by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye the past few days.
The Quadrant
The Quadrant has an article Warmists can’t stop themselves. Subtitle: Climate alarmists’ tactics — exaggeration, misrepresentation, smear and scorn — have hurt the movement more than helped it. No surprise there. Cultist are always the last to recognise the folly of their ways. Excerpt:
However it is characterised, the current tactics of climate alarmists in public debate are doing nothing to restore their credibility, serving only to make themselves look ever more foolish and untrustworthy.
If they are really as certain as they profess to be, the best thing they could do at this point would be to shut up. If they are right, reality should prove them so soon enough. And if the science is settled, as they claim, there is no need for more research anyway. Of course they won’t do anything of the sort. Shutting up would mean giving surrendering all that flattering attention and funding they have come to accept as their just due.
So, in all probability the show will continue, not as a debate but as a farce, with the lead characters making ever-bigger fools of themselves until the public tires of paying the bills and finds something better to do with its tax money.
Greenpeace
Greenpeace has a very insightful article The story of how greens became energy enemy number one. The article is about the failure of the ‘enemy’ narrative in the climate debate. Excerpts:
The problem for climate change is that it simply cannot compete against enemy narratives. In climate change the enemy is really everyone, the victims are everyone (although we like to think it is people far away and in the future) and there is no deliberate intention to hurt. What is more, there can be no restoration of the status quo because this is a permanent and worsening condition.
Campaigners try their best to build an enemy narrative, bringing in oil companies, organised denial, the Koch brothers, governments, Jeremy Clarkson as their set piece villains. Maybe, as Bill McKibben argues, you cannot have a movement without an enemy. But I would suggest that this is a dangerous game to play. Climate change will never win with enemy narratives. Once unleashed, they take on a life of their own and come back to bite us and we will find ourselves written in to replace our chosen enemies. As climate impacts intensify there will be a lot of confusion, blame and anger looking for a target and enemy narratives provide the frame for scapegoats.
The best chance for climate change to beat enemy narratives is to refuse to play this partisan game at all. We are all responsible. We are all involved and we all have a stake in the outcome. We are all struggling to resolve our concern and our responsibility for our contributions. Narratives need to be about co-operation common ground-and solutions need to be presented that can speak to the common concerns and aspirations of all people.
Environmental Research Letters
An interesting article entitled The influence of political ideology on trust in science. From the abstract:
In recent years, some scholars, journalists, and science advocates have promoted broad claims that ‘conservatives distrust science’ or ‘conservatives oppose science’. We argue that such claims may oversimplify in ways that lead to empirical inaccuracies. The Anti-Reflexivity Thesis suggests a more nuanced examination of how political ideology influences views about science. The Anti-Reflexivity Thesis hypothesizes that some sectors of society mobilize to defend the industrial capitalist order from the claims of environmentalists and some environmental scientists that the current economic system causes serious ecological and public health problems. The Anti-Reflexivity Thesis expects that conservatives will report significantly less trust in, and support for, science that identifies environmental and public health impacts of economic production (i.e., impact science) than liberals. It also expects that conservatives will report a similar or greater level of trust in, and support for, science that provides new inventions or innovations for economic production (i.e., production science) than liberals. Analyzing data from a recent survey experiment with 798 adults recruited from the US general public, our results confirm the expectations of the Anti-Reflexivity Thesis. Conservatives report less trust in impact scientists but greater trust in production scientists than their liberal counterparts. We argue that further work that increases the accuracy and depth of our understanding of the relationship between political ideology and views about science is likely crucial for addressing the politicized science-based issues of our age.
The Inactive Sun: Preliminary Look At Winter, Crude Oil/Natural Gas
Global Warming and Climate Change Exist, But Cannot be Blamed for Every Weather Disaster
While I am one of those scientists who believes strongly in global warming, I cannot point to every weather calamity as being 100% directly affected by our warming planet. Take the catastrophic Typhoon that destroyed parts of the Philippines recently. This monster storm is not the only one that hit the Philippines in the last few years. There were several other major hurricanes that hit land-fall prior to the accelerated increase in CO2 over the last 20-30 years.
The Sun’s Polarity Has Reversed Early
Our sun has been acting very strangely lately, with the normal 11 year cycle reversal of its polarity, occurring about a year earlier than normal at one of the poles. The sun, is out of sync. Combine that with the current solar maximum (one of the weakest solar maximums ever recorded by man, in which solar storms are few ) and we have the potential for some very unusual winter weather ahead. Not only could a more inactive sun offset some of the hazards of global warming, by potentially cooling the planet, but the sun’s magnetic field is important for a ton of technological systems, like power grid distributions and the positioning of satellites.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1843842-the-inactive-sun-preliminary-look-at-winter-crude-oil-natural-gas
IMO, this sort of thing is what climate scientists should be saying.
You, too, could be a climate scientist Jim. You’re never too old to learn. You might want to make a start by Googling the courses which are available at your nearest uni.
The courses at most universities only teach the alarmist stuff.
I did talk to Michael Mann and some of his past students when he talked at Texas A&M. His students had never heard of Ewing and Donn Climate Theory.
If you want to take courses in climate, be very careful which university you choose. You will not pass if you disagree. One Climate Professor told our Right Climate Stuff Climate Study Group that none of us would pass his most basic Climate Class. He is Right, He does not tolerate disagreement and we question eveything. That is how we got to the moon and back.
I guess the north reversed over a year ago and the south is reversing just now:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304672404579183940409194498
To complicate the riddle, the sun also is undergoing one of its oddest magnetic reversals on record.
Normally, the sun’s magnetic north and south poles change polarity every 11 years or so. During a magnetic-field reversal, the sun’s polar magnetic fields weaken, drop to zero, and then emerge again with the opposite polarity. As far as scientists know, the magnetic shift is notable only because it signals the peak of the solar maximum, said Douglas Biesecker at NASA’s Space Environment Center.
But in this cycle, the sun’s magnetic poles are out of sync, solar scientists said. The sun’s north magnetic pole reversed polarity more than a year ago, so it has the same polarity as the south pole.
“The delay between the two reversals is unusually long,” said solar physicist Karel Schrijver at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif.
The first sunspot peak came earlier than predicted as well:
http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/images/Cycle22Cycle23Cycle24big.gif
jim2-
Since it appears you might put more weight on the solar influence than others, including the IPCC, what studies or research have led you to think that the solar activities may affect our climate to this extent. Thanks
Dennis – IMO, the results aren’t yet in. (In case you didn’t notice, note that I didn’t write the Seeking Alpha article.) I believe that UV and cosmic rays have not been ruled out as an influence, but again, the evidence and mechanism haven’t been elucidated.
The Sun is in very low activity period. We shall see what happens, if anything.
Re grand solar minima…
I realize Leif Svalgaard the resident solar expert at WUWT, doesn’t but it, but it’s still hard to look at a graph plotting solar activity and temps over the last couple thousand years, and not come away with the distinct impression that there’s some sort of causation going on there..
Those solar charts vs temp (and historical records of conditions) are tantalizing, aren’t they?
“it’s still hard to look at a graph plotting solar activity and temps over the last couple thousand years, and not come away with the distinct impression that there’s some sort of causation going on there..”
what charts? i haven’t seen anything remarkable as far as solar-temperature goes.
Here you go lolwot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
The Maunder Minimum is the best the sun can do, and it was worth about half a degree C. CO2 going to 700 ppm is worth 3-4 C, so we need some perspective here.
“The Maunder Minimum is the best the sun can do, and it was worth about half a degree C. CO2 going to 700 ppm is worth 3-4 C, so we need some perspective here.”
_____
And even the full 0.5C cooling was not 100% due to the sun, but a general increase in volcanic aerosols as well. Many people mistakenly think that only the large volcanic eruptions are worth looking at for aerosol increase, but the ice core record indicates that there was a broad increase in volcanic activity during the period of the LIA (as well as a few spectacular eruptions) and that the combination of two (weaker solar output plus increased volcanic aerosols) each played a part in the general cooling of the period.
Well, we are entering a quit solar period. We’ll see what comes of it. I’m hoping we don’t have more than usual volcanic eruptions, just to keep the experiment cleaner.
OK, it hasn’t quite quit, but it is quiet.
Sir William Herschel found a link between sunspot activity and
the price of wheat.
http://simostronomy.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/sir-william-herschel-variable-stars.html
I like the old study with the correlation between Nile River levels and Aurorae Boreales.
=============
Kim
I liked the old study which showed that Roman telecommunications were disrupted.
tonyb
Ah, Julius Caesar in Gaul. Now there was some disruption.
============
KIm
Who could forget Caesars most famous words about his campaign in Britain
veni vidi vici
Which roughly translates as ‘ I can’t get a mobile phone signal here, lets invade somewhere else…’
tonyb
Beth Cooper, there’s also a correlation with womens’ skirt length. The problem with correlations is teasing causality.
Ref Greenpeace:
If only the author wasn’t George Marshall.. who created the climate enemy narrative in the first place… (putting Lomborg., Lindzen, Soon and others in a deniers Hall of Shame over a decade ago, with exxon smears) a leopard hiding his spots, perhaps..
As the author is a seasoned campaigner who has been playing the ‘dangerous game’ he describes for decades?
ref:
“Campaigners try their best to build an enemy narrative, bringing in oil companies, organised denial, the Koch brothers, governments, Jeremy Clarkson as their set-piece villains.” – Marshall
The same George Marshall – who created the first Deniers Hall of Shame – with the Rising Tide group that he founded?
http://www.carbondetox.org/html/aboutgeorge.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20020610020045/http://www.risingtide.org.uk/pages/hall_shame.html
Perhaps he could now advise the Campaign Against Climate Change to drop their Sceptics Hall of Shame, with its enemy narrative, Exxon,etc,etc. As the author is on the CaCC Advisory Board (Monbiot is it’s Hon President) and has been for years, this should be easy.
http://www.campaigncc.org/climate_change/sceptics/hall_of_shame
Mark Lynas & George Marshall created a Who’s Who of deniers a long while back, and labelling with Exxon/fossil fuel/tobacco tactics innuendos
Why We don’t Give a Damm – Lynas, Marshall 2003 – New Statesman
http://www.newstatesman.com/node/146820
“Who’s who among the climate-change deniers
Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician from Denmark, came to media prominence in 2001 with the launch of his book The Skeptical Environmentalist. He appears convincing by aggregating voluminous references without subjecting himself to the rigours of the scientific process. He accepts that climate change is happening, but applies a crude and selective cost-benefit analysis to argue that the cheapest option is to maintain economic growth and adapt to the impacts. He was the guest of honour and award-winner this year at a dinner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a far-right US think-tank to which ExxonMobil has donated $1m since 1998.
Richard Lindzen,…
Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas, …..
Philip Stott is Britain’s leading climate-change denier …….
Julian Morris,…… .” – New Statesman, Lynas, Marshall 2003
This article is a positive recognition that the enemy narrative fails, just perhaps a slightly bigger mea cupla might be required from this particular author to show good faith?
Mark Lynas it appears has moved on from this narrative, I asked him a while back whether Prof Lindzen was in the pay of Exxon (or anybody else) and his reply was that it was highly, highly unlikely. Mark was also on the Advisory Board of the CaCC for years, alongside Monbiot, Marshal, Lucas, Lambert & Meacher.
But Mark has stepped down from the CaCC, in part perhaps, because of this?
“…..Barry, you are right that the ‘Sceptics Hall of Shame’ is itself shameful – I wonder if I can appear on it now whilst still being a board member of the Campaign Against Climate Change (in all honesty I’d forgotten that I was on the board – I never have anything to do with them!)…..” – Mark Lynas
http://judithcurry.com/2011/06/15/an-opening-mind/#comment-76091
Perhaps, I might believe George Marshall is acting in good faith now, when the Campaign Against Climate Change’s Hall of Shame and the ‘denier’ rhetoric there, is removed?
“The best chance for climate change to beat enemy narratives is to refuse to play this partisan game at all. We are all responsible. ” – Marshall
It just appears to me that some campaigners, like Marshall, Monbiot, etc are more ‘responsible’ for this state of affairs and enemy narratives than others?
If the CaCC won’t change their narratives (Hall of Shame, Exxon, denier rhetoric) perhaps George Marshall (like Mark Lynas) should step down as well.
“But I would suggest that this is a dangerous game to play. Climate change will never win with enemy narratives. Once unleashed, they take on a life of their own and come back to bite us, and we will find ourselves written in to replace our chosen enemies” – Marshall
Actions always speak louder than words, it look to me that this is more about tactics that have failed, rather than a strong wish to engage and find common ground.
When George Marshall (Board member) persuades the CaCC to stop this sort of rhetoric, including Koch references – under climate misinformation:
http://www.campaigncc.org/climate_change/sceptics
http://www.campaigncc.org/climate_change/sceptics/hall_of_shame
http://www.campaigncc.org/climate_change/sceptics/funders
then I might believe he (and Greenpeace, George is ex-Greenpeace, and ex Rainforest Foundation, and Earth First – UK)) is sincere.
Just imagine if all that human energy had been employed constructively instead of destructively.
================
“The Sun’s Polarity Has Reversed Early” I suggest that it is actually taking its own sweet time about it. There have been a number of mentions / articles about this cycle’s unusual nature. Here is one.
Phillips, Dr. Tony. “Solar Cycle Update: Twin Peaks?” Scientific. NASA Science, March 1, 2013. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/01mar_twinpeaks/
“Something unexpected is happening on the sun. 2013 is supposed to be the year of Solar Max, the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. Yet 2013 has arrived and solar activity is relatively low. Sunspot numbers are well below their values in 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent for many months.
“The quiet has led some observers to wonder if forecasters missed the mark. Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center has a different explanation:
“‘This is solar maximum,” he suggests. “But it looks different from what we expected because it is double peaked.'”
Richard Lindzen in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.
Science in the Public Square: Global Climate Alarmism and Historical Precedents
The public square brings its own dynamic into the process of science: most notably, it involves the coupling of science to specific policy issues. This is a crucial element in the climate issue, but comparable examples have existed in other fields, including eugenics and immigration, and Lysenkoism and agronomy.
Although there are many reasons why some scientists might want to bring their field into the public square, the cases described here appear, instead, to be cases in which those with political agendas found it useful to employ science. This immediately involves a distortion of science at a very basic level: namely, science becomes a source of authority rather than a mode of inquiry. The real utility of science stems from the latter; the political utility stems from the former.
https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.jpands.org/vol18no3/lindzen.pdf&sa=U&ei=6JuHUvX4BYejiQL4loDYBw&ved=0CAYQFjAA&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNFuaywKHFr22WoWE3PfpC3m7XzyCg
Cato has a podcast.
http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/does-history-predict-future-climate-science
A serious issue of much greater importance than this is nuclear science
See
nukelies.org
(It’s hard to post on WordPress so sites – I’m being brief)
So, this was formulated by Nut Cases Anonymous?
FEAR and the instinct of survival are more advanced (more instinctive) in humans than their immature ability to let logic and rational thought guide their actions.
That is the root of society’s problems worldwide.
Not so sure about that Oliver. Fear for survival makes people distrustful. Immature logic, pseudo-rational thought, and cognitive bias is what drives warmists to believe they are rationally correct in all their assertions and fearmingering. Distrust and self interest is the democratic way to disempower those who claim the intellectual high ground – trust us we’re climate scientists.
Fairy tales are a historical means of spreading the dark truth in a socially acceptable story for all to hear.
Acceptance of reality seems to be the only hope for today’s dangerously fragmented and frightened society.
I will try to convey the same information Peter Toth tried to convey to public 36 years ago in 1977.
Survival is what rational thought is focused on, or should be, as we cannot take survival for granted. Nor is instinct an alternative to thought. It is a way of knowing things without having to learn them. I discuss this here — http://horsecognition.blogspot.com/.
On the thread “Denial”, I had an exchange with Rob Starkey. I had explained my hypothesis as to why I believed the climate sensitivity was indistinguishable from zero, Rob wrote
@@@@@
Now his further comment–”shown that there is no CO2 signal in any modern temperature/time data set, it follows that there is a strong indication that the CS of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero” might well be disputed as reaching a conclusion not fully supported by the facts.”
@@@@@
Now, as the old saying goes, you are entitlesd to your own opinions, Rob, but you are not entitled to your own facts. I responded
@@@@@
What facts, i.e. empirical data, do not support my conclusion?
References please.
@@@@@
I receiver no answer. Let me repeat my question. What empirical data exists which does not support my hypothesis? With references please.
Nir Shaviv on climate sensitivity presents data with error bars. http://www.sciencebits.com/OnClimateSensitivity
λ=0.35±0.09°K/(W m-2)
Mike Flynn, today is hot where you are, by midnight will cool by 10-15C, will be cooled by oxygen&nitrogen. Horizontal winds are cooling the soil – vertical winds are cooling the planet; winds made of oxygen &nitrogen. in 10-12hours will cool by 15C, only in 12h, they say that those vertical winds cannot cool down only 2C extra in 100years…?! cheers!.
Jim Cripwell,
I continue to believe that CAGW poses an existential threat, not because of any unusual climate effects but because of the political actions that are being taken using CAGW as justification.
My knowledge of ‘climate history’ comes primarily from sites such is this one. If I take historical data presented here at face value (Do I really believe that the ‘Temperature of the Earth’ hundreds or thousands of years ago can be reconstructed with 0.1 degree accuracy or better by examining a few dead trees?) the first thing that becomes apparent is that anthropogenic CO2 or not, current climate is doing nothing that it hasn’t done before, absent any conceivable human CO2 signature. It has been colder; it has been warmer. Glaciers have melted; glaciers have frozen. There has been open water in the Arctic before; it has been frozen before.
So I am with you: Show me an unmistakable signature that proves that anthropogenic CO2 is having a measurable effect (The climate is changing, we don’t know why, so it must be CO2 is a non-starter.), the effects are on balance undesirable AND potentially catastrophic, and I will be ‘on board’. Once I am on board, convince me that the political actions being taken to ‘Stop Climate Change’ will in fact stop climate change AND that the amelioration cure is not worse than the CAGW disease (all I have heard so far are in fact worse than the ‘disease’ described–is an extra 1e6 km^2 of Arctic ice in September really worth cutting fossil fuel usage by 90%?) and I will be convinced.
So far all I have heard is ‘Trust us; AGW is happening and it is really, really bad. Every hurricane, every tornado, every flood, every drouth, the cherry blossoms blooming 5 days early, every natural disaster, ALL because of anthropogenic CO2. Give us all your money and freedom and we’ll shut down fossil fuel usage and save you. Kinda like the union proposal: ‘We are so concerned about how the evil corporation is exploiting you that we have decided to negotiate with them directly on your behalf for your pay, health care, working conditions, vacation, working hours, and the floor covering in the cafeteria. For a nominal monthly fee, of course. Our concern for your welfare is SO great that if you DON’T let us take care of you we will burn your house down and/or beat the crap out of you.’ Not the most convincing of arguments.
Bob, you write “So I am with you” Thank you. Unfortunately that and $1.50 will buy me a cup of coffee. But it is nice to have the endorsement.
“So I am with you: Show me an unmistakable signature that proves that anthropogenic CO2 is having a measurable effect (The climate is changing, we don’t know why, so it must be CO2 is a non-starter.),
1. starting in 1850 the effect of C02 was laid out by scientists. C02 restricts the escape of radiation back to space. The earth cools by
radiation to space.
2. In the 1890s it was hypothesized that if C02 was increased the world
would over time warm.
3. We increased C02
4. The world warmed.
As with all scientific arguments this one is not a certainty.
It would be nice if we could go back in time and re run the world
with no C02 increase and see what happens. But alas we cannot.
We cannot repeat the experiment. ever. on 9-11 planes crashed into the
twin towers. They fell. We dont want to repeat that experiment because
science and engineering tell us that this would not be a good idea.
Note how no one is skeptical about this application of physics and engineering. We accept the hypothesis that the planes took the building
down, even though we cannot repeat that experiment. And some people, refuse to accept that explanation. They persist in thinking that explosives
took the building down. They say it cant be ruled out. They point to other buildings in the past that were taken down by explosives.
What are we left with? We are left with a prediction in the 1890s. Increase C02 and temps will go up. This prediction was made again in 1938. The scientist even built a model and made a pretty good prediction. We have a science. That science made a prediction: add C02 and temps will go up, not down. That science also told us how to build satellite sensors. they work. That science also told us how to build IR missiles. They work.
That science also told us how to build IR telescopes. They work.
Its warmed since the prediction was made. Does that make the prediction correct? Does that prove it? No. science is not about proof, science is about the best explnation. Since 1890s the sun has been steady. C02 has increased, and climate science predicted the increase. Not perfectly of course. Given that, it is reasonable to conclude that unless somebody
comes along with a science that can Match that prediction AND explain how Missiles work, and explain how satellites work, and explain All the OTHER THINGS this science explains, unless somebody can do that, then we are left with C02 as the best, but not only, explnation. It could have been something else. It could have been unicorns. we cant rule that out.
But suggesting that because we cannot rule out other causes, that the theory is not proved, is beside the point. No science is immune to this objection. It could always be something else.
What about the past? Does C02 have to explain all past warmings and coolings? No. anymore than planes crashing into buidings has to explain all past building collapses. C02 works to explain the modern warming. It may or may not contribute to past warmings. In other words, in the time span where we have the best measurements, C02 is good explanation.. Prior times are harder to explain not because the C02 theory is weak, but rather because our understanding of what the past was is weak.
Mosh
That 1938 paper you refer to was by gs callendar. He died shortly after the third coldest winter in the entire 350 year cet record, a real lia winter and said he thought he had made a mistake with his theory after all as he didn’t think we could have such cold winters again. It’s in hs very interesting biography
In his archives are his interesting selection of co2 data points. These were taken from scientists in the 1800’s whose other data points he excluded in order that he could come up with those that were distinctly on the low side.
Charles keeling in hs autobiography said he placed much emphasis on callendars co2 selection and in later life said he came to appreciate the expertise of the old time scientists whose co2 data points had been carefully selected by callendar to put over the theory expounded in the 1938 paper
Tonyb
Steven Mosher – Your comment here is part of the reason that this debate about climate science has gone on for so long. You argue that the hypothesis that CO2 warms has been tested and passed the test. I am perfectly happy to accept your argument, subject to the usual caveats required in science [passing a test is not proof; if a further test fails …..].
The problem is that your statement is a mixture of AGW and CAGW. It is unquantified (“The world warmed”) hence it supports only AGW, not CAGW.
After that, your argument really goes off the rails. You say “The scientist[s] even built a model and made a pretty good prediction”. That is incorrect. They built a model and tuned it, after the warming had started, to match the observed warming. What was “pretty good” wasn’t a prediction, it was a match to observeds. This has been pointed out a zillion times, and still you and your ilk refuse to acknowledge it. But it gets worse : in the years following the model tuning, the measured temperature, in the tropical troposphere and just about everywhere else, has failed to increase as predicted. So The hypothesis has now failed an important test and should be abandoned or heavily modified.
But where your argument really really goes off the rails is when you argue that until we can build a model that does climate perfectly, we have to accept the current models. That is obviously absolute nonsense. Judith Curry has repeatedly on this blog drawn attention to the uncertainties, and argued for them to be properly taken into account. What we need to do is to take the models’ findings and assess them carefully, given that the models necessarily have assumptions and approximations built into them. In particular, we have to avoid the current circular logic: (a) To match the late 20thC observed temperature we find that climate sensitivity has to be ~3.2. (b) Using a climate sensitivity of 3.2, we find that future global warming will be catastrophic.
it doesn’t seem possible, but your argument gets even worse. Words fail me when you say “Prior times are harder to explain not because the C02 theory is weak, but rather because our understanding of what the past was is weak.”.
Steven Mosher,
You wrote: –
“1. starting in 1850 the effect of C02 was laid out by scientists. C02 restricts the escape of radiation back to space. The earth cools by
radiation to space.”
May I respectfully point out that a body losing energy cannot raise its temperature (also described as “becoming warmer”) while so doing.
The rate at which the body loses energy affects the rate at which it cools. A negative rate of energy loss (also described as a net increase of energy) is necessary to create warming.
I am aware that the Book of Warm defines “warming” as “cooling more slowly”, but this definition is only accepted by the gullible. Even some Warmists realise this definition is nonsensical, but still refuse to abandon their faith. This is quite understandable, but doesn’t change facts.
So slowing the rate of cooling of the Earth, ceteris paribus, merely slows the rate of cooling. The Earth continues to cool. Slowly, relentlessly, remorselessly.
Locations on the surface are of course a different matter. They warm and then cool, obviously. Around a bonfire, the surface can become quite warm. In Vostok in winter, the surface can become quite cold.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
I should clarify the bit about circular logic in my last comment:
(a) We assume that the late 20thC observed temperature increase was caused by CO2 because we can’t find any other cause. (b) To match the late 20thC observed temperature we find that climate sensitivity has to be ~3.2. (c)Using a climate sensitivity of 3.2, we find that future global warming will be catastrophic.
I should also note that in not finding any other cause for the late 20thC temperature increase, they didn’t look very hard. Blind Freddie can see a ‘cycle’ that looks like it could be driven by ocean oscillation, yet ocean oscillations are not represented in the models. And that’s only one possible factor. Goodness only knows how many others there may be.
Mike
“I am aware that the Book of Warm defines “warming” as “cooling more slowly”, but this definition is only accepted by the gullible”
Mike, I am neither a ‘Warmist’, nor gullible, but I can suggest a simple experiment;
1)place a thermometer in your oven, switch your oven on to max, wait 30 minutes, measure the temperature.
2)do exactly the same, but don’t close the oven door.
Note that slowing the rate that heat escapes the oven increases its temperature.
DocMartyn – I’m not sure what you are getting at. Can you put it more clearly.
Doc,
But the 2nd law of thermodynamics!….or something…
Doc Martyn,
Better experiment.
Put stone in oven.
Heat.
Take stone out of oven.
Place in Dewar flask (best insulator I can think of).
Stone cools – slower, but still cools.
Or
Create hot Earth.
Place in vacuum with heat source 150,000,000 kms (approx) distant.
(Optional) surround with atmosphere.
Wait 4,500,000,000 years (approx).
Earth cools.
Slow cooling is not warming. Silly oven analogies, blanket analogies, and similar notwithstanding.
If you can heat something by radiating energy away, you have achieved perpetual motion – hooray!
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Steven Mosher | November 16, 2013 at 5:10 pm |
1. starting in 1850 the effect of C02 was laid out by scientists. C02 restricts the escape of radiation back to space. The earth cools by
radiation to space.
2. In the 1890s it was hypothesized that if C02 was increased the world
would over time warm.
3. We increased C02 4. The world warmed.
5. 1998-2013 CO2 increased. 6. The world paused
7. Cowpat hypothesizes, the world warms
8. Mosher is correct.
With no respect at all, Mosher, your argument is possibly juvenile and disingenuous.
angech | November 17, 2013 at 4:50 am |
“Steven Mosher | November 16, 2013 at 5:10 pm |
With no respect at all, Mosher, your argument is possibly juvenile and disingenuous.”
Steve’s argument like most of the CAGW arguments is an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
angech, are you convinced that ocean heat content increases don’t count for warming. Some other skeptics have said this is a better measure, but they have gone quiet lately for some reason. Pielke, Sr. should be saying “you dummies, look at what the ocean heat content is doing, not the surface temperature pause”.
“Steven Mosher – Your comment here is part of the reason that this debate about climate science has gone on for so long. You argue that the hypothesis that CO2 warms has been tested and passed the test. I am perfectly happy to accept your argument, subject to the usual caveats required in science [passing a test is not proof; if a further test fails …..].
The problem is that your statement is a mixture of AGW and CAGW. It is unquantified (“The world warmed”) hence it supports only AGW, not CAGW.
####################
No. my statement is not a mixture of AGW and CAGW. I dont even know what CAWG refers to. It’s not physics whatever it is, and I am only talking about that. you, however, need to impute beliefs to me that I dont have so that you can crowbar in your objections to CAWG which you havent defined.
######################################
After that, your argument really goes off the rails. You say “The scientist[s] even built a model and made a pretty good prediction”. That is incorrect. They built a model and tuned it, after the warming had started, to match the observed warming.
#################
No the models I refer to were built without tuning. period. Its really just first principles. no data tuning required. 1896. no tuning to observations.
#######################################
“What was “pretty good” wasn’t a prediction, it was a match to observeds. This has been pointed out a zillion times, and still you and your ilk refuse to acknowledge it. But it gets worse : in the years following the model tuning, the measured temperature, in the tropical troposphere and just about everywhere else, has failed to increase as predicted. So The hypothesis has now failed an important test and should be abandoned or heavily modified.”
wrong. the precition made in 1896 had no tuning. Second,
Lets look at TLT measures. There is a hypothesis. That hypothesis has been tested exactly once. If I told that I ran a test which proved the law a gravity was wrong, would you believe that test or ask me to repeat it? When data and theory conflict, there are many reasons.
Of course the data can be wrong ( we’ve only collected one dataset)
and of course the theory is open to modification. BUT, suggesting that a modification for TLT somehow changes the fact that C02 warms the planet doesnt follow.
##################################
“But where your argument really really goes off the rails is when you argue that until we can build a model that does climate perfectly, we have to accept the current models. That is obviously absolute nonsense. ”
Good except I never argued that. I argued that a substitute model must explain more than the model it replaces. Nothing more nothing less. No model is perfect. No model is correct.
###########################
“Judith Curry has repeatedly on this blog drawn attention to the uncertainties, and argued for them to be properly taken into account. What we need to do is to take the models’ findings and assess them carefully, given that the models necessarily have assumptions and approximations built into them.”
What you fail to point out is that Judith agrees that C02 warms the planet it does not cool the planet. Why would you leave that out.
yes there are uncertainties. There always will be. You get to replace the current model when you reduce those. Otherwise, you are left
with Judiths position: C02 warms it does not cool. write that down.
################################
“In particular, we have to avoid the current circular logic: (a) To match the late 20thC observed temperature we find that climate sensitivity has to be ~3.2. (b) Using a climate sensitivity of 3.2, we find that future global warming will be catastrophic.”
Another straw man. You can match the current warming with a variety
of sensitivities, from 2.1 to 4.5, maybe lower. What you cannot do is match the record with an assumption that C02 has No effect or that C02 cools. C02 warms, it does not cool. That is all.
As for catastrophe. Who knows? not me. Im not making that argument.
I’m making a very simple argument. before c02 increased it was predicted that increasing C02 would increase not decrease temperatures. C02 increased, temperatures increased. That looks like evidence FOR the theory. It is not evidence against the theory.
Now, how much will it warm? much less certain.
Now, if it warms 3C what happens,, way more uncertain.
################################
“it doesn’t seem possible, but your argument gets even worse. Words fail me when you say “Prior times are harder to explain not because the C02 theory is weak, but rather because our understanding of what the past was is weak.”.”
Its pretty simple.
1. our knowledge of past temperatures ( before 1750 ) is sparse
and highly uncertain.
2. our knowledge of aerosols, GHGs, and all other causes are also
highly uncertain.
Prior changes in temperature are harder to explain because
A) the thing you have to explain ( temperature ) isnt known well
B) the things you have to explain them with (causes) are even
less well known.
Look. Suppose I start studying your weight. And we collect data on your calories and your excercise. And we come to understand how you went from 180 lbs to 230 and back down to 210. I collect good data and I can make an explanation.
Then suppose you ask me this.
When I was 20, I had size 30 inch waist, at at 15, I had a 28 inch waist
and I played football between 18 and 22 years old. When I was 25
I had a 32 inch waist and weighed 190. I loved donuts.
using those sparse historical facts and proxies of excercise, weight, and calories, can I explain how your weight changed and why?
And, if I cannot explain that past, does that mean that my explanation
of your current weight gain and loss is wrong?
“. 1998-2013 CO2 increased. 6. The world paused”
1. you’re looking at ONE 15 year experiment.
2. you want to look at ALL 15 year experiments over the past 100 years
3. look at your confidence intervals, they are consist with an increase
( that is the upper level CI is positive)
4. look at 30 year experiments
5. look at 100 year experiments.
Steven Mosher, you say to me “What you fail to point out is that Judith agrees that C02 warms the planet it does not cool the planet. “. BS. I said “You argue that the hypothesis that CO2 warms has been tested and passed the test. I am perfectly happy to accept your argument … “.
You say “No. my statement is not a mixture of AGW and CAGW. I dont even know what CAWG refers to. “. Nor do I. But after all the years that you have been contributing to climate blogs, I can’t believe you don’t know what CAGW is. Googling it gives 347,000 results, most of which would appear to be (I haven’t checked them all!) on its Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming meaning.
You also say “No the models I refer to were built without tuning. Period. “. That’s not true. The IPCC report itself says that the models were tuned to match the CO2 warming to observed temperature. The key phrase is “constrained by observation”.
Then you say “I argued that a substitute model must explain more than the model it replaces. Nothing more nothing less. “. That is nonsense too. The important thing is whether the model is any good in the first place. If it’s no good it has to be improved or ditched. The existence or non-existence of a better model is irrelevant. As I said, “What we need to do is to take the models’ findings and assess them carefully, given that the models necessarily have assumptions and approximations built into them“.
Now get off your high horse, and stop making insulting remarks like “C02 warms it does not cool. write that down. “ even though I began my first comment explicitly agreeing with that hypothesis. Please take a moment to understand that there is a difference between AGW and CAGW, that your arguments for AGW are not unreasonable, but that does not mean that they support CAGW. You cite an example where you claim that the AGW hypothesis passed one test. But passing one test is not good enough. A hypotheses fails when it FAILS one test. The ‘hiatus’ of the last 17 years is a failure by the CAGW hypothesis.
Mike Jonas said:
“The ‘hiatus’ of the last 17 years is a failure by the CAGW hypothesis.”
____
Absolutely incorrect on many levels. The so-called “hiatus” in tropospheric sensible heat (when excluding the Arctic) was a failure of models to predict this, but then, such natural variability is never predictable by models. But models are not hypotheses and models are ALWAYS wrong, whereby a hypothesis can be completely right, partially right, or completely wrong. Furthermore, a model can be 100% correct about the dynamics and still be wrong about the details when modeling a chaotic system. Have you not studied Lorentz?
Seems your statement is more wishful thinking on your part that a simple handwaving can dismiss a complex hypothesis so easily.
Lastly, when looking at the full Earth system, no such “hiatus” exists over the last 17 years or even over the past 40+. The system has continued to gain energy exactly as the basis AGW theory stipulates that it will as long as GH gases continue to accumulate so rapidly from the ongoing human carbon volcano.
Steven Mosher,
Look at the 4,500,000,000 year experiment.
The surface cooled.
It’s still radiating energy – around 44 TW, I believe.
It’s still cooling. When a body loses energy, that’s commonly referred to as “cooling”. Warmists call it “warming”, but that’s because they don’t really understand the difference between the two terms.
Heat your rock.
Stop it cooling.
Heat your rock again.
Insulate it however you desire.
Stop it cooling.
A Warmist would say the “second” rock is cooling more slowly, therefore it is warming. No, it’s not.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
“Furthermore, a model can be 100% correct about the dynamics and still be wrong about the details when modeling a chaotic system.”
Right about “the dynamics”, but wrong about the “details”. The only problem is the CAGWs have been sold to the public as being able to predict the “detail” of rising global temperatures with sufficient accuracy to justify massive policy proposals. (Nice how decarbonizing the global economy can be reduced to a “detail”.)
But it is nice to see a warmist admit that even if climate scientists knew everything they think they know about the climate, they might still not be able to model such a complex, chaotic system. Skeptics have been saying this for decades.
Mike Flynn, you got the background wrong. It is not cooling, it is warming. The sun warms everything. You put another coat on, and you get warmer. We are putting that other coat on with CO2.
R Gates, you say “The so-called “hiatus” in tropospheric sensible heat (when excluding the Arctic) was a failure of models to predict this, but then, such natural variability is never predictable by models. “. It is correct to say that models can’t predict some natural variability, but it has been studied, and the extent to which the models may depart from observation because of natural variability has been assessed. NOAA’s 2008 “State of the Climate” says ”The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate. “. Now that we have reached 17 years of non-warming, the discrepancy is well and truly established. Ie, the models have failed.
[Note that your final reference to “the full Earth system” is irrelevant in this context, as that is not what was being referred to by NOAA].
“But it is nice to see a warmist admit that even if climate scientists knew everything they think they know about the climate, they might still not be able to model such a complex, chaotic system. Skeptics have been saying this for decades.”
____
Indeed we have…hence my moniker “Skeptical Warmist”. Skepticism is a tool, not a badge or destination. Everything is subject to doubt, but daily we must make decisions as to what we believe is more likely than not, and if required to, take action, even with uncertainty present.
Mike Jonas
“Steven Mosher, you say to me “What you fail to point out is that Judith agrees that C02 warms the planet it does not cool the planet. “. BS. I said “You argue that the hypothesis that CO2 warms has been tested and passed the test. I am perfectly happy to accept your argument … “.
#################
If you are happy to accept the test, then what is the point of refering to Judiths arguments about uncertainty. They are unrelated to what I am talking about
############################
“You say “No. my statement is not a mixture of AGW and CAGW. I dont even know what CAWG refers to. “. Nor do I. But after all the years that you have been contributing to climate blogs, I can’t believe you don’t know what CAGW is. Googling it gives 347,000 results, most of which would appear to be (I haven’t checked them all!) on its Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming meaning.”
1. You say you dont know what it refers to ( quote “Nor do I”)
However, you injected it. How did you inject it with out knowing what it refers to.
2. You cant believe I dont know what it refers to? thats YOUR
problem. I’ve never seen it defined, I dont know whether 2C is
CAGW or 1.9C or 2.5C or what. But you used the term. what did you
mean. The fact that you cant believe something ( That I dont know )
is an irrelevant point. As I said, thats your problem. Solve it.
3. Googling is no substitute for precision. You used the term. I did not.
You imputed the term to me, I’m telling you I have no idea what you
are refering to. Pointing out that Google returns searches is
not an explanation of what yuo meant and NEITHER is it proof
that I know what you are referring too, and finally its not evidence
that I Mixed AGW with CAGW
########################################
You also say “No the models I refer to were built without tuning. Period. “. That’s not true. The IPCC report itself says that the models were tuned to match the CO2 warming to observed temperature. The key phrase is “constrained by observation”.
WRONG. I am not refering to those models DIPSHIT. Im refering
to one model constructed in 1896 and another in 1938. BEFORE THE IPCC. get it. Plus, IPCC models are tuned to TOA and other parameters. not exclusively observations. In a couple cases there are models that tune to early decades.
##########################
Then you say “I argued that a substitute model must explain more than the model it replaces. Nothing more nothing less. “. That is nonsense too. The important thing is whether the model is any good in the first place. If it’s no good it has to be improved or ditched.
Wrong.
As I said, the models predicted that adding C02 will warm the planet.
They got that right. That’s called being good. Were they perfect? No.
So, if you want to replace them you have to do better. And not just
better at temperatures. You have to be better atthe other things those models do, where they are damn near perfect.. Like building
Missiles. If you want to replace the physics of C02 which does a
“fair” job predicting temperature and a damn near perfect job
building missiles, then you subsitute physics has to do better at
BOTH.
#####################################
“Now get off your high horse, and stop making insulting remarks like “C02 warms it does not cool. write that down. “ even though I began my first comment explicitly agreeing with that hypothesis. Please take a moment to understand that there is a difference between AGW and CAGW, that your arguments for AGW are not unreasonable, but that does not mean that they support CAGW. You cite an example where you claim that the AGW hypothesis passed one test. But passing one test is not good enough. A hypotheses fails when it FAILS one test. The ‘hiatus’ of the last 17 years is a failure by the CAGW hypothesis.”
1. You claimed above not to know what CAWG was.
2. I never said my arguments supported CAGW, cause I dont know what that is.
3. The AGW hypothesis has passed many tests. every 30 years or so since 1896 it has passed a test.
4. The last 17 years says nothing about CAGW, because CAGW hasnt even been defined. Not by any working scientist I know.
Mike Flynn: Better experiment.
Put stone in oven.
Heat.
Take stone out of oven.
Place in Dewar flask (best insulator I can think of).
Stone cools – slower, but still cools.
People have already pointed this out to you, but I thought I would try again: the sun shines on the Earth all the time. Any analogy to that has to include a continuous heat source. Each longitudinal slice of the Earth surface experiences diurnal variation of insolation, and total insolation increases and decreases as the Earth revolves around the sun, but at no time is the Earth cooling without any heat input.
Steve Mosher, would it be fair to describe you as a ” Lukewarming CO2 Control Knob Freak”.
Steven Mosher – Since so much of this dialogue has been at cross purposes, I’ll try to clarify it all.
First of all, my saying “I don’t know” about CAWG was in jest, picking up on your typo. I thought you would get it.
Now, to what matters : I don’t dispute that CO2 has a warming effect, nor that more CO2 will warm more. I would have thought that was abundantly clear from my earlier comments, but obviously it wasn’t. NB. I don’t accept it as gospel, I just don’t dispute it.
What I do dispute is that the warming which CO2 may cause is dangerous. It is this difference – between warming and dangerous warming – that is the area of dispute. So your calling on past models, and on past predictions that increasing CO2 will cause warming, does nothing to address the issue. Nor does the observed increase in temperature during a period of increasing CO2, because it does not establish the extent to which the various possible factors – CO2 and other – are involved. The issue is the IPCC-based claim that CO2 will cause dangerous warming and that to avoid it we must cut CO2 emissions. Obviously, if there is little danger then we don’t need to take expensive actions to avoid it.
I agree that in this context, “dangerous” has not been precisely defined. [CAGW is Catastrophic AGW, but I’m happy to stick with “Dangerous”]. I could argue that the IPCC should have addressed that, and I could argue that those who want the developed world to reduce CO2 emissions should have addressed that, but they didn’t. I will address that now:
Researchers such as Schwarz and Hansen put climate sensitivity (ECS) at about 1.2. The IPCC accepted that, but then via the tuning that I referred to earlier put ECS much higher at 3.2, and used water vapour and cloud “feedbacks” to try to justify it (AR4 8.6.2.3).
At ECS=1.2, there is clearly no danger. CO2 would have to go well over 1300ppm in order to get a temperature rise of more than 2 degC, and we simply don’t have enough fossil fuel for that. A rise of 2 degC is generally regarded as beneficial. Even at the IPCC low end of the range at ECS=1.5, there is no danger (CO2 > 1000ppm). At ECS=3.2, though, we can get past 2 degC of warming at about 500ppm, and although unlikely it might be possible within a century and that is where the “dangerous” comes in.
So, saying that CO2 warms is not enough. In order to get to “dangerous” you have to establish that ECS is greater than 3. And that’s where the uncertainties come in. There clearly is no certainty that ECS is greater than 3, and the only place that (as per the IPCC) you can get it from is clouds, which is where the IPCC acknowledges that it has its greatest uncertainties.
So – even accepting that CO2 does warm, there is no established danger. On top of that, the failure of the planet to warm over the last 17 years does invalidate the models as per NOAA 2008, ie, it does render an ECS >3 virtually impossible. In other words, not only is there no established danger, but there is pretty compelling evidence that there is no danger.
One Senator’s War Against Climate Change
By Ezra Klein Nov 13, 2013 3:29 PM CT
Every week, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, heads to the floor of the Senate, sets up an easel and some poster board, and delivers a speech. He works hard on these speeches. They’re deeply researched and beautifully crafted. He delivers them with passion — to a mostly empty room. His colleagues figure they have better things to do than listen. But 100 years from now, when our grandchildren look back and try to understand what we were doing while the world burned, these speeches may well be some of the most famed rhetoric of the age.
The speeches are on climate change. They range in tone from morally outraged to deeply wonky. One focused on how best to structure a carbon fee. “We should start by setting aside about $140 billion — or 12 percent of the total — to help lower-income households,” Whitehouse said.
Another concerned Hurricane Sandy. “We do know that a warming planet increases both the severity and the likelihood of these storms; that it, to use one analogy, loads the dice for extreme weather,” Whitehouse said. A third focused on how climate change hurts our public works. “We can no longer use historical climate patterns to plan our infrastructure projects,” he warned. My personal favorite featured Whitehouse’s response to a Senate colleague who had averred, “God won’t let us ruin our planet.” Whitehouse’s reply was unsparing: “That is seeking magical deliverance from our troubles,” he said, “not divine guidance through our troubles.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/one-senator-s-war-against-climate-change.html
Senator Whitehouse is an embarassment to Rhode Island. i wonder how many of his weekly presentations have mentioned “the pause” in an honest acknowledgement of the limits to knowledge and climatee models, the exaggerations of the IPCC, the range of natural variation in weather and climate, or the uncertainties so often highlighted by Professor Curry? A one armed pirate isn’t going to run out of fingers counting deviations from the warmist creed.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/ezra-klein-rodent-fornicates-obamacare-on-msnbcs-the-last-word/
More from this article, which is a good example of CAGWer hysterics:
“A recent World Bank report envisioned a future shaped by 4 degrees of warming. The results were — no pun intended — chilling.
“Recent extreme heat waves such as in Russia in 2010 are likely to become the new normal summer,” the authors wrote. Ocean acidification could increase by 150 percent, wiping out coral reefs and the ecosystems that depend on them. Sea levels would rise by 0.5 meter (1.6 feet) to 1 meter, leading to floods of biblical proportions. Tsunamis and hurricanes — such as the one that killed at least 2,275 in the Philippines last weekend – – will become more powerful and lethal. Climate change will become the central threat to biodiversity: Unable to mobilize technology, or pick up and move to new climes, animals and plants will succumb to a warmer world. “
Oops! This article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-13/one-senator-s-war-against-climate-change.html
Thus illustrating the point of the Quadrant article.
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/401708226556620801
The odd thing they say on the liberal view of science is that conservatives trust production science as much as or more than liberals. Where is there an example of liberals not trusting production science? If there is a type of science result liberals tend to trust less, it is those results that tend to prove safety (genetic food production methods, nuclear power, vaccines, cells phones, power lines, etc.), while they have more trust in results that prove danger. To me, this is the distinguishing feature, because science proving danger (ozone, acid rain, air and water pollution, carbon emission, fracking) often implies costly solutions, and conservatives tend to believe these results less. They seem to take this view because they favor profitability over environment. They might agree that volcanoes pollute, but not industry.
Thanks for that completely twisted view of what “conservatives” believe. You are prejudiced against non-liberals.
Their results supported the Anti-Reflexivity Thesis. You can disagree with their results. This would probably be the “conservative” view of them too.
You can view the whole article and the results are shown in table 3.
Here is an excerpt:
The Anti-Reflexivity Thesis (McCright and Dunlap 2010, 2011, 2012) expects that conservatives report (a) significantly less trust in impact science/scientists but (b) at least a similar level of trust in production science/scientists compared to their liberal counterparts. The results of the last two models in table 3 support this thesis. Liberals report much greater trust in scientists engaged in impact science activities than their conservative counterparts, but conservatives actually report greater trust in scientists engaged in production science activities than their liberal counterparts. Thus, consistent with the Anti-Reflexivity Thesis, the ideological divide on views about science seems to be aligned with the distinction between science in the service of economic production and science that provides evidence of harmful environmental and public health impacts of economic production—which is often used to justify governmental regulation of economic markets.
I couldn’t figure out table 3 it is very confusing and they don’t show numbers with what they say supports their thesis in that paragraph. Looks like they mainly want to confirm their thesis that makes it suspicious to me. It would make sense though that conservatives wouldn’t trust greenies and liberals wouldn’t trust capitalists wouldn’t it?
It’s all perverted into politics, what a shame. We learn nothing from this.
“In recent years, some scholars, journalists, and science advocates have promoted broad claims that ‘conservatives distrust science’ or ‘conservatives oppose science’.”
As a non scientist who has dealt intimately with scientists and technical experts for decades, I’d say that the problem is failure to distinguish between “science” and “scientists.”
My experience is that the hard sciences are, well, hard. In fact, they’re too hard even for most scientists most of the time–which is why many of us non-scientists whose experiences parallel mine emphasize the repeatability aspect of the scientific method.
I’ve known lots of scientists who were pretty smart. But not every scientist is an Einstein. Heck, even Einstein wasn’t always such an Einstein all the time (“Gott würfelt nicht”). Michelson (or was it Morley?) had opined that classical physics had pretty much explained everything, and Milliken was a little off on the elementary charge. So, even in the absence of experience with the dreck that so often passes for scientific research, the logical default position would be skepticism.
To the extent that skepticism is more prominent among conservatives, therefore, perhaps it’s because they have a stronger purchase on what science really is.
(Having said that, my experience with human nature tells me that those researchers must be right that to some extent skepticism tends to be selective.)
Japan’s new CO2 goal dismays U.N. climate conference
ReutersBy Elaine Lies and Stian Reklev | Reuters – Fri, 15 Nov, 2013
By Elaine Lies and Stian Reklev
TOKYO/WARSAW (Reuters) – China, the EU and environmentalists criticized Japan at U.N. climate talks on Friday for slashing its greenhouse gas emissions target after its nuclear power industry was shuttered by the Fukushima disaster.
The Japanese government on Friday decided to target a 3.8 percent emissions cut by 2020 versus 2005 levels. That amounts to a 3 percent rise from a U.N. benchmark year of 1990 and the reversal of the previous target of a 25 percent reduction.
“Given that none of the nuclear reactors is operating, this was unavoidable,” Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara said.
Japan’s 50 nuclear plants were closed on safety concerns after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima reactors northeast of Tokyo. Nuclear accounted for 26 percent of Japan’s electricity generation and its loss has forced the country to import natural gas and coal, causing its greenhouse gas emissions to skyrocket.
Japan’s new policy was widely criticized in Warsaw, where some 190 nations are meeting from November 11-22 to work on a global climate pact, due to be agreed in 2015.
China’s climate negotiator Su Wei said: “I have no way of describing my dismay” about the revised target.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/japan-drastically-scales-back-co2-emissions-cut-target-002021962–business.html
Japan has dumped its CO2 emissions targets. It can’t meet the targets thanks to opposition to nuclear power.
I noticed this comment on the Energy Collective:
http://theenergycollective.com/stephenlacey/300581/japan-s-solar-market-surge-blows-away-earlier-forecasts
It looks like that the Iceland’s atmospheric pressure is firmly in control of the English sunshine hours. Not much new there, but what is the driver of the Iceland’s atmospheric pressure ?
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SH-AT.htm
http://imageshack.us/a/img843/5126/gnp.png
Some animal rights activists are wondering just how many birds green energy may unintentionally kill as more and more birds turn up dead at solar energy facilities throughout California.
A recent article by Vice author Lex Berko notes that dead birds are being found with “singed wings” around several California solar energy facilities.
It happens that many of California’s solar plants are, the article claims, in the path of “the four major north-to-south trajectories for migratory birds” called “the Pacific Flyway.”
Birds are dying in one of two ways. In some cases, they imagine the shining solar panels to be bodies of water and dive straight into them. There they die when they smash into the panels from the sky.
Others “feel the wrath of the harnessed sunlight.” The ultra polished solar mirrors bounce sunrays strong enough to burn the feathers off birds that quickly crash to the ground, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/11/12/Oops-Solar-Energy-Plants-are-Killing-Rare-birds
This can be offset by shooting around .001% of the area’s house cats. Solved.
(Jim2): Hmmm. Wasn’t there some alarmist BS a while back about ski resorts going out of business because of global warming?
The article:
Whistler ski resort to open 13 days early
The Canadian resort of Whistler will fire up five lifts this weekend thanks to cold weather, snowmaking and heavy snowfall
Skiers and snowboarders will be able to hit the slopes at Whistler from Saturday Photo: Paul Morrison
By Tom Metcalf
2:36PM GMT 14 Nov 2013
One half of North America’s largest ski area will open this weekend, thirteen days ahead of schedule.
Whistler Mountain at Whistler Blackcomb will now open on Saturday, thanks to cold temperatures, intensive snowmaking and heavy snowfall.
…
A statement from Whistler said: “Thanks to oodles of snow, Whistler Mountain will open 13 days early this season. Whistler is renowned, season upon season, for being the number one ski resort for guaranteed snow – lots of it – and this winter will be no exception.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/snowandski/skiing-news/10449066/Whistler-ski-resort-to-open-13-days-early.html
Of course Jim2, you realize that is is a warmer Pacific Ocean that is directly correlated with the amount of snow that falls in the northern Rockies, right? And the area of correlation is far out in the western Pacific, not off the coast.
(Jim2): I’m not the one that said the snow would cease …
From the article:
Climate change could profoundly affect the Tahoe area, scientists say, taking the snow out of the mountains and the blue out of the water.
Last winter’s ski season showed a glimpse of what a future, warmer Tahoe may look like. Snow didn’t start falling in the mountains until January. The California Ski Industry Association reported that 25 percent fewer skiers visited the Sierra last season. For a region that boasts a $5 billion year-round economy, that hurts.
New climate models show that in a worst-case scenario average temperatures in the Tahoe area could rise as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. That’s equivalent to moving Lake Tahoe from its current elevation of 6,200 feet above sea level to 3,700 feet, climate scientists report in a special January issue of the journal Climatic Change. That’s as high as the peak of Contra Costa County’s Mount Diablo, which gets only an inch of snow a year.
Simulations also suggest that the percent of precipitation that falls as snow may decrease to as little as 10 percent by the end of the century. It’s now 30 percent. In time, the snow line will move up the mountains, said Robert Coats of UC Davis, a co-editor of the special issue.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_22307260/climate-change-threatens-tahoes-snow-levels-lake-clarity
early ski season in Tahoe this year
http://www.skilaketahoe.com/weather/snow-conditions
But until now, the economic fallout from the low-snow trend has been a bit fuzzy. Today the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Protect our Winters (POW) released their findings from a joint study of the impact of climate change on the winter sports economy. The future, they say, is not bright.
“In the many U.S. states that rely on winter tourism, snow is currency and climate change is expected to contribute to warmer winters, reduced snowfall, and shorter snow seasons,” it says. “This spells economic devastation for a winter sports industry deeply dependent upon predictable, heavy snowfall.”
The study shows that from November 1999 to April 2010, the downhill ski resort industry lost an estimated $1.07 billion in aggregated revenue during low snow years. In the past decade, skiers, snowboarders, snowshoers, snowmobilers and others have hucked themselves into the wintery wilds 36 percent less during seasons when snowfall suffers. Last year’s devastatingly dry winter caused 50 percent of ski areas to open late and 48 percent to shut lifts early, according to one poll.
It’s not just the ski resorts that suffer: Restaurants, lodges, bars, gas stations and grocery stores that rely on winter-sports tourism lose out as well. “The damage to the environment goes hand in hand with damage to local economies and individual businesses,” according to the study.
http://www.adventure-journal.com/2012/12/study-climate-change-will-devastate-snow-economy/
What does a winter resort do when winter barely arrives?
Last winter was reportedly the fourth warmest on record since 1896. It had the lowest national snowfall in two decades, and saw a 15% dip in visits to ski areas by snowboarders and skiers. The 2012-2013 season is also getting off to a slow start, with minimal snowfall throughout most of the country. The big concern isn’t just that ski areas are having a bad couple of years—it’s that conditions for skiing, and for the ski industry as a whole, may be bad indefinitely.
A ski resort can be a difficult business to run even during the best of times, and it becomes far less economically viable as temperatures rise and snow is less predictable. A New York Times piece offered some grim insights about state of the industry, including the forecast that by the year 2039, the majority of ski areas now open in New Hampshire, Maine, and New York would have to close. Not a single ski hill in Massachusetts or Connecticut is expected to be open by then either.
http://business.time.com/2012/12/14/deep-trouble-ski-resorts-try-to-cope-with-less-snow-now-and-in-the-long-run/
Judith,
You commented on the “early” ski season in Tahoe this year, but they haven’t yet really gotten dumped on by big snow, and have in fact been pretty dry. Where are you getting your data from? I only see one resort open, and that’s only a few runs with man made snow.
Rgates
Does whistler count?
http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/the-mountain/hours-of-operation.aspx
Tonyb
Tony,
Whistler and Tahoe are separate areas being affected by different weather patterns. Both get their moisture from the Pacific and from Pacific storms, but are affected usually by different storm systems and on different storm tracks. Even here in Colorado, ski resorts in one part of the state can be getting big snow while just a few hundred miles a way, they are getting nothing at all. Of course, while the ski industry brings lots of money and jobs to the state, it is the moisture from the snow that falls in the Rockies that is the real gold, as much of the population relies on that moisture for drinking water and farming.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes “Matthew Wald reports in the NYT the the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed reducing the amount of ethanol that is required to be mixed with the gasoline supply, the first time it has taken steps to slow down the drive to replace fossil fuels with renewable forms of energy. The move drew bitter complaints from advocates of ethanol, including some environmentalists, who see the corn-based fuel blend as a weapon to fight climate change and was also unwelcome news to farmers, coming at a time when a record corn crop is expected, and the price of a bushel has fallen almost to the cost of production. “Boy, my goodness, are the oil companies going to benefit from this,” says Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association.
…
The boom in domestic oil drilling has dimmed the urgency to find other alternatives to Mideast petroleum. Demand for gasoline has slumped. And criticism of the environmental impacts of corn ethanol has dimmed its luster nationally.
…
But the risk is far greater for smaller sectors of the industry still struggling to get out of the gate — those aimed at producing next-generation biofuels like “cellulosic” ethanol, made from ingredients like switchgrass and corn stalks.
…
. “The impact could be that another country will lead this rather than the U.S.””
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/13/11/16/1353203/can-the-us-be-weaned-off-ethanol
Shale Revolution Spreads With Record Wells Outside U.S.: Energy
By Brian Swint & Nidaa Bakhsh – Nov 15, 2013 8:13 AM CT
The hydraulic fracturing of shale in search of oil and gas has hardly started outside the U.S., but that’s changing.
A record 400 shale wells may be drilled beyond U.S. borders in 2014, with most in China and Russia, according to energy consultants Wood Mackenzie Ltd. While that’s a fraction of the thousands of shale wells drilled in the U.S., the number of rigs used onshore in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region has increased 10 percent over the past year, data compiled by oil services company Baker Hughes Inc. show. Most of those rigs are meant for shale, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Nov. 18 issue.
“It’s likely there will be a revolution,” Maria van der Hoeven, executive director at the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said in an interview in London. “But not everywhere at the same time. And you just can’t copy the U.S. experience.”
Fracking in the U.K. will start next year, after the government lifted an 18-month moratorium imposed when a drilling company found it had accidentally caused earthquakes. Two utilities — Centrica Plc (CNA) of Britain and GDF Suez (GSZ) SA of France – – have bought stakes in the country’s drilling licenses to help bankroll the drillers and win a cut of any profit.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-15/shale-revolution-spreads-with-record-wells-outside-u-s-energy.html
From Greenpeace:
“Climate change will never win with enemy narratives. Once unleashed, they take on a life of their own and come back to bite us and we will find ourselves written in to replace our chosen enemies.”
Is been said before:
From Wikipedia:
“Darkness at Noon is a novel by the Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the government which he had helped to create.”
Robespierre was executed by the very revolution he helped form.
Not stated by Greenpeace, but illustrative many times in human recorded history, environmentalism is following the path of authoritarianism (i.e. read Consensus and all that this implies), rushing towards populous extremism.
The interruption of this course in self-destruction will be if the faith in the narrative or at least the credibility of the narrators becomes lost. In an entirely different realm, healthcare, President Obama has lost the credibility to execute the policies of his office. Subsidized renewable and costly electricity tends to focus rate payers. The spill over to other areas include environmentalism with the regulations emanating from the EPA may prove that the regulators become the object of derision and ridicule.
Demonizing your opponent usually has short lived benefits.
A sociologist arguing that more research money needs to be urgently spent on sociological analysis. Now there is a surprise. Not.
In key shift, US oil production tops net imports
Published November 13, 2013
Associated Press
For the first month in nearly two decades, the U.S. in October extracted more oil from the ground than it imported from abroad, marking an important milestone for a nation seeking to wean itself off foreign oil.
A promising sign for a still-slugging economy, the shift could foreshadow future opportunities to boost jobs in the U.S., lower the trade deficit and insulate the economy from foreign crises that can send oil prices rising. But it also speaks to deeper, underlying changes in the way Americans use oil, as price-conscious consumers seek to limit what they pay at the pump.
Not since 1995 has the U.S produced more crude oil than it imported. For several years now, domestic production has been on the rise while net imports have been declining. But data released Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration, the statistical wing of the Energy Department, show the trend lines have finally crossed, with crude oil production topping 7.7 million barrels per day.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/13/in-key-shift-us-oil-production-tops-net-imports/
Jim2
You do realise you will have prodded WHT into life don’t you?
Tonyb
What do you mean by that? He never leaves!
BTW, Tony, how are you Brits enjoying the expensive wood chips we Yanks are sending you? How literally stupid is that on both sides of the pond?
“However it is characterized, the current tactics of climate alarmists in public debate are doing nothing to restore their credibility, serving only to make themselves look ever more foolish and untrustworthy.”
I’ve tried to make this point myself, many times. They only succeed in fueling the flames of anger and rage on both sides. Obama, the great hope for less divided government and by extension, a less divided country, has become as divisive as his predecessor. Tragic failure in my eyes, a previous supporter, though in hindsight inevitable…
Don’t understand why the warmists who hang out on Climate Etc., don’t really seem to get how counter productive are the tactics of their fellows..
P.S. I’ve been missing Week in Review! Glad to see it back.
Why? Because he did not get on his knees and bow in front the great Republican masters? Lol.
He’s uppity.
and arrogant.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/15/epa-scales-back-ethanol-mandate/
Right. Obama’s done a fine job of living up to his campaign rhetoric. Any fair minded observer can see that. It’s been by any measure a stellar 5 years.
It’s just that I don’t want to admit it. Because he’s, you know, a negro.
Seems that there are many ways to audit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/16/heres-whats-wrong-with-rand-pauls-audit-the-fed-bill/
Pokerguy – I know you were making a political point with the more polite form of the N word, but the fact that Obama is half black has nothing to do with why many people don’t like him. It is the central-governmnet-control aspect of his political view that people don’t like. It is called socialism, or a minor variant of the same, fascism. I think the word fascisam was made up by a socialist because socialists no longer wanted anything to do with Hitler. Can’t blame them, but still.
If Obama was socialist we would have had Medicare for all, not a centrist combination of private insurance and government regulation. The Republicans used to liked it when the government brings new customers, some with subsidized payments, to the private sector.
Obama, the great hope for less divided government and by extension, a less divided country, has become as divisive as his predecessor
Why would anyone ever have thought that? Why would anyone ever have thought his political platform which always included ‘Obamacare’ wouldn’t be divisive?
He probably wouldn’t be a divisive figure if he were a president somewhere else, but this is the USA, with its Tea Party, crazy gun laws, religious conservatism, and fear of their own democratically elected government we’re talking about here!
https://twitter.com/medicaid/status/401821306351394816
All that and a large segment of society in the US who believe Obama’s socialism sucks.
A “stalker”:
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/11/rand_paul_continues_his_anti-christie_tour.html
Because that’s what they are told to believe by those who make pots of money from the status quo perhaps. If they were actually to get a social safety net they may just think it was imperfect but better than nothing, just like every other civilized nation.
James G – Social Safety Net is in actually a legal Rube Goldberg of 1,000 pages in the act itself, and an additional 10,000 pages of rules written to enforce it. A social safety net would be something like a negative income tax. This piece of work is an abomination to freedom and a boon to lawyers.
Yes, indeed.
When will those “cultist” “smearing” “warmists” realize that “scorn,” not to mention name-calling, globalizing, stereotyping, and partisanship is always counterproducti….
Oh.
Wait.
Nevermind.
Looks like a prima facie case of projection.
Joshua,
I wonder if you could be a little more direct.
I believe you are trying to make some sort of sarcastic statement, but it’s too subtle for me.
When Warmists reject facts, such as cooling more slowly being the same as warming, what would your reaction be?
Agree with their nonsense? Encourage them? Keep funding them?
If you must, you must. Please don’t expect me to pay for your faith. I have my own to pay for.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
So. Progressives are against progress, conservatives are for it. Funny.
Progress: That depends very much on what one means by “progress”. See http://dsausa.org/
Democratic Socialists of America is definitely an overshoot. There is nothing wrong with private profit, even with an excessive one, if it is backed by actual economic performance.
It is quite sufficient to return to old constitutional principles, that is, outright denying constitutional “personhood” to corporations like
along with a much less centralized governnance structure, respecting the principle of recursive modularity and delegated responsibilities, as it was prescribed in the original Constitution.
This bit:
“If they are really as certain as they profess to be, the best thing they could do at this point would be to shut up. If they are right, reality should prove them so soon enough.”
_____
For a great many scientists, “reality’ has already proven the basic soundness of AGW theory to be correct to a very high degree of certainty. This proof has nothing to do with the accuracy of the models, but in the actual measured changes going on in the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere. The Earth system is retaining more energy.
But to the point that they should “shut up”. Why would it be that one of the most knowledgable climate scientists, Hansen, has been so vocal, even wildly radical on some occasions? From his perspective, the situation is one very similar to being in a movie theatre and finding a fire breaking out behind the seats in the back row. Should he just stay quiet until the fire becomes apparent to everyone? In his case, his grandchildren are with him in the theatre, and moreover, will need to live at the theatre for their lifetimes as well. Anyone who thinks that Hansen is just trying to “make money” or get fame, or whatever has probably never met him or spent any time with him. Keeping quiet on an issue that he feels so strongly about is not an option.
Next week, a major paper on the warming and acidification of the oceans will be released. Given that the bulk of the effects of the human carbon volcano have thus far gone into the oceans, this research paper marks an important real world measurement of what this human carbon volcano is doing. Should the dozens of scientists involved in this important metric of Anthropogenic effects on the Earth simply keep quiet? The truth of the human effects on the Earth are not “convenient”, and will require us to consciously alter our lifestyles– which is of course a form of adaptation.
Yes, “keep quiet” and just point to graphs like this showing that unrelenting climate change, exhibited by 30-year averages, is already underway especially for land (green), but also ocean (blue) and globally (red).
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:360/mean:120/plot/crutem4vgl/mean:360/mean:120/plot/hadsst3gl/mean:360/mean:120
Yes, it speaks for itself and the scientists could stay quiet, but some people need a little help in understanding what they are looking at.
How realistic is it to expect silence when we see where things are going so clearly, not from models, but from data. This was also foreseen many decades ago from the science we already knew then. The ultimate ostrich-like denial is wanting the scientists to be quiet when this effect has just started to be obvious for all to see.
Jimd
I am alReady making big sacrifices to stem the human carbon volcano, what lifestyle changes will you be making?
Tonyb
Should the scientists have “kept quiet” when the effects of CFC’s on the ozone hole were discovered, or maybe they should have kept quiet when the evidence of the link between smoking and cancer was beyond doubt? We sure know that organizations like Heartland sure could have saved a lot of money in their propaganda efforts if the scientists would just have “kept quiet” about these real health and environmental concerns. For some scientists (i.e. like Hansen), the time to “keep quiet” has long since passed.
The biggest effect would be if everyone was more consistent in telling China and India to slow down and help them use alternative energy including nuclear power. There are ways of encouraging the correct behavior, but it needs a unified voice. Each trillion tonnes of carbon is worth 2.5 C: that kind of thing needs advertising more.
Yep, let’s all tell China and India to slow down on energy consumption. I’m sure they would rather please the world than provide for their populations – thereby averting rebellion.
Have you noticed China is moving more towards free markets?
jim2, so now you are starting to see how hard it will be to stop global warming. The next best thing is to prepare for it, knowing it will be costly. A carbon tax offers a direct method of what I would call taxation of causation, somewhat like smokers paying extra tax to support health costs of other smokers that are a drain on the system. Carbon is a bad addiction of the human race, and it will be hard to break, and costly to treat the symptoms. The analogy holds.
JimD – Carbon is more like a food than a drug. I would say carbon-based energy is life sustaining. Life without it would be unsustainable, to coin a phrase.
Jimd
Your 5.33
I directed this question to you as well as rgates
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/16/week-in-review-4/#comment-414375
Tonyb
Jim D. said:
“Carbon is a bad addiction of the human race, and it will be hard to break, and costly to treat the symptoms.”
_____
I think you make a good point about addiction, but it is not the human race that is “addicted to carbon” but rather, the current human civilization that is addicted to fossil fuels. To cure any addiction, accurate description of the addiction is important. Our civilization has developed around every greater amounts of fossil fuel use, and this is the cause of the human carbon volcano. We don’t need to change the human race or human nature, but rather, to consciously ween our civilization off of fossil fuel use by shifting to alternative forms of energy use and reducing the net use of energy per capita without hamstringing our economies. Easy, right?
jim2, if it is bad for you in the long run, it is either a drug or very unhealthy food.
Jim D. is right. Any food can also be a drug when consumed to an excess. Sugar addiction is a huge health problem around the world (at least in the wealthier countries. Fossil Fuels are to our civilization as sugar is to those addicted to it.
But if my choice is sugar addiction or starvation, I’ll take the sugar. It’s all a matter of perspective, don’t ya know.
jim2, what about nuclear power? There are vast energy resources other than carbon, and even natural gas is a step up from coal and oil with more energy per CO2 release. It is not like it’s coal and oil or die. The key is phasing these out leaving much in the ground.
Sure jim2, sugar will keep you alive, for a while, but you’ll pay for it in the long run by an early death and probably lots of other health complications along the way. Wouldn’t it be a better choice to consciously change your diet, just like humans can learn to ween themselves off of fossil fuels?
Your use of the word ‘addiction’ in the context of fossil fuels displays a woeful misunderstanding of the nature and mechanism of addiction.
Please elaborate phatboy. I think the analogy of personal addiction to sugar and civilizations addition to fossil fuels is extremely perceptive. Both involve an insatiable demand for quick and easy energy for a system, and oddly, both also are derived from stored sunlight. The more I think about the analogy, the more brilliant it becomes.
Jim D,
I find I’m addicted to O2, H2O, and various long chain carbon molecules of various types involving quite a few other elements.
I have been told that my addiction is so serious, that I will die unless I keep using these chemicals.
At one time, I was addicted to using carbon compounds such as wood, to avoid dying of hypothermia. I have broken that particular addiction, and now am able to rejoin normal society. I no longer need to lie, cheat, steal, or impose on others to stay warm. Nature looks after my needs.
Warmists can worry about such addictions on my behalf.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Mike Flynn,
It is here that you show a real lack for understanding the nature of an addiction. You have an honest physiological need for water and oxygen. Addictions are psychological, and can be “cured” often by going cold turkey on the addicting substance or behavior. Addictions truly represent unconscious memeplexes that, like all viruses, attach themselves to us, but are not essential for our true survival and usually detrimental to our overall health.
jim2, what about nuclear power?
I’m all for nuclear power, Mr. D.
This unrelenting change is still just 0.6 degrees per century. Get a grip! The real debate is about what the scientists confidently expected versus what we actually got -which was a lot less warming. There is nothing demonstrably unnatural happening anywhere and the fingerprints of anthropogenic global warming are utterly missing: No tropi tropo hotspot, no stratospheric cooling since 1995 and no ocean warming since we obtained decent, accurate measurements rather than buckets, engine intakes and a heap of adjustments. And all of this this not-very-much happening when we assured that mankind was now dominating the climate over natural variation. Taken together that would mean the hypothesis should have been rejected long before now except that thereis far more money available for pessimists than for optimists. That energy policy has been based on such false certainty is a ‘travesty’.
James G. erroneously said:
“There is nothing demonstrably unnatural happening anywhere and the fingerprints of anthropogenic global warming are utterly missing.”
___
This would be a good example of the name which must not be spoken. No, not Voldemort, but the one that begins with a “D”. But I shall not utter it here in deference to those who find it so reprehensible, even though in is quite descriptive of a certain class of consciousness that would otherwise like to be included in the “skeptical” category. But such certain as displayed above is anything but.
But … but … IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN JAMESG!!! You are a brutish pig!
JamesG, 0.6 C per century? Based on the last 30 years, the land is warming at 2.5 C per century, and this may accelerate. Keep up.
jim2, you support nuclear and so do some leading climate scientists.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/
They will have a tough time with some sections of environmentalists, but at this point nuclear looks like a good option to me too. I am fairly sure that they would not support nuclear power if carbon wasn’t such a bad alternative, and if renewable energy was anywhere near close to being a replacement for it, as they state in their letter.
Jimd – I’m for small nukes and government sponsored research on molten salt thorium reactors. I’m ashamed of myself (not).
jim2, if we can get you and your ilk to favor uranium over carbon, we will be getting somewhere.
R Gates,
Nice try. You conveniently overlooked the other carbon compounds.
These include alcohol, the benzodiazepines, opiates including heroin and so forth. Depending on the physiology of the addict, the length and nature of the addiction etc., the body may become physically dependent, not just psychological, as far as I am aware.
Occasionally, “cold turkey” withdrawal can kill.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
JimD – I don’t think it’s my “ilk” holding back nuclear power, it way more the ilk of leftie environmentalist types what don’t like it.
Mike Flynn, I am not sure which of your addictions are unhealthy for the environment, but those are the ones that I am referring to. Perhaps you can name some. Do you have fossil fuels where you live?
jim2, the point is you have to phase out carbon to go towards nuclear. If you support that, great. Nuclear is a middle option, because both sides have to give something up to get there. The carbon-lovers and the tree-huggers.
Mike Flynn said:
“Depending on the physiology of the addict, the length and nature of the addiction etc., the body may become physically dependent, not just psychological, as far as I am aware.”
—
Quite right, and the two are closely associated. But this does not take away from the fact that fundamentally, an addiction comes about, not from something the body needs to survive, like oxygen, but from a physiological or psychological (or both) dependency that develops over time. It may have a basis in the physiological (sugar addiction, for example) but it grows and becomes a self-reinforcing mechanism.
Texans would absolutely never allow greenie leftist pinkos to stop them from building nukes, and that is not what stopped them.
The power bill stopped them. I got one. Comanche Peak, Glen Rose. Electricity made from atom smashin’ costs one H of lot more than electricity generated by burning coal.
As soon as Texans realized that, they stopped building nukes.
The greenies? The Texan would have kicked the chit out of them and kept right on building.
Dollars and cents. That is what stopped nukes, and it still does.
Jim D,
In response to your question as to whether I have fossil fuels where I live, the answer is yes.
I am not sure what the point of your question is.
Firstly, the idea that the Earth can be warmed by surrounding it with an atmosphere containing CO2 is plainly ridiculous. Even committed Warmists agree that the atmosphere does no more than slow down the Earth’s rate of cooling. Cooling is not warming, regardless of whether it progresses slowly or quickly. Therefore, using fossil fuels is irrelevant in this context.
Second, you may be unaware of what the “environment” actually is. I realise that the Book of Warm probably has a definition that varies from the normally accepted dictionary definition. This does not make it so.
Therefore, your implied negative use of “unhealthy” is meaningless, depending as it does on your subjective opinion, which may or may not accord with reality.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
I find this interesting.
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/electric-power/london/france-risks-power-price-shock-unless-nuclear-26269268
France is thinking of phasing out nuclear energy from 75% to 50% in favor of renewable energy, but there is a debate because the energy costs would increase, and some suggest this phase-out should be longer term to give renewable prices a chance to come down further.
Mike Flynn, your “Book” may say that Eocene levels of CO2 won’t mean an Eocene climate, but you will find on closer examination that it is lacking in details and has crayon handwriting, and matchstick drawings. Get the grown-up science books.
Fossil fuels are currently the staple food of civilisation, without which it will starve and die.
And this will continue to be the case until such time as a viable replacement comes along.
Humans are fortunate in that they have a wide choice of foodstuffs which will do the job of keeping them alive and healthy – civilisation does not yet have much choice.
I wonder how much this part of the debate has drifted from climate and into the old environmentalist theme of a general hatred of humanity. The idea of the “human carbon volcano” & the truth of the ” human effects on earth” as being not convenient, is a bit daft really. Why should it be inconvenient to say that carbon based energy has in effect rescued humanity from living lives that were short, brutal and filled with fear. It is then suggested, rather amusingly, that this represents a bad addiction with other posters linking it to that other old bogey man of faddists (my word) sugar. If it wasn’t for this carbon volcano this debate wouldn’t be happening, because most of us would be dead and the rest scraping in the earth looking for food. Its true a lot of these ideas were popular decades ago with scare stories on over population, mass starvation running out of oil etc, but denial of these ideas isn’t ostrich-like, is because the evidence over time showed the predictions to be c**p.
Should he just stay quiet until the fire becomes apparent to everyone? In his case, his grandchildren are with him in the theatre, and moreover, will need to live at the theatre for their lifetimes as well. Anyone who thinks that Hansen is just trying to “make money” or get fame,
The response to the reviewers questions in Prevdi 2012 ie How long is the temporal response to fast and slow feedbacks suggests that the grand children are actually 2^40 generations away.
Hansen et al. (2008) analyzed a coupled atmosphere-ocean GCM with a fast feedback climate sensitivity of 3C for doubled CO2, and found that the equilibrium temperature response was achieved in about a millennium. For a slow feedback climate sensitivity of 6C for doubled CO2, the equilibrium temperature response would be expected to take much longer (at least several millennia), since this response has been shown to be a strong function of climate sensitivity (Hansen et al., 1985).
maks,
As the upcoming report on the state of our global ocean will very clearly outline, the real tangible (and some will argue, urgent) changes being seen in the ocean will impact us, and are already impacting us far sooner than 2^40 generations from now. Given that the oceans have thus far born the brunt of the HCV, focus on the oceans, for many reasons, is more than prudent, as is the scientists refusal to “keep quiet” about the urgency of these ocean changes.
Rgates
You say’will consciously alter our lifestyles.’
In the uk we are way ahead of you by altering our lifestyles so we can’t afford heat for our homes energy for our businesses and petrol for our vehicles.
What other changes to our lifestyles would you like us to make and what ones do you propose those in the US should be prepared to undertake in order to put a plug into the human carbon volcano?
Tonyb
Tony,
Looks like the UK will be cranking up the fracking efforts quite a bit in the next few months and years…so good news there as it at least gives you some energy with less net effect than coal. It sure has helped with energy costs here in the U.S. and lowered our CO2 output.
Long-term, of course as discussed many places, many “greenies” are now embracing nuclear energy as a way to shut down the HCV. That might be a viable way forward. Generally though, lowering energy consumption through more efficient use, smaller and greener homes, more efficient autos, renewable sources, etc. all contribute to the conscious adaptation efforts. The UK fracking revolution may change your country’s energy outlook as much as it has changed ours, but I’m not familiar with how much potential natural gas you even have over there to be fracked out of rocks compared to the enormous quantities we have over here.
Rgates
Yes, but what sacrifices will you and Jimd make in order to change your lifestyles and put a plug in the human carbon volcano?
Tonyb
Tony,
I exhale a bit less each day.
Rgates
:)
Tonyb
tonyb, if there was a carbon tax, I would gladly pay it if it was largely reserved to help mitigation or adaptation in the future. That would be one obvious thing.
Jimd
We have actual carbon taxes that are driving businesses away
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10358461/Carbon-tax-too-expensive-says-industry.html
We also have defacto carbon taxes that are raising our energy and fuel prices so high that 1 in 5 British households are in fuel poverty and at 8 dollars a gallon driving is a luxury.
Which of these carbon taxes would you like to introduce first?
Australia is getting rid of carbon taxes as whilst the theory is fine the practice is painful
Tony
I don’t know what level of effective tax you pay, but even $10-$20 per tonne should be easy to handle for most households, and would raise enough revenue to be effective. The change in fuel price would be a barely noticeable 10-20 cents per gallon. In the US they have dropped about 50 cents just in the last few months to little over $3/gallon, and these swings are not unusual, so such a tax is in the noise. It is a dollar per hundred miles even for less efficient cars. It won’t break the bank, and is much less than car depreciation, for example.
Jimd
I think you have no conception as to how much tax we pay on all forms of energy. Our petrol is around eight dollars a gallon. Our energy prices are said to be three times yours. Businesses have to pay a carbon tax that is effectively going to drive the heavy energy users-who tend to employ lots of people- overseas.
It’s all very well making these green suggestions when they are theoretical but the practice is somewhat more painful. To date America has talked about green taxes but as far as I can see have yet to introduce them and find out the end result.
Tonyb
TonyB, That is not a “green” problem. It is a problem stemming from the fact that your island has just about gone through its allotment of fossil fuels.
http://entroplet.com/context_uk_oil/navigate
Web
According to Rgates fracking will save us
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/16/week-in-review-4/#comment-414387
Tonyb
Well Tony, fracking may not “save” you, but it could hold off doomsday for a while longer. Nuclear, fusion, artificial photosynthesis, or some other techno fix might be the ultimate “save” for you and all of us. In the long run, the UK will have to find other sources as even fracking is just a short-term solution.
I guess if we could make lots of biogas to take over from natural gas then we’d all be friends again and go back to fretting about industrial globalisation or nanny statism.
Gates said:
Sorry, but that argument is not correct, because focusing on energy efficiency is a distraction and can have little effect. It is the place to put a lot of our effort if it in any way distracts the focus from getting nuclear power to be cheaper than fossil fuels – especially for all emerging and eventually all developing countries. If putting budget and resources into energy efficiency distracts focus and thereby slows the rate of achieving low cost nuclear energy, then it is bad policy.
Global energy consumption will grow by a fact of five over the decades ahead. We cannot improve energy end-use efficiency anywhere near as fast as consumption will increase. So the focus needs to be on allowing nuclear to be cheap for the world. To achieve that we needs to focus olur efforts on getting the population of the OECD countries over their nuclear paranoia. Once the paranoia is largely reduced/removed the cost of small nuclear modular reactors can come down (yes, I know it will take a long time).
The best way to get rid of the paranoia is for all those people who are concerned about nuclear safety issues to conduct their own objective research, evaluate the risk of nuclear in proper perspective with other risks. Once they realise the situation (that nuclear power is a low risk compared with almost all other risks we face in society and form other electricity generation technologies) then starting advocating as effectively as possible to get the greenies, Greenpeace, FoE, WWF, Amory Lovins, John Holdren, Sierra Club, etc. to stop blocking nuclear progress and become enthusiastic advocates to allow the ridiculous constraints on its development to be removed.
We need to get to the stage where everyone wants a small nuclear plant near where they live for the benefits it brings to the local community (e.g. good work with secure jobs brings to a place near where and your family and friends live).
Peter Lang said:
“Global energy consumption will grow by a fact(or) of five over the decades ahead.”
_____
This is an assumption based on a projection from previous growth. Such a growth rate would assume that this much energy was available for harvesting and that human population growth continues in the same manner as well. Everything looks great for the turkey on the day before Thanksgiving– it is at it fattest, being fed the best, and life has been pretty darn good. If he based his future projection on his past experience, then the road ahead is grand! Then comes the one and only Dragon King event in the turkey’s life.
R. Gates,
No its not. You just guessed that didn’t you. It’s based on the best projections of population and the per capita energy consumption of those people but the UN, World Bank, CIA, IEA, and all the world authorities who do such projections. Do you really have good insight into how they are wrong? Why haven’t you told them about their errors.
No. There is no assumption about growth rate. The assumption is about peak population and per capita energy consumption of those people.
And energy resources on planet Earth are effectively unlimited, so that is not a constraint.
You seem to have your head stuck in the sand.
But if you do know something that the experts don’t perhaps you can lets us all know here which of their figures you do not accept:
– population growth to 9.5 billion
– per capita energy consumption rates in the future
Peter Lang:
There are real limits to growth. Eternal growth forever and ever is the dream (or rather nightmare) of the Industrial Age. What this dream has ushered in is a planet pushed to a human created dragon king event. We are already seeing the beginnings of the 6th Great extinction event, and as the report on the world’s oceans will tell us next week, climate change may be the least of our potential worries. Pay attention.
Gates,
Surely you can do better than witch-doctor and doomsayers scaremongering. Yes, some resources are limited, but not energy. And we are talking about energy. Per capita energy has been increasing for 200,000 years, and it would be an extremely arrogant and gullible person who thinks the trend will stop now just when he/she is living on Planet Earth.
I suggest it is you that needs to pay attention (or read a bit more widely than Greenpeace and Club or Rome).
Peter Lang said:
“Per capita energy has been increasing for 200,000 years, and it would be an extremely arrogant and gullible person who thinks the trend will stop now just when he/she is living on Planet Earth.”
—
On the day before Thanksgiving, one turkey said to the next, “What are you worried about? Our food supply has ever been better. We have never been fatter. How arrogant and gullible of you to listen to those who sense that ‘sum tin is up’. Keep eating, fool!”
Gates,
You’ve displayed, again, how you have no rational arguments to present, so you fall back on childish, irrelevant, silly comments like the above. It’s as silly and irrelevant as the ones about “the climate doesn’t take any notice of the deniers”. As if it takes any notice of the doomsayers either.
Why don’t you have the guts to admit you have no argument, you are wrong and you are a major part of the problem. You are blocking progress.
Peter Lang said to R. Gates:
“…you are a major part of the problem. You are blocking progress.”
—-
If growth can be eternal, what is it that we are progressing toward? Is growth for growth’s sake the eternal God you seek? Reminds me a bit of what cancer is like.
You are dodging and weaving. Do you think that is a a sign of intellectual honesty.
You made statements, I refuted them and you have no argument and no response so you try to change tack to talking gibberish. That’s a common tactic doomsayers try.
Peter Lang,
I’ve got no reason to “dodge and weave” with you. There are large and complex issues facing our species– some ethical, some political, some sociological, and some scientific. We are at the point of great potential, but at all such points comes potential danger as well. Perhaps you would like to embrace some polyannish view of the future of nuclear heaven and eternal energy, but I prefer a more balanced view looking at real dangers. Against your nuclear eternal energy heaven is the Fermi paradox and the potential solution of the Great Filter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
We should ponder our future with our current real issues and the Fermi paradox and the Great Filter in mind. It is what reasonable people do who don’t fully embrace your eternal-growth-nuclear-nirvana-future-heaven.
Gates,
You are blabbering all over the place. And, it seems to me, you are doing it to avoid admitting you were wrong. The discussion started with:
Now, if you are intellectually honest, you should as a first step, acknowledge that you were wrong and energy efficiency can only make a small difference to GHG mitigation, exaggerating what it can achieve distracts focus and budget from where it should be focused, and misleads people to focus on the wrong policies. None of this is new. We’ve been implementing the same wrong-headed policies for many decades – like blocking cheap nuclear power.
So, before you go onto other philosophical debates, I’d ask you to acknowledge you were wrong in your advocacy for focus on energy efficiency. To make it easier for you to admit you are mistaken, here is a relevant quote from Richard Tol in his new book ‘Climate Economics’ https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bz17rNCpfuDNRml2dVA4T0xvdkk/edit?pli=1 says:
and
Holding all terms except ‘carbon intensity of the energy system’ constant, ‘carbon intensity of the energy system’ needs to increase from -0.01% p.a. to -4% p.a. (average) to cut global GHG emissions to 55% by 2050 and 84% by 2100. So, without changing the other inputs to the Kaya Identity, -4% p.a. is the average rate of change of ‘carbon intensity of the energy system’ the world needs to achieve if we want to achieve the global emissions reduction targets being advocated.
Tol explains elsewhere that the rate of energy efficiency improvement may be improved a little, but cannot offset the increase in energy use. If we want to cut emissions we need to focus on getting economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels.
And don’t waste your time on renewables. They will play a very small, insignificant role. But we know nuclear can provide most of our electricity – because it provides nearly 80% of France’s electricity and a lot of its electricity exports – and if cheap enough nuclear electricity will provide the energy to produce transport fuels. So nu clear is where our main focus should be. And the focus should be on reducing the opposition to nuclear power. Then the regulatory constraints can start to be unwound.
So, can I ask you to say you accept these points before you try to go off on a tangent to avoid reaching closure on this.
Peter Lang,
I think to bring “closure” we should take a look at the full quote, rather than your snipped version. I wa discussing the energy situation in the UK with Tony and said:
“Long-term, of course as discussed many places, many “greenies” are now embracing nuclear energy as a way to shut down the HCV. That might be a viable way forward. Generally though, lowering energy consumption through more efficient use, smaller and greener homes, more efficient autos, renewable sources, etc. all contribute to the conscious adaptation efforts. ”
—
So while acknowledging the potential of your much beloved nuclear-eternal growth nirvana future, being more realistic about what can be done immediately in our everyday world, it is quite logical and even practical to focus on reduction of consumption, efficiency, and renewables. Far from being, as you call them- “distractions” they are easy accomplished and can make the difference as we shift from fossil to whatever will come next– be it nuclear, renewables, artificial photosynthesis, or something not yet thought of.
Your nuclear evangelism is heartwarming, but it gets in the way of your common sense I think, or at very least, creates radiations burns to your eyes that cause blindness to the real world.
RGates
I get the impression that you think we are sitting round twiddling our thumbs hoping that energy costs will fall and we can continue our profligate ways.
All the low and medium hanging fruit has been harvested years ago and there is previous little high level energy fruit for harvesting.
Our govt has enthusiastically embraced renewables but these are-according to our chief scientist at DECC rather irrelevant.
Its horses for courses and the great problem of solar here is that in winter when it is most needed our solar/light levels are so limited it is nothing but a very minor player. In winter we get weeks of anticyclonic weather so the wind turbines don’t work. The latter litter our finest landscapes the former are highly intrusive 50 acre mega solar banks .
Our biggest coal fired power station which sits over a coal seam has been retired and to feed it pelleted wood is being shipped over from the States.
Because of green opposition nuclear power stations have been allowed to become redundant and our first new one for years will take at least a decade to build.
What are we supposed to use to produce energy that can be afforded by business and individuals.? Suggestions urgently needed so the 1 in 5 British households in energy poverty can follow them and help prevent many winter deaths as people are to frightened to turn on their heating and maintain it at the correct level.
BTW our petrol costs are 8dollars per gallon-how much are yours?
tonyb
R Gates,
Your understanding is fundamentally flawed.
That is wrong, for the reasons I’ve already explained. And your faint praise for focus on nuclear while advocating the policies that can achieve next to nothing, is the core of the problem.
But for some reason, you seem to not be able to understand the relevance of numbers. Energy efficiency improvements (energy intensity of the economy) are proceeding at the economic rate. There is no market failure. Anything governments do to try to speed it up costs a lot and has little effect. It’s another massive waste of money like renewable energy.
Renewable energy is having little effect on GHG emissions but is hugely expensive. Solar provides 0.3% and wind 3% of global electricity . The more these non-dispatchable generators contribute the higher the cost, per MWh, of transmission, grid management and the dispatchable generators. And the effectiveness at reducing emissions per MWh of energy decreases (its already low).
So, whereas energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy can make little contribution to cutting global emissions from electricity generation, France has demonstrated for over 30 years that nuclear can provide around 75% – 80% of electricity.
The longer you and the greenies push the near useless but high cost energy efficiency and renewable energy options, the longer the delay before we begin to remove the impediments that are blocking the world from having a low cost, low GHG emissions (and much safer) alternative to fossil fuels.
So, I say again, you and the greenies are the blocks to progress.
No, I call that politicians grabbing at anything and everything to plug the yawning chasm between their electoral promises and hard reality
TonyB: You appear to live in the U.K., and probably have some insight into the consequences of carbon “mitigation”. Perhaps you could provide some examples, such as:
– Is the heat commonly turned off at night?
– Is it true that the death rate among seniors from cold is 10 to 20 times the death rate from heat (because they cannot afford energy)?
TonyB: Love your “Cave” question. Those responding to it seem to forget that things are not as they seem in The Cave. The Cave may be a good Analogy to AGW / CAGW.
TonyB,
Hang on there a minute, mate. Why do you need energy for heating? If global warming isn’t happening fast enough for you, breathe faster! Are you a bloated capitalist? Why should you have a business? And petrol? Use ethanol!
My God, you people never stop complaining. If you have enough enough energy to complain, you’ve obviously got too much – you should give it to a climate scientist.
Just listen to your Government when it tells you that you’ve never had it so good. They know better than you, otherwise they wouldn’t be running the country, would they?
Away with you, you ungrateful swine!
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Mike
You are right. I will now go and knit rocks in a cave warmed by the beams of the moon and lit by glow worms. If it was good enough for my ancestors 30000 years ago it’s surely good enough for the 21st century.
Shall I reserve some cave space for you?
Tonyb
Hey, please don’t dis glow worm lighting. It is spectacular and hobbits have learned to love it:
http://youtu.be/Ie75XN-2-bk
As far as knitting rocks, well…
http://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL13641C2E046A451B&desktop_uri=%2Fplaylist%3Flist%3DPL13641C2E046A451B
Tonyb,
Thank you for your generous offer.
I can’t afford the petrol. I will just have to starve in the freezing dark by myself.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn
Tonyb says: You are right. I will now go and knit rocks in a cave warmed by the beams of the moon and lit by glow worms. If it was good enough for my ancestors 30000 years ago it’s surely good enough for the 21st century.
Ah, those Hippos’ in the Thames days. Remember them well….
Rgates
Your lovely glow worm video makes my point. There is room for millions of people in those caves. We should move in immediately and start this exciting new life style experiment.. Lets start with those who believe that co2 is a problem….
Mind you there would be even more room for people if we could just move those pesky glow worms out of the way.
tonyb
TobyB, your ancestors didn’t live caves 30000 years ago, they lived in tents and huts. The things is that tents and huts don’t leave a lot of evidence behind, especially by the side of rivers and estuaries, whereas stuff left behind in caves does tend to hang around.
This is sampling bias.
It is quite possible that at least some of our ancestors lived in caves 30,000 years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-Magnon
It looks like all three articles came to the same conclusions from different directions namely agreeing, ay least in part, with the suggested Greenpeace meme:
1. enemy + intention → harms victims
2. hero + intention → defeats enemy and restores status quo
1. Enemy (Big Business) + intention (self enrichment) → harm (high energy costs) to victims (vulnerable)
2. Hero (Labour party) + intention (social justice) → defeat (price freeze) and restores status quo (standard of living)
1. Enemy (Environmental extremism) + intention (ideological zealotry) → harm (green taxes/suffering) to victims (vulnerable)
2. Hero (Conservative party) + intention (defending freedom) → defeat (roll back taxes) and restores status quo (freedom/standard of living).
Walter Starck:
An impressive AGW bandwagon soon assembled and fired-up a luxurious hundred billion dollar gravy train. In late 2009 everything was on track for a glorious triumph by AGW forces at the Copenhagen Climate Summit, which was to have been the gateway to the clean, green new world promised by the eco-prophets.
So, in all probability the show will continue, not as a debate but as a farce, with the lead characters making ever-bigger fools of themselves until the public tires of paying the bills and finds something better to do with its tax money.
George Marshall:
But then the energy companies responded. As predicted by the research they maintained the overall narrative structure and simply changed the dramatis personae. The enemy was now environmentalism and the green taxes which had, according to dubious but much quoted figures, added £112 to average fuel bulls. According to Tony Cocker, chief executive of E.On, these were “smeared across everybody’s bill” and were tantamount to a “poll tax”. Right wing conservatives like Jacob Rees Mogg joined in saying that because of the obsession of “the doomsayers of the quasi religious Green movement” poor people “may die because they can’t afford fuel”
Climate change will never win with enemy narratives. Once unleashed, they take on a life of their own and come back to bite us and we will find ourselves written in to replace our chosen enemies. As climate impacts intensify there will be a lot of confusion, blame and anger looking for a target and enemy narratives provide the frame for scapegoats.
Aaron M McCright, Katherine Dentzman, Meghan Charters and Thomas Dietz :
The beginning of the message stated: ‘Science is important to the United States for a few reasons. Science improves our knowledge of the world. Thus, science helps us make better decisions over time’. The rest of the message varied across the two conditions. The production science message stated: ‘perhaps even more important, science produces new technologies that: make new products for people to buy, create jobs to increase employment, and drive economic growth. Thus, science is good for our economy’. The impact science message stated: ‘perhaps even more important, science identifies the harmful impacts of technology on: the natural environment, the medical health of individuals, and the well-being of our communities. Thus, science is good for environmental protection and our public health’.
Liberals report much greater trust in scientists engaged in impact science activities than their conservative counterparts, but conservatives actually report greater trust in scientists engaged in production science activities than their liberal counterparts.
Obama was against spying on citizens before he was for it …
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/745422-obama-co-sponsor-s-2088.html#document/p2/a112741
But now …
Our Government Has Weaponized the Internet. Here’s How They Did It
By Nicholas Weaver
11.13.13
9:30 AM
Photo: Andreas H / Flickr
The internet backbone — the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels — went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active weapon for attacks.
According to revelations about the QUANTUM program, the NSA can “shoot” (their words) an exploit at any target it desires as his or her traffic passes across the backbone. It appears that the NSA and GCHQ were the first to turn the internet backbone into a weapon; absent Snowdens of their own, other countries may do the same and then say, “It wasn’t us. And even if it was, you started it.”
If the NSA can hack Petrobras, the Russians can justify attacking Exxon/Mobil. If GCHQ can hack Belgacom to enable covert wiretaps, France can do the same to AT&T. If the Canadians target the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Chinese can target the U.S. Department of the Interior. We now live in a world where, if we are lucky, our attackers may be every country our traffic passes through except our own.
Which means the rest of us — and especially any company or individual whose operations are economically or politically significant — are now targets. All cleartext traffic is not just information being sent from sender to receiver, but is a possible attack vector.
Here’s how it works.
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/11/this-is-how-the-internet-backbone-has-been-turned-into-a-weapon/
https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/401850245098655744
neglecting to mention
1. a 25% VAT , 15% on food and beverages.. the largest source of revenue
2. a flat rate on capital.
A post Oil Norway may not be sustainable, so our polluting ways make a welfare state based on Oil possible. They should thank the Human Carbon Volcano.
Steven Mosher said:
“They should thank the Human Carbon Volcano.”
____
Very perceptive. A great many of us alive today have the HCV to thank. it is the sole reason that the human population has swelled to 7+ billion and growing.
Given that you think people are the problem, why don’t you selflessly do your bit by reducing the worlds population by one.
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/08/17/joking-about-suicide/
It’s not about suicide – it’s about attitude
Cline Shale: Another Home Run For U.S. Shale Oil?
…
The most recent results in the Wolfcamp and Cline plays – that are still in their infancy when compared to the Bakken or even the Eagle Ford – indicate that the Permian may be able to match the other two basins in terms of well productivity. Particularly impressive are the results from the Cline Shale play (the cross-section below) which is deeper and less delineated than the Wolfcamp and has been viewed with some skepticism.
…
Pioneer’s tests are particularly important as they prove that the Cline Shale can be equally prolific on the Western side, extending the play 50-60 miles to the west and northwest across the basin (the slide below shows some of the best wells drilled by Pioneer, Apache and Laredo; these wells effectively delineate a vast area in between for the Cline Shale play). Pioneer believes that the Cline in Midland County could be as productive as it is in Glasscock County, while Martin County may exhibit somewhat lower EURs, around or above the company’s 500-MBoe type curve. Also impressive is the consistently high oil content in the Cline, which is deeper and thermally more mature than the Wolfcamp above (Cline wells start off with a bit higher gas-oil ratios, which are in the 1,500-2,000 range versus the Wolfcamp at around 1,000 gas-oil ratio).
…
Clearly, the four wells reported by Pioneer do not make a sample and need to accumulate sufficient production histories so that meaningful EUR estimates can be established. Still, the results are nothing short of spectacular and compare favorably to the best results by Laredo and Apache.
Laredo And Apache Advance The Cline Play in the East
On the eastern side of the basin, Laredo and Apache have drilled to date a total of approximately 60 Cline Shale wells. The results have been improving consistently.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1839552-cline-shale-another-home-run-for-u-s-shale-oil
Scanning Walter Starck’s linked piece in The Quadrant, I was…undistressed…until I came to the following criticism of alarmist climatology. Sic:
Huh? Let me take a shot at what I think he means:
Not the best possible phrasing to be sure, but IMHO better than Starck’s.
It’s also easier, faster, and cheaper to do a statistical study rather than gather data. We need to divert money from some of the climate modelling efforts and put it into selective data gathering.
Pure-play E&P firm Concho Resources (CXO) is a relatively younger and nimble independent oil and gas producer with big plans. Concho, with an approximate $11 billion market capitalization, was executing horizontal drilling early in the Permian Basin. Since 2011, the firm has drilled and completed 211 wells in six target zones in the Northern part of the Delaware Basin, its most active area of operations. (The map below and a table further down details the six zones, which are updated from the last reporting on Concho.)
…
A new mega-well near the border, in the 2nd Bone Springs interval, boasts a peak 24-hour rate of 4,500 boepd and after 20 days, 3,700 boepd, with a 4600-foot lateral. (Note 2nd Bone Springs findings in table below compared with an earlier table. CXO has broken out the three Bone Springs intervals.) The well cost $6.8 million, has an expected ultimate recovery rate of 1 million barrels, and is expected to pay-out in less than six months. It is considered to be potentially a “historic Permian well.” The Bone Springs interval is a relative newcomer to the unfolding shale story.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1837322-delaware-basin-activities-furthering-conchos-permian-plans
Cultural Processing of Climate Science
When analyzing complex scientific information, people are “boundedly rational,” to use Nobel Memorial Prize economist Herbert Simon’s phrase; we are “cognitive misers,” according to UCLA psychologist Susan Fiske and Princeton University psychologist Shelley Taylor, with limited cognitive ability to fully investigate every issue we face. People everywhere employ ideological filters that reflect their identity, worldview, and belief systems. These filters are strongly influenced by group values, and we generally endorse the position that most directly reinforces the connection we have with others in our referent group—what Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan refers to as “cultural cognition.” In so doing, we cement our connection with our cultural groups and strengthen our definition of self. This tendency is driven by an innate desire to maintain a consistency in beliefs by giving greater weight to evidence and arguments that support preexisting beliefs, and by expending disproportionate energy trying to refute views or arguments that are contrary to those beliefs. Instead of investigating a complex issue, we often simply learn what our referent group believes and seek to integrate those beliefs with our own views.
Over time, these ideological filters become increasingly stable and resistant to change through multiple reinforcing mechanisms. First, we’ll consider evidence when it is accepted or, ideally, presented by a knowledgeable source from our cultural community; and we’ll dismiss information that is advocated by sources that represent groups whose values we reject. Second, we will selectively choose information sources that support our ideological position. For example, frequent viewers of Fox News are more likely to say that the Earth’s temperature has not been rising, that any temperature increase is not due to human activities, and that addressing climate change would have deleterious effects on the economy.5 One might expect the converse to be true of National Public Radio listeners. The result of this cultural processing and group cohesion dynamics leads to two overriding conclusions about the climate change debate.
First, climate change is not a “pollution” issue. Although the US Supreme Court decided in 2007 that greenhouse gases were legally an air pollutant, in a cultural sense, they are something far different. The reduction of greenhouse gases is not the same as the reduction of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, or particulates. These forms of pollution are man-made, they are harmful, and they are the unintended waste products of industrial production. Ideally, we would like to eliminate their production through the mobilization of economic and technical resources. But the chief greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is both man-made and natural. It is not inherently harmful; it is a natural part of the natural systems; and we do not desire to eliminate its production. It is not a toxic waste or a strictly technical problem to be solved. Rather, it is an endemic part of our society and who we are. To a large degree, it is a highly desirable output, as it correlates with our standard of living. Greenhouse gas emissions rise with a rise in a nation’s wealth, something all people want. To reduce carbon dioxide requires an alteration in nearly every facet of the economy, and therefore nearly every facet of our culture. To recognize greenhouse gases as a problem requires us to change a great deal about how we view the world and ourselves within it. And that leads to the second distinction.
Climate change is an existential challenge to our contemporary worldviews.
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/climate_science_as_culture_war
The excerpt from the Greenpeace article is good. But how hypocritical!. e.g.
What are they doing to change their approach? What are they doing to recant and change their policies. Not much sign of a change in policy on their we site. They’re still boasting about their claimed victories: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/victories/
Remember the famous cover of one of their magazines with the title: “Love | Hate” above the pictures of a wind turbine and a nuclear power plant.
This is full of their anti nuke activities: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/greenpeace/2012/AnnualReport2011.pdf
What hypocrites!
From The New Yorker (yes, I know … )
For this week’s issue of the magazine, I [Michael Specter] wrote about the Climate Corporation, a company that is trying to deploy a vast and growing trove of data to help farmers cope with the increasingly severe fluctuations in weather caused by climate change, in much the way that Google organizes and presents the world’s information.
[ … ]
While I was reporting the piece, David Friedberg, the Climate Corporation’s thirty-three-year-old chief executive, told me that Monsanto had agreed to purchase the company for about a billion dollars. The deal was finalized last week. The Climate Corporation, which has nearly two hundred scientists trying to make sense of fifty terabytes of weather data every day, will continue to operate as an independent unit, but I was surprised at Friedberg’s decision, because many food activists consider Monsanto to be the definitively evil corporation. Friedberg was not prepared for the response from his family, friends, and colleagues. (“When I shared the news with my dad recently, his first reaction was, ‘Monsanto? The most evil company in the world? I thought you were trying to make the world a BETTER place?’”)
Friedberg is deeply methodical; his research led him to believe that the common view of Monsanto was simply wrong. He wrote a letter to everyone who works for the Climate Corporation explaining the decision, and he has agreed to let me post it here. It is frank and explicit: “I am not the kind of person that would take easily to partnering with a company that ‘poisons the world’s food system,’ lays waste to the land, puts farmers out of business, or creates a monoculture that threatens the global food supply,” he writes.
It is not possible to assert publicly that Monsanto is anything other than venal without being accused of being a sellout, a fraud, or worse.
[ … ]
Say something enough times and everyone thinks it’s the truth.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/11/why-the-climate-corporation-sold-itself-to-monsanto.html
Please read the whole thing.
The Climate Corporation
Better Data. Better Decisions.
The most advanced way to get insight into your fields.
http://www.climate.com/
Liberals believe all companies are evil and that most of the people who work for companies are evil.
That is not the way it is. Evil and good people are distributed and you will find them on all the different sides of any disagreement.
The so called evil companies do much more good than the evil people who constantly accuse them of being evil.
An half-Chewbacca:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/15/eternal-austerity-makes-sense-if-rich-david-cameron
Like when James Watt placed a side condenser in a Thomas Newcomen steam engine and decreased coal consumption by two thirds?
https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/401878545552506880
When it comes to this chart, there is more than just the Maunder Minimum on it, there is also the Dalton minimum. So, unless one stipulates that low sunspot numbers cause volcanoes that in turn cause cooling, I’m not seeing why there shouldn’t be a sunspot number – global temperature connection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
…
In that nuclear world, the simple, natural process of promoting one’s product and urging its widespread use was turned upside down.
Fear of The Bomb and mistrust of the Government after Viet Nam
led to a turbulent, litigious society. Raucous public participation in
the government’s decision making became popular.
In this volatile situation, nuclear advocates and regulators
gratuitously issued wildly exaggerated stories of the dangers of radiation and nuclear power, and urged the public to fear it.
One of the very first decisions of the new U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in 1947 was that steps should be taken to
curb the “unwarranted public enthusiasm for nuclear
power.” Thirty years later, the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) was formed, its regulatory responsibilities transferred to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission so that DOE was then empowered to promote nuclear energy relieved of any need to appear
neutral.
In 1982, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission hired the Sandia atomic bomb laboratory to prepare a table, listing each of the 130 nuclear plants then built or planned, and calculate deaths, cancer cases and dollars damage for the “maximum accident” (defined for that study as a situation physically impossible to achieve). Each of these cases computed a hypothetical death toll of up to hundreds of thousands of
deaths . This study and the associated publicity were gratuitous, not in response to any public demand, and timed to hit the Sunday news editions for maximum impact.
…
I told him I believe the term has done great harm; that excellence should be sold on its own merits; that the Satanic myth implies (intentionally or not) that several hundred years of engineering experience with “ordinary machinery” will never be quite good enough for nuclear work. This would lead to improvising untested solutions, without drawing on the very type of
engineering experience most needed. Adding unnecessary “safety features
” to protect against hypothesized events that can be shown to be physically unachievable, does not make a plant safer, just more complicated, more expensive, and prone to avoidable accidents.
This safety philosophy is enshrined in the Price-Anderson Act, based on the dubious premise that a nuclear power casualty (not a bomb) could overwhelm the financial resources of the world’s insurance companies..
This unique law is cited in other kinds of insurance policies —
automobile, house, business, etc. — noting that those policies do not
cover a nuclear reactor disaster. Ironically, the insurance industry knows from its own statistics based on nearly three generations of hum
an experience, that the nuclear industry is one of the safest –
safer than many clerical jobs
http://atomicinsights.com/wp-content/uploads/Rockwell_History_Nuclear_Regs.pdf
The fear has spurred regulations that make nuclear energy expensive. This fear has been also promulgated by environmental groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.
This quote from the nuclear article is interesting when applied to climate science:
“The causes of this fear-mongering are many. The military incentive to describe their weapons in fearful tones is clear and valid. The motivations of civilian atomic scientists are less obvious, but are long
-standing and widespread. Many scientists are paid, like doctors and lawyers, to work on problems, not to solve them. When the problem is
solved, the money stops. This situation gives such scientists a strong incentive to discover problems, and to characterize the problems as difficult, dangerous and mysterious. “
It seems the challenge was to make other fuels such as coal and oil as dangerous as nuclear. Look, burning coal is worse than we thought. It can endanger the planet by warming it too much. We have now found that CO2 is dangerous and have to study it.
“In this volatile situation, nuclear advocates and regulators gratuitously issued wildly exaggerated stories of the dangers of radiation and nuclear power, and urged the public to fear it.”
There does seem some similarities in the way it’s played out. What could have contributed to any similarities? Perhaps just human nature.
With atomic research, there was probably a moment where rational people realized they were going to see a new powerful weapon built and tested and it might work.
While understandably a difficult thing to be a part of seeing what followed, it would also be to be a part of an important change, something historic, to be famous maybe.
Is that comparable to the that CO2 moment with the first ice cores that showed the correlation? They perhaps thought, with this thing, we can do that thing.
Jim2,
Yes. And here’s indications as to how much effect it has had on the cost of nuclear energy:
The development of nuclear has been slowed by costly regulatory restrictions:
http://www.eprg.group.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/eprg0723.pdf
Professor Bernard Cohen showed in 1990 that regulatory ratcheting had increased the cost of nuclear by a factor of four up to that time. Regultory ratcheting since then has probably double the cost of nuclear energy, for a total cost increase of a factor of eight. Reducing regulation and licencing costs and delays will not greatly reduce the cost of the current generation of reactors. But it can greatly reduce the cost of future designs, and the operating costs. It can greatly increase the learning rate. It will take decades to take full effect on the cost of electricity, but that explains why it is so important to get on with it.
Bernard Cohen (1990) ’Cost of nuclear power plants – what went wrong’
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html
More from the article:
“Looking to bomb-makers as the voice of nuclear reactor safety gives a distorted picture, and the opera, Dr. Atomic carried that bias to the limit.
When I and my contemporaries were choosing careers, physics was
considered a pure and almost holy world, beholden only to the Platonic laws of the universe. The Bomb changed all that. Physicists were now
the creators, and thus the stewards, of this terrible beast, and they
could help to harness it, or they could threaten to run off and study butterflies, as some did. But they were no longer free to plead ignorance. And further examination showed glimpses of possible cancer cures, elimination of food poisoning, and whole new worlds of medical research and therapy, in addition to a clean and abundant energy source of
virtually limitless availability. Yet we chose to tell people to fear it.”
https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/401880455907008512
That, of course, was the old concern:
http://www.ptmsc.org/orca_contamination.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=salmon-to-blame-for-poisoned-killer-whales
Thank you Bill Gates:
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2013/03/why-wont-bill-gates-respond-to.html
So why would any self-proclaimed “philanthropist” out to do “good” in the world link himself and his philanthropic foundation to this company?
Well, Bill Gates has done just that.
Gates via his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation bought 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock in 2010 worth approximately $23 million dollars.
It seems reasonable to ask Bill Gates himself why his Foundation has invested in Monsanto and why the Foundation is promoting Monsanto products the world over via their “philanthropic efforts.”
Bill Gates parading as the great philanthropist:
http://techrights.org/2013/05/28/marching-against-monopoly/
Indeed, and it seems reasonable to ask what is the theory of revolution:
http://mind.ofdan.ca/the-theory-of-revolution
Yes, quite a QuadRANT.
Interesting that fact-free political polemics “catch” Judiths eye.
Also interesting that the polemics that catch her eye come from one area of the political spectrum only.
But please don’t think that might suggest that political perspective is somehow associated with her perspectives on scientific evidence.
Of course not. It’s just a funny coincidence. Only those who disagree with Judith are biased by their political orientation.
Well if you’d taken notice the first two articles above are from about as far from each other on the spectrum as you can get. Your talking nonsense!
Joshua,
I have been accused of being a bit to the right of Attila the Hun, and also a bit to the left of Karl Marx. I’ll admit to both, and pretty much everything in between.
What’s that got to do with physically impossible CO2 induced “global warming”?
Do I “agree” with Prof. Curry or not? Who cares? Facts don’t care whether you agree with them or not. If you think you can make a fact go away by disagreeing with it, go your hardest. Let me know how you get on.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
ordvid –
Oops.
oops X 2.
That should be ordvic (where does that come from, anyway?)
Joshua,
To be fair to you, only one of those articles could possibly be classified as a polemic.
Josh, Thanks for asking, its’ a take off of the ordovician period in the paleozoic. The CO2 was at 4200ppm. Temperatures then really plunged but CO2 didn’t*. It was also major extinction period:
Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the Cambrian, although the end of the period was marked by a significant mass extinction. Invertebrates, namely mollusks and arthropods, dominated the oceans. Fish, the world’s first true vertebrates, continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. Life had yet to diversify on land.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordovician
*Dr. Scotese’s chart:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/co2_temperature_historical.png
The Celestial Teapot (from which all Knowledge pours) has given unto me, to say to all Teapotists and other faiths as follows : –
“Forgive misguided Warmists,
They know not what they do,
Forgive them twice, yea even thrice,
They haven’t got a clue.”
Thus saith the Teapot (from which all Knowledge pours).
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
+100
)
broad claims that ‘conservatives distrust science’ or ‘conservatives oppose science’.
Yes, conservatives distrust corrupt science. Liberals espouse it.
The former are old farts who still think it should be about truth and objectivity. The latter think it should know its place and be the servant of politics, from whence its funds come.
That, broadly, is today’s climate science in a nutshell.
Michael and Joshua are precisely the sort of Warmists Who Can’t Help themselves that article was about. Score +1 for profiling.
Just curious, Gail. What is it that makes me a “warmist?”
Or perhaps I should rephrase that (as it leaves me very open for snark).
What is it about my views on climate change that makes you think I am a “warmist?”
Do you even know what my views are on climate change? If so, do tell.
Joshua
Do you even know what my views are on climate change?
You’re a reliably credulous CAGW truebeliever, rah-rah-rahing with the best of them, incensed at the blasphemy that is scepticism.
Gail –
Nope. Let me remind you that to formulate conclusions w/o evidence is “skepticism,” not skepticism.
In other words, Gail. You have no evidence that I am a “credulous CAGW believer.” You have no evidence that I am “rah-rahing.” You have no evidence that I consider skepticism to be “blasphemy.”
None. Nada. Zilch.
In other words, you’ve got bubkis.
Arguments such as that you just presented gives skepticism a bad name.
Joshua,
Floundering in self-righteous indignation? Time to put on your “big boy pants” Josh.
Time for him to understand that curiosity about the science trumps whatever cards he has up his sleeve.
=========
Joshua does have an old post that explains his views on AGW and if I remember correctly, a problem I have sometimes, he is not firmly in either camp.
Joshua
You have no evidence that I am a “credulous CAGW believer.” You have no evidence that I am “rah-rahing.” You have no evidence that I consider skepticism to be “blasphemy.”
None. Nada. Zilch.
In other words, you’ve got bubkis.
True. Other than all your posts, that is.
Gail hasn’t been here that long. Joshua is not an AWGer or anything else but an auditor of logic :)
Gail,
Unintentionally ironic, that ranting polemic is chock full of “exaggeration, misrepresentation, smear and scorn”.
The great Achilles heel of the Warmist movement is that it needs “climate impacts [to] intensify” somewhere other than inside their most erroneous models. Hence the desperate scrambles to appropriate every infrequent extreme event as a new “trend-setter”. Unfortunately, such events do occur occasionally. It’s their nature. Fortunately, they are mostly occurring even less frequently than they used to. Oops.
How long before government ‘science’ blames inflation on CO2 I wonder ?
Joshua
Also interesting that the polemics that catch her eye come from one area of the political spectrum only.
So the MSM being saturated for 20+ years with a leftist/totalitarian-inspired alarmist drumbeat not enough for you? Poor boy.
They are addicted to the constant drumbeat of CAGW, if it tapers slightly (like the threat of Fed’s QE tapering), dramatic changes in behavior occur…
At Stephen Mosher
You wrote:-
1. starting in 1850 the effect of C02 was laid out by scientists. C02 restricts the escape of radiation back to space. The earth cools by
radiation to space.
2. In the 1890s it was hypothesized that if C02 was increased the world
would over time warm.
3. We increased C02
4. The world warmed.
I write:-
1 Cows have four legs.
2 Cows are animals
3 All animals have four legs
QED
By the way you seem to have forgotten that despite increasing CO2 emissions global warming has not increased?
This is The Week in Review, and no-one seems to have mentioned the UN FCCC, COP 19 meeting taking place in Warsaw Poland. There is not much information available, but what little there is makes me wonder what is happening. It certainly does not look like science or even politics. It looks more like theatre, but I am not sure whether they are presenting a melodrama or a farce.
The scientists from the rich nations have taken some hypothetical, meaningless estimations and claimed that as we add more CO2 to the air, this will inevitably lead to a complete disaster. The politicians from these same rich nations have believed them, and called for a drastic reduction in the amount of CO2 we produce.
But the poor nations have taken another approach. With impeccable logic, they argue that the rich nations have caused the alleged problem, and the rich nations must pay; to the tune of $100 billion per year. Hopefully, the rich nations, including Canada, will refuse to cough up any new money at all,.let alone $100 billion per year.
Isn’t it about time that a politician or scientist who really matters, and who has some gonads, stands up and shouts from the roof tops, that it is about time we used the limited empirical data we have to bring this nonsensical hoax of CAGW to a grinding halt?
But our scientists have been so incredibly stupid, that it is not going to happen any time soon. We are going to have to wait until the empirical data disproving CAGW is overwhelming, and that could take decades.
Nothing is going to happen at all on the scientific front.
The lesson from Copenhagen was that the BRICs are less concerned about global warming than the prosperity of their peoples. It was useful for them to allow the Developed West’s self-imposed guilt trip to both recompense the less developed and to do economic damage to the more developed.
China’s chagrin at the failure of the shakedown then was marvelously covered by them with expressions of outrage at the neo-colonialist bunglings of one Obama.
Same song, second verse in Poland. Obama is absent; how will the BRICs save face this time?
===================
kim, you write “Same song, second verse”
When we sang that round the campfire, we added “A little bit louder, and a little bit worse”
I feel incredibly embarrassed for my gender based on the representative commenters here (Stacey, Kim, Beth, Gail, etc). I can only assume that the less gullible of our group stays away from this blog for good reason.
Louise blushes so prettily pink.
======
Louise,
Why the hell should the female denizens be any less irrational and nutty than their male counterparts??
What that what is known as an “ad hominem attack?” Does anyone know? Is it rational?
I just think most of the sane ones are staying away – I only drop in here occasionally now and it nearly always results in a face/palm moment from Gail, Kim, Beth,, etc.
I just don’t know how the sane males posting here have the staying power.
Louise – exactly who are these “sane” women to whom you refer? There have been several female scientists posting her. Are those the irrational ones?
Gosh jim2, have you no powers of deduction? “Most” sane ones are staying away (i.e. not all). The ones that post here most frequently, i.e. those that I have named are clearly not staying away, ergo…
Clearly, Louise. It’s clear, alright!
I think your observation simply reflects the fact that fewer women choose science and math as a degree or profession than men.
The meaning of it is demeaning. I blush, Louise, oh, boy.
=========
Do you think that the proportion of women to men with math or science in degree or profession is similar to the proportion of women to men who post comments on this blog?
A “simpl[e] reflection.”
Methinks the relationship is a tad more complex.
OK, Joshua. What do you think it is?
The reason that you dont know how the sane males posting here have the staying power is because you are not a male. If you were, you would.
In this case, “ad herminem”
“I just don’t know how the sane males posting here have the staying power.”
probably says more about the men you know than you care to admit.
Louise has strong opinions but is weak in rhetoric and suffering from too much confirmation bias on AGW and a distinct lack of any sense of humour. Seriously, she probably should stay away from this blog and not be subject to the shameful outpourings of our merry sisterhood of serfs.
Do not, Louise, try to tell a book by its cover (Stacey, Kim, Beth, Gail, Mosher, etc). All alpha males with few exceptions. Take a tip from J K Rowling if you really want a level playing field. Louise?, purleese!
Not forgetting our stalwart Girma too, of course.
It’s not the length of the measure which brings the pause out of the magician’s hat, but rather the skillfulness of the wiggler.
===========
Kim, you found the whole thing out. Please, please don’t tell.
Happy ter be
lumped in
with kim,
what – evah
-gendah,
her or
him
is kim!
Beth the serf.
Kim! That comment should have been moderated! :)
I can but apologise for the half-wit Louise, whose comically engorged self-importance is such a slur on our sex.
Gender embarrassment lol.
(Jim2): Obama and his Fed have helped corporations but not the rest of us with his policies.
From the article:
Spot the striking similarity.
Below is the US Employment to Population ratio – a nearly perfect, multi-decade low flatline since Lehman…
… And compare it to the NYSE stock index divided by the Fed’s balance sheet: a nearly perfect, multi-decade low flatline since Lehman…
Funny how the phrases “improving unemployment” and “record stock market” are so dependent on one’s perspective… and the denominator.
But even that pales in comparison to the one real winner from the “New Normal”: (Jim2 – chart here of corporate profits.)
Oh, the link:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-16/spot-striking-similarity
Reminds me of this:
http://kristinhoppe.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/139092366_ce5b410228_o.jpg
So much for Obama’s “socialist” policies aimed at “stealing” money from the “producers” to give it to the “moochers,” eh?
Well, Joshua, it’s really a matter of magnitude. The corporations aren’t giving money to the moochers. It’s the Middle Class from which Obama takes and the moochers to which he gives that money.
“So much for Obama’s “socialist” policies aimed at “stealing” money from the “producers” to give it to the “moochers,” eh?”
Joshua doesn’t comment. He seeps.
Yuck.
https://twitter.com/KenCaldeira/status/402208048061509632
Ocean warming increases the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, not man.
During El Nino years (1988,1998 and 2010) , that amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere increases compared to during La Nina years (1997, 2000, and 2008)).
Here is the data that shows the above relationship.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/compress:12/normalise/plot/esrl-co2/compress:12/derivative/normalise:7/from:1979
Trying to control the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is a fool’s errand.
Fortunately, the level doesn’t seem to make much difference, except to the plants, and whatever warming effect is certainly better than a cooling one.
==========
Except of course Girma, you forget that the oceans have been absorbing, not outgassing CO2, as the HCV (Human Carbon Volcano) has become so active. As an important report on the global oceans coming out this week will report– the oceans are in trouble and humans are the cause. This fact does not set well with those who like to think that we puny humans have no control over the planet. It causes distress in their meta-memeplex.
More articles are comparing the social phenomenon surrounding Global Warming to religions (indeed discussed here per the post of Nov 7th). Articles like the above are also converging on the existnence of narrative wars. Only one more step to go: the phenomenon *is* the narratve, which has beome distanced from anything that may be happening in the actual climate. The “Warmists can’t stop themselves” because they are not in the ultimate driving seat; the narrative is.
“Let me be exactly clear about what health care reform means to you,” the president told residents of the Garden State. “First of all, if you’ve got health insurance, you like your doctors, you like your plan, you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you.”
President Barack Hussein Obama
https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/401853709514055680
I blame Bush for not getting Obamacare done. Look at the mess he left it in.
========
Willard
I know I am going to regret asking, but why should Blockbuster be closing due to Obamacare rather than that their business model is now outdated due to online offerings?
tonyb
Nearly five years out of office and he’s still menacing business models.
=====
Yes, it was all Obama’s fault that Blockbuster is closing. The fact of the rapid change in technology with video-on-demand, on demand movies, Netflix, Hulu and Hulu+, web video streaming, etc., all have nothing to do with it.
OK, Willard. You have achieved your goal. You have muddied the waters with the Blockbuster cartoon. Blockbuster went the way of the horse and buggy and the steam locomotive. It’s business model was overtaken by the internet.
Willard,
I know there is a bunch of junk (and highly entertaining silliness) propaganda being put out about Obamacare but your pointing it out here doesn’t seem to have had the right effect judging from the comments or does it?
Jim D: When it comes to health insurance, cheap imitations should not be allowed to be sold, and now won’t.
Give a thought to the millions of policies that the insurance companies are no longer selling, and the additional millions that have not been bought by companies and individuals because they are not as cheap as they were. Higher premiums, higher deductibles, and millions fewer total insurance policies in effect.
Without the oft repeated lie, or “inaccurate promise” as the NYT called it, would the law have passed in the first place? Woulld Obama have been re-elected? Of course we shall never know, but the Senate Dems up for re-election are not acting especially proud of their record of support for it.
Yes, he should have added the qualifier “as long as your insurance company keeps it”. Who would have guessed that the legislation didn’t force insurance companies to keep these types of policies, or that people would still want them so much? I think they’ll get over it. The poorer ones, affected most, will have subsidies for their new better policies too. We need to hear the genuine hardship stories, and not just righty politicians complaining as though they really suddenly care that everyone has health insurance, while at the same time not caring about the Medicaid expansion. It is one of these hypocritical crises that the conservatives like to manufacture these days.
And what would be the “right effect”, Ordvic?
Here’s would be a “right effect”:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-republicans-rig-the-game-20131111
Perhaps we should call this a “far-right effect”?
Obamacare is removing the right of people to make poor insurance decisions that could bankrupt them. Insurance companies had the legal right under the law to grandfather these policies, but thought better of it, I would hope on moral grounds, but I suspect not. Many of them used the opportunity to drop people and write scary letters offering gold-level policies as a replacement. It was a selling opportunity that has benefited from the marketplace not working properly yet.
Making decisions makes markets; absent that the marketplace will never work properly.
Oh what a legacy, long-lasting, ever failing. What wondrous light has been wrought.
==========
When it comes to health insurance, cheap imitations should not be allowed to be sold, and now won’t.
Jim D: Insurance companies had the legal right under the law to grandfather these policies, but thought better of it,
Really? According to Steny Hoyer and many news arrticles, the Senate Dems killed an amendment to the law, in 2010, that would have given the insurance companies that right to do that, for all insurance companies not just those of the unions. Details are complex, but almost none of the voters understood that, under the law, the routine annual changes constituted “new policies” with a requirement of more coverages that necessity nearly doubling the premiums. The loss of policies, in the millions, has been ongoing for years now: spouses and families noncovered, full-timers reassigned to part-time.
Very few people have policies still in effect from the grandfathering limit of March 2010, true. Most of the speeches were made prior to the signing of the bill and are rather out of date being quoted now after those policies came to term. Healthcare.gov says what the criteria are for grandfathered policies, so I guess some people still have them. I don’t know how individual insurance works, but I guess those old policies would need to be renegotiated periodically because they excluded pre-existing conditions, and needed to change rates anyway.
Jim D:
“When it comes to health insurance, cheap imitations should not be allowed to be sold, and now won’t.”
I assume you’re referring to high deductible health plans (HDHPs), though I can’t be sure. I’ve had one of these for many years, as I am self employed and 3 others in my family to provide healthcare to. I’ve said before that an HDHP combined with a health spending account (HSA) is/was one of the stars in the midst of a difficult problem. Many companies had moved in this direction. Now the ACA seems to be degrading this star. Pushing it towards more the fuller coverage model, which is likely to raise my premiums and for some things effectively lower my out of pocket costs. While the HDHP/HSA model distances one from their insurance company, and puts the consumer more in control, this drift backwards reduces options. I don’t consider how I covered my family for many years prior to the ACA an imitation of coverage. I was myself thinking I would and I could take care of the situation. In many ways and situations the HDHP/HSA model fits and works. It solved a problems. When people say we should do something about health insurance companies, some of us did do something about it. We took on more risk with our high deductible. We cut them out of some of the money, and then some of us banked the money saved on premiums, and used that as we needed it for our medical bills. While we might agree that some are less responsible, why would that be the controlling factor? Are we confident that a majority of us cannot act responsibly? I think we need to consider more solutions, not less options. More standardization is often not the best answer. It’s customization. What can I do to help you? You specifically. What is it that you need? The ACA looks more like, This is what I have to sell. Now I can try to convince you that this is what you need. It’s politicians selling what they have to sell, not necessarily what a specific individual needs.
Ragnaar, I also have an HDHP with an HSA and am hoping to keep it, as it is supported by my employer for next year too. I think these are legal, and I don’t see a reason for excluding them. No, what I mean by cheap imitations are the ones that have a cap on annual or lifetime payments, or that can refuse to cover an expense if you didn’t fill out your application correctly. HDHPs have a cap on how much you pay, not how much they pay. Much preferable.
Jim D:
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2012/07/27/hsas-losing-luster-under-obamacare
While the date above is troublesome, I haven’t found a ‘never mind’ article explaining the 60% requirement as now being waived.
“One of these requirements is the actuarial value threshold, which is used to divide health insurance plans into tiers. For example, in the individual and small-business markets, a health insurance plan providing a gold level of coverage must have an actuarial value of 80%, meaning that plan must pay for 80% of each insured’s health expenses. The lowest permissible level is the bronze level, which must have an actuarial value of 60%.”
“While a portion of employer contributions to an employee’s HSA may be counted in determining actuarial value, an individual’s contributions are not included.”
The immediate above says, while in some cases within limits the HSA contributions can save the plan from being disqualified, in others it is doomed. In the case of a doomed plan, the likely result is movement towards a fuller coverage plan. In some cases, the higher premiums may break things. Some people will not be able to afford it. Their break will be to drop coverage.
We also see the familiar, makes no sense rules. Why a portion? Why disparate treatment of employer versus employee contributions?
Further makes no sense rule. Why is that some people cannot contribute to HSAs? They don’t have HDHPs, they have more fuller coverage. What would be wrong if they could put away $1000 a year into one? This is one direction we could go, now. And if the individual gets a $1000 write off on their taxes is that going do us more harm than the benefit we get for people having some more savings?
Perhaps the Republicans dropped the ball in not going for more individualized solutions as part of the ACA that we got.
And, what is your opinion of your current arrangement as it exists pre-enactment?
Jim D: I don’t know how individual insurance works, but I guess those old policies would need to be renegotiated periodically because they excluded pre-existing conditions, and needed to change rates anyway.
You don’t know how individual insurance works? Do you know how group health insurance works?
Jim D: I also have an HDHP with an HSA and am hoping to keep it, as it is supported by my employer for next year too. I think these are legal, and I don’t see a reason for excluding them
A lot of people have thought that, and a lot of people have been wrong. It doesn’t matter whether you think it is legal, what matters is whether the Administration thinks it is legal.
In group insurance, they don’t care about pre-existing conditions or age, etc., because they have a pool and everyone pays the same into it. In old-style individual insurance this is not the case, and people pay different amounts depending on several factors. Is that what you are asking?
It would be fair to limit the deductible on an HDHP. If you know what the plans are, I’m interested. My deductible rises next year, but I haven’t heard anything about a big change.
Jim D: In group insurance, they don’t care about pre-existing conditions or age, etc.,
That is wrong. Where did you learn it.
When it comes to health insurance, think quality, think Obamacare.
Think Obamacare – think expensive.
Think Obamacare – think byzantine regulations and multiple layers of new taxes …
…
“The tax is basically a head tax – a set dollar fee for every person covered by the medical plan. Those responsible for the tax must file a Form 720; happily, there are instructions as well as 16 pages of guidance and regulations – and finally, a most helpful IRS webpage devoted to this tax.”
…
My back-of-the-envelope w.a.g. is that this will impose on some business owners a $7 cost for every $1 raised by the government. I would be delighted to hear from accountants what they view as the time/cost of compliance for this (and not forgetting that the IRS will now have to review this – which means the joy of audit and examination as well. “I want my two dollars.” Happy day).
…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/deanzerbe/2013/09/12/affordable-care-act-three-taxes-and-paperwork-no-one-is-talking-about/
More Obamacare joy …
“A Call for Less Affordable Care Act IRS Paperwork
The Business Roundtable has urged the Internal Revenue Service to reduce the paperwork companies will need to file to show Affordable Care Act compliance, saying planned reporting requirements are burdensome.
At the close of a comment period Friday on ACA employer reporting, the Business Roundtable—an association of more than 200 chief executive officers from major U.S. companies—told the IRS in a letter that businesses can show they provide health insurance that meets minimum value standards at a reasonable price to their employees without extensive documentation. Under the ACA provision known as the “employer mandate,” companies with at least 50 full-time employees are required to offer affordable health insurance to their workers or risk fines after January 2015.”
http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/11/a-call-for-less-affordable-care-act-irs-paperwork.html
Obamacare – the cure for a simple life …
“The annual employer mandate fee (officially called an Employer Shared Responsibility Payment) is a per employee fee for employers with over 50 full-time equivalent employees who don’t offer health coverage to full-time employees.
• The employer mandate is based on full-time equivalent employees, not just full-time employees.
• The fee is based on whether or not you offer affordable health insurance to your employees that provides minium value (explained below).
• The annual fee is $2,000 per employee if insurance isn’t offered (the first 30 full-time employees are exempt).
• If at least one full-time employee receives a premium tax credit because coverage is either unaffordable or does not cover 60 percent of total costs, the employer must pay the lesser of $3,000 for each of those employees receiving a credit or $750 for each of their full-time employees total.
• The fee is a per month fee due annually on employer federal tax returns starting in 2015. So the per month fee is 1/12 of the $2,000 or $3,000 per employee.
• Unlike employer contributions to employee premiums, the Employer Shared Responsibility Payment is not tax deductible.
• The Internal Revenue Service has more information about the Employer Shared Responsibility Payment.”
http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-employer-mandate.php
95% of employers with over 50 employees already offer healthcare to their workers. This is about getting those stragglers in line with what 19/20 feel is just the right thing to do for their employees anyway even without legislation.
“jim2 | November 17, 2013 at 3:40 pm |
Think Obamacare – think expensive.”
Obama wasn’t as successful as he wanted with driving up the price of energy, but I think he got what he wanted with US medical insurance.
In a vacuum, I like Obamacare at least wrt to its goals. Tens of millions of uninsured Americans ain’t nothing. Aspirations for a good and merciful society in which people are given a certain measure of security are laudable. The trouble is Obamacare it likely won’t work, and even if it does will do nothing to reduce costs significantly. Those costs are a tremendous drain on our society and are ultimately unsustainable.
Also obamacare was sold and passed under false pretenses. Enough with the noble cause corruption. Can’t recall who said that it’s always the good men who cause the most harm in the world. This is not meant literally of course, It’s those who are *convinced* they’re good, and hence know better than we do what’s “good” for us, that cause so much trouble
We live in a democracy. If we don’t have the information, then we can’t make informed decisions. Obama seriously miscalculated on many levels when he lied. I’m almost convinced he’s wrecked his Presidency. nd rightly so.
“In a vacuum, I like Obamacare at least wrt to its goals.”
Obamacare’s goal is not insuring “tens of millions” of uninsured. Obama laid out his “healthcare” plan, jjust like he laid ouy his “energy” plan before he was even elected. And he is actively pursuing both.
He intends to force a “single payer”, ie. socialize dmedicine, on the US. He said so. Repeatedly. He also said, we can’t get there right away. We have to do it in stagbes.
Well, if Obamacare “worked”, why where would be the reason for implementing socialized medicine?
Obamacare is intended to wreck the health insurance industry, and deprive tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people of health insurance that they can afford. ZGovernment can then come in and rescue the voters from the crisis government itself has caused.
You have to really work at ignoring what progressives like Obama say, to be surprised that the effects of their actions are exactly what they said they were gonig to do.
“Energy prices will necessarily sky rocket.” Gee, ethanol, stopping new drilling on federal land, prohibitng nre refineries, and forcing power plants to meet impossible new regs will cause energy prices to sky rocket (all without the in put of congress by the way).
What a shock!
My preference is Medicare for all. We know it works. It can be funded through a payroll tax like Medicare, and it removes the unnecessary insurance middle man. It gives the government a better bargaining position with drug companies and care providers when they have all their customers. It motivates supporting free preventive care to save costs for everyone down the road. This doesn’t exclude people getting private insurance and private hospitals if they can afford it, just like some prefer first-class air travel or more expensive education, but it provides a basic level of healthcare that any civilized country should have anyway.
Ah, yes, JimD. Medicare is such a smashing success.
“Medicare actuary Richard Foster splashes cold water on the Trustees’ report
If you want to get a sense of how Medicare’s finances look when viewed with real-world accounting assuptions, head to Richard Foster’s “Statement of Actuarial Opinion,” which begins on page 277. “In past reports, and again this year, the Board of Trustees has emphasized the strong likelihood that actual Part B expenditures will exceed the projections under current law due to further legislative action to avoid substantial reductions in the Medicare physician fee schedule,” Foster writes.
What he means is that Medicare’s reimbursements to doctors are scheduled to drop by 31 percent on January 1, 2013. Only then is Medicare solvent until 2016/2024. If Congress passes another of its numerous “doc fixes,” Medicare’s insolvency will be even closer at hand. The optimistic insolvency estimate from the Trustees will require “unprecedented changes in health care delivery systems and payment mechanisms,” without which Medicare fees “are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs of providing those services.”
“For these reasons, the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range…or the long range,” writes Foster.
I wrote about this problem last March: how calculations of Medicare’s solvency assume drastic reductions to Medicare’s fee schedules, reductions that would cripple the ability of retirees to gain access to medical care. If we can’t even be honest about Medicare’s finances, how can we hope to ever reform the program?”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/04/23/trustees-medicare-will-go-broke-in-2016-if-you-exclude-obamacares-double-counting/
Yes, we need to expand Medicare (not), because it has been such a booming success!!
“Social Security and Medicare are still treading down a dangerous financial path.
The trustees for both entitlement programs issued their annual reports on Friday, showing—without much surprise—that a year of political gridlock did little to change the long-term challenges confronting Social Security and Medicare, which represent 38 percent of all federal spending.
The Social Security trust funds will be insolvent in 2033, the same deadline projected last year. Its disability trust fund will be exhausted by 2016, requiring reform soon, including the possibility that Social Security payroll taxes be allocated differently.
Insolvency does not mean that the supplemental income program is going broke, just that incoming tax revenue will only be able to cover slightly more than three-quarters of the government’s obligations after 2033.
Medicare’s “Hospital Insurance” trust fund faces insolvency in 2026 and will only be able to pay out 87 percent of its current obligations. Because of smaller growth in health care expenses, the date is slightly better than last year’s report when insolvency was projected for 2024.”
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/05/31/Social-Security-Medicare-Still-Face-the-Abyss#page1
https://twitter.com/medicaid/status/402206427441139712
jim2, what in your view is the critical role of the insurance man in your health treatment? Is he there for a purpose or just to siphon off some of your money? He seems to be there to bargain prices with hospitals and drug companies, which the government can do just as well and more efficiently with less bureaucracy than that spread through hundreds of insurance companies. He is also there to take and manage your premiums, again a duplication of bureaucracy that is not needed with a payroll tax and single pool. It is about the efficiency of scale.
Well, JD, you didn’t literally juxtapose government and efficiency, but you implied it. That right there should tell you something.
Speaking of corporate efficiency:
http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCABRE9AD1DV20131114
Jim D: 95% of employers with over 50 employees already offer healthcare to their workers.
In the last 2 years, almost all of those have had to increase the charges to their employees, force higher deductibles on their employees, or cancel coverage for their employees. They have stopped covering spouses, for example, or switched employees from full time to part time in order to avoid covering them.
There are all different kinds of interest groups and strata among the voters. Right now the people whom the Democrats fear the most are the swing voters.
The insurance companies didn’t oppose the public option, which was a mixed public-private market, for nothing. They knew it could undercut them or force them into lower prices. Good for the consumer, not so much for them.
So, Matthew Marler, are you against these companies having to help their employees with insurance coverage? It is not clear what you are saying in this context.
gbaikie: When it comes to health insurance, think quality, think Obamacare.
Think Mary Landrieu, Mark Pryor, Mark Begitch, Jeanne Shaheen and others trying to undo the damage that they have done to their constituents and to their careers.
Jim D: It is not clear what you are saying in this context.
1. Obama care mandated increased coverage.
2. The mandate required increased premiums or increased deductibles in order to remain actuarially sound — ie, in order to avoid running out of money part way through each year.
3. Some companies paid the increased cost; some cancelled policies that they had previously paid.
4. The cancellations were predicted in a Federal Register report written in the summer of 2010.
5 The House passed a resolution in fall of 2010 grandfathering existing insurance policies, but the Senate did not: all Republican senators voted “yea”, all Democratic senators voted “nay”.
6. The House has just passed another retroactive grandfathering resolution a few days ago. Democratic senators up for re-election in 2014 are trying to pass a resolution with similar intent now, but the Senate leadership is not supporting in and Obama has promised to veto it. (His sorrow over the cancellation of policies only goes so far. He is doing everything he can to make sure people get their old policies back except make the old policies legal.)
7. Grandfathering of insurance policies for union employees (not union members, employees of the unions like lobbyists and office workers) was permitted. In the language some are using, unions were permitted to offer, and their employees were permitted to keep, the “substandard” policies now illegal for everyone else.
As an aside, Obamacare never had majority support. Now it has a solid majority in opposition. Obamacare was the single most important factor in the Democrats losing their majority in the House in the Nov 2010 elections. Now Senate Democrats are scrambling to rescue their majority in the Senate.
JimD says: “jim2, so now you are starting to see how hard it will be to stop global warming. The next best thing is to prepare for it, knowing it will be costly. A carbon tax offers a direct method of what I would call taxation of causation, somewhat like smokers paying extra tax to support health costs of other smokers that are a drain on the system. ”
Be careful what you wish for Mr. D.
“Realists in the great land down under have finally emerged on top in rebuking epic scams that have wrought disastrous economic consequences. On September 7, the national Liberal Party (not to be confused with the American liberal brand) ousted the climate alarm-promoting Labor Party which had imposed a deeply unpopular and costly carbon tax, or so-called “carbon pricing mechanism”.
A June 2011 poll revealed that almost 60% of Australians opposed the tax, while just 28% favored the scheme (the rest undecided). As David Briggs of Galaxy polls observed: “The problem for the government is that most voters believe the personal cost outweighs the environmental benefits”. Many opponents also believed that man-made global warming theories are a “hoax”.
The resounding defeat of the Green Party-backed Labor Party following six years in power comes at a time when it is abundantly clear that the UN IPCC’s alarming computer model-based predictions of global warming got it wonderfully wrong in light of the past 15-17 years of flat temperatures despite increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. To top off that inconvenient good news, the Arctic ice sheet which was supposed to have disappeared has been rapidly expanding.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/09/29/australian-voters-energetically-reject-concocted-climate-crisis-and-carbon-tax-disasters/
The tax should not only be to promote less emission, paying for industry to implement stricter regulations on emissions, but also for other future costs, such as rising sea levels, drought alleviation, water resource replanning, food and health security, power system modernization, fuel and energy efficiency programs. Rather than leaving these costs to grow with time and come out of income tax at the expense of other programs or tax increases, it is better to pay it from its cause. As far as I can tell, the Australian government is still paying its industry to reduce emissions, but now there is not such an obvious revenue for it.
Better to pay for realized costs as they occur instead of paying costs that may or may not materialize in the future.
That is known as deficit spending. Borrow and spend, pay interest on top. Some consider this to be better, but then say it is fiscal irresponsibility when the government does it. Wouldn’t it be better to be one of those governments that has the cash ahead of time and lends it out to those who haven’t planned?
No.
Sweet Somalia:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/11/17/the_rise_and_fall_of_somalias_pirate_king.html
I love how Willard glosses over all the problems associated with jack booted governments, cultural issues, etc. to wax eloquent over the barrier of poverty and to suggest the use of his favorite hammer to solve the problem, the government using other peoples money. Why don’t you start a foundation, Willard, and use your own damn resources to solve the problem if you really think it is doable to begin with, which it probably isn’t.
I love you too, jim2:
Source: http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/
Willard(@nevaudit): And here is what O’Reilly does not tell you, the main reason politics is so bitter now is because the Tea Party has forced the Republican Party to the far-right
The reason that politics is so bitter right now is that Democrats in both Houses of Congress and in the Administration have been lying to Americans about the requirements of Obamacare, and the readiness of the system for enrollment. The Dems are in panic because they have lost they swing voters whom they had kept during the period of the lying. The Dem Senators are hypocritically scrambling to pass a law (knowing it will be vetoed) that they voted against (as an amendment) in the fall of 2010. Had they voted “yea” instead of “nay”, the grandfathering eveyone is hearing about and talking about now would have been in Obamacare when he signed it. The Federal Register reported in summer 2010 that all these cancellations would occur without the passage of that amendment. The amendment, really popular now, passed the House, but did not pass the Senate where every Republican Senator voted “yea”, and every Democratic Senator voted “nay”.
The hypocrit lying Dems make jim2 and MattStat and others do it, yet again.
In other news:
https://twitter.com/medicaid/status/402225652176138240
See also:
http://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/the-poverty-trap-slack-not-grit-creates-achievment/
Willard(@nevaudit) : As Mullainathan and Shafir explain: “Scarcity captures the mind.” And thus, children in poverty do not have such slack, and as a result, their cognitive and emotional resources are drained, preoccupied.
Your message is a little indirect. Are you trying to say that the persistently repeated lying of the Democrats in the House and Senate races, and by Obama in the presidential race, which they did in order to win their races, was morally justified?
fwiw, that is not the message we are hearing now from the Democratic senators up for re-election in 2014 — they are acting as though a huge mistake has been made, avoiding any specification of who made it.
> Are you trying to say that the persistently repeated lying of the Democrats […]
Only you are, MattStat. Well, not only you, as it’s the weekly attacking line. Lies, lies, lies.
might have been right in observing how conservatives use language to dominate politics:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
It also explains the Denizens’ discipline.
***
In other news:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/11/scott-walker-fires-early-2016-shots-ted-cruz-and-rand-paul/71685/
Lackoff might have well been right, that is.
Heh, Chief Executioner.
========
willard(@nevaudit) Only you are, MattStat. Well, not only you, as it’s the weekly attacking line. Lies, lies, lies.
NYTimes called it an “inaccurate promise”. I hope you are not telling us that the promise was accurate.
I hope you’re not trying to bulldoze your current pet peeve into my mind, MindStat.
Which reminds me of Ezra for no specific reason:
https://twitter.com/JordanTimm/status/402611644192538624
willard has really broken out his tweed jacket with the leather patches on the sleeves. If he breaks out into an acapella rendition of the L’Internatioanle, I’m outta here.
If you insist:
Matthew R. Marler,
The dodging and weaving not to cover the serial lies of “If you like your policy, you can keep your policy. Period.” now is nothing.
Wait until the employer based policies start getting canceled in the tens of millions. This is the bigger bald faced lie that the progressives, and their PR lapdogs in the “media” are still making.
But the geniuses have screwed up. The employer based policies were exempted for a year. Which means they will be canceled in November of 2014, after next years elections.
But what the wizards of smart forgot was that insurers can’t cancel policies overnight. They have to send notice, usually at least 30 days in advance. So in October, 2014, weeks before the next elections, somewhere around 93 millions cancellation notices will go out (roughly half of those currently insured through their employers).
Oh, and those aren’t the figures dreamed up by the vast right wing conspiracy. Those figures were published by our Imperial government in the Federal Register.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/10/31/obama-officials-in-2010-93-million-americans-will-be-unable-to-keep-their-health-plans-under-obamacare/
But don;t worry you progressive drones, and moderate and independent dupes. You won’t have to read about that in the progressive PR media that is the sole source of your information. And when it hits the fan next year, we will all be shocked! shocked! to learn that everybody who actually pays attention knew this all along.
Just those poor voters who only get the filtered news that’s fit to propagandize will be surprised.
At least we can remain confident that when that happens, willard will again explain that those who actually favor government by the people are really at fault for dominating the political debate..
“And here is what O’Reilly does not tell you, the main reason politics is so bitter now is because the Tea Party has forced the Republican Party to the far-right.”
You geniuses on the left have been accusing conservatives of being racist, sexist, homophobes who want to poison our air and water, starve children, and push grandma off the cliff for decades.
Pretend just for a moment you are capable of independent thought. ( I know, it’s a stretch.) Watch video clips of tea partiers, then watch clips of the occupy wall street thugs (not to mention the thefts, assaults, and rapes that became all too common among the occupiers).
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2011/10/28/UPDATED—OccupyWallStreet–The-Rap-Sheet–So-Far
Tea parters are “the main reason politics is so bitter right now” like Poland was the cause of World War II.
Gary M : Wait until the employer based policies start getting canceled in the tens of millions.
That’s already happened. Coverages dropped for family members; workers shifted from full to part-time; employees not renewing because the companies passed on the premium increases.
Pigs are cleaner and more well behaved than the Occupy wall street cretins.
And I’m using cretin in the stupid, obtuse, or boorish person-sense.
Willard(@nevaudit): I hope you’re not trying to bulldoze your current pet peeve into my mind, MindStat.
I don’t care about your mind. It’s arguments, facts and claims against arguments, facts and claims. You gave up on Obamacare and switched to Lakoff, incidental to Obamacare.
willard,
Keep telling yourself that there is nothing new here. Wait and see when the actual cancellation of policies in the tens of millions go out in huge batches.
Those family members who have been canceled are in the “five percent” figure, totaling maybe % millions so far. But hey, to progressives, the difference between 5 million and 93 million is just a rounding error. To make an omelet, you have to break tens of millions of eggs.
Oh, and wait until those tens of millions find out the bigger lie, that rather than saving $2500 per year, they are going to pay thousands of dollars more, for coverage they won’t ever need.
“maybe 5 million”
False in one, false in all. The jury deliberates.
==========
> Wait until you see …
everyone join the anti-universal-healthcare bandwagon!
Wait until you see GaryM failing to acknowledge his failed prediction, just like he did after the last elections.
What fun Joshua will have.
***
Proxy debates come with a price tag:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-capitol-business-beat-20131118,0,1607410.story#axzz2kzmgQz4N
The good thing about being unaccountable for the veracity of your predictions is that you can continue to make more predictions without a hitch in your step.
It wouldn’t hurt the alarmist position one little bit if the climate would actually change in a convincing way and in a direction that suggests their preferred warming acceleration. That hasn’t happened since the great ice sheets began receding. The subsequent warming is a response to that change but not the change itself. Something is happening with the sun – perhaps that signals another true climate change event.
Conservatives report less trust in impact scientists but greater trust in production scientists than their liberal counterparts.
That’s been said before. There are people who are surprised to learn that the oil companies employ any scientists at all: chemists, geologists, metallurgists, mathematicians, etc., not to mention their slew of engineers..
Hi Mosh,
Thanks for the polite, reply. It made the AGW point well, while illustrating my problem.
In 1850 it was predicted that increasing CO2 would raise temperatures. CO2 was increased. Temperatures raised. Q. AGW E. D.
A reminder: I am not a scientist. I get most of my climate info from THIS site on the assumption that important and/or interesting climate science ‘events’ will be discussed here. Thank you, Dr. Curry.
Since 1850 CO2 has been increasing monotonically; temperature has not. During the early 70’s, for example, the threat requiring immediate government action to avert catastrophe was cooling (I AM aware of the papers debunking the historical existence of a catastrophic cooling scare. Unfortunately, I read the articles contemporaneously. They were ubiquitous in the press and science oriented magazines. Recent papers maintaining that there was no ‘global cooling’ scare in the 70’s are textbook examples of ‘denialism’.). While the slope of the CO2 curve remains positive and is actually, as I understand it, concave upward, the (an) ongoing controversy on this site is over whether the slope of the TOE trend line over the past 15 odd years is positive or negative.
To me, that implies that WHETHER CO2 influences the TOE may be of academic interest, the influence is negligible for all practical purposes. Those who argue that CO2 is the dominant influence on the TOE need to address Kim’s question: If anthropogenic CO2 dominates the TOE, what would the TOE be ABSENT anthropogenic CO2 and, knowing the hardships experienced during historical cold periods, and the ‘good times’ of warmer periods, should we not be celebrating the HCV? She has asked the question on multiple threads, but if has been answered, I missed it.
‘Since the 1890’s the sun has been steady.’ Really? Its TSI, the spectral distribution of the TSI, its magnetosphere, which varies constantly in magnitude and polarity, solar wind, solar flares, whatever makes it have 11 year sunspot cycles-which vary wildly in activity themselves, and a whole host of solar goings on which we observe and plot dutifully but can’t explain? All measured precisely since 1890 and all either steady or without influence on climate?
The strength (weakening) and geometry of the earth’s magnetic field has been changing rapidly in recent years. With NO effect on the climate?
The (my) problem with the AGW narrative is that while recent climate has admittedly changed, it has remained well within the pre-anthropogenic CO2 bounds. It is doing nothing unusual, in spite of the monotonic rise in CO2 since we began measuring it. Yet the climate scientists claim that THIS time the observed changes are driven by anthropogenic CO2 AND they will be catastrophic unless the government controls every activity with a (government defined) CO2 signature through some combination of taxation and/or regulation. Implicit in the claim is that IF government control is established, the climate will be stabilized, presumably at the optimum TOE (determined by whom, using what criteria?)
From what I have observed here, posts and commentary, Authentic Climate Science is a single axiom: Anthropogenic CO2 is causing the TOE to rise catastrophically (or alternately, the climate to change catastrophically), supported by a multi-billion dollar politician/climatescientist/environmentalist complex that produces models, collects data, and fits curves which support it and writes laws, regulations, and taxation citing it as justification. Any model, data, or curve fit that supports the axiom is accepted instantly and distributed widely, often with a front page story/press conference. Any model, data, or curve fit that casts doubt on the axiom is rejected out of hand and the source ‘Alinsky-ed’. All damaging ‘climate events’ are instantly attributed to AGW or Climate Change; all benign events dismissed as ‘merely weather’.
And yes, for me the issue IS political. And catastrophic. Were it NOT for the impending political catastrophe, I have seen no plausible consequences of AGW, even if the Climate Sensitivity actually IS 2 degrees/doubling, that would be noticeable to the casual observer in the absence of the 20 year, and ongoing, drumbeat of disaster. Would anyone actually notice the oceans rising at 1mm/year, even if it were ENTIRELY (obviously untrue) due to anthropogenic CO2? Does anyone care if there is an open water ‘Northwest Passage’ for a couple of months in the summer, occasionally? It has happened in the past, with no observable negative consequences. Why is it a Big Deal now? And on and on. If not for the constant headlines, the ‘consequences’ of AGW, over the timespans in question, would be unnoticeable.
On the other hand, the impacts of ‘fighting’ AGW are already apparent and, with the White House announcements this past week, are likely to grow exponentially. Unlike gradual increases in the TOE, the existence of which are constantly being debated here, people WILL notice when coal companies are bankrupted, coal plants are taken off line, they are forced to install ‘smart meters’ and buy ‘smart appliances’ which can and will be turned off at will by the power companies, when the price of gasoline is increased to $5/gal or more, as promised during the 2008 campaign, when they are forced to install milage loggers (and as an incidental ‘feature’, vehicle trackers) in their cars and have them monitored by the government and taxed accordingly, when country folks with fireplaces and/or wood stoves are forbidden to use them, when huge reserves of fossil fuel resources and potential–or existing–hydro sites are made inaccessible, forever, by the creation of ‘National Monuments’ of the land overtop them (see the Escalante National Monument, and how it came to be), etc.
Review the litany of solutions to AGW. ALL of them have the following in common: a. They will increase the cost of energy. or b. They will decrease the supply of energy. or c. They will expand the power of government and decrease individual autonomy. In most cases, the consequences are ‘all the above’. And ALL with no evidence that ANY of the policies will have a measurable effect on the TOE.
I again quote Jerry Pournelle (and many others I’m sure): “Cheap, plentiful energy is the key to freedom and prosperity.” To me it appears to be true, prima facie. As is its converse. It raises the question, or should, as to why the left, in the form of the Democratic party (US) in all its official and unofficial (Republican leadership, for example) incarnations, has gone to the mats since the 1960’s to block ANY policy, technology, or project which promised to either increase the supply of energy or decrease its cost. If rare, dear energy is good for us, I would be interested in the explanation. Stopping AGW doesn’t count, because the policy existed for years before anthropogenic CO2 ever reared its hydra heads.
Bob Ludwick, you and others here would do better to disentangle science from policy. The science gives a number like 1 C of warming per 1500 Gt CO2 fossil fuel burned. Then it is up to the people to decide what to do about this. Cheap fuel in a hotter world, or find some other way to keep the world cooler. The science does not dictate a policy, just cause and effect, or the effect of each policy. Some policymakers don’t like that no policy makes things look uncomfortable, but that is their choice, given the science.
Science can give an entire range of numbers, but the uncertainty around the real number is much too large to be actionable.
Jim D, you write ” The science gives a number like 1 C of warming per 1500 Gt CO2 fossil fuel burned.”
Every time I see this sort of statement, I cringe. There is no empirical data, and therefore no physics, to support the 1 C you quote. Yet, the same sort of number keeps on being quoted on CE, and other blogs. Such little empirical data as we have strongly suggests that the number is indistinguishable from zero.
The mind boggles.
Never mind the fact that CO2 does oscillate to some extent so is not strictly monotonic, the energy entering the system has risen consistently since 1850. Portions of that energy is reflected as a temperature increase, depending on the heat capacity of the volume that the energy is entering.
http://entroplet.com/context_salt_model/navigate
You can poll the experts on what this number is and take a median. It would be around this value. They would not be advocating policy, just stating the science. A number such as this is the starting point. Other areas of science would look at impacts of 1-6 C of warming, and also figure into decisionmaking, but that area of science could be less certain, as we have no recent experience of temperatures so high to guide us.
“Science can give an entire range of numbers, but the uncertainty around the real number is much too large to be actionable.”
Larger uncertainty is more actionable. The necessity to plan for the worst.
If the uncertainty around the real number includes 2 meters sea level by 2100 then planning for 2 meter sea level rise becomes a necessity.
Sounds like the more fuzzy the data, the more we need to respond to it.
Jim D, you write “You can poll the experts on what this number is and take a median.”
I take absolutely no notice whatsoever of the opinion of so-called experts. All I trust is measured empirical data. If there is no empirical evidence to support the opinions of these so-called experts, then the numbers have no meaning at all. That is the scientific method, as developed by Galileo and Newton.
Jim D: The science gives a number like 1 C of warming per 1500 Gt CO2 fossil fuel burned.
As I keep reminding people, “the science” is full of holes and coarse approximations. I point out particular cavities when there are specific themes in the threads. For example, there is the assumption that net radiation from the surface of the earth is proportional to [mean temp]^4 instead of mean[T^4]. The assertion is sometimes made that the error of approximation is negligible, something not actually known since mean[T^4] is not known. The approximation error is probably larger than the estimated effect of CO2, so if you can assume that the approximation error is negligible, you have a prima facie case that the CO2 increase, given the Earth as it is now, is negligible..
The point is, science gives you this number with some uncertainty bars (maybe 1000-2000 Gt CO2 per degree C). Start with a middle estimate, and decide what you want to do. The choices are limited and painful in any scenario.
“limited and painful” according to idiots who deny the massive historical benefits of warming.
Apparently someone never studied uncertainty quantification and propagation of uncertainty in freshman physics. T is on the Kelvin scale and T sits around 300K for the part that matters. Therefore we can use differentials to figure out how errors on propagate..
P ~T^4
dP ~ 4* T^3 dT = 4 P/T dT
or
dP/P ~ 4 * dT/T
This will give you the error bars on making the assumption that ^4 instead of . The T^4 amplifies the relative dT error by a factor of 4. That’s about the extent of it.
If you are a beginner, study this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propagation_of_uncertainty#Example_formulas
Global warming is about a few degrees. Whatever asymmetry is in the uncertainty quantification will still be there at a slightly higher temperature. Big deal.
Resorting to such innuendo is really quite pathetic. If you think you can play stump the chump on climate scientists with this primitive form of gotcha, you are sadly mistaken. Tell you what, why don’t set up a toy problem to show how wrong they are. You are a professional so why can’t you do it?
Jim D:
I and most of the ‘others’ here would be MORE than happy to disentangle the science from policy. That way, Climate Scientists would become harmless and climate scientists could go about their mission of trying to discover (future tense, since they have little idea now) how the earth’s climate system ACTUALLY works. I, and the others, would be happy and the climate scientists would be happy; the politician/Climate_Scientist/environmentalist complex, not so much.
Instead, we have Climate Science, created and funded for the specific POLITICAL purpose of providing politicians with ‘scientific’ justification for policies and powers that they have been salivating over in anticipation for years. Unfortunately for me and the ‘others’, Climate Science is ‘settled’; it has permeated our society until no amount of empirical data or number of climate science papers based upon it will do anything to slow or halt the oncoming (announced this week) RATV (Regulatory And Taxation Volcano) which will, if allowed, return us effectively (except for what it takes to maintain the nomenklatura in the style to which they intend to become accustomed, of course) to a hunter-gatherer society. Envision the target reality of the Politician/Climate_Scientist/Environmentalist Complex: a 90% (or more) reduction in fossil fuel consumption, a sustainable world population of 1+/- .5 billion, and nuclear tied up in a permitting process which has made the cost of new construction nuclear for all practical purposes infinite, as there is no budget or schedule that could ensure that a plant could be built and operated in the US. Like Jim, I am looking for someone with the power and will to stand in front of the thundering herd and say Stop!. And, like Jim, I am finding them pretty thin on the ground.
Bob Ludwick, you can deny what is textbook science that goes back 100 years. That’s fine. You can claim not to understand paleoclimate or the carbon cycle too, except what you have seen at this site. But does that put you in any position to judge climate science? From what you have said so far, you need to read more widely before forming an opinion, especially on the actual scientific part. A good book for popular understanding is The Long Thaw by David Archer. I recommend it for starters. Another highly recommended is A Rough Guide to Climate Change by Robert Henson.
Jim D:
“Bob Ludwick, you can deny what is textbook science that goes back 100 years. That’s fine. You can claim not to understand paleoclimate or the carbon cycle too, except what you have seen at this site.”
Should we run our non-climate lives based on hundred year old textbooks? And by the way, does the appearance of something in a textbook certify its infallibility? If I quote hundred year old science, from textbooks, is that something like the Pope speaking ex cathedra?
I’m not ‘denying’ anything, but it does appear to me that support is weak for the premise that ACO2 is causing, or is likely to cause, a problem or that the proposed ‘solutions’ to the ACO2 problem (so far modeled, not measured) would in fact have any measurable impact on the TOE.
I am told, here, that anthropogenic CO2 poses an existential threat that MUST be countered by ‘Doing Something Right Now’. That ‘something’ always involves reducing our energy consumption to pre-industrial levels and taxing the heck out of what energy we DO produce, while, as always, making sure that the anointed are not inconvenienced in the process.
Taking paleo data on this site at face value (though it does require a few shovelfuls of salt to convince me that the ‘Annual Temperature of the Earth (TOE) hundreds or thousands of years ago can be determined with .01-.1 degree precision), I note that in spite of the ongoing HCV, the actual, observable climate is climating away well pretty much as it has climed for the last few thousand years. It changes from year to year, decade to decade, century to century, and location to location, but so far, nothing even close to being ‘out of bounds’.
Until we are presented with an actual, observable, data driven problem rather than a model driven problem tens or hundreds of years in the future, I would just as soon continue the custom of having my toaster come on every time I push the lever down and having gasoline flow into my tank when I squeeze the handle at the gas station.
Jim D: science gives you this number with some uncertainty bars (maybe 1000-2000 Gt CO2 per degree C).
So now it is “science”, not “the science”. That is an improvement.
The uncertainty bars themselves are coarse and underrepresent the sources of uncertainty, such as whether downwelling LWIR will warm the ocean surface none or a little, and how much surface warming will increase the rate of heat transport via wet and dry thermals.
WebHubTelescope: Resorting to such innuendo is really quite pathetic
Sources of error are always underestimated.
WebHubTelescope: dP/P ~ 4 * dT/T
There are papers in the peer-reviewed literature (e.g. Science magazine), documenting the reasons why the uncertainties in the science of the water vapor/cloud response to CO2 increase make even the sign of the temperature change in response to CO2 increase uncertain.
So you have a spatio-temporal distribution of T across the earth, hence a spatio-temporal distribution of T^4. Add some CO2 and (perhaps) change the spatio-temporal distribution of T — how does the spatio-temporal distribution of T^4 change? With the equilibrium assumption, namely that the whole earth is at the “equilibrium temperature”, the solution to that problem is presented in many textbooks. But with a more realistic assumption abut the temporal distribution of T (wide swings of T in desert, much smaller swings of T on each part of the ocean surface) and the spatial distribution of T (hot equator, cold poles), and with non-radiative energy transfer processes with the system,I don’t think the problem is solvable.
If the standard deviation of T^4 is 4 times as great as the standard deviation of T (across their respective spatio-temporal distributions), and if the exact distributional changes in T are not known, then the calculation of ECS is essentially worthless.
“Cheap, plentiful energy is the key to freedom and prosperity.”
____
Perhaps for some, and perhaps for a short period, but not for all, and not for very long. Since the beginning of industrial revolution (and perhaps even before through the ownership of land) the wealthy have always controlled the centralized power sources through one mechanism or another. They outright own the sources of energy as well as the means to transport and utilize that energy, and in controlling these, they have controlled the seats of power in society. Many times, to own these sources of energy, war, slavery, and other unsavory acts were necessary, and still unfortunately are.
If you want true freedom and prosperity, the decentralization of the energy supply would be called for. Now, for the first time since the industrial revolution, we are getting to the point where decentralized energy is possible and even practical. Moreover, through emerging technologies such as at-home 3D printing for practical objects of all types, manufacturing can also be decentralized. As solar and other renewable resources become ever more efficient, combined with the decentralization of manufacturing (many of those reading this will own a 3D printer in their lifetime), a new kind of energy paradigm and neo-industrial economy is emerging. Businesses and homeowners will no longer need the centralized power plant with miles of inefficient AC transmission lines. Their energy source and even manufacturing can be localized. Why would I want to drive to Walmart to buy a plastic widget made in China when I can use the solar on my roof to print that same widget at a fraction of the cost? Just like we download movies now, you will pay for downloading the widget template– and indeed, many are already doing exactly this. This is real freedom and prosperity.
Self-sufficiency may increase in some special cases, but division of labor both locally and globally will remain essentially for human well-being. Suplly of energy is not likely to be an exception in that. Decentralization has some advantages but it may well turn out that the hopes put on that are largely misplaced.
Changes in energy supply are unavoidable, but they ultimately lead to a equally centralized system. There’s nothing wrong in that, if that turns out to be most efficient and best for the environment.
“They outright own the sources of energy as well as the means to transport and utilize that energy, and in controlling these, they have controlled the seats of power in society.”
Yes, capitalists have controlled resources, energy and productive capacity, which led to the freest, most generous, most just, richest, most powerful society in the history of the planet.
And how have those centralized Gardens of Eden done? Russia, China, Cuba, Africa, South America, mired in poverty and despotism. But hey, nobody but the kleptocrats are making any profits, so they got that going for them. Well OK, with the switch from socialism to fascism over the last 20 years in China and Russia, at least the oligarchs and westerners who trade with them are doing well. The hundreds of millions of people living in destitution, not so much.
If only we didn’t allow the stupid people to combine their capital to build things. And instead let government take their wealth away and centrally plan the economy. Oh what a world it would be.
We have some of the dumbest smart people in the world in the west.
Pekka,
As with so many “new” technologies now, we are taking a lead from nature itself. Throughout nature and complex biological systems, we see energy being decentralized. Each cell of a leaf can make its own energy, and while some of that energy might be added to the “grid” of the plant or tree, for the betterment of the whole organism, the first and immediate use is local. The centralized power plant is a vestige of our industrial history, and the massive use of fossil fuels that powered the Industrial Age. Now that we are moving away from this paradigm, including the abandonment of fossil fuels, the trend to decentralized power (a more natural way of suppling power) is going to be pretty strong. Even if our future is nuclear (far from certain), smaller and decentralized nuclear plants might be more advantageous for many reasons. My personal favorite “guess” is artificial photosynthesis. Big advances being made almost monthly in this area.
R Gates,
Does your vision occur before or after World Peace?
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Gary M. blindly said:
“Yes, capitalists have controlled resources, energy and productive capacity, which led to the freest, most generous, most just, richest, most powerful society in the history of the planet.”
____
Yes, we were very generous to the Iranians whom we attacked for no good reason at all. We “freed” many of them from their lives.
Now, I’m DEFINITELY for World Peace!
Mike Flynn,
Your failure is one of vision and belief that the paradigm of the Industrial Age will continue on. From nanotechnology to rapid advances is areas such as artificial photosynthesis, the neo-industrial age we are about to enter does potential bring with it dangers, but also great promise. But the trends are clear– virtualization and decentralization.
World Peace? That’s not a technology issue, but one of evolution of the human psyche. The Death Wish is always with us.
Large units have been used, because they have had lowest cost, best efficiency in the use of fuels and other resources, and the lowest environmental effects per unit of energy. Grids require large investments but have a really great value in their ability to reduce the need for generating capacity, as not everyone has the peak consumption at the same time.
What has been true may change, when technologies evolve and resources run out, but what’s the outcome is not nearly as obvious as many like to think. Gary is fully right in noting that energy is just one product similar all other commercial products.
+1
Pekka Pirila,
No. Energy is different. It is one of the fundamental inputs to everything we have. Everything humans have, and have had for more than 20,000 years, comes from human ingenuity and energy.
Peter Lang said:
“Everything humans have, and have had for more than 20,000 years, comes from human ingenuity and energy.”
—-
Saying everything we have comes from “energy” is pretty broad isn’t it– since everything can be reduced to energy, it is like saying everything comes from everything. Meaningless. But let’s be clear, all the energy that we use (except for Peter’s beloved fission and a bit of geothermal) comes from that big fusion energy plant we call the sun. But certainly the natural order of things (aka Nature) has provided for us quite well without our own ingenuity–such as in the plants we can eat and animals, which certainly we did not create. And smartly, nature would have it that it uses primarily the energy from that distant fusion energy plant to power the biosphere of the Earth on which we so greatly depend. Only a few odd living things on this particular planet use geothermal energy for their source, and of course we clever humans have learned to split the atom and release that energy for our purposes. The upshot of all this is that it is the health of the fusion powered biosphere which is paramount to our own continued survival.
R. Gates, as usual you are dodging and weaving, and avoiding the obvious, relevant point. You responded – as a smart arse, but missing the point – and started with this:
Think about it. Everything we have that is different to animals is a result of human ingenuity and our capacity to harness and use energy. You can’t plough a field without energy, you can pump water without energy, you can’t build a dam or an aqueduct without energy, you can’t dig or smelt metals without energy, you can’t cook without energy.
The point is that energy is one of the fundamental inputs to everything humans have had for perhaps, 200,000 years, perhaps longer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans
Therefore, energy is different to other products, in that it is a fundamental input to everything.
Your comments bout the Sun are silly and irrelevant. They are ideological. Rationally, want we want is:
1. a sufficient supply of energy for everyone for ever (i.e. effectively unlimited)
2. Energy security (i.e. cannot be disrupted easily)
3. Reliable, fit-for-purpose energy supply
4. Low cost energy for everyone
5. environmentally benign.
If we have all the above we have the energy to provide just about whatever we want and need. We can have water, shelter, health, etc.
Therefore, anything we do to prevent us having these is bad for human well-being. Carbon pricing, advocating for high cost renewable energy which is not fit-for-purpose, and blocking nuclear power (by making it more expensive than it should be) is ignorant, and irresponsible. This is what the greenies have been doing, for ideological reasons, for five decades or more. You seem to align with their ideological beliefs. And, I haven;t seen much sign of rational skepticism from you; just repetition of the greenies’ mantras.
“Why would I want to drive to Walmart to buy a plastic widget made in China when I can use the solar on my roof to print that same widget at a fraction of the cost?”
And how many hundred pounds of batteries are you going to have to install in your basement so that you can heat and cool your house, cook your food, run your refrigerator, wash and dry your clothes, and keep your lights on at night so that you can run your 3D printer after sundown or on a rainy day?
Rooftop solar works well for individuals as long as the percentage of the overall population who ‘go off grid’ is negligible. Just like electric cars. Both work fine as long as they are scarce as hens teeth. Move the percentage to 100% and tell the electric car driver he has to run his car charger off the rooftop array (We ARE postulating the demise of the grid, right?) How many hundred pounds of batteries does the individual need, of what material (lead-acid? lithium?) to run his house and electric car and where will we get the material to make them, once ‘rooftop solar’ spreads from the eco-saints and other early adopters into the general population? Easily doable for a couple hundred households scattered around LA; not so easy for LA at large, never mind the whole country. Unless of course we make a conscious decision that having electricity while the sun is shining makes for an acceptable lifestyle.
“Perhaps for some, and perhaps for a short period, but not for all, and not for very long. ”
Do a little thought experiment: Envision a society in which the individual has access to all the energy he wants, at negligible cost, powering his home and car, allowing him to have all the latest toys and set his thermostat at whatever level he finds comfortable, keeping his pool at the optimum temperature year round. He has plenty of cheap gas for his large, handy SUV so that he can come and go as he pleases. The factories produce goods at relatively low cost because their energy costs are low. The cost of distributing goods is low, because fuel costs are low.
Then envision a society in which the energy supply is restricted and expensive. The average individual finds that his lifestyle is limited by a combination of imposed and self rationing of energy. Everything in his life will be more expensive, because energy costs are a significant factor in every facet of everyday life. His house will be colder in the winter and hotter in the summer. He cannot afford to travel freely, because of the cost of fuel and transportation taxes. (The nomenklatura, those with power and pull, will, as always, have access to unlimited energy and the perks that accompany it.)
In which society would you imagine it more likely that the average individual would be ‘free and prosperous’, and why do you think that, given continuous access cheap, plentiful energy, he would over time become LESS free or prosperous?
Bob Ludwick said:
“(We ARE postulating the demise of the grid, right?)”
____
I sure don’t think so, but I do think the future grid is smarter and has far more multiple inputs (like millions). From the glass in skyscrapers, to entire sides of buildings, and even artificial “trees” that gather solar, the future smart grid will allow for these kinds of inputs. A centralized nuclear plant or two could be the energy of last resort, but the grid would still function quite well without it. A smart grid also helps to distribute the energy sources in a way that helps to harden the grid in the event of a major solar CME event that interrupts power. So there are many good reasons to go for millions of inputs to a smart grid, and thus, future power companies will be more managers of the smart grid, balancing input and outputs of a rather complex two-way system.
Bob, sounds like a fair assessment of the situation. It would be good to see it in the letter-boxes of all voters.
The rent is too damn high:
It’s no secret that Americans are obsessed with taxes and unhappy with the IRS. Take the IRS crackdown on foreign accounts and income. See FBAR Penalties Just Got Even Worse. Some people vote with their feet. For most, taxes are at least part–usually a big part–of the equation.
Only a few months ago it was clear that U.S. Citizens are Ditching Passports in Record Numbers. But now the latest quarterly numbers show a marked uptick even over those figures. See Number of Americans Renouncing Citizenship Surges. The list of who’s gone is published quarterly in the Federal Register.
You can even see if your neighbor is on the list. There are always some wealthy people, which should tell you something. Among the more notable–even notorious–expatriations in 2012 was Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.
Saverin’s post-Facebook fly-away prompted such outrage that Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey introduced a bill to double that tax to 30% for anyone leaving the U.S. for tax reasons. See Senators Go After Eduardo Saverin, Facebook Co-Founder, For Dumping U.S. Passport, Avoiding Taxes. People also took note of wealthy socialite Denise Rich, whose husband Marc was pardoned by President Clinton. See Why Denise Rich Followed Eduardo Saverin’s Expat Lead. Then there was music icon Tina Turner. See Swiss Tina Turner Giving Up U.S. Passport.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/08/12/thousands-leave-u-s-over-taxes-5-rules-if-youre-tempted/
https://twitter.com/tressiemcphd/status/402265419643252736
More propaganda, Willard.
I play the ball where it lands, jim2.
What about you?
Ole Willy, “I play the ball where it lands, jim2.”
Nah Willy, your expertise is choosing the landing site.
willie’s Playland.
===========
http://www.futerra.co.uk/blog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parity_game
willard , you dont play the ball where it lands, you play it where it lies.
unless it lies where it lands in which case a whole series of rulz apply, sometimes local rulz. Or if it lies in Ground under repair..
jim2 goes Obama, I go Rand Paul, everyone else go willard.
Nobody’s unhappy.
Alright:
> “What this reminds me of, someone like Senator Paul and others in that isolationist wing,” King continued, “you know the Republicans had this debate back in the 1930s when you had the isolationists and the Charles Lindberghs saying we should appease Hitler, then the Democrats had it in the 1960s when the anti-war movement blamed America first and in both cases it hurt the party for years, each party was hurt for years.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/31/rep-peter-king-says-sen-rand-paul-reminds-him-of-hitler-appeasers/
Energy & Oil Prices
Crude Oil & Natural Gas
Commodity Units Price Change % Change Contract Time(ET)
Crude Oil (WTI) USD/bbl. 93.60 -0.24 -0.26% Dec 13 22:17:28
http://thebigslice.org/rand-pauls-history-gaffe/
Ole Willy, first of all, David Barton is no history hack. On the contrary he is extremely learned. Why does Rand get under your skin, Ole Willy. Do you fear liberty?
Thank you for your concerns, Bob, which seem to imply I am getting under your skin.
Do you fear weekly news from Rand Paul?
Au contraire, Ole Willy. You are so cryptic I can’t distinguish you from a single gnat. Rand rocks.
http://judithcurry.com/2013/11/16/week-in-review-4/#comment-415256
Blacks have gained a lot of ground in the past 50 years. For why some haven’t, you should listen to Bill Cosby. There is a cultural issue here, but Willard, I’m sure you’ll find a way to pin it all on conservatives.
https://twitter.com/MattBruenig/status/402285384266035200
I have been moderated on the thread above and an checking
whether its from content or identity details. My comments were
non contraversial.
The narrative Greenpeace haven’t realized yet is that it was the future Chemistry teacher who was in love with Harry Potter’s mother while his father-to-be was still acting like an industrial strength a-hole.
Jim D | November 17, 2013 at 8:57 pm |
The point is, science gives you this number with some uncertainty bars (maybe 1000-2000 Gt CO2 per degree C). Start with a middle estimate, and decide what you want to do. The choices are limited and painful in any scenario.
@@@@@
The mind boggles. I cannot imagine how anyone who has any sort of education, can write such drivel. No wonder this Jim, unlike myself, makes sure we don’t know who he is. I am proud f what I write, and use my own name.
As I have stated over and over again, if we are talking science, physics, and we are talking numerical values, then we can ONLY rely on EMPIRICAL, measured data. Nothing else is of any use, if we are going to ascribe any level of certainty to our conclusions. To suggest we can get the opinions of so-called experts on what the numerical value of CS is, and then use these guesses to do some sort of analysis, is just ludicrous.
“To suggest we can get the opinions of so-called experts on what the numerical value of CS is, and then use these guesses to do some sort of analysis, is just ludicrous.”
actually its quite normal and used all the time in Operations research.
Its called bounding the problem.
I wont argue. I have done that sort of thing many times. But when you present your results you must be careful to state, clearly, that the results are, themselves, nothing more than a guess.
On the contrary, the IPCC bases their analysis on a guess, and then states that it is 95% certain that things about CAGW are correct. THAT is where the IPCC is being thoroughly unscientific.
I have no problems people stating that CAGW is a guess. I have stated many times that it is a perfectly plausible hypothesis, What I object to is people claiming that CAGW is anything more than a guess or a hypothesis.
Anyway I think the original post makes some very good points though have serious doubts about how political affiliation effects science. Different political affiliations reflect different beliefs about managing the country and so it is clearly and explicitly partial. The problem arises when these people have control of the funding of science, inevitably things that are consistent with their ideology will get preferential funding. One isn’t worse than the other, they all do it, and as governments increase their direct control of research and educational funding its getting increasingly obvious.
Global warming pragmatism
By Robert J. Samuelson, Published: November 17
Economist Robert Pindyck of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently examined the computer models that estimate the effects and costs of climate change — and he didn’t like what he found. The models reflect two gaping uncertainties, he says. First, we don’t know how much increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) will raise global temperatures. “There are feedback loops” — interactions between greenhouse gases and weather — “that aren’t easy to measure.” The models make assumptions. Next, he says, we don’t know what economic losses will result from higher temperatures. More assumptions. The “damage functions” in the models, he says, “are completely made-up.”
http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Pindyk-Climate-Change-Policy-What-Do-the-Models-Tell-Us.pdf
Howard, good link, thanks.
Well, sure; warmer sustains more total life and more diversity of life. We can measure the benefits of the warming since the Little Ice Age. But the madness of CAGW couldn’t concern itself with such little details.
====================
Howard,
Thanks you for the link. From p15:
I wonder how economists would estimate the probability of catastrophic outcomes, especially given that climate scientists haven’t been ability to do so? Could the economists do it any better, and who would trust their judgement on this?
Second, he doesn’t mention one of the most important inputs: the probability that a chosen policy solution can be implemented globally and maintained for long enough to fix the climate.
I doubt a stringent abatement policy” would be successful, and I think it is the wrong approach.
It seems to me there is an alternative approach. It is well proven over millenia and requires no top down, international policy or international legally binding agreements. It is to allow freer markets to do what they do: compete, to bring costs down and provide services that are fit for purpose.
For freer markets all we have to do is to remove the unnecessary impediments that we’ve imposed that are blocking them from working effectively. We need freer trade and freer energy markets. Especially, we need to remove the impediments we’ve imposed over the past 50 years that are blocking nuclear energy from becoming cheaper than fossil fuel energy.
Once we remove the impediments, nuclear energy will replace fossil fuels, over time. No international legally binding agreements will be needed. In fact they are exactly the wrong policy. They will not succeed.
Isn’t that what Bjorn Lomborg and the eminent economist who participate in the Copenhagen Consensus have done already? And haven’t they been concluding, each time they’ve met for the past decade or so, that spending money on climate change mitigation is a low priority?
Amber Provides New Insights Into the Evolution of the Earth’s Atmosphere
An international team of researchers led by Ralf Tappert, University of Innsbruck, reconstructed the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere of the last 220 million years by analyzing modern and fossil plant resins. The results suggest that atmospheric oxygen was considerably lower in the Earth’s geological past than previously assumed. This new study questions some of the current theories about the evolution of climate and life, including the causes for the gigantism of dinosaurs.
Scientists encounter big challenges when reconstructing atmospheric compositions in the Earth’s geological past because of the lack of useable sample material. One of the few organic materials that may preserve reliable data of the Earth’s geological history over millions of years are fossil resins (e.g. amber). “Compared to other organic matter, amber has the advantage that it remains chemically and isotopically almost unchanged over long periods of geological time,” explains Ralf Tappert from the Institute of Mineralogy and Petrography at the University of Innsbruck. The mineralogist and his colleagues from the University of Alberta in Canada and universities in the USA and Spain have produced a comprehensive study of the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere since the Triassic period. The study has been published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. The interdisciplinary team, consisting of mineralogists, paleontologists and geochemists, use the preserving properties of plant resins, caused by polymerization, for their study. “During photosynthesis plants bind atmospheric carbon, whose isotopic composition is preserved in resins over millions of years, and from this, we can infer atmospheric oxygen concentrations,” explains Ralf Tappert. The information about oxygen concentration comes from the isotopic composition of carbon or rather from the ratio between the stable carbon isotopes 12C and 13C.
Atmospheric oxygen between 10 and 15 percent
The research team analyzed a total of 538 amber samples from from well-known amber deposits worldwide, with the oldest samples being approximately 220 million years old and recovered from the Dolomites in Italy. The team also compared fossil amber with modern resins to test the validity of the data. The results of this comprehensive study suggest that atmospheric oxygen during most of the past 220 million years was considerably lower than today’s 21 percent. “We suggest numbers between 10 and 15 percent,” says Tappert. These oxygen concentrations are not only lower than today but also considerably lower than the majority of previous investigations propose for the same time period. For the Cretaceous period (65 – 145 million years ago), for example, up to 30 percent atmospheric oxygen has been suggested previously.
Effects on climate and environment
The researchers also relate this low atmospheric oxygen to climatic developments in the Earth’s history. “We found that particularly low oxygen levels coincided with intervals of elevated global temperatures and high carbon dioxide concentrations,” explains Tappert. The mineralogist suggests that oxygen may influence carbon dioxide levels and, under certain circumstances, might even accelerate the influx of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. “Basically, we are dealing here with simple oxidation reactions that are amplified particularly during intervals of high temperatures such as during the Cretaceous period.” The researchers, thus, conclude that an increase in carbon dioxide levels caused by extremely strong vulcanism was accompanied by a decrease of atmospheric oxygen. This becomes particularly apparent when looking at the last 50 million years of geological history. Following the results of this study, the comparably low temperatures of the more recent past (i.e. the Ice Ages) may be attributed to the absence of large scale vulcanism events and an increase in atmospheric oxygen.
Oxygen may not be the cause of gigantism
According to the results of the study, oxygen may indirectly influence the climate. This in turn may also affect the evolution of life on Earth. A well-known example are dinosaurs: Many theories about animal gigantism offer high levels of atmospheric oxygen as an explanation. Tappert now suggests to reconsider these theories: “We do not want to negate the influence of oxygen for the evolution of life in general with our study, but the gigantism of dinosaurs cannot be explained by those theories.” The research team highly recommends conducting further studies and intends to analyze even older plant resins.
Reference: Stable carbon isotopes of C3 plant resins and ambers record changes in atmospheric oxygen since the Triassic. Ralf Tappert, Ryan C. McKellar, Alexander P. Wolfe, Michelle C. Tappert, Jaime Ortega-Blanco, Karlis Muehlenbachs. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Volume 121, 15 November 2013
DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2013.07.011
http://www.uibk.ac.at/public-relations/presse/archiv/2013/466/
I think the best way for Obama to sell Obamacare is to simply tell the truth. The ad could go something like this.
You are now guaranteed access to health insurance and health care. Just go to Healthcare.gov and sign up. Or, you can call the special 800 number. If you feel you don’t need health insurance, that is fine. Just pay the fine for not having health insurance, and everything will be OK. If you don’t pay the fine, you will be thrown in jail. If you give us any trouble when we come for you, you will be tased, forced to the ground on your face, possibly beaten, then handcuffed and carried away to jail. If you put up serious resistance, we will shoot you and kill you. Your family will have no legal recourse, and if they give us any trouble, they will get the same. So, I think you can see that Obamacare is really the best way to go for you. Why don’t you get on the web site now and sign up?
IACI supports Medicaid redesign in a manner that is fair to taxpayers, beneficial to employers, adds provider accountability, addresses the inherent inefficiencies in the county indigent program and the state’s catastrophic program, and minimizes the cost shift to business.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/nov/18/idahos-biggest-business-lobby-backs-medicaid-expan/
jim2,
“You are now guaranteed access to health insurance and health care.”
Sorry, healthcare is irrelevant in the world of Obamacare. What is important is to make sure that everyone gets the same substandard care. If you think the impact on the cancellations has been something, wait until you see the effect on hospitals, doctors and medical; schools.
A hundred million people will pay more for their insurance, and find that they get less care, of lower quality, than they did under that evil capitalist system. There will be plenty of “insurance”, you just won’t be able to use it when you need to, where you want to.
https://twitter.com/jordanrau/status/402620611651829762
Crude Oil & Natural Gas
Commodity Units Price Change % Change Contract Time(ET)
Crude Oil (WTI) USD/bbl. 92.90 -0.13 -0.14% Dec 13 22:43:44