejorative, but even then probably in most cases without any willingness to refer somehow to holocaust denialism. I may err, because my cultural surrounding is different. No word as been tainted in Finnish from the discussion about holocaust. Thus my conclusions on the present linguistic connotations in U.S. (or Australia) are based on very limited samples of language use.
Alarum is a problem, Pekka, in a way that denial is not.
===========
Pekka
The main objection I would have to the term “denier” is simply that it is utterly stupid and non-descriptive.
What is being “denied” here?
“Climate deniers” are certainly not denying climate.
“Climate change deniers” are certainly not denying climate change.
Nor has anyone denied that the record since 1850 indicates that it has warmed in multi-decadal fits and spurts, most recently from ~1970 to ~2000 and has stopped warming since 2001.
The term is apparently being used for anyone who is rationally (or irrationally) skeptical of the IPCC “consensus” position on CAGW (as outlined in detail in AR4).
Why not refer to them as “CAGW skeptics” (for that is what they are, in actual fact)?
Max
Denier is a projection (climate change denier) – you have to deny climate change in order to make place for the Orwellian ‘Climate Change’.
Yes, I think the term ‘climate change denier’ is particularly odious and insidious. Skeptics have long agreed that climate constantly changes; it is the consensus alarmists who would prefer that hoi polloi believes in an unchanging world before man’s actions(source of guilt) warped it. This is the real horror of the crook’t hockey stick, it is the Procrustively straightened shaft.
——————-
kim
Ah knows when Ah’s bein’ shafted.
Max
Yes kim, it’s a linguistic hockey stick.
However, there is no ‘denying’ it is used in the Bible,first.
Pielke Jr. just doesn’t make much sense here. In one breath he says that there is indisputable scientific evidence that humans have an impact on the planet, then he states that “Science and nature provide enough varied data to paint anyone’s political ink blot, ensuring that the debate over the weather sustains without end” He goes on to say that “We are indeed running risks with the future climate through the unmitigated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere” though he does not seek to quantify that risk and this, basically is the crux of the argument between ‘alarmists’ and ‘deniers’; not specifically that humans have NO impact upon the climate but that the risk of man-made climate change has been blown out of all proportion and inaccurately measured by the science, particularly in relation to natural climate variability. He correctly points out that the measures in place to mitigate CO2 emissions are never going to have the effect desired unless we basically revert to the Stone Age or start building nuclear power plants en masse.
Pielke argues that we should make ‘cleaner energy cheaper’ so that dirty energy will be quickly replaced, but he uses the development of fracking for natural gas to exemplify this point, where CO2 emissions are reduced, but not eliminated. ‘Clean’ (i.e. wind/tidal/solar) energy is unlikely to be economical and cheap anytime soon – certainly not soon enough to ‘save the world’ if we are to believe the urgency attested to by climate scientists and policy makers. The only ‘clean’ energy which we can economically exploit to meet future needs – IF we accept the proposition that putting methane/soot/CO2 into the atmosphere is ‘dangerous’ – is nuclear and post Fukushima that is going to be very hard to sell.
So, in essence, I don’t personally see much point in breaking the ‘problem’ up into more manageable portions if the ‘problem’ is not quantified to a sceptical public and that, I am afraid, is where climate alarmists fall far short of the mark whilst the real world appears to be hampering all efforts to prove that climate alarmism is indeed justified.
+1
R. Pelke Jr.: “Why can’t we all be nice, stop quarelling, get along, reduce black carbon?”
Why?
Because alarmists aren’t buying it.
They want wind mills, solar panels, electric cars, biofuels, and carbon taxes regardless of price or efficiency. They already caused the spending of trillions of dollars on useless schemes that acheive no mitigation and no emission reductions at all.
Solar panels and eclectic cars! Oh perish the thought of such treacherous desires! Eternal servitude to the God named Fossil Fuel is the only Pure Hearted Path!
A Redenier like Jacob forgets that fossil fuels are a finite resource, and the one-time plentiful, cheap, and high-grade fuels such as conventional crude oil are continually depleting.
Even if we can’t mitigate climate change, we are bound to pursue Jacob’s “useless schemes” because we have little choice in the matter.
Electric cars would be great, all we need are batteries with enough energy density and nuclear reactors to charge them over night.
I have no problem envisioning such batteries being manufactured in 25-35 years, but they do not exist now.
We could start by allowing nuclear reprocessing in the US, authorities allowing a long term waste storage repository and creating high paying green jobs by building 5 Westinghouse AP1000’s every year.
When solar panels and electric cars will be needed and useful, then, of course, they will be built, without the alarmist yammering about CAGW, and without subsidies.
No need to spent hundreds of billions of dollars of government money now, for things that are not needed now, and don’t work.
No need to push, hysterically, things that are useless for the purpose they are claimed to be achieving (emissions reduction).
The nuclear power plants will be used to charge the batteries and to create synthetic fuels for transportation.
Emissions reduction is a convenient yardstick. Already, miles driven is declining and oil consumption is declining in the USA since 2006
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/StuartFig5.jpg
This has less to do with climate change mitigation and more to do with the high price of crude oil, due almost entirely to scarcity. The high price of crude allowed marginal formations such as the Bakken to make up for the overall declining supplies.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/10221
The climate of failure is a strawman. The USA is getting itself in gear, along with other OECD countries, to thrive in an alternative energy environment. Climate science is just going along for the ride, and providing us an occasional kick in the pants.
R. Gates
Solar panels are wonderful, where they make economic sense (selected local domestic use). They require a backup supply to cover the 75% of the time they are idle. If this source is combined-cycle natural gas, solar only reduces CO2 emissions by a fraction.
All-electric cars do not make economic sense (without a subsidy); using electrical energy generated from any source to drive an engine is inherently inefficient; hybrid cars are a different story.
We should use our heads and stick with “no regrets” initiatives that are economically viable on their own rather than chasing rainbows (or costly windmills).
Max
Max,
The efficiency or cost of electricity generation is not a problem for electric cars, in that respect they are much better than any of the alternatives. The only problem are the batteries, their cost, materials, durability and the time it takes for them to be charged without overheating.
Because practically all the black carbon is coming from BRIC countries. Until westerners get off their high horses and start considering economics to be a serious consideration, none of that will ever change. Playing pretend with ‘renewables’ doesn’t move the meter, and never will.
Even if the CAGW problem is as bad as the alarmist paint it, all the policies they promote are sheer madness, a total waste of money without acheiving any results, even by their standards.
Such a march of foliies, such an irrational, anti-engineering hysteria is really remarkable.
So, what’s wrong with RPJ’s program? Nothing wrong, only extremely naive.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: full steam ahead with methane, especially sea-floor methane hydrate (clathrate), and a big societal investment in “bio-methane” from solar/electrolytic hydrogen and ambient (air or ocean) CO2.
I stopped reading here:
Science has shown nothing except trivial range expansion of shasta daisies, increased crop size, and the size of government grants to push the message. More of the world is becoming liveable.
Junior – just stop it. There is no crisis, no need for carbon substitutes, no need to deny a comfortable life for the third world, no need for elderly Brits to die from winter cold. There is no need for cap and trade and die.
It’s over.
Is “dp” short for Denier Prototype?
-1 (devoid of contents)
“deeply perceptive,” perhaps.
Which part of the third world are you prepared, today, to deny a proper modern living condition? How many Brits are you willing to terminate for the good of the cause? How many economies are you prepared to compromise to fulfill your warmist agenda?
For those who die for your agenda I will create memorial website in your name so that the world will remember long after your privileged life is ended that you were here and you made a difference to these memorialized people. Shall we begin?
Star spattered, dung covered walls,
Daisy lung cutters, water buffalo halls.
===================
Once again a reminder that when discussing climate change policies, it is arithmetic one needs, not physics.
Speaking of numbers, here is a summary of US energy production and consumption that should help quantify what passes for US energy policy.
“Although it has long been clear that soaring energy production in the United States has cut the country’s net energy imports in half, new data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration helps illustrate some notable trends. The latest monthly report from the agency shows continued growth in U.S. fossil fuel production, leading to a 22 percent drop in petroleum imports between 2005 and 2012, according to agency data. Meantime, U.S. exports of petroleum products jumped 270 percent between 2005 and 2012.
Energy exports this year are on pace to grow again, already outpacing 2011 and 2012 through the first five months of the year.
Despite the growth in exports, the nation still relied on imports for 16 percent of its energy needs in 2012, according to the data.
The transformation in U.S. energy exports began when production of U.S. natural gas started soaring in 2005. At the same time, Americans are dramatically decreasing their consumption of oil and petroleum products, largely because of federal requirements that cars use less fuel.”
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/08/28/data-shows-a-shifting-us-energy-landscape/
Did it surprise anyone about the explosive growth of petroleum product exports (270 percent between 2005 and 2012)? Looks to me like that no matter how much we drill, frack and mine fossil fuels the prices here in the US are not going to go down. Our imports dropped by 22% while our exports jump 270% (and still climbing).
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The political balance equation is far simpler than the global energy-balance equation:
Is it any wonder that long-term strategists direct scientists to study carefully the voter-relevant impacts of a global carbon energy economy:
No doubt the conclusions of Pope Francis’ creative-yet-rational, innovative-yet-conservative, pragmatic-yet-moral “Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature” 2014 team will receive far more public attention than the IPCC5’s too-timid 2013 team of time-servers and bureaucrats, eh?
After all, the greatest Republican Party leaders have been wisely guided by science to accept remarkable political/economic compromises in the name of “Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature”.
That’s plain common-sense *AND* the plain lesson of history *AND* “the best available science”, eh Climate Etc readers?
And a simple majority of voters — not all voters to be sure, and yet a diminishing denialist minority scarcely matters — *DO* embrace the common sense conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Pope Francis, isn’t that right?
Has the Vatican changed much since Galileo’s days?
Should prove to be an interesting event next year. I note with interest that on Tuesday, May 6, 2014 this speaker will present during the closing session:
16:30 Scientific Consensus and the Role and Character of Scientific Dissent Naomi Oreskes
LOL … the lesson of history is plain:
At least, that’s the lesson-learned that multiple respected Republican leaders now proclaim, isn’t that correct-on-the-facts, Curious George?
The Lesson of History Acceptance of “best available science” since Pope Urban VIII / Galileo Galilei has greatly benefitted the Catholic Church; rejection of the “best available science” since Ronald Reagan / James Hansen has greatly harmed American conservatism.
Fortunately, that harm looks to reverse during coming election cycles, eh Curious George? For which help-to-conservatism, thank you Pope Francis!
Fanny. You’re gonna bust the thread again. The innernet isn’t big enough for all your cutsies.
The character “?” is a question mark. Not a praise mark.
Oreskes, eh? Tobacco tar causes lung cancer but AnthroCO2 nourishes plants and sustains more total life on Earth, and more diversity of life than otherwise.
=================
Merchants of Doubt. It’s a conspiracy, bought and paid for by the Koch brothers plus the Grinch who stole X-mas.
Tobacco. Second hand Co2. Us good. You bad.
Bleh.
To paraphrase Roy Scheider in Jaws
I think yer gonna need a bigger font.
Political solutions are not possible as long as the science is not truthful. If one side or the other does not trust the science, as folks like Hansen go around getting arrested while driving the GISS temp record, this just won’t work. What happened to dispassionate scientists telling the unvarnished truth about their often equivocal conclusions?
If one takes a look at global temps, there is a peak during the Summer in the Northern Hemisphere. This is because proportionally there is more land in the Northern Hemisphere. Or, stated another way, there is proportionally more Ocean in the Southern hemisphere. At any rate, however you slice it, this all means that ocean level is a negative feedback. Higher sea level –> greater sea surface area –> lower global temperature.
Do you see a downside to sea-levels rising tens of meters? Or is it all good?
I think you are capable of reading what I said, otherwise feel free to make things up a you are now.
The tiny negative feedback suggested by jim2 is no match for the huge positive feedback caused by the change of ice and snow albedo that went into the higher sea level.
Amazing the deceptive rhetorical arguments that the denialists play with.
‘Denialists’ is ‘Deniers’ in Parseltongue.
========
I think you are capable of reading what I said, otherwise feel free to make things up a you are now.
If Dr. Curry will permit me, just this one time, I would like to use a bit of humor to state a position on the politics of CAGW.
I am an environmentalist of science. As an environmentalist of science, I want to warn everyone that the environment of science faces ruin in the near future. The causes of ruin will prove familiar to environmentalists because they have fought these causes for decades.
Some climate scientists have introduced genetically modified data (GMD). Such data takes one of two forms. In the milder case, data records can be adjusted endlessly. In the more pernicious case, GMD has no organic source but is output from a supercomputer. Proliferation of GMD threatens the very existence of organic data and records of organic data. Producers of GMD are politically powerful and producers of organic data have been warned that they will face penalties if GMD is found in their records. Obviously, this political decision threatens the producers of organic data.
Some climate scientists have introduced non-organic growth factors (NOG) or non-organic health improvement factors (NOHI) into their theories of climate. A non-organic growth factor is the presumption that natural regularities such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) must average to zero over long time periods. This presumption enables theories to grow without empirical investigations of the decadal behavior of the AMO. A non-organic health improvement factor is the presumption of climate theorists and climate modelers that there is no need to specify some relationship between a theory and organic data or between a model and organic data. The lack of some specified relationship protects theories and models from the harm of falsification or any sort of criticism based on organic data. The cumulative result for the consumer of science is that he/she can be consuming a large and seemingly generous science product that contains no organic data whatsoever.
There is a rumor that some climate scientists have introduced artificial steroids into their theories or models. There is no basis for this rumor.
Environmentalists have programs in place to deal with GMDs, NOGs, and NOHIs. In the political organization known as the European Union (EU), environmentalists have won some important victories against consumer products that are genetically modified or that use potentially harmful growth factors or health factors. I hope they can do the same for the consumers of science.
“just this one time”? More, more!
Genetically modified data! Love it!
Theo, thanks for brightening up an otherwise tediously hi-jacked and “polluted” thread courtesy of the usual attention-seeking suspects (and those who feed them!)
Their mission in virtual life seems to be an increasingly tiresome attempt to dissuade anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together from discovering for themselves that there is, indeed, intelligent life in this corner of the blogosphere.
Btw, unless you have a fear of facts, don’t miss this excellent 50 to 1 Project video:
http://youtu.be/Zw5Lda06iK0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stages_of_grief
“3. Bargaining — “I’ll do anything for a few more years.”; “I will give my life savings if…”
The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, “I understand I will die, but if I could just do something to buy more time…” People facing less serious trauma can bargain or seek to negotiate a compromise. For example “Can we still be friends?..” when facing a break-up. Bargaining rarely provides a sustainable solution, especially if it’s a matter of life or death.”
Oh, diddums. Pielke wants for everyone to be friends so that the boondoggle can live on. God bless his little cotton socks.
Michael, I’ve faced death more than once, and other traumatic situations, and I generally go straight to stage 5 – it saves an awful lot of wasted energy. I really enjoyed my stay in hospital after a heart attack in December, and also helped others to enjoy their stay/work. Kubler Ross is not obligatory. Kubla Khan might be better. “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, moves on.” (Khyyam, not Khan.)
I generally find that decisive action works – obviously making the right choices helps.
I was surfing an offshore break on my little catamaran – without a life jacket. The boat went one way and I went the other. I was in the water wondering whether I should:
a) worry about sharks;
b) swim after the boat; or
c) save my energy and try to make it to shore.
I obviously think there are things we should be doing anyway – regardless of climate change – that will change the equation in a number of ways. One of these is energy research.
CH, which one did you do? I trained as a lifeguard and was informed that c) is generally fatal.
Lost my sunglasses, shoes and pants – but caught the boat. The obvious lesson is to wear a life jacket.
And you would have missed the boat.
Roger Pielke expands on the topic in this lecture :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTUE5Ue6Z38
“Climate Policy for a high energy Planet”
Interestingly, it’s not predominantly prescriptive, despite the title [noting reactions above to his comments about future risks] – its emphasis is much more “IF you want to decarbonise, for whatever reason, here’s your problem, and here’s why what you’ve been trying for 20 years has been an unmitigated disaster”
One thing he focuses on, and which is unappreciated by all too many green activists and devotees of ‘clean’ energy is the proportion of the worlds energy that currently comes from wind and solar combined. To the nearest one percent it is zero.
I thoroughly recommend the lecture – it’s non-partisan, sane, informative and, as I say, non at all prescriptive.
I think the problem with equating the terms “denialist” and “alarmist” is that the truth values of those two terms are not equal at all. CAGW proponents are actually truly trying to alarm the world populations and they want major changes made. These changes could have seriously negative results – results which CAGW proponents are not interesting in investigating in any depth whatsoever. Alarmist is a very accurate term in their case.
On the other hand, “denialist” is a word with little truth value, because the vast majority of those tagged with that pejorative dehumanizing term are merely unconvinced of the need for such drastic actions as the CAGW proponents – including many supposed “scientists” – advocate so openly despite the clearly immature and unsettled nature of climate science. Most of those called “denialists” are not denying anything; they are simply skeptics.
Of course, merely calling someone skeptical is hardly insulting and dehumanizing enough for those with such strong emotional needs to feel superior to others who do not believe as they do.
Also, I think it’s time to mention that CAGW proponents should stop trying to smear skeptics by pretending that climate science is settled science in the same sense as evolution by natural selection is.
Not so at all.
Evolution has never been falsified, and is very old science which is supported by many diverse scientific fields, including genetics, physics, biology, archeaology, paleontology, geology, cosmology, embryology etc. There are millions of scientists in over 150 years time who have had a chance to falsify this theory, and all evidence supports it. Also, there is no political agenda worth speaking of behind this science. No one is saying, “Look, because evolution by natural selection is true, we should all change the way we live right now before it’s too late.”
By contrast, modern climate science is a very young, narrow field where most of the few hundred practitioners actually writing papers have been reviewing each others work, are activists, have hidden information from those who wish to duplicate their conclusions, have destroyed and are altering data, and are using horrible (and profoundly unscientific) psychological pressures to bully the public into buying the political and economic agenda they support. None of the modern models have displayed any improvement over very old models at predicting temperatures either, as McIntyre’s post on Guy Callendar reveals.
http://climateaudit.org/2013/07/26/guy-callendar-vs-the-gcms/
There is no way I can support equating the two terms “denialist” and “alarmist” nor can I support equating in general the conduct of CAGW proponents with the conduct of those who remain skeptical. I’m thinking that the only reason Pielke Jr. is doing so is because he is trying to straddle the fence so as to appear evenhanded. Well, being evenhanded is fine in theory, but not when science and conduct are so manifestly uneven in practice.
Tom
With all due respect to R gates who objected to the word ‘alarmist’ it is an apt word as so many people believe the absolute worst whether it is Fan with metres of of sea level rise or r gates who seems convinced the seas will warm uncontrollably.
Much of climate science is not based on irrefutable facts but conjecture and exaggeration. As an example, the belief that there will be 200 million climate refugees has gained considerable currency. It came from dr Norman Myers of Oxford university who in a programme on statistics just aired on Bbc confirmed he had just made it up in order to alarm people and cause them to take action.
Tonyb
Agreed. I also think I may have been a bit unclear where I was going with the evolution/climate science point I tried to make.
What I was trying to get at is that doubting “consensus” climate science is a lot more supportable and indeed reasonable than doubting the theory of evolution by natural selection. Doubting the two should not be equated. Because there are some creationists who also doubt the “consensus” on climate science has led many CAGW supporters to attempt to tar all skeptics with the claim that if one doubts the validity of their claims, then one probably doubts evolution too (and believes in faked moon landings, conspiracy theories etc).
I wish to make clear that I support and defend the rights of people to believe what they want, including creationists of every sort; however, from an evidentiary and scientific viewpoint, belief in evolution by natural selection is a far cry from belief in the conclusions of modern climate science. Because one is settled science does not mean the other is, just because some people may doubt both.
With all due respect Tony, I’ve never stated nor do I believe the seas will warm “uncontrollably” (whatever that means). Nor do I object to the words Alarmist or Denier. They are quite descriptive of certain groups.
Rates
But you believe the seas will get warmer and warmer and that we are exerting no control over co2 and the resultant warming ithat you believe it causes. I agree that alarmist and warmist are good terms and can not see how they are pejorative in the way that ‘denier’ is.
Tonyb
Tony,
I certainly do believe the oceans will continue to both warm and rise as long as GH gases do, but there is a limit, or rather a series of them, each from different sources, both natural and of human origin.
An example of why the term denier is useful:
angech said:
“How it is dispersed while in the system affects us but there is no storage of extra heat in the deep ocean.”
—-
Is this the words of a “skeptic” or someone convinced (a true believer) in their position? Such a position is a classic mindset of a denier, hence why the term has value by its ability to distinguish a skeptic from something based on belief.
Gates, my original naive view when I came to these blogs a few years ago is that these just plain wrong statements just come from a lack of understanding, and giving them a little science would solve it. Little did I know these views are almost always unshakable, however wrong they are. I still try to educate in some hope, but it is also interesting to see where the reductio ad absurdum arguments lead when you challenge them on the logic of their views.
Jim D
The main thrust of difference between the skeptics and warmists is about the future. You may say someone is wrong about the past. You may say someone is wrong about the present. But you cannot say they are wrong about the future, until the future is past. Most of what I read is how the warmists were wrong about the future when they thought they were right in the past.
Jim D
Some advice:
Don’t try so hard to educate, and try a bit harder to become educated.
Max
Well said, Tom and Tony.
A few weeks back, I gave my personal viewpoint on one of Judith’s threads that rather than do stuff that raises people’s electricity rates — such as the widespread wind and solar installations that have driven EU electricity rates 40% higher than the US, from a base year of 2006 (Financial Times article) — countries should focus on R&D for solar, to make it more economical, sooner than it would otherwise be.
The EU’s policies — since wind and solar are currently far from economic — have reduced jobs and taxes in a part of the world that sorely needs both. And it hasn’t done much for CO2 reduction, since production is moving to the US or China (again, Financial Times is the source). Link:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4370d5c0-c22d-11e2-ab66-00144feab7de.html#axzz2U7e9ikUv
When solar becomes as economic as alternatives, however, solar will be the main source of new electricity for probably centuries, in my view, because it is virtually carbon free. It has a much smaller footprint than wind, doesn’t industrialize landscapes, and can be put on rooftops and eventually windows.
This is what I have been telling friends, and commenting on blogs. We don’t have to strangle ourselves economically. If high techies can do Moore’s Law and all the other wonders we have come to see from Silicon Valley, they can make solar economical. Just takes time and money, but it will happen. However, I probably formulated these ideas after having read Pielke Jr. for a few years — so credit to Pielke, Jr.
Sustainable Fuel & Power
Developing countries urgently need development and economic growth so their people can afford to feed their families and provide education and medical help. So China is rapidly installing the least expensive power systems available, running on stored solar energy (aka compressed biomass aka “coal”). See Robert Rapier “King Coal gets fatter while the US goes on a diet.”
This supports the Pielke’s point:
Dr Curry – the date on the FP article is August 6 2012. Has it been republished or something?
“When solar becomes as economic as alternatives”…
The alarmists will need to find another theory do sermonize and scare people about.
Never before in my lifetime have I seen such a shambolic mess. Common sense and logic disappeared many years ago. Our energy policies are complete madness.
Groups with different agendas battle it out using spin, lies and cherry picked data. The industrialised economies in Europe will self destruct because of mass stupidity. Only then, will common sense return.
Haven’t seen you at Guido’s lately?
Reblogged this on Cornwall Wind Watch.
There is a trope in the Warmist camp that goes like this:
“We humans/politician are too stupid/greedy to ever listen to the warnings. Sadly, I think we won’t act until [Judgement Day] has arrived.” Presumably this is around the +10C tail scenario.
But now close to two decades of the pause and temperature trend <.1C over this time. Any yet close to half the voting bloc demands action, action is forced through unilaterally (EPA), aggressive cuts are consistently proposed across the West.
What sensitivity is, is anybody's guess. But how do Warmists interpret this behavior as evidence of humanity's inability to deal with this threat?
There have been apocalyptic zealots and apocalyptic cults for thousands of years; they just need to feel important and on a the even of a final battle.
Sad, but it is a common cultural motif.
Fear and guilt have been used since the beginning of time, most herds display the phenomena. The Enlightenment, and its red-headed stepchild, Science, transcend them, or will some day.
=================
Watch the prophet
fer what
shall it profit
he?
… Though
not thereby,
necessarily
profiting
us. :(
Regarding US natural gas, someone can check my numbers, but I believe the US proven reserves of 350 trillion cubic feet, when all burned, results in 20 Gt CO2 which will only add 1 ppm to the atmosphere (and a similar amount to the ocean). On that basis, I would say go for it. It will be a small fraction of global energy usage and it doesn’t seem it will last long anyway.
You should probably include global and unproved resources – http://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/worldshalegas/
Thanks. That would be ~100 ppm in the atmosphere. Not so trivial.
Regarding policy, I think we need to tackle CO2, and one method is rationing it. A target could be set like a 2000 Gt CO2 limit globally by 2100, which would result in about another degree added, and is a bit more than the amount burned so far. Anyway, the basic idea is that a target should be set in total emissions first, then a rate determined from that, then who gets to burn what and when. Shameless idealism? Yes.
Jim D
Pielke’s approach appears to make more sense than yours, since it would be much easier to get universal support.
But let’s look at your approach:
In a “business as usual” world, we will reach around 4000 Gt added CO2 by 2100 (rather than 2000, as you propose). This would put us at around 650 ppmv CO2 in the atmosphere.
However, if we were to maximize nuclear in place of new coal and implement four other major other “no regrets” actions in transportation as well as energy conservation, we could theoretically get this down by around 2000 Gt by 2100.
No direct or indirect carbon tax would be needed, as all the actions are “no regrets” initiatives, which make economic sense.
These actions would be (estimated cumulative CO2 reduction by 2100):
1. Replace two-thirds of all new coal-fired power with nuclear (1,232 GtCO2)
2. Replace half of remaining third of all coal with natural gas combined cycle plants (154 GtCO2)
3. Convert three-fourths of all light vehicles (passenger cars, light trucks) from gasoline to hybrid (216 GtCO2)
4. Switch half of all heavy vehicles (trucks, buses, etc.) from Diesel to natural gas (60 GtCO2)
5. Reductions resulting other climate initiatives (building insulation, waste recycling, “lifestyle” changes, etc.) (292 GtCO2)
So, yes, your vision could be achieved, “IF”…
The big “IF” is the political acceptance of nuclear power generation (since this is the “no regrets” initiative with the biggest single impact (60+% of the total).
Max
I would hope that renewables plus energy storage technology would become a large percentage and nuclear would not be necessary in every country, including some we don’t trust with it, not just militarily but from the responsibility perspective. Even then, this represents a 33% per capita reduction in CO2 use globally, even disregarding upward pressures from population growth and development. Anyway, maybe we agree the 2000 Gt limit by 2100 does not look impossible, but politically it would be hard to get any global agreement to that effect because some kind of carrot and stick approach is needed, and people mostly will see the stick, not the carrot. The carrot may just be a sustainable and resilient world, but that doesn’t sell.
Jim D
You refer to the “carrot and stick”.
The “carrot” is a better quality of life; that’s what has been driving human ingenuity for centuries, and it will undoubtedly continue to do so.
The “stick” is war, famine, poverty, mass epidemics, oppressive taxes, etc. These are negative driving factors humanity should try to avoid.
A direct or indirect carbon tax on humanity is a “stick”; it is simply an added burden on all of us, especially on the poorest of us, without providing any increase in our quality of life.
Let’s go for the “carrot” approach to solving the world’s energy and poverty problems. The other approach won’t work.
So let’s say we want to reduce human CO2 emissions.
I’ve shown you 5 major “no regrets” initiatives that could be undertaken without economic loss or the need of a carbon tax in order to reduce cumulative human CO2 emissions by year 2100 by almost half (from 4000 to 2000 GtCO2). This would result in a reduction of atmospheric CO2 by 2100 from ~650 ppmv to ~525 ppmv and a theoretical reduction of global warming of between 0.7C and 1.3C, depending on the assumed 2xCO2 climate sensitivity.Over 60% of the total CO2 reduction would result from the switch from new coal-fired power plants to new advanced technology nuclear plants.
The only thing standing in the way of implementing this is the lack of political will, and the hysterical fear in the populations of many countries, brought about by years of anti-nuke propaganda by the same environmental lobby groups that are now screaming to solve the “CO2 problem”.
Can’t get any goofier than that, Jim.
Max
And this would be applied on a world-wide basis how?
Faustino
You ask, “how?”
First let me clarify:
Like many others, I do not believe that there is any scientific evidence demonstrating that there is the risk of significant negative consequences resulting from any possible warming caused by human emissions of CO2 (or any other GHG). The data just aren’t there to support this premise.
However, if one wants to reduce human emissions in order to decrease the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations (the premise made by ASME in its report) and if one wants to restrict the actions undertaken to achieve this to “no regrets” initiatives, then these would be logical actions, which could be taken.
A direct or indirect carbon tax is not (plus it achieves no change in our future climate.)
Some small amount of local solar plus wind might be economically viable and could also be added in instead of nuclear. Any new hydroelectric power might also be considered. But these renewables will, in all likelihood, remain a small percentage of the total new capacity added.
The other listed “no regrets” CO2 reduction actions (transportation sector or energy conservation initiatives) have a smaller impact, but could also be implemented on a global basis.
Schemes such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) are certainly not “no regrets” initiatives, as they only add cost (plus possible risk) and no inherent added-value.
Geo-engineering schemes are even dicier.
So that could be the “what”.
Now to the “how” and your question.
Obviously these actions would only achieve their CO2 reduction objective if they are implemented an a global level, with certain exceptions (taking into account nuclear non-proliferation concerns or direct local proximity to a low-cost source of natural gas, etc.).
I would be opposed to any top-down “enforcement” (by the UN or anyone else) or to a globally enforced carbon tax but, since the actions are all “no regrets” initiatives, there would be no economic incentive NOT to implement them and no “down side” from implementing them and, as a result, they should be “no brainers” IMO.
Maybe you see this differently. If so, I’d be interested in reading your views.
Max
Two worldviews contrasted:
Conclusion Rational analysis of Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature exposes Roger Pielke’s climate-change analysis as mathematically rigid, scientifically (and affectively) stunted, and socially, morally, and economically puerile.
In 2014 this guy and this gal are gonna provide *ADULT* foundations for climate-change understanding, eh Climate Etc laddies and lasses?
Pielke can take a lesson from the Pope. GDP has a hidden cost when it exploits nature in an unsustainable way. Thanks for pointing that out, Fan.
It is a shame they didn’t invite any deniers to their conference next year because then they could have had a panel discussion in the form of a good old-fashioned Inquisition.
They had a previous one in 2011 entitled “Fate of Mountain Glaciers in the Anthropocene”. They are serious about this subject.
Calling ur opponent immoral is a losing strategy.
Especially when u offer the head of a child raping relgion as the alernative.
It’s always enlightening when a klansman lifts his spotless, pure white hood and reveals the slavering bigot beneath.
Climate Etc readers are invited to verify for themselves that Roger Pielke’s essay does not employ the words “moral” or “responsible”.
Perhaps Roger Pielke fantasizes that markets (magically!) accommodate these elements?
The remainder of your comment, Steven Mosher, is indistinguishable from abusive denialist demagoguery.
Surely you can post better analysis than *THAT*, Steven Mosher!
Fan
Thank God!
Pielke is a <scientist.
Not a preacher or a moralist.
Max
Pielke is not a climate scientist – but science policy orientated.
‘I have a B.A. in mathematics, an M.A. in public policy and a Ph.D. in political science, all from the University of Colorado.’
He is not a scientist, but his father is.
That’s a pretty bizarre comment Jim.
It was just a fact in case there was some confusion of Jr. with Sr.
Jim
Yes. You are right. My error.
But, as the Chief writes:
(The Pope is neither.)
Max
The mention of the Pope could be seen as an appeal to authority, but I think what he had to say made a lot of sense, and it is good if an influential person (not here, maybe) has those views and is making them public. This gets his people thinking about the problem from his perspective at least.
I think Pielke was accurate when I heard him say,It was about the money. The politicans and the people aren’t going to get past that. The Pope has the advantage of not having to raise the money to pay for changes.
Does the Pope do the Hokey-Taqiyah in the woods?
==========
Fan
You’ve just given a good example of why Pielke is a scientist and the Pope is a cleric.
Thanks.
Max
Nice to see fan promoting the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. We all know how infallible the Catholic Church is when it listens to the “scientific consensus.” Just ask Galileo.
Oh, and needless to say, the “quote” from fan isn’t from Pope Francis. It’s from Partha Dasgupta, a Cambridge economist/CAGW apologist.
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/events/2014/sustainable.pdf
He’s been saying that for years, and he had planned and scripted the PAS “workshop” cited by fan before Francis was even made Pope.
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/accademia/en/events/2014/sustainable.pdf
You’ll love this brief YouTube video of him explaining why trillions of dollars of mitigation casts in the US would not really be that big a deal. And note he gave this lecture in 2009, when the debris from the implosion of the mortgage finance industry had not even settled yet.
Do you have anything substantive against what Dagupsta says, or you just want create a populist effect?
willard,
OK, here’s something substantive. Describing trillions of dollars as no big deal is stupid.
Someone else talking outside his area of expertise, then, Fan. When will people learn?
“In this debate ostensibly about the science, the opposing camps have created names for one other — “alarmists” (who say the costs of inaction will be high) and “deniers” (who say that the costs of inaction will be low or even zero). The end result has been neither to win the debate nor secure a political mandate, but to politicize the science itself.” – Roger Pielke Jr.
A stalemate. I think the question sometimes is, Have some Scientists strayed into politics? But it’s also important to ask if politics has moved into the Science and is that is the more notable occurrence? Politics can harden and soften depending on the circumstance, and Global Warming is now at the hardened position. It looks like a call was sounded, and the skeptics answered it with vigor. To the point of dropping some past issues and focusing on this one.
Of the warmists, the ones with a limited Science background, haven’t lost the argument, they’ve just had set backs. As I think Pielke is saying, the biggest set back is money. There isn’t much to be found. New taxes would just undermine their political position.
So looking at Pielke’s last line above:
The debate is unlikely to be won or settled soon.
A political mandate in unlikely to be obtained soon.
The predicted outcome is more political rhetoric, but actions limited by scarce money.
It seems rational to keep an eye on the stalemated situation, and to look at new approaches. From my point of view, are there any win/win agricultural issues out there?
Mankind needs four very basic requirements to survive.
1 / Water.
Without Water he dies in a few tens of hours.
2 / Food
Without Food he dies usually within a month.
3 / Shelter
At every place on Earth where mankind goes he will need shelter and protection of some sort, some time, be it just clothing or a fully closed protective and expensive shelter.
4 / Energy.
The use of energy in a totally controlled manner is the distinguishing hall mark of Mankind.
Even the use of possibly the lowest form of energy, an animal dung fire, is the major distinguishing difference between mankind and animals as no animal uses and controls energy like mankind does.
With ample readily available and cheap energy all of the three absolutely essential survival items above can be created and / or processed for use by mankind.
Without the use of controlled energy we humans are no more than scavenging animals.
So it’s with considerable surprise that i very rarely see any comments on new energy generation technologies that are currently being researched and are under development.
There seems to be blind side even on this technically orientated forum with it’s very astute and technically competent denizens to a couple of those energy projects currently undergoing development which, if proven both technically and commercially viable, have the prospects of providing the world with an almost in-exhaustible supply of very clean, reliable, low cost, very low polluting, non CO2 emitting energy.
And to do so starting in no more than perhaps a decade ahead if the claims about the development of the technology are substantiated.
One of the most likely to be commercially acceptable and successful of these new energy technologies is from the highly respected and technologically very advanced Lockheed Martin Skunkworks.
The Skunkworks designed and built the Lockheed U2 and 3000 kph SR71 Blackbird spy planes plus a number of other very advanced, highly classified research projects over the last number of decades.
The Skunkworks has form when it comes to delivering advanced technology projects,
So it is surprising in view of revelations from Dr Charles Chase of the Skunkworks at the Google’s “Solve for X” forum on Feb /17 / 2013 that there seems to be little or no mention of this in just about every discussion on the net when future energy generation technologies are being discussed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAsRFVbcyUY
From Wikki on the Skunkwork’s fusion project.
High beta fusion reactor
Charles Chase and his team at Lockheed have developed a high beta configuration, which allows a compact reactor design and speedier development timeline (5 years instead of 30).
The high beta fusion reactor (also known as the 4th generation prototype T4) is a project being developed by a team led by Dr. Charles Chase of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. The “high beta” configuration, which allows a compact fusion reactor design and speedier development timeline (5 years instead of 30). It was presented at the Google Solve for X forum on February 7, 2013.[1]
Design;
Dr. Chase said that “the fuel (two isotopes of Hydrogen) has six orders of magnitude higher energy density than oil. You can’t make a bomb from it, and it has no meltdown risk. It’s very different from nuclear fission reactors.”[2][3]
The device is a compact 100MW high-Beta (plasma pressure/magnetic pressure) reactor that should be about 2x2x4 meters. The company hopes to have a prototype working by 2017, scale it up to a full production model by 2022 and to be able to meet global baseload energy demand by 2050, in time to have an impact on Earth’s climate.
The magnetic field increases the farther out that the plasma goes, which pushes the plasma back in.
It also has very few open field lines (very few paths for the plasma to leak out; uses a cylinder, not a ring- (Tokamak)).
Very good arch curvature of the field lines.
The system has a beta of about 1.[2]
This system is DT (deuterium – tritium).
Coal is going to be around for a very long time as it is a major component in steel smelting, in cement production and in the cathodes in the Alumina pot lines plus being used directly as a raw material input in many other industrial processes..
Steel production alone uses 13% or about 717 million tonnes per year of the global coal output.
Around 1350 million tonnes of cement are produced each year. It takes half a tonne of coal to produce one tonne of cement which equates to about 650 million tonnes of coal each year being used for global cement production
Plus gasified coal is one of the main feedstocks used in the huge global chemical and pharmaceutical industries..
ROM,
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Power-Reactors/Small-Nuclear-Power-Reactors/#.UiQKtqIcbSg
It is an undisputable fact that plants grow better at higher CO2 levels. There are peer reviewed papers, all supported by evidence. The African Sahel region has been greening because of higher atmospheric CO2 levels. We also know that growers pump CO2 and raise temperatures inside their greenhouses for a better harvest, increasing output by double-digit percentage points. The old giant Sequoia trees are getting a second youth because of the increasing CO2.
Meanwhile there is no evidence at all that oceans have risen during these last decades and in fact satellites show a decline for the last few years, albeit statistically insignificant. This has been attributed to the Ozzie floods, which I see as far-fetched. It could also be a cooling of the oceans causing thermal contraction and therefore level decline.
The arctic summer ice is still there and the Antarctic sea ice is increasing year on year.
The planet’s temperature has seen a 16 year stasis and this is now even accepted by temperature-stasis deniers such as Trenberth who BELIEVES that the heat is hiding deep down in the oceans depths but for which there is no scientifically-based indication, let alone proof by measurement.
My bottom line is that there is no climate crisis at the moment and there seems to be non forthcoming for the foreseeable future, except that solar scientists are predicting long decades of solar-induced cold winters which could even be as cruel as the Little Ice Age.
Don’t throw that woolen coat away, it may come in handy..
alex
+100
Hmmm. Plant food. Garlgarlgarl.
if the Warmist were clever enough, they should have given up after the Copenhagen flop.
GAtes writes: :Is this the words of a “skeptic” or someone convinced (a true believer) in their position? Such a position is a classic mindset of a denier, hence why the term has value by its ability to distinguish a skeptic from something based on belief.:
Come on. Let’s assume you’re right and he’s in flagrant denial on this issue. Are you really arguing that alarmists go to the trouble of making such fine distinctions when deciding whether to use the term. 6 months to a year ago, those who claimed there was a pause were called deniers. In fact, lollywot still does.
Judith Curry is called a denier is some quarters.
Pockerguy,
I can’t speak for how others use words. I use them to communicate as precisely as I can. Calling Judith a “denier” would be an absurdity. Her feedback on the issue specifically of uncertainty in climate science is a gift that any true skeptical scientist should be grateful for, and all scientists should be skeptics at heart.
I can’t speak for…
Convenient, Gates.
Indeed, almost as much as victim playing, Poker.
pokerguy.
Understand that using the term denier is a way of disciplining you
“To the extent that politics in every democracy involves a continuous struggle for power among competing politicians and parties, these traditions are antipolitical. They deny the autonomy of politics, and the agency inherent in representative democracy, by trying to discipline citizens and politicians.”
here is another form of discipline they wish they could impose on you
Roger Pielke
Thanks for a very logical and well reasoned post.
Your point is spot on:
IOW “it’s all about the economics, stupid”.
Let’s hope this message can be gotten across to “policy makers” who are still stuck in the decarbonizing paradigm.
However, while your approach to “solving the AGW problem” makes much more sense than the failed attempts by IPCC/ Kyoto and I believe that reducing black carbon pollution (or any other real air pollution makes good sense, I still have to agree with Jim Cripwell that:
So, yes. Clean up the air.
And (modifying what you have written slightly):
I would not see methane as a particular target, since a major portion is of natural origin, it has a short life span and I do not believe it poses any risks to human health or our environment at the current or projected future ppb levels.
Methane losses from natural gas or petroleum production (~one-third of human emissions) should be eliminated and methane produced from other activities should be collected for use wherever possible as an energy conservation step.
But it is highly unlikely IMO that methane will ever reach high enough atmospheric levels from human activities to result in any perceptible change of our climate – wouldn’t you agree?.
However, I would see black carbon and ozone, both of which are harmful to human health as good targets for reduction.
The crux of your message was to start by making smaller steps, but steps everyone can agree on.
And I believe one could get universal agreement on this approach.
Just my thoughts.
Max
Increased and higher levels of CO2 will be an essential requirement if the world’s farmers are expected to provide enough food for the predicted 9 billions of humans by 2050.
With increasing standards of living and increased expectations for a better life amongst the billions who are still mired in poverty and the possibility / probability of a cooling global climate and therefore a good possibility of little or no further expansion and maybe even, god forbid, a contraction in the land areas due to the shortened and / or much colder growing conditions in the northern hemisphere field crop regions, then the available global food producing areas may even decline.
With extra atmospheric CO2, wheat, the world’s largest basic food crop, gives it’s best yields at about 700 ppm of CO2. Which would go a very long way towards the ability to feed that population peak of around 9 billions by 2050.
Here in Horsham at our major broad acre crop Ag research facility in SE Australia we have one of the half dozen FACE experiments in the world
AGFACE (Australian Grains Free Air CO₂ Enrichment)
http://www.piccc.org.au/research/project/252
http://climate.adfi.usq.edu.au/420/
http://www.regional.org.au/au/asa/2008/poster/farming-uncertain-climate/5868_norton.htm
The data from this and the other Free Air CO2 experiments on in field crops shows the following;
Research progress ;
Preliminary results have been collected from a number of components of the AGFACE program.
CO2 FERTILISATION
Under the elevated CO2 treatment:
• wheat yield increased by 10–40% at Horsham and 50–60% at Walpeup
• soil type had a major influence on yield response to elevated CO2 but the long term effects are unclear
• field pea yields increased by 15–50% at Horsham, depending on the cultivar
• nitrogen uptake increased by over 20% in both wheat and field pea, indicating more fertiliser may be required under elevated CO2
• additional phosphorous fertiliser had a stimulatory effect on field pea biomass, depending on soil nitrate levels.
GRAIN QUALITY
Grain quality and nutritional aspects appeared to degrade under elevated CO2 at Horsham:
• wheat grain protein declined by 2–7%
• grain zinc and iron content declined almost 10%.
Identifying beneficial traits to counteract this effect is important for food security and animal nutrition.
PEST AND DISEASE RESPONSES
Under the elevated CO2 treatment the pathogen that causes crown rot, Fusarium pseudograminearum, increased in fungal biomass. This suggests that, in the absence f high levels of varietal resistance, in future
climates crown rot will result in a reduction in wheat yield and quality, particularly in drier years.
A lot of research has been done on the yield and biomass increases of a large number of crop types and plant species in elevated CO2 environments.
CO2 Science has a comprehensive listing of the results of these numerous experiments
The data tables are listed here. Just choose your crop;
[ The CO2 levels indicated in the data tables are Additional to the atmospheric levels ]
Plant Dry Weight (Biomass) Responses to Atmospheric CO2 Enrichment
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject.php
The tables for wheat [ common ] indicate that @ 300 ppm enrichment of CO2. ie; plus 400 ppm atmospheric = 700 ppm total CO2, Wheat’s bio-mass and therefore it’s yield which is closely related to bio-mass, increased by 33%
With an addition of 600 ppm of CO2 to the atmospheric levels of CO2 ie 900 ppm total CO2, bio-mass increased by 50%.
The results vary from species to species but the plant world is running uncomfortably close to it’s biological limit of about 180 ppm where most plants cease growing due to the lack of CO2 for their biological conversion process. this entails the carbon part of the CO2 molecule being split from the CO2 molecule by the photosynthetic process [ and the O2 released for us animals to use in a an amazingly complimentary and mutually supporting and beneficial process ] and the carbon used in creating the sugars used in the plants energy and growth processes..
At about 100 ppm of CO2 most plants die due to what could be called asphyxiation or lack of their life giving CO2.
Interestingly not much extra water is needed to grow these higher yields under elevated CO2 conditions.
The CO2 is taken into the plant through stomata or tiny microscopic pores on the undersides of the leaves and on some stems. with the increased vapor pressure of elevated CO2, the plant needs less and smaller stomata to get it’s requirements of CO2. The stomata are also the pores which the plants exude water vapour used in the biological processes and also to cool the plants in warm conditions.
So smaller and fewer stomata in elevated CO2 environments also means less water is exuded from those stomata and therefore the plant’s water requirements are also minimised relative to the increased bio-mass and yield potential.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/stomata.html
ROM
+100
Looks like higher CO2 levels will be a boon for agriculture.
The 20% increase in CO2 from 1970 to 2010 contributed to the 2.4x increase in total major crop yields (wheat, rice, corn, etc.) while population increased by 1.9x.
Over the same period, global starvation rates were down significantly and (despite HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa) world average life expectancy increased from ~55 years to ~68 years (up by 13 years).
Max
I pause in memory a moment for Norman Borlaug.
If all the sun’s energy reaching the earth were dedicated to the support of human life at 100W/human, then the theoretical maximum population of earth is in the quadrillions, approximately a million times more humans sustained than at present. Of course, this is practically impossible, but it illustrates the magnitude of the lack of imagination of the Malthusian Doomsayers. A tiny increase in the efficiency of our use of that energy, a la Borlaug, can support many times the earth’s present population in a style to which we would all like to become accustomed.
==============
“Stabilizing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would require more than 90 percent of the energy we consume to come from carbon-free sources like nuclear, wind, or solar.”
This is not within the political realm. Even the worst dictators of the past could not affect such a violent change. It is not a practical solution.
What amazes me is that we are allowing ourselvrs to be led into the valley of death by a few UN scientists who refuse to debate their theories, but expect blind following. Are we really that stupid? Yes, global temperature rose by 0.5C between 1910 and 1940 (ignored by the IPCC). The only plausible explnation was CO2, fruits of the 20th century industrial revolution. Can we have confidence in the IPCC, when, drspite their later fervour, they ignored this?
So not only is it impractical to follow the IPCC line, it is not even necessary to attemt it.
It is in fact economically simple, quick and creates huge productivity increases. All you need is cost competitive sources of carbon free energy – which is what the article is all about.
‘Our analysis suggests that the early twentieth century warming can best be explained by a combination of warming due to increases in greenhouse gases and natural forcing, some cooling due to other anthropogenic forcings, and a substantial, but not implausible, contribution from internal variability.’ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2000JD000028/abstract
It may be wrong but it certainly isn’t ignored.
Chief Hydrologist replied:
Chief, what is this solution you know about that no one else knows about? Where is it operating and what is the CO2 abatement cost ($/tonne CO2 abated)?
‘This is not within the political realm. Even the worst dictators of the past could not affect such a violent change. It is not a practical solution.’
‘Chief, what is this solution you know about that no one else knows about? Where is it operating and what is the CO2 abatement cost ($/tonne CO2 abated)?’
So what we get is another freakin’ genius who cant read English and doesn’t understand the central point of the article.
To quote.
– There is one ideological commitment that unites nations and people around the world in the early 21st century, it is that GDP growth is non-negotiable.
– Make clean(er) energy cheap, and dirty energy will be quickly displaced.
Which bit of energy innovation don’t you understand Peter? I suppose we are stuck at the level of burning coal, oil and gas because nothing else will ever be cheap enough? Freakin’ idiots from both sides insisting that technology has stopped evolving or there isn’t an absolute need to meet the 40 TW by 2050 challenge with rational technologies.
‘Energy is the single most important challenge facing humanity today.
As we peak in oil production and worry about how long natural gas will last, life must go on. Somehow we must find the basis for energy prosperity for ourselves and the rest of humanity for the 21st century. By the middle of this century we should assume we will need to at least double world energy production from its current level, with most of this coming from some clean, sustainable, CO2-free source.
For worldwide peace and prosperity it must be cheap.
We simply cannot do this with current technology. We will need revolutionary breakthroughs to even get close.
I am an American scientist brought up in the Midwest during the Sputnik era, and like so many of my colleagues in the US and worldwide, I am a technological optimist. I think we can do it. We can find “the New Oil”, the new technology that provides the massive clean, low cost energy necessary for advanced civilization of the 10 billion souls we expect to be living on this planet before this century is out.
Electricity will be the key.’ http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/energychallenge.aspx
You are really a bit of a twit aren’t you Peter?
Chief,
Alexander Biggs, quoted from the article saying:
You replied:
Your rant doesn’t answer the simple question. What is the economically simple and quick solution to replace 90% of our fossil fuel energy win carbon free energy? Where is it operating and what is the CO2 abatement cost ($/tonne CO2 abated)?
You made a stupid comment and now you avoid answering it. Instead you rave on with your standard method of responding when you don’t have an answer: abuse.
Take your meds before considering your answer.
Alexander Biggs said.
‘This is not within the political realm. Even the worst dictators of the past could not affect such a violent change. It is not a practical solution.’
I said.
‘It is in fact economically simple, quick and creates huge productivity increases. All you need is cost competitive sources of carbon free energy.’
And you pipe in with some condescending and smarmy inanity.
‘It is of course – make ‘clean(er) energy cheap, and dirty energy will be quickly displaced.’
Which is the subject of the post. Seriously you’re such a twit.
Chief Hydrologist,
Coming from you that is the height of hypocrisy.
You still haven’t answered the question. You made a stupid statement, won’t admit it was stupid, and are trying to divert from it.
You are arrogant, pompous, and continually rude and abusive. The few times I’ve bothered to correspond with you have always been the same. just a pile of abuse and name calling.
You’ve demonstrated you have a very weak grasp of politics, policy, economics or energy although you are not at all humble and can’t admit this is the case.
You are a pompous twit who makes egregiously stupid remarks and refuses to back down. This time some smarmy, supercilious and superior nonsense about energy solutions. `
‘Chief, what is this solution you know about that no one else knows about? Where is it operating and what is the CO2 abatement cost ($/tonne CO2 abated)?’
I have you the answer predicated by the post and as usual it is not the answer for you.
Non carbon energy will replace carbon based energy when it is cheaper. So why don’t you climb back into your pedantic and trivial little corner and I will continue to ignore you.
You made a stupid statement and despite you ongoing belligerence, arrogance and bile, you still haven’t either backed it up or backed down. You have no credibility and no integrity.
In response to the statement:
You responded:
Its a stupid statement. If it was quick and easy, we’d have done it long ago. Idiot!
Are you repeating yourself deliberately Peter or simply forgotten what you’d previously said? You can go back and check if the memory is giving way along with your cognitive abilities.
‘The key to securing action on climate change may be to break the problem into more manageable parts. This should involve recognizing that human-caused climate change involves more than just carbon dioxide. This is already happening. A coalition of activists and politicians, including numerous prominent scientists, have argued that there are practical reasons to focus attention on “non-carbon forcings” — human influences on the climate system other than carbon dioxide emissions. The U.N. Environment Program argues that actions like reducing soot and methane could “save close to 2.5 million lives a year; avoid crop losses amounting to 32 million tons annually and deliver near-term climate protection of about half a degree Celsius by 2040.”
Natural gas is not a long-term solution to the challenge of stabilizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, because it is still carbon intensive, but the rapidly declining U.S. emissions prove an essential policy point: Make clean(er) energy cheap, and dirty energy will be quickly displaced. To secure cheap energy alternatives requires innovation — technological, but also institutional and social. The innovation challenge is enormous, but so is the scale of the problem. A focus on innovation — not on debates over climate science or a mythical high carbon price — is where we’ll make process.
So yes – it is happening – in all sorts of places. Did you read the post or just parrot your usual idiotic ideologically motivated, trivial and pedantic rants?
Here’s one. Ask me what the abatement cost is.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/10176217/The-underground-forests-that-are-bringing-deserts-to-life.html
Here’s one. GA are spending $1.8b of their own money on commercialization.
http://media.ga.com/2013/08/02/ga-launches-bid-for-doe-innovative-reactor-program/
Here’s some ongoing research research focused on energy.
http://science.energy.gov/bes/efrc/research/basic-research-needs/
” To secure cheap energy alternatives requires innovation — technological, but also institutional and social.
focus on goals that can actually be accomplished and getting people who think differently to act alike”
Motherhood statements – no intrinsic value. Pontius Pilate wringing his hands comes to mind
The EU carbon price is around $5/tonne CO2.
The Australian Government’s climate policies would cost $468/tonne (for projected domestic emissions reductions or $190/tonne if we include the projected reductions from purchase of dodgy, largely fraudulent, overseas permits). These figures are from Department of climate Change and Treasury projections.
Basis of estimate:
I calculated the CO2 abatement cost using Treasury projections of carbon price revenue, renewable energy targets and other budget costs (summarised here: http://ipa.org.au/news/2942/the-real-cost-of-emissions-reduction) and Australia’s emissions projections avoided over the period 2013-14 to 2019-20: http://www.climatechange.gov.au/reducing-carbon/reducing-australias-emissions/australias-emissions-projections
Total cost, 2013 to 2020 = $143.5 billion
Total projected emissions avoided in Australia = 307 Mt
Total projected emissions avoided including from overseas = 756 Mt
CO2 abatement cost (domestic emissions avoided) = $468/tonne
CO2 abatement cost (domestic and overseas) = $190/tonne
This illustrates how ridiculous are carbon pricing policies. What’;s worse is that there would be no benefit from these enormous costs imposed on the economy. It’s lunacy.
Pielke Jnr seems to think that wind and solar energy are “carbon free”. Bizarre, from someone who has been around the climate debate for so long. They are anything but, whether in manufacture, energy production, distribution or consumption.
While he makes some good points about the politics, I found his comments about “clean” and “dirty” energy disingenuous. The dirtiest forms of energy production are used by the poor – such as burning dung, charcoal and domestic coal. For practical purposes, modern coal and gas fired plants are the most affordable, efficient and clean energies that poor countries can afford (nuclear is to expensive and slow to build). Yet Pielke still implicitly opposes these options because of the carbon bogey.
This endless prevaricating about providing the poor with cheap, relatively clean (and much cleaner than what is currently used) energy right now, in the hope that some perfect, viable alternative will magically emerge is just plain immoral in my book. No amount of fancy rhetoric about politics can conceal the unvarnished truth is that people who run this line would rather that poor people continue to burn dirty fuel than increase their energy consumption in cleaner ways which they happen to disapprove of.
Good point. The wind and solar manufactures should first be required to run their plants on wind and solar – eat their own dog food, so to speak.
Why do you need to make everything personal here? Grow up.
My point is that Pielke’s (and Lomborg’s) spruikings are not cost free. The moment that you assume that “decarbonising” the economy is an objective, you distort the best use of resources. In other words, you make people poorer. The price of energy doesn’t make much difference to rich people – but it can make a huge difference to poor people.
Not only that, the concept of “opportunity cost” seems to be lost on these people. They don’t understand the difference between handouts and investment.
I assume you were responding to someone else. Making the solar and wind industries run on their own power sources would be a good thing, IMO. Nothing personal implied.
Oops, sorry jim2. I was, of course, responding to the gratuitous personal attack of the self-styled Captain.
Self-styled Chief. My brain and fingers are having an off day.
Nobody ever said energy research – and they are not advocating anything but markets and ramped up energy research – were cost free. Lomberg suggests the figure of $100B/yr as I said.
No one is prevaricating. People and nations choose the energy that most suits them.
I politely suggest you are mistaken and supply another couple of references you are obviously unfamiliar with. Instead of taking the opportunity – you respond with another signature climate warrior rant. Utterly worthless and an absolute waste of time.
Get a clue – stop to actually understand what is being said – or stop
wasting everyone’s time with your rants and whines.
Keep those personal attacks coming. They highlight my points more than anything I could say.
The point is that you don’t have a point – Johanna merely rants and whines.
To repeat myself – I politely suggest that you have misunderstood. Instead of reconsidering as would be reasonable – what we get from you is merely empty climate war rhetoric.
Do you think I should be impressed with silly rhetoric that bears no relevance to the points under discussion? I am less impressed with you with every condescending, misguided and smarmy comment you make.
I am sure you have misunderstood the intent Johanna. There are a couple of background documents (linked to below) that provide a fuller description.
Energy research is a central plank – but so too trade and development, environmental conservation, health, education, safe water and sanitation. We can address population pressures and such things as black carbon, tropospheric ozone, nitrous oxide, methane and sulphides.
I’d add soil carbon to the list – http://judithcurry.com/2013/06/07/soil-carbon-permanent-pasture-as-an-approach-to-co2-sequestration/ -http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/10176217/The-underground-forests-that-are-bringing-deserts-to-life.html
We can cost the former at $100 billion a year globally from all sources – as cited by Bjorn Lomberg – and 0.7% of developed nations GDP – as committed to in the Millennium Development Goals.
‘The Paper therefore proposes that the organising principle of our effort should be the raising up of human dignity via three overarching objectives: ensuring energy access for all; ensuring that we develop in a manner that does not undermine the essential functioning of the Earth system; ensuring that our societies are adequately equipped to withstand the risks and dangers that come from all the vagaries of climate, whatever their cause may be.
It explains radical and practical ways to reduce non-CO2 human forcing of climate. It argues that improved climate risk management is a valid policy goal, and is not simply congruent with carbon policy. It explains the political prerequisite of energy efficiency strategies as a first step and documents how this can achieve real emissions reductions. But, above all, it emphasises the primacy of accelerating decarbonisation of energy supply.
This calls for very substantially increased investment in innovation in non-carbon energy sources in order to diversify energy supply technologies. The ultimate goal of doing this is to develop non-carbon energy supplies at unsubsidised costs less than those using fossil fuels. The Hartwell Paper advocates funding this work by low hypothecated (dedicated) carbon taxes. It opens discussion on how to channel such money productively.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/units/mackinder/theHartwellPaper/Home.aspx
‘The old climate framework failed because it would have imposed substantial costs associated with climate mitigation policies on developed nations today in exchange for climate benefits far off in the future — benefits whose attributes, magnitude, timing, and distribution are not knowable with certainty. Since they risked slowing economic growth in many emerging economies, efforts to extend the Kyoto-style UNFCCC framework to developing nations predictably deadlocked as well.
The new framework now emerging will succeed to the degree to which it prioritizes agreements that promise near-term economic, geopolitical, and environmental benefits to political economies around the world, while simultaneously reducing climate forcings, developing clean and affordable energy technologies, and improving societal resilience to climate impacts. This new approach recognizes that continually deadlocked international negotiations and failed domestic policy proposals bring no climate benefit at all. It accepts that only sustained effort to build momentum through politically feasible forms of action will lead to accelerated decarbonization.’
http://thebreakthrough.org/archive/climate_pragmatism_innovation
Chief, most of these are motherhood statements, and that is not what Pielke’s central argument is about, nor mine. No country can achieve a decent standard of living for its people without affordable, reliable energy, for both residential and commercial purposes. Billions of dollars have been spent on seeking the Holy Grail of practical alternatives to fossil fuels to that end, and with the exception of nuclear and hydro, both relatively old technologies, none of them has been worth it.
I’m not saying we should stop looking, just that it is no excuse not to fix up immediate problems with the technologies we have because of the bogeyman of CO2. Nor is it a reason to lavish taxpayer money on every thought bubble that a researcher has along those lines. By and large, it’s been wasted, and could much better have been spent on things like conventional power infrastructure, water treatment and many other things that would provide real benefits instead of comfy lives for academics and researchers who have hopped on the Holy Grail gravy train.
They were quoted because Pielke is on the authors list of both these publications and it is precisely what Pielke’s argument is about.
Both define practical ways forward. You have not read the detailed and lengthy propositions from the LSE and the Breakthrough Institute and so not realised obviously why I cited these as ‘background’ to this article from Pielke.
I politely suggest that you have misunderstood. Instead of reconsidering as would be reasonable – what we get from you is merely empty climate war rhetoric. I am less impressed with you with every condescending, misguided and smarmy comment you make.
Fair comment Chief. I have been surprised at what Johanna has come up with in recent comments over the last 2 months, in view of her generally incisive commentry over the past couple of years, which has been IMO most impressive.
This Hartwell paper approach looks like just more of the same ole same ole. From the paper:
“It explains radical and practical ways to reduce non-CO2 human forcing of climate. It argues that improved climate risk management is a valid policy goal, and is not simply congruent with carbon policy. It explains the political prerequisite of energy efficiency strategies as a first step and documents how this can achieve real emissions reductions.
But, above all, it emphasises the primacy of accelerating decarbonisation of energy supply. This calls for very substantially increased investment in innovation in non-carbon energy sources in order to diversify energy supply technologies. The ultimate goal of doing this is to develop non-carbon energy supplies at unsubsidised costs less
than those using fossil fuels. The Hartwell Paper advocates funding this work by low hypothecated (dedicated) carbon taxes. It opens discussion on how to channel such money productively.
To reframe the climate issue around matters of human dignity is not just noble or necessary. It is also likely to be more effective than the approach of framing around human sinfulness –which has failed and will continue to fail.”
1. It says it’s radical, but it isn’t.
2. Increase “investment” in alternatives.
3. Carbon tax.
4. Government spends the money.
5. Communicate more effectively by saying it’s for the poor.
Nothing new to see here.
Oh, then the Hartwell paper makes this Alinskyesque statement:
“The Hartwell Paper follows the advice that a good crisis should not be wasted”
More liberal BS.
johanna:
Bjorn Lomberg seems a reasonable guy.
Here he is testifying with Dr. Curry:
http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/01/climate-of-failure/#comment-373338
Apr 25, 2013 – Policy Relevant Climate Issues in Context
Let me try that link again. Apr 25, 2013 – Policy Relevant Climate Issues in Context. Bjorn Lomberg and Dr. Curry.
http://science.edgeboss.net/wmedia/science/sst2013/EV042513.wvx
+ 10
Yep, agreed
+10
Johanna
Of course, wind and solar energy are not “carbon free”
Leaving aside the energy required to produce them, they require a standby power source for the 75% of the time that they are idle – and this is most often a combined cycle natural gas fired gas turbine generation.
These plants run at a lower thermal efficiency in intermittent standby operation than when running continuously, so the net natural gas savings from solar/wind comes out to only around 10-15% as compared to running the gas plants continuously.
Nuclear is really the only non fossil fuel alternate that is fully competitive with coal in most locations, provided it can overcome the fear-driven political opposition and regulatory morass it suffers in many locations.
But there is the serious potential risk of nuclear proliferation, which cannot be ignored, for some of the poorest nations who have unstable or dictatorial governments.
And you are spot on that it is immoral to withhold a reliable source of low-cost energy based on fossil fuels from the poorest inhabitants of this world (promising them economically viable “renewable energy” solutions that do not exist) simply because of a rich, white man’s guilt based obsession with AGW.
The already fully developed world will continue to slowly decrease its per capita “carbon footprint”, as it has done in the past; in addition, this population is not expected to grow significantly over this century (possibly increasing by 20%).
But the currently developing and as yet underdeveloped nations will see a significant increase in their per capita carbon footprints, as well as a significant population growth (by a projected 60% by 2100).
So this is where the growth in energy consumption will most likely occur. Some of this could be covered by nuclear, possibly some by hydro and a smidgen could be covered locally by other renewables (solar, wind) – but there will also be the need for new fossil-fuel based energy, unless a totally new, fully competitive alternate energy source is developed in the meantime (the possible “black swan”, we cannot count on, no matter how much we might wish for it).
The currently underdeveloped nations generate around half of the global CO2 today; by 2100 this is estimated to increase to over 90% of the CO2 generated.
This development is going to happen, whether we like it or not.
So I believe that Pielke is right in saying we should switch our attention away from trying to forcibly reduce CO2 emission and concentrate on things we have a chance of doing something about – such as real air pollution from black soot and ozone (plus flue gas cleanup, where coal is used, to remove sulfur, particulates, heavy metals, etc.).
As I pointed out in my comment to him, I do not believe we should be worrying too much about forcibly reducing methane emissions, however.
Energy companies should reduce losses as a part of normal good economics (this represents around one-third of human emissions) and some collection of methane from other human sources could also be considered where this makes economic sense.
Half of the methane emissions are natural, its lifetime in the atmosphere is limited, methane is not harmful to humans or our environment at present or projected levels and it is unlikely to contribute significantly to future global warming.
Sorry this got so long, but let me repeat: I agree with your comments. And I agree with most of Pielke’s conclusions, as well.
Max
Thanks, guys. I was wondering if I was the only person who thought that Pielke Jnr was a bit off track here. I have a lot of respect for his skills as an analyst of policy and politics. But, his assumption that so-called ‘renewables’ are a way out of relying on fossil fuels was a real head-scratcher. Since speculating about other people’s motives is (to me) a bad idea – I just continue to scratch my head.
Johanna
Have you ever come across a succinct document that details the co2 used in the manufacture, installation, production and maintenance of renewables, together with the pay back time before the energy produced becomes genuinely carbon free?
For example, the manufacture, transportation and installation of a wind turbine is a considerable effort that then produces intermittent power. In this instance I have never been able to properly determine how deep the very non co2 friendly concrete foundations are.
tonyb
Hi Tony
I suggest that you post this question at Bishop Hill. I don’t have specific references at my fingertips, but recall that there has been some discussion about this question, including at least one study about the “carbon footprint” of windmills.
One of the key issues is the need for additional infrastructure to connect windmills, solar arrays etc to the grid. When is the last time we heard about Greenpeace et al demonstrating about the damage to the environment caused by miles and miles of new power lines from a windfactory or solar array?
Johanna
Yes I agree, its illogical for such as Greenpeace to endorse wind farms without thinking of the infrastructure needed to connect them up.
By definition, especially in a small country like Britain, Wind farms tend to be in our loveliest upland areas which are unspoilt. They then have to erect giant pylons and cables to further degrade the work the wind turbines started, in order to carry the power to where it is needed.
You don’t save the environment by trashing the countryside do you?
I think we need more graphic words for wind farms and solar farms. They sound altogether more bucolic than their reality.
tonyb
Greenpeace illogical??? Say it ain’t so!!!
By any objective standard, humanity has never had it so good. Humans died of the same maladies three thousand years ago as today — even narrowed, blocked and calcified arteries:
“…vascular calcification was present in 92% of the men and 72% of the women, and present in 2 or more vascular beds in 80% of the men and 62% of the women. By the time men reached 60 years of age and the women reached 70 years of age, all had calcification in 1 or more vascular beds… Arterial calcification was also seen in the aortas and carotid arteries of these mummies. Many studies have shown an association between aortic and coronary atherosclerosis and with aortic aneurysm, renal failure, and stroke, all of which share common risk factors… The estimated mean age at the time of death of the mummies we studied was 38.1 ± 12.0 years, a relatively old age 3 millennia ago. Several mummies had such diffuse generalized atherosclerosis that clinical symptoms would seem to have been likely… Our findings of frequent arterial calcification suggest that atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease was present and commonplace in ancient Egypt, raising intriguing questions regarding the nature and extent of human predisposition to the development of atherosclerosis.” (Adel H. Allam, AH, etc. Atherosclerosis in ancient Egyptian mummies. J Am Coll Cardiol Img. 2011;4(4):315-327)
“In this debate ostensibly about the science, the opposing camps have created names for one other — “alarmists” (who say the costs of inaction will be high) and “deniers” (who say that the costs of inaction will be low or even zero). The end result has been neither to win the debate nor secure a political mandate, but to politicize the science itself.” – Roger Pielke Jr.
“Further confirmation of the science will certainly not persuade any climate science deniers. They are beyond persuasion, because the argument is only superficially about the science. It’s really about culture and ideology.” – Clive Hamilton.
I just wanted to point of the similarity of their statements and nothing beyond that.
The activists have been stalemated. And the opposition has formed and seems to be committed. I don’t know what his last line means specifically. Does he mean it’s culture and ideology for the skeptics, the warmists, for him or some combination of the three?
The voters are what they are and have been for a long time. Is Hamilton questioning the voters?
‘Although it has failed to produce its intended impact nevertheless the Kyoto Protocol has performed an important role. That role has been allegorical. Kyoto has permitted different groups to tell different stories about themselves to themselves and to others, often in superficially scientific language. But, as we are increasingly coming to understand, it is often not questions about science that are at stake in these discussions. The culturally potent idiom of the dispassionate scientific narrative is being employed to fight culture wars over competing social and ethical values. Nor is that to be seen as a defect. Of course choices between competing values are not made by relying upon scientific knowledge alone. What is wrong is to pretend that they are.’ The Wrong Trousers: Radically Rethinking Climate Policy – Gwyn Prins & Steve Rayner
“Nor is that to be seen as a defect. Of course choices between competing values are not made by relying upon scientific knowledge alone. What is wrong is to pretend that they are.” – Gwyn Prins & Steve Rayner.
Pretty good.
Not sure :what the last line means,” as it is difficult to jump into someone else’s head….but surely it is about culture and ideology for pretty much everyone actively engaged in the debate. Would you have examples otherwise?
Somewhere it is about science – and building a big picture as a curious natural philosopher does. I used to live on a creek – at the risk of getting flooded in and – once – getting washed off the causeway. I occasionally stood on a rock at the confluence of two creeks during floods. This was just a water world of rushing and crashing power and beauty. When I learned that I could model this numerically a whole new world opened up.
What science tells us is that climate is as chaotic as my creeks at all timescales – but decadal scales are especially relevant at this time. A theory of climate shifts in 1976/1976 and 1998/2001 has massive explanatory and predictive power – as good science should. The best scientific hypothesis is that the world is not warming (or even cooling) for a decade or three more at least.
The culture wars are a different matter. There are some basic truths – economic growth in free markets is not negotiable, government is to be limited to some 25% of GDP – within which limits almost anything is allowable – interest rates are managed to prevent asset bubbles, markets are managed to preserve an even playing field, the rule of law prevails and citizens are protected and above all people are free and democracy is the fundamental value.
Even carbon taxes or caps are theoretically permissible in a democracy – it just wont work. Even if it did work – it is not a good idea. It just isn’t – because it is not compatible with maximum global economic growth. It is not negotiable.
So alternative approaches are proposed. Energy research is a central plank – but so too trade and development, environmental conservation, health, education, safe water and sanitation. We can address population pressures and such things as black carbon, tropospheric ozone, nitrous oxide, methane and sulphides.
I’d add soil carbon to the list – http://judithcurry.com/2013/06/07/soil-carbon-permanent-pasture-as-an-approach-to-co2-sequestration/ -http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/10176217/The-underground-forests-that-are-bringing-deserts-to-life.html
This adds to the capacity for food production, conserves water, reduces soil erosion and protects downstream environments.
We can cost the former at $100 billion a year globally from all sources – as cited by Bjorn Lomberg – and 0.7% of developed nations GDP – as committed to in the Millennium Development Goals.
You have a problem with any of this? Tell it to the hand.
Chief H2O said:
” The best scientific hypothesis is that the world is not warming (or even cooling) for a decade or three more at least.”
——–
That is apparently the best scientific hypothesis that YOU can come up with, but sadly it isn’t really too scientific nor does it match the facts. Your insistence that the oceans have been cooling since 1998 is the biggest indication of how out of touch you are.
You’re a smart man– a bit crusty, rude and pompous as well– but smart. These three other attributes probably push you to making the kind of statements you do.
‘Using a new measure of coupling strength, this update shows that these climate modes have recently synchronized, with synchronization peaking in the year 2001/02. This synchronization has been followed by an
increase in coupling. This suggests that the climate system may well have shifted again, with a consequent break in the global mean temperature trend from the post 1976/77 warming to a new period (indeterminate length) of roughly constant global mean temperature.’ Swanson, K. L., and A. A. Tsonis (2009), Has the climate recently shifted?, Geophys.
Res. Lett., 36, L06711, doi:10.1029/2008GL037022.
You got a theory – that you’re sticking to no matter what. It is contradicted by the data.
Ocean heat content peaked in 1998?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=132
The ARGO warming is not sufficient to turn that around?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=132
Cloud data shows exactly why that is?
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=132
If you step over the line gatesy – you sow what you reap. You are a fool with an obsession.
…reap what you sow…LOL
Joshua, I know Hamilton, I crossed swords with him when he was a hopeless economist. As I say below, when he asserts that “It’s really about culture and ideology,” he’s not making that general point nor (as I might be) speaking about many CAGW supporters, it is a one-sided attack on anyone who does not accept the CAGW mantra. Partisan political activism rather than a reasoned assessment.
I would hope that some in the debate are driven by scientific correctness rather than culture and ideology: while we are all influenced by them, it is possible to detach from them, as scientists (and economic policy advisers, among others) should do in their work.
Chief
Isn’t that “sew what you rip”?
(Like patching up the holes when you “rip your britches” with your GCM predictions.)
Max
Faustino –
No doubt. A phenomenon that we see in this debate more widely, and up and down throughout these threads on a regular basis, is that those heavily engaged in this debate display selective reasoning.
Participants on each side, respectively, see only those on the other side as being driven by culture and ideology. Both sides, generally speaking, fail to recognize the underlying attributes of human cognition and how people reason – particularly on issues that overlap with social, cultural, political, or ideological identifications – that make “motivated reasoning” a foundational bias.
Selective reasoning about one-sided attacks is selective.
Chief Hydro,
Don’t know exactly what line you are referring to, but even the data that you show, a chart that shows net heat flux from the ocean, not actual heat content, ends in 2003. That’s sort of a bit dated here in 2013, don’t you think?
For those of us not living in 2003, this graph is a bit more representative of where ocean heat content has been going these past few years since that time:
http://tinypic.com/r/21ka0iq/5
Of course Chief, this graph doesn’t fit the nonsense you been peddling, but you seem to think that your constant cut and paste of the same select paragraphs from a few very select papers will somehow convince other’s, whereas there is not one expert on the subject of ocean heat content who would agree with your very myopic and 2003-based perspective that ocean heat content peaked in 1998. That is truly complete nonsense that needs to be called out as such every time you spew it forth.
The line is being rude and obnoxious gatesy – as you are more and more lately.
Your graph shows an increase of about 15E+22 J from 2000. This is about double that of Levitus et al 2012. Which again is more than twice the rate of increase in ARGO. Sea level rise in JASON – btw – is multiples of any other source. ARGO data shows a steric sea level increase of 0.69mm/yr. Can there be a problem here?
Something is drastically amiss. I tend to go with ARGO as it is consistent with CERES. The data in all series splice XBT and ARGO after 2003. There seems to be a bit of a problem in this as well with a large increase at the splice that has no explanation in CERES.
As for Willis et al (2004) – it uses different data sources to build a consistent picture.
‘Satellite altimetric height was combined with approximately 1,000,000 in
situ temperature profiles to produce global estimates of upper ocean heat content, temperature, and thermosteric sea level variability on interannual timescales. Maps of these quantities from mid-1993 through mid-2003 were calculated using the technique developed by Willis et al. [2003]. The time series of globally averaged heat content contains a small amount of interannual variability and implies an oceanic warming rate of 0.86 ± 0.12 watts per square meter of ocean (0.29 ± 0.04 pW) from 1993 to 2003 for the upper 750 m of the water column. As a result of the warming, thermosteric sea level rose at a rate of 1.6 ± 0.3 mm/yr over the same time period.’
Willis, J. K., D. Roemmich, and B. Cornuelle (2004), Interannual variability in upper ocean heat content, temperature, and
thermosteric expansion on global scales, J. Geophys. Res., 109, C12036, doi:10.1029/2003JC002260.
Willis has the virtue as well of giving annual values. Rather than 5 year running means typical of XBT data. This allows for more detailed analysis such as provided by Wong et al.
I would suggest that the evidence needs multiple comparisons across various platforms to make any sense of it. Not merely one study with some fairly dubious results and a questionable methodology.
To quote Judith.
‘To what extend should we have confidence in the reanalysis results? Based upon verification statistics, there is clearly some advantages to the reanalysis relative to the raw observations. However the big issue is whether we can infer reliable global trends from the reanalysis, owing to changes in the observing system (not just for the ocean, but for the surface fluxes derived from atmospheric reanalyses), and uncertainties in the overall methodology.’
I combine toa radiant flux, ocean heat and cloud data to build a consistent picture. Ocean heat and surface temperature both peaked in 1998. The climate shift of 1998/2001 seems fairly obvious at this stage.
Chief hydro once more spewed:
“Ocean heat and surface temperature both peaked in 1998.”
—–
Again, not one expert on ocean heat content or one set of current data would agree with this assessment. You throw it out there like you know it as fact or like you actually know of what you speak, but it is sadly clear to me now that your intellect is being wasted, or that you should be working as a writer of fiction.
I won’t let this go until you either admit you just are making the ocean heat content statement up, or produce a credible current study that shows ocean heat content reaching a modern peak in 1998. Please don’t link (for the millionth time) a study using 2003 data for ocean heat flux. We are a decade past that Chief, or did you notice?
‘Satellite altimetric height was combined with approximately 1,000,000 in
situ temperature profiles to produce global estimates of upper ocean heat content, temperature, and thermosteric sea level variability on interannual timescales. Maps of these quantities from mid-1993 through mid-2003 were calculated using the technique developed by Willis et al. [2003]. The time series of globally averaged heat content contains a small amount of interannual variability and implies an oceanic warming rate of 0.86 ± 0.12 watts per square meter of ocean (0.29 ± 0.04 pW) from 1993 to 2003 for the upper 750 m of the water column. As a result of the warming, thermosteric sea level rose at a rate of 1.6 ± 0.3 mm/yr over the same time period.’
Willis, J. K., D. Roemmich, and B. Cornuelle (2004), Interannual variability in upper ocean heat content, temperature, and
thermosteric expansion on global scales, J. Geophys. Res., 109, C12036, doi:10.1029/2003JC002260.
You mean as referenced in AR4?
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing.’ WG1 3.4.4.1
And is consistent with ERBS and ISCCP-FD? And is consistent with 2013 cloud data? And that has annual values rather than 5 year means from lack of meaningful data? We have what is called a consilience of evidence.
You must certainly be an utter twit gatesy – to repeat your garbled version of reality ad nauseum.
Chief Hydro,
I knew you could not produce the evidence. I mean I really KNEW it because it does not exist. Once more, you go back to a decades old study to back up your unsupportable position that not one study or one expert on the subject would support. Then unfortunately, rather than do the honorable thing and admit you are just spewing your own fictitious spin on things, you choose to resort to your crusty and tired old ad homs.
You are a treat. Wrong about a great many things…but a treat.
Chief creates a twisty little world built on cherry-picked evidence that only exists in his head. I don’t know if it is a treat to witness, as it is likely the result of a Rainman-like obsessive-compulsive behavior. How many times can one listen to Chief tell everyone that he is an “excellent driver”?
I knew you could not produce the evidence. I mean I really KNEW it because it does not exist. Once more, you go back to a decades old study to back up your unsupportable position that not one study or one expert on the subject would support.
The data is for 1993 to 2003 – the study is by Josh Willis – who of course moved onto ARGO data when it became available.
It is consistent with ERBS data from Takmeng Wong and colleagues – as the AR4 states.
‘Josh Willis interests:
Estimating ocean warming and sea level rise on regional to global scales
The role of the ocean in the Earth’s climate system under global climate change
Understanding large scale changes in the ocean and its circulation on interannual to decadal time scales
Development of analysis techniques for global oceanographic data sets’
http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Willis/
‘Thirty years ago, Takmeng Wong moved to the United States – without knowing any English.
Since, Wong has earned a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from Florida State University, and a master’s degree and doctorate in atmospheric science from Colorado State University.
Thirty years and three degrees later, Wong is speaking English fluently as a Research Physical Scientist in the Science Directorate.
He has been working at NASA Langley for 14 years.’
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/researchernews/snapshot_twong.html
Your only complaint is that this – http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Wong2006figure7.gif.html?sort=3&o=132 – deals with pre ARGO data? It would seem much more pertinent for you to show it is incorrect by other than ranting about a ‘decades old study’ than for me to do other than suggest it is peer reviewed science that is referenced by the IPCC.
We know that webby has nothing but trivial blog science – when and if it is not utterly delusional. The question of whether you have any science or not – has been asked and it seems ever more pertinent. Climate weirding appears to begin in the minds of cult of AGW space cadets.
As far as ad homs are concerned – you are getting as bad as the repulsive webster. It is pathetic therefore to whine about my responses.
Chief, your contribution to science may or may not be “repulsive”. Hard to know considering you have never contributed a peer-reviewed research article.
You are nothing but an armchair warrior. Good luck with that strategy.
Webster – your contributions to climate science are trivial and incompetent blog science. You remain clueless about anything that actually matters and simply repetitively whine juvenile insults sans any science at all. You are utterly pathetic.
Show me something peer reviewed in climate science and not incompetent blog science and I will probably still not be impressed.
Ragnaar, in the 1980s Hamilton was a very poor economist, not respected by his peers. He and a physicist. Ian Lowe (who had publicly abused me on occasions for suggesting that there was a role for economics in environmental issues, including global warming) joined up to form the Australia Institute, a rabidly left-wing activist body rather than a truth-seeking one. When Hamilton asserts that “It’s really about culture and ideology,” he’s not (as I might be) speaking about many CAGW supporters, it is a one-sided attack on anyone who does not accept the CAGW mantra and severe anti-emissions measures.
In yet another indictment of Australian academia, Hamilton is now a Professor of ethics. I’ve always thought that truth was central to ethics, but what do I know.
Truth is central ter ethics but that don’t mean, does it,
that I’m an arbiter on high of what constitutes the truth
in sum situation but rather that i try ter look at evidence
for’n agin and not lie or hide the decline and try me best
not ter fool meself??
We also serf.
Yes, Hamilton is a ferocious snob and loopily of the left, like all the best snobs. A shrieking authoritarian, Australia’s own Savonarola is employed in the field of “ethics”, where his dogmatism and intolerance can be tricked up as deep moral concern. Underneath all the touchie-feeliness and mock science, he’s just another dreary old Trot banging the climate drum.
Let a thousand carbon credits blossom!
http://www.allposters.com/-sp/I-hear-Communism-is-dead-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Posters_i9185449_.htm
Though sometimes you hear echoes in corridors of some
priveleged and hallowed places.
Clive Hamilton is now a Professor of Ethics at a regional campus which, frankly, would appoint the local dogcatcher a Professor of Canine Psychology. They have a very good viticulture course, however.
Agreed Joshua.
I can’t decide if a wall should be built between Scientists and politicians or not? Nor am I the one to decide, not being a Scientist. Any attempt to do so would be at least partly an allusion. Dr. Curry’s protecting the intregrity of Science appeals to me, but I don’t know?
Ragnaar –
I think such a wall is unrealistic and incongruent with important principles of representative democracy.
If our much beloved libertarian “skeptics” weren’t so busy selectively seeing statism and authoritarianism on the basis of reverse engineering from views on climate science, they would surely have pointed that out!
I’m assuming that you meant illusion and not allusion, and if so, I would say more than “at least partly”. The calls I see for such walls to be built usually, essentially, translate into: “Those who disagree with me need to be shut up.” Any attempt would to build those walls be wholly, chasing an illusion, IMO.
The best we can do, IMO, is recognize the fundamental and inextricable overlap of the cultural and ideological with science – particularly with issues such as these, and recognize that any one-sided perception of such influence must be, by definition, arbitrarily selective (arbitrary in the sense of being subjective).
I think I shan’t be holding my breath.
Joshua, Almost an ideal situation don’t you think? I mean, really.
‘on the basis of reverse engineering’
If we do not use every available tool we would be illiterate and uneducated.
The old timers did it with precision…
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jul/29/archaeology-astronomy
with not even a LHC.
Joshua:
The building a wall thing was just a desire to have Science, unmixed with politics.
It’s true we do infer motives, reverse engineer. I would be better to prevail on the Science and the Economics though.
Ragnaar
That wall between climate scientists and politicians is an illusion.
Facts:
#1 – Most funding for climate-related research work comes from taxpayer money.
#2 – This money is distributed by politicians.
#3 – A large number of politicians see proposed carbon taxes as an additional source of revenue.
#4 – Added tax revenue to distribute in support of pet projects or reward friends gives politicians more power
#5 – Climate research is providing the justification for direct or indirect carbon taxes.
#6 – AGW is already a multi-billion dollar big business; it would become a trillion+ dollar business if a global carbon tax were levied and enforced
Follow the money trail.
It has joined climate scientists and politicians at the hip like Siamese twins.
Max
Not at the hip; the brain, the heart, and the liver are shared.
===============
Judith, have you checked out the new 50 to 1 videos? A few of them are rather cerebral and up your street, I fancy–perhaps especially the ones with Henry Ergas and Christopher Essex. Please see here:
http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/#prettyPhoto
Michael, I’ve worked with Ergas, he’s a great guy and my favourite economist. I haven’t yet watched the video, but Henry has a great gift in presenting extremely complex issues in a very coherent and easy to follow way, it will probably be worthwhile for anyone interested in the economic aspects of global warming.
Faustino, economics generally goes right over my head and my eyes glaze over. But as you say, Ergas has a knack for explaining things coherently. The reason I think Judith will be interested is because of his views re: mitigation vs. adaptation.
Here’s an alternate opinion on the video (just to ensure balance)
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/09/talking-of-fruitcake-and-scumbags.html
“So how did Topher do his sums? Why does he misrepresent the Stern Review? Why does he make up numbers and falsely attribute them to the Stern Review?
His target audience is the uneducated and illiterate. I don’t know if they will be taken in by him, but best take no chances. He is lying and trying to con people by making these false claims. “
Blue scientists don’t like current lineup and call for Red Shift Left. Target: the uneducated and illiterate, the clock is stopped…they call Hawking.
Louise:
“I’ll do a detailed take down later.” – Hot Whopper, discussing the 50 to 1 video. Watts and Jo Nova are interviewed in kind of satellite videos. Jo Nova had a strong finish in hers, thanking amongst others, the retired engineers who rather than playing bingo, have something to do now.
Monckton did the math:
http://topher.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/50-to-1-sources-and-maths.pdf
I think the biggest leap I am aware of is taking Australia and apply their results to the whole world. Australia’s result, probably not yet final, may not be typical of others ways to approach the problem. The Australian taxes inventor number is used, 5%. That seems a weak link. Stearn’s number of 0-3% of GDP of damage avoided seems small and is a key number.
Lomberg uses a 10 to 1 ration I believe. Which is still huge. In the Monckton context above, that would be be about 15% of GDP to obtain a 1.5% of GDP damage avoided.
I see a lot of merit in Lomberg’s point of view. Does he have more solid economic numbers when compared to what the Climate Scientists have?
They use Australia’s tax divided by its 5% mitigation effect and scale up by several thousand to what it costs to completely eliminate global CO2 growth which works out at 80% global GDP over ten years. They fail to see that the Australian tax is bringing in real revenue in addition to its mitigation effect, but they assume it is all going to mitigation and nothing else, and it is also a fallacious argument to even figure on what it takes to stop global CO2 emission within ten years as no one has that plan. The whole mitigation side of the argument is wrong because this money can also be used for adaptation and green improvements and jobs.
I had a comment on this back in May when it first came out.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/04/open-thread-weekend-16/#comment-318312
Jim D:
Using Lomberg’s numbers which I believe go like this, $50 to avoid a ton of CO2 and $5 damage avoided per ton of CO2 avoided. In the U.S. the method for green might be a tax credit for solar, a reduction of tax revenues. But where does that money go? Let’s say to the Acme Solar Company, who shows it as revenues. And if they pay 25% on their profits, best case the government gets back a 1/4 of it. But say it was a coal tax in the U.S. That would bump up costs and lower GDP. Lowering GDP would decrease tax revenues holding all else constant. Perhaps equal to new coal tax revenues. Even if the two balance out, what is GDP? Lower. Taxes generally do not stimulate an economy.
Ragnaar, I think it depends what they use the tax revenue for. It could create jobs, or subsidize green industries to be competitive on the world market, or provide research money for green technology or build resilient infrastructure or rebuild after damage. They could use it to offset income tax or fuel costs for the poor. Any of these are not losses to GDP.
Jim D:
I hear what you’re saying, that with a transfer X = Y
X = Taxes Paid
Y = Tax Revenues we get to spend
Assuming no transactions costs.
But let’s assume a new coal tax of 5% on its final sale, so that we only tax the coal once.
We now have an equal amount of money to spend, more or less, assuming everything else remains constant.
We spend that money on Windmills in some form and all that money ends up back in the economy.
And that Monckton doesn’t account for that.
I’ll agree that all the money ends up back in the economy in my simple model above.
But using Lomberg’s ratio of 10 to 1 instead of Monckton’s and applying to a 1.5% GDP damage avoided desired, we’d have 15% of GDP / 1.5% GDP damage avoided.
I still see that we’ve moved 15% of the economy to solve the problem.
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/images/energy-expenditures-percent-GDP.jpg
Let’s say the start point is 10% of World GDP to energy. See link above.
We’ve moved 15% of the economy to solve the problem. Our new number is 25% of GDP.
The books must balance. So where is the 15%? Perhaps it came from food production or health care.
I hope I haven’t used Lomberg’s ratio in some mistaken way. The 15% and 1.5% above net to 13.5%, and I didn’t account for that. I didn’t account for a lot of things, but I think in substance, the economy moves which is my point.
Ragnaar, that is the argument for the carbon tax. The 15% you talk about should come from what is making the change necessary in the first place which is the fossil carbon. We are taxing it as an insurance premium (or fining it as a damaging agent), putting its revenue to pay for the damage, adaptation and mitigation. The money should not come from income tax, healthcare or other places that it would have to come from without a carbon tax. A carbon tax insulates (or quarantines) the system to only its cause and effect leaving other parts of the economy less affected.
I see I need to change my back of a napkin above model. Change 5% to 150% and change coal to carbon fuels. If we agree to full cost accounting, no externalaties allowed, you’re right. And that is the libertarian way as well. Harm no one.
I am trying to get at the cost of it though. So to buy energy at the same rate, from roughly 10% of GDP to 25% of GDP. And we are talking CO2 here, though there would be spin off benefits, less mercury poisoning for instance. Less black soot. Less need to fight for oil in the Middle East. (Btw another oil subsidy.) We are talking in broad terms here, but if the ratio is 10 to 1, that’s a lot to overcome.
Full cost accounting agrees in my opinion with libertarian concepts. Now how would track the costs? At the tailpipes, at the smokestacks. Doing that would raise energy prices though.
Now if CO2 is not the correct target, we would focus on the remaining externalaties.
Ragnaar, if we knew the exact cost of climate change by 2100 in advance we could work out what tax rate is required to pay for it. Proposed tax rates are of order $10 per tonne (10 cents per gallon of gas, for example). The US would get $60 billion per year from this. What could they do with this? If they weren’t spending it immediately they can invest it in green projects for example (bonds where they get it back with interest). This amount is less than 0.5% GDP. The key with carbon tax is to start early so that the rate can be lower, rather than later when the rate would need to be higher to raise the same amount by 2100, for example.
Ragnaar, tracking what to tax can’t be difficult. It should be if you are purchasing a fossil fuel with intent to burn it, you pay the tax with that purchase which the seller sends to the government based on how much they sold.
Ragnar,
I’ve just stumbled across this discussion. There seem to be many assumptions being made without sourcing the actual costs projected by Australia’s Treasury modeling of the carbon pricing. Treasury projected the net costs, yearly to 2050. The ETS is projected to cost $1,345 billion cumulative GDP loss to 2050. Cumulative GDP growth is $41 billion over that period; See Figure 5.13 here: http://archive.treasury.gov.au/carbonpricemodelling/content/chart_table_data/chapter5.asp
The cost amounts to about $58,000 per person (or $116,000 per working person), over 37 years. The present value is about $17,000 per person – that is, if you want to pay a lump sump up front with no more to pay, the discounted cost would be $17,000 per person.
Who would agree to pay $17,000 per person as a lump sum now, or $58,000 over 37 years, in the hope of gaining an intangible benefit of $5,400 in ‘reduced climate damages’ over the period?
To see more on the costs and benefits (especially to understand the benefits or lack of) see: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/
correction: $41 billion should read $41,000 billion in this sentence:
“Cumulative GDP growth is $41,000 billion over that period”
If wishes were horses beggars would ride. Our civilization is based on fire and that cannot be wished away.
You’re older than dirt and not much smarter. Go write some more nowhere articles on teaching creationism in public schools, loser.
Fossil fuel combustion provides most of our energy. Clear enough?
Here is one of my lesson plans. No creationism, sorry. I am not even religious.
http://climatescienceinternational.org/images/pdf/lesson_on_solar_activity_and_gw-20-06-2013.pdf
The proof that someone has lost the argument is when he resorts to insults.
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=280
Same difference.
maltesertoo | September 2, 2013 at 10:05 am |
“The proof that someone has lost the argument is when he resorts to insults.”
Anyone who says that never won an argument.
I did not know that auto accidents were part of the climate issue. Except that eliminating auto accidents and eliminating fossil fuel use are equally unfeasible. That methane is killing people is also news. This article is just silly. The only failure is that of a political movement.
The first moron reveals himself.
Pielke said there is a risk of harm in CO2 emission. He didn’t say a promise of harm. Anyone who denies a risk is a moron. Anyone who makes a promise is equally stupid. Step forward and reveal yourselves.
Pielke is dead on in his whole essay. A political answer that involves making carbon more expensive is doomed to failure and to date is counter-productive because the only effect is to drive industrial emissions to countries with fewer clean air laws making the problem worse not better.
The answer, as I’ve continually said, and as Pielke states, is technological not political. It’s generating “green” energy that is cheaper. Everyone will gladly pay less for energy.
Nuclear is a non-starter. It’s too dangerous, too toxic, and making it reasonably safe makes it unreasonably expensive. The answer is sunlight and synthetic biology. It’s working on small scale today producing drop-in fuels at competitive prices. It’s an infant technology with vast room for cost improvement. It’ll be here in a timely manner. Unless you’re a part of the synthetic biology technological revolution shut the phuck up, get the phuck out of the way, and chill. If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.
> the only effect is to drive industrial emissions to countries with fewer clean air laws making the problem worse not better.
This effect might also be observed with the opposite trend in carbon prices.
I’ve gotten tired of pretending to ignore the elephant in the room: terrorism. Unless that pernicious social plague can be eradicated, nuclear is simply too dangerous to be allowed to proliferate, even as “safe” power plants.
In that case, the terrorists won. We are depriving ourselves of an excellent source of energy, but not due to terrorist, due to environmentalists and “progressives” who are actually Luddites who want to be Lord over we vassals.
Also, there is a close to zero chance that any terrorist group would be capable of digging us a small nuclear reactor and extracting the fuel – that is a huge undertaking and they would likely end up fried if they were even able to get it out of the ground.
Also, Iran has nuclear power as does India, China, Russia, and Pakistan. Terrorists can get nuclear materials whether we use nuclear power not.
The elephant you believe you see is actually a paper tiger.
AK
I’m afraid you are a day late and a dollar short. The nuclear gene was let out of the bottle by spies working at Los Alamos during WWII per VERONA inquiry and project. A similar the CO2 meme viewed the US as bad and gave USSR nuclear information to serve as a counter weight to US dominance.
Today, we have Pakistan, Israel, India, Russia, North Korea, Japan, South Korea, China, USA, France, Great Britain and coming on line, Iran, countries with nuclear power plants and/or weapons. And like most nuclear families, some have paranoid and disruptive members. Which terrorist organization are you seeking to limit access?
Thorium reactors have a certain pizzaz now that they have been discovered by the media, precisely because they are inherently safer and even harder to weaponize than conventional Boiling Water Reactors’ fuel.
A little circumspect on your part will unveil that there is a cheap way to terrorize, say with Sarin gas, or cheaper still, and readily available on many dry goat skins, anthrax spores.
Systems can and more likely than not will be put in place to address Thorium power or any number of its derivatives from being readily available for terrorism, just like TSA is in place to reduce the likelihood of another 9/11/2001 terror attack. TSA around the world. Pretty effective so far and they deal with millions of passengers every day.
IMO nuclear energy is the logical progression to inexpensive global energy needs whether or not atmospheric CO2 concentrations constitute a real or trace concern.
The article is pure wishful thinking. Wishing for technologies does not make them apear.
Cyanobacteria that can produce gasoline, diesel, and ethanol are already here.
New technologies are appearing every day. Denial just makes you look silly.
Of course, predicting the precise course of technological development is impossible, at least until proof-of-concept exists. But refusing to admit that many new technologies will appear is pure wishful thinking/denial.
And, of course, while the course of technological development can’t be precisely predicted, it can be steered, by continually pointing out opportunities so the awareness of them spreads.
It can also be steered by continually denying opportunities. Is this what you’re up to? Why? What agenda are you pursuing?
Indeed, technology is the best example for natural selection.
Innovation happens by chance alone.
Riiight! As with Edison’s lightbulb.
Writing anti-climate change propaganda for Heartland to peddle in K-12 like they do with creationist claptrap, now that’s going to get us somewhere. Thank God we’ve got you on our side, Wojick.
jimbo terrorists don’t need to dig it out of the ground to extract the fuel. They could blow it out of the ground and spread the fuel over the surrounding area in the process.
The US operated a thorium reactor for years. They are not economically practical for consumer electric generation. The chemistry is too difficult to maintain and there is no suitably long-lived materials to make the pumps and plumbing out of. The combination of high neutron flux embrittles stainless steel and any alternatives that can withstand the neutron flux for long either can’t withstand corrosion from high temperature molten salts or doesn’t have the ductility and strength needed. It’s a non-starter for the indefinite future. Nuclear energy is not the answer.
“Environmentalists are just now waking up to the reality that if we’re going to stop global warming, we’re going to have to be a lot more politically savvy.”
The most surprising thing in this is that Roger appears to be calling himself an “environmentalist”.
Maybe the term is flexible enough to mean whatever you want it to mean.
Michael, They are working on it, one step at a time…
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/09/01/201002/obamas-proposal-seeks-broad-war.html#.UiSHCn8tXNk
rumba man.
Michael, the only way one can discuss whether one is or is not an ‘environmentalist’ is to define what does or does not make one an ‘environmentalist’. In general, an ‘environmentalist’ is someone who advocates or works toward protecting the environment from pollution or destruction. So in that context, does Roger advocate for protecting the environment from pollution or destruction? Is he working toward those goals? Well, he appears to be advocating finding common ground between the differing sides to work on human generated pollution or activities most people agree should be changed to improve the environment (non carbon forcings) instead of taking on the one that appears to divide the camps the most (carbon forcings). So, is he an ‘environmentalist’? Unless you hold a very inflexible view of who an ‘environmentalist’ is, I would say he is one.
I suggest that Junior would be warranted to brand himself as an enviro if he scores a higher tenderness than the average university professor on that test:
http://slackhalla.org/~demise/test/socialattitude.php
Still waiting for Judy’s response to that questionnaire, BTW.
JC,
Maybe….iIf virtually ignoring the biggest anthropogenic factor because it seems to be too hard, qualifies as “…protecting the environment from pollution or destruction”.
At best he seems to be an advocate for slowing down the rate as which we are increasing GHG emissions…….as long as it isn’t too difficult.
Some people might label him an ‘inactivist’, but I prefer ‘climate radical’. In the face of a massive uncontrolled experiment in altering the planets atmosphere, advocating extreme caution in acting to cease this, seems the radical option to me.
Well I would say you cant take the ‘all or none’ approach to this issue. I don’t think the reason behind the idea is it’s too hard…. it’s impossible. If carbon forcings are the only ones to be addressed because they are the biggest, but also the most contentious, then the progress will be a standstill compared to working on the ones where agreement is more mutual. I would be cautious about advocating for no progress vs some progress. Baby steps lead to bigger steps. Carbon based energy is in our future for a long time to come.
jim2 | September 1, 2013 at 2:04 pm |
“At $100 – 110 dollars a barrel, the price is high enough to get people who want to make money finding alternatives. And some have already – see Joule Unlimited.”
The inevitable progression proceeds. All it took was scarcity in light sweet crude which was inevitable. Lower ROEI fossil sources would naturally drive up prices. Meanwhile nano-technology advances and will eventually provide energy (and a great many other things) in inexpensive abundance. Nature already uses very sophisticated nano-technology. Every living cell is an exquisite nano-tech marvel. All we need to do for now is reverse engineer a technology that’s been extant on the earth for billions of years – blue green algae. Once we can make that organism do our bidding the energy crisis is over and a new era of growth and prosperity begins that will dwarf all that came before it. This is the most transformative technological advance since language and writing.
P.S.
http://www.youtube.com/results?utm_source=navclient&rlz=1T4LENN_enUS461US461&search_query=joule+unlimited
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrbXxyM8c-g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilk2afR14GE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCHiyTsLkJc
Steven Mosher has written two long pieces about me at the beginning of this thread, which I feel I ought ot say something about. As I have noted before, I am 87, 88 in November, long since retired, I live alone, and do many things during my days; one of which is to come on blogs about CAGW. But this activity is a somewhat low priority; counted cross-stitch is much more interesting. I come on blogs about CAGW almost entirely for my own education. I dont give a rat’s pattooe what other people think of me.
When I write I am not writng a PhD thesis; I do not have all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed. I do not keep long lists of references; I rely on memory. So to Steven’s accustions about my writings being somewhat sloppy, I plead guilty on all charges. Whether this makes the science i write about, wrong, is up to other’s to judge.
Jim, Mosher hasn’t posted anything worth reading, ever, that I can tell. The fact that you got his attention just means you’ve offended his delicate tribal sensitivities. Don’t let him bother you. He’s a blot on the rear end of mankind.
Andrew
Jim, Mosher declares lukewarmer status for a reason. He’s a fence sitting rent seeker with his warm, moist finger high in the air to see which way the CS winds will blow. Then he’ll just catch that train. Pretty simple.
Mosher, just like everyone else, has to eat. I can’t fault him for that. As long as he stays away from philosophy, he sometimes has something interesting to say.
Andrew, you write “Don’t let him bother you.”
I dont. I just felt that if he had put all that effort into two long messages, the least I could do was reply.
However Mosher pays his grocery bills it isn’t by doing climate science. No one pays him for that. Not even climate scientists are that foolish.
jim2 | September 2, 2013 at 12:02 pm |
That was downright mean. The only degree Mosher has is in philosopy.
@jim2 | September 2, 2013 at 12:02 pm |
” That was downright mean. The only degree Mosher has is in philosopy.”
It’s just that I find philosophy a bit pretentious and overblown. When it boils right down to it, life is more like quantum mechanics than Newtonian. Some things will just never be known.
Jim C., Mosher held you up to you own standards that you insist on for others and you had a Big Fail. You can justify this by claiming you’re just an old retired guy who isn’t a PhD etc. and that you don’t always know where you read stuff. Bottom line Jim Crispwell: don’t demand from others what you can’t deliver yourself. It’s call hypocrisy, and it’s not a pretty thing.
R. Gates, you write “Bottom line Jim Cripwell: don’t demand from others what you can’t deliver yourself.”
This is not quite fair. The people I am demanding should follow the scientific mehtod are those who are directly talking to our elected officials, and who clearly have had the capability to get a considerable fraction of the world’s population to believe we need to “decarbonize” our economies. I suggest these people need to be held to a much higher standard than myself.
Sorry about double post. Moderator please remove one but if you don’t it’s a message that bears repeating so that’s okay too. ;-)
Permit me to make a point about the ‘free energy’ meme. Warmists/alarmists would like us all to believe that solar energy and wing power are ‘free’. It is agreed, and I’m 100% in sync with that. The trouble i s that these are free UNTIL someone tries to harness them. Then the costs begin to hit and that’s when solar and wind stop being free. All other forms of energy are free. OIL, coal, gas, nuclear… they are all free until their extraction commences. That’s why wind-generated electricity costs more than nuclear, oil, coal and gas-powered electricity, because harnessing wind or solar needs a high capital investment for processing an asset that is available only when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, which is less than half the time on average.
If the warmists have not yet got the gist of this logic, then I would explain it analogically. The fish in the sea are free, nobody expends money for the fish to grow and exist. BUT we have to open our wallets to buy a fish from the fish market. The reason of course being that the trawler needs diesel, the deckhands need their salary and the owner needs his profit from the high-risk venture. NOTHING COMES FREE, not even wind and photons.
Alex,
You have a skewed perspective about solar energy and that harvesting of it, and you seem to have a skewed perspective about energy in general. To harvest or utilize any form of energy requires the input of some energy. The goal is to have the lowest input for the maximum output that is sustainable. When looking at output, we need to look at it over the lifetime of the project, let’s take one very simple example in the utilization of solar energy. If I live near a stream and wish to harvest the solar energy that takes the form of the water running down that stream, then I need to expend some energy to build a harvesting device such as a turbine or even more simply a water wheel that can grind grain. This turbine or water wheel will go on harvesting energy (by doing work) for many years after the initial energy expended to build them.
Another moron steps up to the bar!
alex | September 2, 2013 at 9:42 am | Reply
“That’s why wind-generated electricity costs more than nuclear, oil, coal and gas-powered electricity”
Not according to the US DoE. Wind power is about the same as hydro.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#US_Department_of_Energy_estimates
The problem with wind power isn’t the cost it’s getting it when and where you need it. Write that down.
alex, some forms of energy cost more to the environment than others. This cost is not accounted for in your argument.
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“Anyone who denies a risk is a moron.”
Moron stepping forward here. I’m going to deny there is a risk until someone can define specifically what the risk is, and what conclusively established mechanism is going to be responsible. If you can’t get past generalizations or poetry, don’t bother responding to this comment.
Andrew
Really? You usually aren’t a moron.
Really. Can you do what I asked in my comment? Or is it just ad hom from here?
Andrew
Bad Andrew is camping. He pitched his tent in a dry wash. Storm clouds are rolling in. It starts to rain. Water starts coming down the dry wash, just a little, but it’s starting to rain harder. Unless someone can tell Andrew exactly how long it will rain and how much water will come down the wash he’s staying put. Is Bad Andrew a moron?
David, I don’t want imaginary hypotheticals with me as the star. I want what I asked for.
Andrew
The risks uncertain. Maybe nothing bad will happen at all. Maybe climate will be disrupted such that agricultural output falls off a cliff and billions starve. You asked for certainty. I can’t help you. I thought maybe you’d understand an analogy. I guess not. Morons don’t understand a whole lot.
I rest my case.
Andrew
This is the type of person who drives into a fog bank and doesn’t slow down. Uncertainty should give pause.
Bad Andrew | September 2, 2013 at 12:02 pm |
I rest my case.
Andrew
————————————————————————
Better late than never I guess.
To ROM….We need you here more often.
To Jim Cripwell….You are wise beyond your years and for a man of 87 that is saying something.
To Mosher…I have nothing but disdain. I hope I am within Judith`s boundaries.
Agreed.
How wise is it to demand from others that which you fail to deliver yourself? I don’t care whether Jim is 87 or 17, don’t hold others to a set of standards you can’t deliver personally.
P.S. To Pielke Jr……Get in touch with ROM!!!!1
to “A fan of more discourse”
Pielke Jr. has no training in science or economics? Tell that to the University of Colorado where he is a professor of environmental studies. Or tell that to the London school of Economics where he is a Visiting Senior Fellow. His specialty is the Economic impact of sever weather events.
And it is disingenuous to hyperlink your comment about him having no training not too proof of such but just to another idiot criticizing Peilke in the comments section. Because he says things you don’t like, you pretend that he has no training. What training do you have?
You say that Peilke’s father does have training. Funny how they both have exactly the same views on climate science isn’t it? If you want to find out about Peilke just go to Roger Pielke Jr.’s Blog rather than listen to this idiot.
By the way, I am not a climate scientist. I just have a Mechanical Engineering degree and a Masters degree in Computer Controls.
I’m disappointed the author made such a basic math error. If emissions have increased by 45%, and you are looking for a drop to 20%, then a 90% drop in emissions overshoots, and puts you at 14.5%. 86% was the correct answer.
Thx Jim.
Oz CarbonTax reducing temperatures over a decade by one twenty
thousandth of a degree and costing $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Says it all, reely, about greens professers no regrets over reacting
versus measured adapting.
bts
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