by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week.
US CO2 emissions drop to 20 year low
The big news for the week. As reported by the Capitol Report of NM:
The US Energy Information Administration reported this month that CO2 levels in America are at their lowest rate in 20 years:
That should make all of us happy but for some in the environmental movement, apparently good news just isn’t good enough.
That’s because the drop in CO2 levels is largely attributed to the country’s increasing use of natural gas.
“The Sierra Club has serious doubts about the net benefits of natural gas,” Deborah Nardone, director of the group’s Beyond Natural Gas campaign, told Associated Press Thursday (Aug. 16).
Here’s more from the AP story:
Many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.
Whaaaattt?
You mean the free market that is so abhorred by those in the green movement actually spurred this dramatic decrease in CO2? That maybe there’s an alternative to top-down government directives when it comes to making the planet cleaner?
Even Michael Mann, a climate scientist from Penn State who has been the center of much controversy, told AP the CO2 decrease demonstrates that “ultimately people follow their wallets” on global warming.
McIntyre in London
The Register has a good article on Steve McIntyre’s talk in London, entitled McIntyre: CLimate policy crippled by pointless feel good gestures. Its a thoughtful article about an apparently thoughtful presentation. So tell me, are these the words of a ‘denier’, as McIntyre is often characterized?
But anyone expecting fulminations against the climate establishment doesn’t know his work. McIntyre is agnostic, and apart from some measured laconic asides, his talk was, like his writing, technical and practical.
Policy makers in the US and the UK are not guided by reality, thinks McIntyre: “If you’re a policy maker, you have to take as a base case that India and China are going to increase carbon dioxide emissions, and one of the IPCC base cases of CO2 emissions is going to come to pass. You would be negligent to ignore it – we can hope it will be less severe, and we can hope skeptics are right – but you have to assume that the IPCC advice is accurate. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of [room to] manoeuvre.”
“The entire rationale of policy in US and Europe has been to ignore what’s happening in China and India and hope that petty acts of virtuous behaviour in both countries will cure the problem,” he said. “Even if you install windmills you’re not going to change the trend of overall CO2 emissions.”
McIntyre said he thought the reason for the “tremendous acrimony” in the climate blogosphere was a response to this: “Nobody knows what to do.”
“Policy makers can assume what changes are most likely, and equip society to be resilient to those changes. If resources are limited, then expenditures on acts of petty virtue – that may make microscope changes, that have no impact on climate – should be put under the microscope to see if they make best use of social resources compared to adaptation,” he said during his talk on 16 August.
Asked by climate scientist Richard Betts of the Met Office, an IPCC author, if he saw more hope for the UN panel, McIntyre replied: “Much of the report was drivel, probably most of it. The fact there are a few sensible observations aren’t enough to repay the effort.”
By far the most contentious statement was the one referred to earlier – that policy makers should accept the base IPCC scenarios. Why believe a word they say, asked several questioners?
“Until it mends its ways, policy makers are stuck with it,” said McIntyre.
“I take a fairly nuanced view. I’ve been a severe critic of the IPCC: they’re letting society down, and have an obligation to do much better reports than they do. Their failure to do so is an abnegation of their duty.” His view, he said, was tempered by a view of risk based on his business experience. “You’d be negligent not to take the IPCC as the basis of policy, even if you thought the quality of the work required tremendous improvement. I hope people do a better job.”
A range of grades on the octopus test
The GreenLeft on the floods in Manila:
Manila and other parts of the Philippines seem to experience these severe floods every year. Do you think this is a symptom of global climate change?
The PLM is part of the network of people’s organisations and NGOs that are demanding the imperialist countries pay up for the consequences of global warming and take radical action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
We also believe that persuasion will not work with these imperialist governments, and the people of the world should undertake more pressure against them.
In the end, the only solution will be to get rid of the capitalist system and institute a system where human solidarity, human needs and the preservation of the planet’s resources would become a top priority.
Perhaps a more realistic assessment of the causes of the floods is found here:
The world is changing. Largely because of climate change. If you ask PAGASA, they’ll say, they will still study if this was caused by climate change. Regardless, if it was or wasn’t, we need to do the following: 1) Better flood control; 2) Social engineering— people throwing trash, or sending out information to rescuers, and 3) unify Metro Manila so we get proper city planning.
From the Scientific American: Is Climate Change Making Temperatures Too Hot for High School Football? The last thing anyone wants to see is high school students to suffer or even die from exertion in hot weather. Georgia is highlighted in this article: even at historical mean temperatures and humidity for August, Georgia’s climate in August is very uncomfortable . Be an octopus: start football practice during colder weather, and move inside sports like basketball to the warm season.
From cleantechnica:
While developing economies have the greatest proportion of their economies at risk, they’re not alone. Maplecroft found major economies like Taiwan, Japan, China, Brazil, and Mexico have the largest total economic exposure to natural disaster in absolute terms. However, these countries have a far greater capacity to recover from disaster due to resilience factors like economic strength, strong governments, disaster preparedness, and building regulations.
These factors are largely absent in developing economies, meaning they take much longer to bounce back, if at all. While the highest-risk countries have booming economies, they are fueled by poor populations who live on marginal lands like flood plains in insecure housing, without adequate resources to re-establish their lives after a major event.
Interned
The week before classes start at Georgia Tech is always hectic. This past week has been even more hectic (not to mention interesting and entertaining) than usual. The Owen Wilson-Vince Vaughn movie “The Internship” was filming on the Georgia Tech campus. From the Georgia Tech news release:
“Georgia Tech is one of the most unique and dynamic campuses I have ever seen,” said the director of “The Internship,” Shawn Levy. “The architecture and space is as forward-thinking as its curriculum and student body; we thought it was the perfect setting for our story.”
Filming occurred in my building, the Environmental Science and Technology Building, last Wed. The first floor atrium area was completely ‘google-ized’, apparently outfitted as google’s recreation facilities with ping pong tables, etc. All this took place literally outside my office door, it was actually a challenge to make it into my office. We took lots of photos of the google-ized building.
JC message to Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan: dudes u r 2 kook 4 skool.
ddddd
ddddddd
I’ve always found McIntyre dangerously wishy-washy. I think of him as being like a bank regulator who, after investigating the original allegations against Madoff concluded, “We have to assume Bernie is being honest.”
McIntyre has the guts to tell it like it is professionally and to expertly identify the key pragmatic strategies needed.
Well, I’m just saying that some of his comments sound more like somebody that is lobbying to get a job working for the IPCC than they are those of somebody dedicated to exposing their dishonesty. For example, McIntyre states: “You’d be negligent not to take the IPCC as the basis of policy, even if you thought the quality of the work required tremendous improvement. I hope people do a better job.” Or, possibly, I’ve misinterpreted something here.
Regretfully, I agree with your assessment.
Steve is not alone in failing to recognize the Climategate emails and documents that surfaced in Nov 2009 as the tip of a much deeper cancerous growth.
A cancer that grew on government science as the response of clever fools to the“nuclear fires” that consumed Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945 and Nagasaki on 9 Aug 1945.
Fear, rather than reverence, awe, wisdom was the motivation for establishing the United Nations on 24 Oct 1945.
The difference ? Solomon vs Kissinger
a.) Fear + Humility = Reverence/Awe/Wisdom
b.) Fear – Humility = Self Reliance, Arrogance
“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac,” said Henry Kissinger – one of those most influential in shaping post-1945 policies of the United States.
Uniting Nations under a tyrannical one-world government became the goal, as George Orwell bravely warned in a futuristic novel [1] written in 1948 and entitled “1984”
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
Regretfully I couldn’t decipher this before Nov 2009.
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://www.omatumr.com
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-818
Reference:
1. George Owrell (Eric Arthur Blair), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) (Secker and Warburg, London, 8 June 1949).
http://www.amazon.com/Nineteen-Eighty-Four-Centennial-Edition-George/dp/0452284236
Steve McIntyre has done a great service to society by identifying and stubbornly refusing to gloss over technical flaws in the AGW story.
I can appreciate his reluctance to dig deeper into this:
All discoveries bring an immediate sense of satisfaction.
Many of these are followed by feelings of elation or joy.
The discovery that my own government had been lying,
in 1976, was followed by deep depression and despair.
I was compelled to return to battle by official responses
to Climategate emails and documents after Nov 2009
National Geographic http://tinyurl.com/96jy8l9 confirms:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120815-galaxy-massive-nature-stars-groups-clusters-space-science-phoenix/
Truth, Humility vs Ignorance, Arrogance
Truth is humbling. Therefore, arrogance
Is the constant companion of ignorance !
a.) Fear + Humility = Reverence/Awe/Wisdom
b.) Fear – Humility = Self Reliance, Arrogance
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
“Reclaim Your Birthright !” to avoid slipping further into George Orwell’s “1984 !”
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
That conclusion from the corruption of science
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
Is the basis of a new video from High School students in San Diego: “Voices Without A Vote”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuCaWYvpVZg
Since both political parties seem to have been involved in promoting misinformation since 1945, I will not personally endorse either either political party for the solution.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com
Sorry, the correct second link:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-818
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
That conclusion from the corruption of science
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
Is the basis of a new video from High School students in San Diego: “Voices Without A Vote”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuCaWYvpVZg
Since both political parties seem to have been involved in promoting misinformation since 1945, I will not personally endorse either either political party for the solution.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com
You’re just not smart enough to understand what he said. He means that de facto governments are stuck with the IPCC’s influence until it gets fixed. The thing is, even by its own standards, the “mitigation” solutions are economically insane: huge expense, trivial return.
Thanks, Brian H.
Some of us are unwilling to sink on a ship guided by ego-centered fools who carefully select experimental data and observations for promotion by the UN’s IPCC, US NAS, UK’s RS, EU’s NAS, Nature, Science, PBS, BBC, etc.
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-818
Today there is no doubt: This ship is sinking fast !
Steve McIntyre has has a religious belief in the authority of state institutions. Or so I have observed over the years. How he has such clarity in analysis of data and skill in statistical stuff, yet simultaneously and completely surrenders his judgement to what state organs want to do, is a mystery. But that’s what attachment to beliefs do to us humans.
Andrew
He’s Canadian. They have a functional government over there.
The tens of thousands of contaminated sites peppered across the country were left decimated by federal activities such as dumping hazardous waste, oil spills, fuel leaks and the improper closure of industrial sites.
http://www.globalnews.ca/canadas+environment+watchdog+warns+cleaning+up+mistakes+could+cost+billions/6442636654/story.html
“They have a functional government over there.”
Quite. Surprising that a genius like Barack Obama can’t get ours to work.
Andrew
It was barely functional until about 2010, then stopped altogether, and it was not the president, but the congress, that stopped functioning.
“they have a functional gov [in Canada]”
News to me. I worked up there. I pined for regular old American bureaucracy and inefficiency, as opposed to the hyper-competent Canadian brand of government poochin’. The real problem in Canadian Government is actually finding a gov employee that’s not on vacation.
He may know some statistics but is weak in physics. He has to defer judgement or he will get stomped on by those who understand the modeling.
He learned from the ridicule launched on his Canadian buddies Essex and McKittrick for putting out that joke of a book Taken by Storm.
clarity in analysis of data and skill in statistical stuff, yet simultaneously and completely surrenders his judgement to what state organs want to do,
I have friends like that
By “functioning” government, Jim D means “meddling” or “domineering”, his basic instincts being totalitarian, and hence a free and voluntary society (where government does little) being anathema to him.
For critics, see the full article:
McIntyre: Climate policy crippled by pointless feel-good gestures
CO2 is rising, so let’s get busy with cheaper-than-coal low-carbon energy
Recognize reality:
Focus funds prudently:
He opposed the
Fund R&D into transformative energy:
Apply best practices:
The IPCC needs major reform. Its
I think this is unfair to McIntyre. I can’t speak for him, but what I take away from his commentary is that there are structures in place which are reasonable, from politicians / lawmakers / scientists / engineers / accountants etc., etc., and that such a system can be made to work if everyone does their job properly.
McIntyre makes the *general* observation that politicians ignoring warnings from scientists – a field that most politicians have little knowledge or skill in – could open themselves to accusations of negligence if they ignore the scientific advice. As a general principle, that is reasonable. They can still choose to ignore the scientists, but they take on board that risk in doing so, in a field they possibly have no expertise in; if things go wrong after that, they become personally responsible (and possibly negligent, since they were warned) for that failing.
My reading is that in the case of global warming, McIntyre is placing the blame more at the door of the IPCC and academic institutions than the politicians at this time. That seems to me to be a fair and practical assessment of the situation.
Thanks for your comment, Spence_UK.
Part of the problem is that all scientists are human and subject to human weaknesses.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, scientists on the winning side (who supervised construction of the first Atomic Bomb) were full of self-confidence – a dangerous human weakness!
They apparently advised world leaders to hide information on energy (E) stored as mass (m) in cores of atoms and stars.
One leading scientist on the losing side, Dr. Kazuo Kuroda of the Imperial University of Tokyo, displayed more humility:
“One day in August 1945, while standing in the ruins of Hiroshima, I became overwhelmed by the power of nuclear energy.
“The sight before my eyes was just like the end of the world, . . .
“but I also felt that the beginning of the world may have been just like this.”
[Paul Kazuo Kuroda, The Origin of the Chemical Elements and the Oklo Phenomenon [Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1982,165 pp] (p. 2)
The difference: Humility (open-mindedness, willingness)
a.) Fear + Humility = Reverence/Awe/Wisdom
b.) Fear – Humility = Self Reliance, Arrogance
Fortunately for mankind, one of those who hid information on energy (E) stored as mass (m) in cores of atoms and stars apparently warned George Orwell in ~1946-47, who then wrote Nineteen Eighty-four (1984) to warn us of impending doom
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/
Despite these warnings, we have been deprived of our birthright by world leaders following path b.) b.) Fear – Humility
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-818
I don’t understand what you’re failing to understand. The IPCC was set up to produce reports for policymakers on the state of the climate. There is no alternative body doing the work for the policymakers. That it has been hijacked by the environmental NGOs and activists scientists is unfortunate, but its advice is the only advice available for policymakers to act on. Steve McIntyre is stating the “bleeding obvious”, you may find that wishy washy, but it’s really not surrender to the forces of evil. He has said quite clearly that the IPCC needs to be changed, he’s frustrated at the political nature of its output and one-sidedness of the science, but he’s saying, rightly, that it’s the only body offering advice to policymakers and they have no choice but to follow it.
geronimo
RE: “there is no alternative body”
But there is. See the
NON-governmental International Panel on Climate Change – NIPCC Reports</a.
Good point, David.
The only difference is between fraud and fact !
Unfortunately, our tax funds have been purchasing the former, while factual observations and measurements that were also purchased with our tax funds were ignored.
With deep regret,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://www.omatumr.com
How much tax funds were squandered to promote misinformation?
We have no clear information on this:
a) About $1,000,000,000 was spent to sample the Moon in 1969
b) Probably several billion dollars more were spent to store, analyze and report the composition of meteorites and lunar samples from 1969 to 1994
c) Another $1,000,000,000 was spent to sample Jupiter in 1995
Those analyses confirmed what most astronomers and astrophysicists already knew in 1945 [1]: IRON (Fe) is the most abundant element in the interior of the Sun.
Attempts to hide that finding were finally recorded by CSPAN News on 7 Jan 1998 [2], discrediting much of the good work NASA scientists had done earlier.
1. Fred Hoyle, Home Is Where the Wind Blows [University Science Books, 1994, 441 pages], pages 153-154
2. CSPAN video of NASA Administrator releasing data (1998)
Interned: Hey, they filmed Grease at my old high school.
Real Science summarizes August 2012:
number 4 should be no statistically significant global warming. The bean counters find that offensive other wise.
They’d also point out that #’s 1,2,3,6 & 8 represent extremes, that the last time ‘no statistically significant’ applied to #4 was three years ago, that #5 is a measure on what could be an exponential growth curve with large natural variability, and that Real Science keeps getting caught in similar fallacies time and again, no? If they’re bean counters, that is?
Be an octopus: start football practice during colder weather, and move inside sports like basketball to the warm season. Then cost out the price to the schools of this adaptation, and litigate for damages from the coal, oil and automobile producers who can be held liable for their role in making it necessary.
See, now you’re thinking like a Capitalist octopus!
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-7004909622962894202
By the way, look at some other adaptation involving octopus, assuming it’s going to be one of the few forms of protein to adapt to a globally changing ocean: http://dsc.discovery.com/adventure/extreme-live-octopus-eating.html
Be an octopus: start football practice during colder weather, and move inside sports like basketball to the warm season.
Bart : Then cost out the price to the schools of this adaptation, and litigate for damages from the coal, oil and automobile producers who can be held liable for their role in making it necessary.
Little Bart is having a go a Capitalism 101 again. Not bad for a schoolboy I suppose.
But what he’s really doing is trying to mask his insane frothing-at-the-mouth Hansenlike hatred of fossil fuel, which he wants punished/taxed even though we still have no idea whether CO2 CAGW is true or not. To support this mania of his, he wants the criminally fraudulent IPCC treated as gospel.
Tomcat | August 20, 2012 at 2:28 am |
You may have no idea, but the courts do.
There have been rulings at the level of the US Supreme Court and the high court in the UK (ask Latimer Alder what they call that over there, as I refrain from commentary on government matters so far afield where possible) that have found among other things that Climate Change is real, that humans have a significant role in its cause, and that the EPA _must_ treat CO2 as a pollutant. See, that’s plenty to establish a tort.
And I don’t hate fossil fuel. I use the stuff most days. Plastic’s made of it. Many pharmaceuticals. Industrial chemicals. Nitrogen fertilizer. These are valuable and often reusable applications of petroleum. Which can’t happen if you burn the precious stuff instead. I’m not against fossil fuel. I’m against lunkheads being subsidized to waste it.
@bart r
‘that have found among other things that Climate Change is real, that humans have a significant role in its cause, and that the EPA _must_ treat CO2 as a pollutant’
News to me that any courts in the UK have even been asked to adjudicate on any such things let alone given favourable replies. The last relevant judgement I remember was that Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth was such a crock of shit that it could only be shown in schools if nine substantive errors were corrected
Please point me to the relevant judgements that show the results you claim.
Latimer Alder | August 20, 2012 at 9:24 am |
That’s the one. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7037671.stm
A Mr. Dimmock, a lorry driver (I believe that means bus driver) and sometime local politician, acted as plaintiff backed by Lord Christopher Monckton and an anonymous friend of Monckton’s.
The plaintiff won, in that Gore’s film had to be accompanied by nine warnings about Point-of-View statements the court could not find to be fact, and Point of View isn’t within the purview of Education. (Oh, that such a practical point of view were to apply to Heartland, eh, David?)
The plaintiff’s backers however, were served a stunning defeat. Of three dozen claims, the court rejected twenty seven and allowed the showing of the film in schools, finding it in the public interest, and in the words from the bench of Mr. Justice Burton, “..substantially founded upon scientific research and fact, albeit that the science is used, in the hands of a talented politician and communicator, to make a political statement and to support a political programme.”
See? That’s a High Court finding. It makes it all legal and stuff.
Yes, since the government-funded science producing CAGW alarmism has little credibility due to vested interest and habitual fraud, the science is now being “settled” by government-funded courts. To applause of those like Bart who fervently support the underlying totalitarian agenda driving the CAGW idea.
Tomcat | August 21, 2012 at 2:08 am |
So, your thesis is that the courts — the same ones as found against Al Gore on nine of 36 specific points — are secretly conspiring to drive the agenda of ‘the government’ around the world, alongside scientists and the media, politicians and public servants (tell us, is there _anyone_ not in on this plot?) to alarm the mindless populace about of all things the weather so they can remain comfortably in power?
You’re really accusing all High Court and Supreme Court justices of conspiracy and corruption?
And you don’t see that as irrational in the least?
Get treatment.
You again repeat your satisfaction with courts “settling” the science, carrying the implication that the courts are the font of climate knowledge. Heavens, take your own advice and get treatment.
And again you wheel out the tired old strawman about this implying a “conspiracy”. An organization acting in its own interest is just bau. See if your shrink can help you with that one too.
Tomcat | August 21, 2012 at 11:29 am |
Actually, I was responding to your post (Tomcat | August 20, 2012 at 2:28 am |), which brought up the matterof legality in the first place “criminally fraudulent”, as well as of your own ignorance.
If you’re going to say criminally fraudulent, and then call all courts everywhere corrupt as BAU, then you’re trying to get away with having your cake and eating it too. Which, besides being a priori contempt of court is something that may be criminally fraudulent.
Or at least rampantly irrational.
It’s not really my concern which of them you are: dishonest or insane.
The above incoherent drivel only exposes you as the insane/irrational/dishonest one, slavering over the science being “settled” by courts..
bart, I remember the ruling that EPA MAY treat CO2 as pollution, and that EPA pursued the finding of harm. I did not see where it was ruled EPA had to regulate, nor that the courts did otherwise than re-iterating EPA’s claims. Do you have a citation?
It’s like spoonfeeding infants, I swear.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/97-589.pdf
CRS-9
38 “The mandatory ‘shall’ . . . normally creates an obligation impervious to judicial discretion.” Lexecon, Inc. v. Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, 523 U.S. 26, 35 (1998). “The use of a permissive verb — ‘may review’ instead of ‘shall review’ — suggests a discretionary rather than mandatory review process.” Rastelli v. Warden, Metro. Correctional Center, 782 F.2d 17, 23 (2d Cir. 1986). 39 “Should” sometimes is substituted for “may” as a permissive word. Union Elec. Co. v. Consolidation Coal Co., 188 F.3d 998, 1001 (8th Cir. 1999). “Will” and “must” can be additional mandatory words. Bankers Ins. Co. v. Florida Res. Prop. & Cas. Jt. Underwriting Ass’n, 137 F.3d 1293, 1298 (11th Cir. 1998). 40 See IA SUTHERLAND, STATUTES AND STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION § 25:4 (Norman J. Singer ed., 6th ed. 2002 rev.). 41 See, e.g., Lopez v. Davis, 531 U.S. 230, 241 (2001) (“Congress’ use of the permissive ‘may’ . . . contrasts with the legislators’ use of a mandatory ‘shall’ in the very same section”); and United States ex rel. Siegel v. Thoman, 156 U.S. 353, 359-60 (1895) (“in the law to be construed here it is evident that the word ‘may’ is used in special contradistinction to the word ‘shall’”). 42 See, e.g., Escoe v. Zerbst, 295 U.S. 490, 493 (1935) (“doubt . . . is dispelled when we pass from the words alone to a view of [the statute’s] ends and aims”). 43 See, e.g., Moore v. Illinois Cent R.R., 312 U.S. 630, 635 (1941) (substitution of “may” for “shall” “was not, we think, an indication of a change in policy, but was instead a clarification of the [Railway Labor Act’s] original purpose [of establishing] a system for peaceful adjustment and mediation voluntary in its nature”). See also discussion in Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 432 n.9 (1995) (“shall” sometimes means “may”). 44 The Dictionary Act provides that “unless the context indicates otherwise,” “words importing the singular include and apply to several persons, parties, or things; words
importing the plural include the singular.” 1 U.S.C. § 1. 45 Public Citizen, Inc. v. Mineta, 340 F.3d 39, 54 (2d Cir. 2003).
Shall/may.
Use of “shall” and “may” in statutes also mirrors common usage; ordinarily “shall” is mandatory and “may” is permissive.38 These words39 must be read in their broader statutory context, however, the issue often being whether the statutory directive itself is mandatory or permissive.40 Use of both words in the same provision can underscore their different meanings,41 and often the context will confirm that the ordinary meaning of one or the other was intended.42 Occasionally,
however, context will trump ordinary meaning.43
In the context of a court deciding whether or not the EPA may consider a thing a pollutant, when the jurisdiction and mandate of the EPA is a statutory obligation upon it to regulate (http://www.epa.gov/p2/pubs/p2policy/provisions.htm) any pollutant it may find, then “may” means “must”.
See? Simple.
Ah, so the science is being “settled” by lawyers now. How comforting.
The courts – one self-important political institution – backing up what another self-interested political institution – the IPCC is saying. And, surprise, surprise, the finding is that we need more political interference to sabotage markets.
Exactly what Bart wants, despite the market posturings to camouflage his anti-fossil mania (including the pretense that fossil fuel is subdized).
Tomcat | August 20, 2012 at 4:14 am |
Wow.
Now it’s the US Supreme Court that’s your enemy and your target?
Everyone is against you? Well, everyone in power.
Capitalism is only exchanges that are easy and advantageous for you, and all exchanges that are costly are only costly because of corrupt government institutions, and a conspiracy of lawyers and scientists?
Man, paranoia and entitlement on such epic scale are awe-inspiring to observe. Like a car wreck of motivated unreasoning in progress.
Since you present zero argument, the point stands, viz your contentment with science is being “settled” by lawyers, since you like their decision.
bart forgets how the Snopes trial ended.
How entertaining.
lurker, passing through laughing | August 20, 2012 at 4:32 pm |
bart forgets how the Snopes trial ended.
How entertaining.
That’s the Scopes trial, I think (www.snopes.com is a website that punctures hoaxes by researching and publicizing the truth – I understand why you might not be familiar with it); the defendent made a plea of guilty, and on appeal the plea was thrown out.
Any other questions?
Judith, we all appreciate that it makes eminent *logical* sense for Climate Etc to cover “The Great Arctic Sea-Ice Melt of 2012” only *after* the melt is over.
But gee, that’s like looking a NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover pictures only *after* the mission is concluded! ;) ;) ;)
Heck, some folks like to see science-related news while its happening. And for this summer’s real-time, breaking climate-science news, there’s no better source than Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice weblog. Good on yah, Neven! :lol: :lol: :lol:
For reasons that presently are much-discussed elsewhere on Climate Etc, denialists are tightly constrained by ideology in regard to “spinning” this year’s Arctic ice-melt, and so it well for folks to be scientifically well-informed regarding it.
Most importantly, thank you for your work sustaining Climate Etc as an outstanding forum for public discourse, Judith Curry! :) :) :)
Fan, you once again write, ad nauseum “For reasons that presently are much-discussed elsewhere on Climate Etc, denialists are tightly constrained by ideology in regard to “spinning” this year’s Arctic ice-melt”
As I repeatedly point out, also ad nauseum, there is absolutely no science to support the idea that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is having an enhanced effect on melting sea ice in the Arctic, while sea ice extent is the Antarctic is staying stubbonly above average.
How can CO2 distinguish between the Arctic and the Antarcitc? Why do you claim an enhanced effect for the Arctic, while there is clearly no enhanced effect for the Antarctic?
There is good science to attribute the declining arctic sea ice to global warming with polar amplification and further attribute that global warming to human activity, primarily greenhouse gas emissions of which CO2 is the primary constituent.
The antarctic is subject to very different conditions than the arctic. Notably the sea ice there surrounds a high elevation land continent, whereas the arctic sea ice covers an ocean at the northern pole.
Nevertheless around the Antarctic Peninsular where warming is at it’s greatest on the continent, sea ice has been in decline.
For a summary of Arctic vs Antarctic differences see the following lecture.
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/HLD/ArcticChange11/Lecture18_Antarctica_ArcticChange11.pdf
Actually that’s not true. There is no, “good science,” that indicates a link to CO2. It’s just speculation supported by more speculation and confirmed by even more speculation. Maybe our school systems need to make more of an effort to educate people on the difference between good science and speculation.
A strong weight of scientific evidence points at human activity contributing to most of the recent global warming, including much faster warming in the arctic. In turn the sharp decline in arctic sea ice can be attributed to the warming in the region. You shouldn’t confuse weight of evidence for proof. Proof is quite often unobtainable in the sciences and instead settle for the weight of evidence.
The problem with using “weight of evidence” is that people, naturally, tend to see the evidence that confirms what they already believe as being more weighty than that that disputes it. It’s like the placebo effect. And the only way to avoid this natural tendency is through application of scientific methods, which is impossible for this discipline in that CO2 forcing is both undefinable and immeasurable in principle.
I think the root of the problem is that electronic media has provided us so much information that it has overwhelmed the educational systems ability to educate people in standard scientific methodology.
If you are looking for some objective method by which to provide proof or truth you will rarely find it in science. For example what scientific method proves common ancestry of species to be the case other than sheer weight of evidence? There is no clinching absolute proof in that case either yet we don’t go around saying it’s based on speculation and “no good science”.
You are making my point for me. With the question of biological origins there are three possible conclusions one can draw after examining the evidence: 1) Evolution (natural selection) is true; 2) That god created it all is true; 3) Inconclusive. You are using the same logic that creationists use to come to the conclusion that the correct answer is 2 rather than 1 or 3.
The fact that CO2 forcing is immeasurable doesn’t mean that you can conclude anything you want and call it science.
lolwot, you write “A strong weight of scientific evidence points at human activity contributing to most of the recent global warming, ”
Sorry, this is garbage. I am not sure what you classify as “scientific evidence”, but, in my book, I only count empirical evidence; data based on actual measurements. The world seems to have been warming ever since the end of the LIA. It has been warming at a linear rate of about 0.06 C per decade since we have decent records; say since about 1850. There is no sign that this rate of warming has changed at all. There is no CAGW signal in any temperature/time graph from the 20th and 21st centuries. There is no proof that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has caused any surface warming at all. If you claim there is empirical evidence that adding CO2 to the atmopshere causes an increase in surface temperatures, where is it?
“in my book, I only count empirical evidence; data based on actual measurements.”
If science were limited simply to measurements it would be only able to describe phenomenon and not explain them, and would be much poorer for it. How for example how can you “prove” the Earth orbits the Sun using only measurements? By demanding only measurements you make it impossible to explain anything, including the question of what caused the recent warming. There is no instrument after-all that can measure units of “human contribution per second”.
To attribute you need measurements and theory. You need to not only measure changes but also produce a model that can explain them.
I agree. I’m not opposed to models. Nor am I opposed to models that assume CO2 forcing (despite the fact they tell us absolutely nothing useful). I am, however, opposed to modelers that assume CO2 forcing and then conceal and/or fail to fully disclose that the CO2 forcing quantity in their model is assumed and not measured, and then go on to make alarmist pronouncements. This isn’t science. It’s pandering.
Confirmation bias is seen in the main skeptic argument about the natural variability and the “oceans did it” argument. We see the oceans lag the land in warming and they choose to ignore this or maybe are not aware of it, which would normally be damning evidence that they were wrong. How do we address this selectiveness? When an argument doesn’t fit the facts, the usual thing is for it to be dismissed but that is not happening in the blogosphere, only in the science sphere.
I think you are talking in generalities and only confusing the issues, and yourself. You speak of confirmation bias and, ironically, ignore the fact that it is the skeptics that have concluded that the science on this subject is inconclusive.
Claudiusdenk: “With the question of biological origins there are three possible conclusions one can draw after examining the evidence: 1) Evolution (natural selection) is true; 2) That god created it all is true; 3) Inconclusive.”
The weight of evidence points at #1. You argue the weight of evidence is problematic because it’s open to people tending to see the evidence that confirms what they already believe as being more weighty than that that disputes it. Indeed but nevertheless that’s how #1 is reached, by weight of evidence.
You say: “The fact that CO2 forcing is immeasurable doesn’t mean that you can conclude anything you want and call it science.”
I don’t think it is immeasurable.
For you the weight of the evidence indicates 1) evolution. (I happen to agree with you on this.) But for some people, creationists, the weight of the evidence indicates 2) creationism.
Lastly, you indicate that you believe CO2 forcing is measurable. Do you also believe in unicorns? And do you believe that your belief in either makes them more likely to actually exist?
JimD, “Confirmation bias is seen in the main skeptic argument about the natural variability and the “oceans did it” argument. We see the oceans lag the land in warming and they choose to ignore this or maybe are not aware of it, which would normally be damning evidence that they were wrong.”
That broad brush is really a PITA. The rational debate is on the degree of warming that can be expected and the individual causes of the warming. Most “skeptics” are luke warmers. Luke warmers have an increasing compelling case that warming, due to CO2 doubling, will be 1.1C or less.
If you want to see oceans lags land warming, http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/08/back-from-future.html there ya go, 130 years of oceans lagging land warming.
I am a “cool” luke warmer at 0.8C equilibrium sensitivity due to CO2 doubling. Steven Schwatrz would be a “cool” luke warmer, with 1.1C +/- 0.5C. James Annan would be a “cooling” luke warmer recommending sensitivity greater than 4C be scraped. Lindzen at 0.5 +/- a couple tenths would be a “cool” luke warmer. So what minimum “sensitivity” to CO2 would you use to draw the “skeptic” line in the sand?
lolwot, you write “If science were limited simply to measurements it would be only able to describe phenomenon and not explain them, and would be much poorer for it.”
You are absolutely correct. But there is a difference between evidence on the one hand, and hypothesis, theory, and laws on the other. Of course we need both evidence, and explanations as to what this ecvidence means. That is not the issue.
The question is what constitutes “evidence”? In my book, the only evidence that can be used to test hypotheses and theories is empirical data; hard measured, independently replicated, empirical data. For example, the output of non-validated models is not “evidence” in my book. That is what I am saying. You are merely bringing in a red herring by somehow claiming that I ignore the why, and only concentrate on the what.
Of course the why matters, but the why must be based on empirical data, and empirical data only.
lolwot There is No evidence! There is only flawed climate model output and opinion!
On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that CO2 has not caused the dangerous warming that has failed to occur during the past 15 years.
capt.d., yes, the other plank of skepticism is low sensitivity due to a negative cloud feedback, which again appears not to be happening as cloud cover has been reducing while it gets warmer. Again selectiveness due to confirmation bias removes recognition of damning evidence against an argument.
JimD, Whether cloud coverage changes are feed backs or natural variations is debatable. An increased rate of convection due to CO2 warming water/clouds would be a cooling feed back.
http://www.columbia.edu/~lmp/paps/polvani+solomon-JGR-2012-inpress.pdf
Reduction in stratospheric ozone concentration due to the increased rate of convection may also be a cooling feedback.
Some of this wasn’t covered in 1988.
Whatever the source of warming it is amplified at the poles. The ice ages are 30C cooler at the poles with little change in the tropics.
Fan seems to succeed in spinning around and around, moving air and going no where, and little else….besides his creepy over use of smiley faces.
Not to mention the giant freak’n Arctic cyclone, which one would think is exactly the sort of thing our host would have valuable expertise in.
which makes her wise to stay away from it. did she predict it? maybe. can she analyze it later? sure. should she speculate now? totally based on her self image as a pundit (??)
Can anyone point me to a link where the attribution of ACO2 decline to increased use of gas is controlled for the downturn in the economy?
In addition I would like to see where the attribution of the emission decline has been controlled for an increase in emissions elsewhere. Ie has the coal that has not been burned in the US as a result of natural gas merely been burned somewhere else?
Given the severe drop in the price of coal stocks, I would infer that less coal is being burned.
Then how did global CO2 emissions increase last year? Are we burning more oil? Or what?
You realize, do you not, that there’s more to the world than the USA?
It appears a lot more coal was burned globally.
http://www.ericgarland.co/wp-content/uploads/pix/2012/07/Global-Coal-Consumption-Trend-2001-2011.jpg
Less coal is being burned globally?
Less coal is being burned in the United States, and more gas. That is contributing, along with more expensive gasoline and slow economic growth, to a modest fall in CO2 emissions.
Unfortunately it is not at all clear if the fall in CO2 emissions is helpful in the short or in the medium term if it comes at a cost of fugitive methane emissions. The benefits of cutting CO2 emissions are delayed (not cancelled) by the weakening of the aerosol forcing.
This is being missold as “the market cutting CO2 emissions” but of course, the market didn’t cut CO2 emissions, it simply shifted to a cheaper energy source that, over the long term, at least, has somewhat lower negative externalities. But because those negative externalities were not represented in the price of the coal or the gas that replaced it, the relative negative externality of the two fuels is just a coincidence.
It would be interesting to see if the EPA’s endangerment finding and/or regulatory changes made a different by curtailing the willingness of investors to put money into new coal plants. It seems like the primary driver is cheap natural gas.
Ah, yes, the new rallying cry of the faithful, the hopefully proposed but widely refuted fugative methane emissions. Hope springs eternal.
By all means, link to the paper where fugitive methane emissions were “refuted.”
You should realize that your need to lie about such things undermines your whole position. :)
NETL, a coal cheerleader, did a study refuting (essentially) Howarth et al. Fugitive emissions are much in play, but “consensus” if you like, is moving toward the conclusion that unconventional NG is lower GHG than coal, particularly for electicity where turbines can be used.
Indeed – it seems that to laud the change as attributable to the “free market,” then it would be important to consider the trends in how manufacturing has flowed to different parts of the globe.
That is, actually, unrelated to any cuts in ACO2 realized by substitution of gas for coal – but must be accounted for if one wants to carefully weight the costs and benefits of the “free market.”
One would think that “skeptics,” being so “concerned” about careful science, must have these data.
I am quite confident that one will post a link.
Joshua,
I have no data, but it has been widely reported that the post-crash trend is rising US exports and a slight trend of return of US jobs from china.
jim –
Yes, I have heard that also.
Although I suspect that it might be more accurate to say that the trend of manufacturing leaving is slowing down, not an absolute decrease.
Either way, no attribution can be made, as many “skeptics” seem to want to do, unless you control for those data.
There is a problem that occurs when people who are very “concerned” about. what they feel is an unqualified attribution, turn around and promote unqualified attributions.
Would you agree?
A free-market downturn in the energy economy caused it. Conventional sources of natural gas are declining as expected. Same with the oil that is often used for heating. A bubble of hydraulically fractured natural gas makes its way into the market and prices drop. This is a result of lots of parallel prospecting efforts in the various shale deposits. How long will this transient last is up in the air. We will probably need a few months more worth of data.
The other free-market aspect is the drop in emissions due to drop in automobile miles driven. Along with that is the use of more fuel efficient cars and hybrid and electric cars. Also the use of ethanol which leans to carbon neutral if the EROEI is above unity.
So its largely a result of oil shocks sending the productivity into a decline and emissions go along with it. Fossil fuels can not sustain an economy for the long term.
Surely, “skeptics” must have data that control for these variables. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be making these claims – I assure. It is only a matter of time before they produce the data.
Also – I would imagine that they must have accounted for any increases in the price of oil – otherwise the logical extension of their position is that we should tax oil more to turn people towards gas.
Oh.
Wait.
And a final irony.
This has occurred during a period of relatively slow growth, economically. So “skeptics” are declaring our “victory,” (http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/19/week-in-review-81812/#comment-230482) from reduced ACO2 during a period of slowed economic growth. Logical extension? Perhaps their concern about GDP growth is selective? Say it ain’t so!
Maybe we should fly a banner that says “Mission Accomplished?”
Sorry – shouldn’t have put quotes around “victory.” What David said is that we are “winning,” not that the battle has been won. Apologies.
That’s a Charlie Sheen-style “winning” .
Not having anything left to support their arguments, they will just parade about and say “winning”.
I am sure it is a combination of both. Moreover, the switch to gas for power generation was driven as much by regulatory pressure as by market factors. The switch to gas for new generation began in the 2000-2002 building boom. US peak power use grows typically 20 gig a year on average and we build 200 gig of new capacity every ten years or so. In the 2000-2002 boom most people went for gas fired combined cycle, because coal was threatened. Now coal has been killed and gas is amazingly cheap, thanks to fracking. The next 200 gig boom, when the economy recovers, will be pretty much all gas fired. Combined cycle is dreadful for base load generation but there is nothing economical left. The age of gas is here. Coal’s percentage of generation has been dropping for a decade and will drop faster soon.
Actually, there’s another issue. A lot of older, smaller, coal-fired plants are at end-of-life. They can keep them running with duct tape, but at the expense of high operating cost. Not only is gas cheaper per BTU, but an open-cycle gas turbine is MUCH lower in capital cost than a new coal-fired steam plant. The decision between keeping the old plant going for another year may be difficult in some cases, but once the decision to replace it is made the decision of what to replace it with isn’t close. Nobody is going to build a new coal-fired plant in the US.
You also have to keep in mind that it’s pretty easy to convert an open-cycle plant to combined cycle later. So building an open cycle plant later still leaves the door open for efficiency improvements later.
Where are the skeptics that do analysis on tight gas and tight oil formations?
By tight it means that the oil and gas is in nooks and crannies of the underlying substrate, whereas conventional gas and oil is typically dispersed within a porous reservoir.
This has significant implications on how much extracted resources any one location can hold, and what the transient profile looks like. This may end up looking like the flash-in-the-pan gold rush days than a sustained flow seen during the earlier oil boom days.
I have done analysis of the Bakken oil and that matches a transient diffusional flow accurately. That generates a high initial transient and a lower producing tail.
Natural gas typically has very little in its tail and drops off rapidly. The prospector just moves to another site. That’s the typical scenario.
We will see how it all plays out. That’s why they call these operations plays I imagine.
The era of scraping the bottom of the barrel has begun.
http://thegwpf.org/best-of-blogs/6339-ivo-vegter-its-a-disaster-that-peak-oil-is-not-a-disaster.html
“What changed Monbiot’s mind was an analysis of global oil reserves by Leonardo Maugeri, published by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs. Maugeri makes the case in the report’s opening sentence: “Contrary to what most people believe, oil supply capacity is growing worldwide at such an unprecedented level that it might outpace consumption. This could lead to a glut of overproduction and a steep dip in oil prices.”
http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/Oil-%20The%20Next%20Revolution.pdf
Leonardo Maugeri has been heavily debunked. He doesn’t know what percentage decline means. Google debunking and Maugeri.
Webbie
There’s a very easy way to show that Maugeri is wrong…and one that doesn’t involve semantic arguments.
Just show a graph of worldwide production over time, where the peak is shown to be a while back. Simples. Pretty much unargauable. And who better to do it than our goto man on oli….WHT himself.
Can you do that for us all?
(PS And perlease don’t witter on with your usual BS about North Sea Oil production. That it is declining is no big surprise. An, amazingly, you are not the only one to have noticed. The UK Treasury, who make a shed load of money out of PRT, were well aware of it from about 1975.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_revenue_tax)
This is a graph of world-wide crude oil discoveries as a function of year.
http://faitaucanada.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/newsletter17-oil-discoveries.jpg?w=640
The peak occurred in 1964.
You can find one for production yourself.
@webbie
I challenged you to show a graph of worldwide oil production, showing that the peak had passed.
You reply
‘Find it yourself’
I conclude that you cannot. Thought so.
A poor show from one who claims to be super-expert about all things petroleum.and petroleum reserves.
How can you not know where to find the answer to one of the most basic questions ‘How much do we produce?’.
:roll:
Web says we are down to scraping the barrel as far as fossil fuel is concerned.
True. 2-300 hundred years from now, we’ll probably need to switch.
Tomcat,
It is obvious that Web knows nothing about ‘barrles’, ‘bottoms’ or ‘scrapings’, which goes with his knowing nothing about ‘oil’, ‘fossil fuel’ or ‘reserves’.
Web is what we call barrulous.
The link is interesting. Apparently the warm winter of 2011-12 helped in the number they reported. We’ll see what the hot summer of 2012 does. The biggest factor looks like power generation shifting rather sharply in 2007-8 from coal to natural gas.
She didnt say downturn in the economy, Joshua.
RIF
reading is fundamemental/
See what happens in your knee jerk effort to find something wrong with Judith
???
I don’t understand your point. I didn’t say that Judith said “downturn in the economy.” Please elaborate.
You don’t get Judith.
Do you…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9486138/BBC-apologises-for-forecasting-sunshine-after-downpours-dampen-barbecue-weekend.html
Some people get information about the world from other sources besides one rather slanted weekly news update. ;)
And the downturn of economic activity is due to………….
I think we’ve beaten that particular horse to a bloody pulp, to put it mildly.
This seems rather extreme to me. I wouldn’t use the term “denialist,” but I would use the term “skeptic.”
Really? The “entire rationale” is to hope that petty acts will “cure the problem?”
Judith – why do you not, ever, call out someone like S-Mac for unqualified statements that fail to quantify conclusions? Where is your dedication to acknowledging uncertainty?
@oshua
You can post your remarks at Climate Audit and they will be seen directly by Steve McIntyre.
But of your primary purpose is just to beat up on our host here, I think I can guess that we won’t see you there.
Joshua,
Have you ever really thought about the rationale of climate change policy in the US? Steve M has, and, in my opinion, has nailed it.
You want to look into the problem look at the current Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative program review documents (http://www.rggi.org/design/program_review/materials_by_date). The major policy issue in this program review analysis is that the RGGI cap on CO2 emissions is higher than projected emissions. As a result the cap will not driving sources to make reductions because they can buy allowances at the minimum price. The advocates for mitigation and the RGGI policy folks want to reduce the cap to a point that sources will have to make reductions to get enough allowances to operate.
Go to the August 14, 2012 supplemental materials emissions tab in the Reference Case Results spreadsheet and look at the CO2 emissions. The total RGGI projected emissions are listed (on the order of 100 million tons) and the “Eastern Interconnect without RGGI” (that is the US and Canada east of the Rockies) emissions are listed (on the order of 1500 million tons).
I told RGGI policy staff that setting a low cap at say, 90 million tons, which could force a reduction of 10 million tons relative to the 1500 million tons, had no value and the response was silence. I could have said “Do you really think that petty act of virtuous behavior in the RGGI states will cure the problem” had I been as elegant with prose as McIntyre.
In the RGGI policy world reductions of CO2 are virtuous and that is enough reason to go ahead and force them. If you can show me anywhere in RGGI where they quantify the predicted effect of their emission reductions on temperature or any other parameter, then he would be wrong. But they haven’t so he nailed it.
Roger –
Thanks for that response. I don’t doubt problems such as those you highlight in that regional initiative.
Let me highlight the language that I think is problematic in Stevie-Mac’s statement:
I don’t doubt that his, nor your, criticism of existing policies or their underlying rationale are valid to some degree. What I think is political is the nature of the gross generalization. It plays into the way that the debate has been politicized, and I can’t imagine that he is ignorant of that reality. While your criticisms of the RGGI seem legitimate (I’m not going to take the time to look at the issue in detail – I will assume that you have done due diligence in your analysis) – by definition a criticism of one initiative, and in particular a regional initiative, could speak to the statement I’m highlighting.
It seems to me that it is a given that there are multiple rationals in play that manifest in various ways due to a complicated political climate and the intractability of the inherent problems. In my view, generalizations that fail to acknowledge that complex calculus become little more than polemics. Such polemics actually undermine the validity of more specific criticism – such as that you offered.
Joshua,
I agree with “generalizations that fail to acknowledge that complex calculus become little more than polemics. Such polemics actually undermine the validity of more specific criticism”. Leaving aside the argument whether McIntyre crossed the line into too much generalization I wonder if we also agree that the tactics of the very vocal advocates for mitigation also cross the line when they describe generalized catastrophic impact scenarios?
Joshua,
You are right: The climate policy is not based on petty acts of virtue. Climate policy is based on cynical acts of rent seeking.
As I mentioned on a previous thread, the reason we have these “petty acts of virtuous behavior” to “cure the problem” of global CO2 emissions can be blamed on in-activists (climate skeptics, fossil fuel interests, etc). By scuppering meaningful global policies to limit CO2 emissions they ensure that actions are watered down into mere ineffectual petty acts.
So we are winning. Good for us. I prefer to think that nothing serious is being done because nothing serious needs to be done, and people are not stupid.
You have got to be kidding me. Something serious needs to be done to transition from depleting supplies of liquid fossil fuel. The USA has a bit of a reprieve and some breathing room but not so with the rest of the world.
The climate skeptics and fossil fuel cornucopians have some sort of blood compact going on.
Whatever it is, its not healthy.
What lolwot et al don’t seem to realize, is that with only joke technologies like wind and solar available as alternatives, and nuclear politically frowned on,
– official IPCC-guided “meaningful global policies to limit CO2 emissions”, and
– “petty acts of virtuous behavior to cure the problem” of global CO2 emissions,
are one and the same thing.
Lolowot
What utter nonsense.
You can blame the delays on the policies advocated by CAGW alarmists and activists. They promote policies that are economically irrational and have no realistic chance of working in the real world.
Here are a few examples:
1. Carbon pricing – it cannot work because the academic assumptions used for the modelling cannot be achieved in the real world; explained here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/
2. Renewable energy – very high cost. For example, to power the Australian National Electricity Market with renewable energy would cost around seven times the current cost of electricity and thirty times the current EU cost of carbon (see Figure 6 here http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/ ). How ridiculous is that? Any amount of non-hydro renewable energy is high cost.
3. Anti-nuclear – the CAGW alarmists and activist are, in the main, the same people who oppose nuclear power. They have been opposing nuclear power for some 50 years. Nuclear is by far the least cost way to reduce emissions from electricity generation. If they had not opposed the development of nuclear power, global CO2 emission would be some 10% to 20% lower now than they are, and the world would be well placed for a rapid trajectory to reduce emissions from energy use.
4. Oppose economically rational solutions – as has been so clearly demonstrated by comments on Climate Etc., the CAGW alarmists and activists are, in the main, of socially ‘Progressive’ persuasion and vociferously opposed to economically rational policies.
5. Kyoto Protocol is a classic example of the ill-conceived polices advocated by the ‘Progressives’.
It is the ‘Progressives’ who have advocated ill-conceived polices on the basis of their ideological beliefs. That is what has “scuppered meaningful global policies to limit CO2 emissions”. Clearly you are blinded by your ideological beliefs.
The Kyoto Protocol was an initial step to be expanded. It was inactivists in certain governments that saw it’s failure and they are entirely to blame for the ineffective status-quo.
Carbon pricing would work, but in-activists, including special interests in industry, scupper meaningful carbon price systems and ensure they remain ineffectual.
Economically rational solutions have not been opposed by activists. Rather it is in-activists who have opposed them.
Kyoto, fully implemented, would have done nothing to change the climate and would have cost a great deal of money while doing nothing.
Like all other climate consensus demanded policies and programs, it was a failure.
What is being ignored is that China thought is was not in their economic interest to support Kyoto, so they didn’t. Without a treaty that can be verified there is a motivation for countries to cheat and gain a competitive advantage.
You ignore the main point, Lurker, which is that Kyoto was politically correct.
Look. The Climate Etc. Warmer Trolls are out. Someone should start filming them for an Evolution Documentary.
Andrew
But they’re *not* evolving … they’re simply in statis
They tell us that
We lost our tails
Evolving up
From little snails
I say it’s all
Just wind in sails…
What’s a Week in Review without a bit of self-check on personal progress to understanding climate issues?
I’ve just started to put together a proposal for certifying people to prepare them to listen to climate debates (http://prezi.com/_fdaogoswjn1/climate-literacy-online-university-degree-certification/) based on my readings here ate Climae Etc. They’ve led me to the conclusion that most people are just not intellectually prepared or educated for the level of ignorance, FUD, demagogics, Marketing techniques, propaganda, fallacy, scientific inaccuracy, illogic, sophistry, trolling and scam in the field, and to defend themselves from the relentless onslaught (on either side) of such dross, it would be of benefit for skilled competent professional educators to put together an accredited and validated impartial multi-sourced certificate program, preferrably using available courses from outside the climate debate. I imagine no one will take up this challenge, or it will end up like David Wojick’s Heartland brainwashes-defenseless-children scheme.
And I was compared to Spencer (http://www.drroyspencer.com/). Which, I’m not sure which one of us ought be more consternated.
Here’s some of the differences:
Spencer blogs, Bart R prezis.;
Spencer “climatologist”, Bart R “a layman in no way qualified on climatology”;
Spencer “author”, Bart R comments on Climate Etc.;
Spencer “former NASA scientist”, Bart R not a former scientist;
Spencer Ph.D. in meteorology, Bart R looks out the window to see if it’s raining;
Spencer “NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for global temperature monitoring work with satellites”, Bart R doesn’t expect a medal for just doing his job;
Spencer “provided congressional testimony several times”, Bart R hasn’t lied to or misled congress publicly at all;
“RW Spencer” About 2,450 results (0.04 sec) on Google Scholar, “Bart R” About 2,480 results (0.10 sec); (I think mine may have more false positives.)
Spencer “research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies” (http://wsw.cornwallalliance.org/docs/an-examination-of-the-scientific-ethical-and-theological-implications-of-climate-change-policy.pdf); Bart R hasn’t found a way to rent-seekingly turn commenting on someone else’s blog into an opportunity for self-promotion and religious anti-science campaigning.
Bart you goof. If there were an impartial curriculum I would not have to spend my time trying to balance the CAGW propaganda machine. You really do not have a clue do you? By the way I have professional educators on my team, but we just call them teachers.
David Wojick | August 19, 2012 at 12:29 pm |
There’s no impartial courses available for Math? Statistics? Logic? Physics? Thermodynamics?
Those fields are all in thrall to CAGW propaganda?
Dude, that’s a level of paranoia that would make even an Iron Sun conspiracist gasp.
what bart has put together is worth a look
I think proposing a 3 year degree program in order to join the climate debate is ridiculous. But in any case I was responding to his attack on my K-12 curriculum work. The debate is already occurring in 4th grade, where the alarmists have a host of online propaganda.That is where my focus is. His goofy program is not an alternative.
David Wojick | August 19, 2012 at 1:40 pm |
Schoolchildren in grade 4 and earlier are also talking about and experimenting with sex, drugs and rock and roll; I’m certainly not opposed to Associates Degree or other less rigorous levels of certification to the comfort level of the adult participant with real interest and commitment.
But if I am talking to or listening to an adult who lacks that level of commitment to prepare and understand the mere techniques and standard definitions of the material they’re discussing, I do have the right to diminish the validity of their opinion skeptically. Such a certificate isn’t going to turn a rampaging mouth-breathing zealot from either camp into the Albert Einstein of climate, and even a child can say the Emperor has no clothes, but there’s a real value to Aristolean academic schema, or else they would not have withstood the millennia.
And whereas I’m coming from a background where Isaac Newton specifically spelled out the reasons why it is a terrible mistake to focus on teaching the controversy rather than upholding as accurate or very nearly true that which Science has shown to be the best body of knowledge and inference available, I’m sure I can get along with any educated person of any background willing to at least understand why Newton came to this conclusion, even if they disagree with him.
Perhaps once you’ve done that, I’ll find less abhorrent what you intend to do to defenseless children.
Wait, that link was to a serious proposal? I thought it was meant as an excellent piece of satire. I figured Bart was making a pitch to the Onion.
GaryM | August 19, 2012 at 4:10 pm |
I figured Bart was making a pitch to the Onion.
Draft Proposal to De-Certify Climatologists
To whit, given that Climatologists often participate in the unholy practices of using observations and data through the impenetrable process they call inference or “logic”, and that these “Scientists” often are corrupted by their taste for the vast wealth afforded public servants, we propose here a motion to de-certify said Climatologists whereseoever they may be found, as it is well-known that their “knowledge” is the enemy of our entitlement, and their “rationality” is the due foe of our sure conviction that the world is led by a conspiracy of Left Wing Progressives out to steal our pure essence.
Let anyone found to be holding to such persuasions as Mathematics — excepting only the practices of Numerological Bible Scholarship and Card Counting — be required to where a triangle on their outer garments, with a color assigned by the degree of their offense. Further, let those who have actually programmed computers — excepting only for video games or mining industry accountants using Visicalc — wear stars, which they call “asterisks” in their hoighty-toity manner.
If we do not De-Certify Climatologists who base their work on informed and data-driven methodology, we will soon be overwhelmed and swamped with such Left-leaning notions and ideas as hygiene, exercise, avoidance of mind-altering substances before 10:00 AM, and personal responsibility for our own actions, and we can’t have that, having worked against all those things so vigorously all our lives.
Almost hilarious, Bart R. But best keep the day job, if you have one.
Erica | August 20, 2012 at 11:05 am |
Why, that is the nicest thing I’ve heard you say about anyone, ever.
Thank you.
David,
That is a rather circular argument. I might as well argue that it must be true that we need action to mitigate AGW otherwise I wouldn’t be spending my time arguing on blogs for action to mitigate AGW.
David – you don’t have to spend your time the way you describe, you’re being paid to do it. Not quite so selfless as you would have folks believe.
Spencer &Cornwall Alliance
As curryja observed, our thanks to Bart R for highlighting the stellar qualifications of Dr. Roy Spencer. Particular thanks for the reminder of the Cornwall Alliance and its detailed evaluations on climate and policy from the Judeo-Christian Western worldview. e.g. An Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming
Christy on Hansen
On Spencer’s blog, Dr. John Christy posted: Fun with summer statistics. Part 2: The Northern Hemisphere Land
Christy observed:
On Hansen’s “death trains” of coal, Christy notes:
Christy examines Hansen’s PNAS paper and finds it scientifically wanting. e.g., Hansen’s
Hansen’s assumptions severely underestimated natural variability.
Christy further shows how bad Hansen’s 1988 predictions are compared to satellite global temperature observations in:
Fig 2.2 GISS Model Predictions 1988 vs. Observations Global Temperatures
He finds (Hansen’s 1988) simulations fail the scientific test, and his results underestimate the model actual errors.
Way to apprehend the separation of Church and State there, cowboy.
“research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies”
Rent-seekers who put taxpayers’ money to the use of their personal faith are not only acting contrary to the US Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court, but also to the trust the taxpayers have placed in them by their employ.
How can you not get that, and pretend to claim to anything Judeo-Christian?
And lurker passing through, laughing | August 19, 2012 at 9:31 pm | demonstrates the same notorious disregard, of “free people working to make money,” when that’s the taxpayers’ money, and these free people make free with tax dollars to promote their personal religion.
See, I’m not saying this as some godless athiest. I’m saying this as someone raised in and strongly convinced of the same ethos people pretend to, with the difference being I’d ashamed on behalf of all people of the creed.. of any creed.. by the conduct of these free-riding rent-seeking subverters of the trust placed in the terms set out by America’s Founding Fathers that, “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
So yes, I find Hagen and Spencer’s conduct odious, as Jefferson did. Why don’t they?
Who or what is Bart R?
Who is Bart R.? He is the anti-John Galt.
Bart S’s evil twin?
P.E. | August 19, 2012 at 11:34 pm |
Bart R is Bart R’s evil twin. Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the skepticism.
Alexej Buergin | August 19, 2012 at 8:50 pm |
Oh look, you brought the Ayn Rand fanboys out of the cracks in the plaster.
Who cares who I am? I’m here for ideas, not ad hominem. There’s plenty in the Denizens thread to explain my background, if people care. There’s books worth of comments I’ve made here and on prezi. If that’s not enough, then perhaps you have a specific question about my ideas I can answer?
What is your name?
Alexej Buergin | August 21, 2012 at 9:12 am |
My name is unrelated to my ideas.
Next question?
Bart R.’s real name is none of your business. Read the blog rules.
This whole load of total nonsense about commenters being anonymous cowards if they do not use their real names…, note that the blog does not require one to use their real names. Nor does WUWT. If Watts only wants real names, he should require real names to comment. He doesn’t. So calling people cowards who came in under his rules is an act of exceeding dishonor. He’s too chickenchit to require real names.
If the blog allows anonymous comments, and the blog rules rule out personal slurs, then it’s time for men and women of honor to STFU about anonymous cowards.
“Bart R | August 21, 2012 at 9:56 am |
Next question?”
None
JCH | August 21, 2012 at 10:29 am
Would you write “chickenchit” and “STFU” if you would post under your real name?
Alexej Buergin | August 21, 2012 at 1:07 pm |
Then, may I ask in exchange, what are your interesting ideas about climate change science developments this week?
JCH | August 21, 2012 at 10:29 am |
I.. don’t know what goes on at WUWT these days, having long ago shaken the dust of that place off my sandals, and don’t give it my slim traffic any more. So I don’t know what manner of insults or invective have happened there lately.
I have no issue with cowardice or courage; I’m confident enough in my own to be uninterested in the views of others about them. I also have no interest in the views of others about my name. I’m here for ideas about climate science.
If I want the sort of things that go with a name, it’s easy enough to get that plentifully elsewhere in ways that don’t get in the way of discussing ideas in a subject that already has too many obstacles to clarity and focus.
So, while I thank you for your attention, it’s not really necessary. I’d be far happier to see more of your very interesting notions and ideas discussed in the area of science and climate.
Gosh, what an upstanding fellow Bart is. Thanks for explaining that, Bart.
“Bart R | August 21, 2012 at 10:00 pm |
Then, may I ask in exchange, what are your interesting ideas about climate change science developments this week?”
Sorry, I seem to have mislead you. I was only wondering why Mr. Anonymous Nobody was comparing himself to Dr. Roy Somebody.
I had and have no intentions to agree or disagree with your ideas about the climate.
Alexej
How could you possibly refer to Bart as Mr. Anonymous Nobody ?!
If you read his posts, you will find there many incontrovertible glowing references to him.
Alexej Buergin | August 22, 2012 at 9:59 am |
It appears we are in far closer agreement on this topic than one could have expected.
I too was startled when someone compared myself and Dr. Roy Somebody. I’ve certainly never used appeals to authority, clad myself in whited robes like a Pharisee, annointed myself with the halo of honors to back up my ideas. I’m amazed anyone would draw comparisons with me, given that practice, with Somebody who does nothing else but.
Hence, the reason for my post. Perhaps I ought have marked it with a /sarc tag; I thought that’d be self-evident.
We will observe that Dr. Roy Caravan goes on.
Bart R is losing, and so he wants everyone he disagrees with declared not entitled to their opinion.
What a nasty little strumpet.
Dr. Curry pegged you guys: you are outraged that things are not going your way, and that real improvements in what you claim to care about are happening from the direction you and your fellow trolls spend much time hating: free people working to make money.
Pfft. Dr. Curry and I are in as close to total disagreement about some seven out of ten issues, so far as I can reckon. Mosher and I polar opposites in many ways. I couldn’t disagree more with WHT or Joshua, Orssengo or Wojick, McIntyre or McKitrick, or a hundred other names associated in some way with Climate Etc.
And I am no stranger to rage and outrage, nor to things not going my way.
And yet, I believe in upholding the right to an opinion of any of those I named or did not name; as much as I uphold or value my own opinion that _I_ would myself want the facility of a certificate program that _I_ myself could learn from, too. Or do you suspect me to be complete master of every topic I suggested for a curriculum?
And if you want to make money, go for it. Just not one penny from taxpayers for religion.
Bart R,
Yet you support policy and program in endless lines of funding if they are supporting your faux religion of climate catastrophe.
Take your own advice:
“And if you want to make money, go for it. Just not one penny from taxpayers for religion.”
lurker, passing through laughing | August 20, 2012 at 10:32 am |
When a man can’t tell evidence from religion, or reasoning from faith, then he’s not really in much of a position to give advice.
Take your own advice. Pass through.
Bart
Surely you see similarities between your faith that a world with more CO2 is bad, and someone’s faith in their particular religion. You believe that if we do not lower CO2 emissions that a terrible future will result (but you have very very little evidence to demonstrate that warmer is worse for humanity) Other believe in religions that also require faith in a set of belief systems.
What is the difference?
Bart,
Many perceptive people before me have noted the fervor you and your fellow believers in the climate consensus hold your precious obsession, and how immune to fact and highly defensive you guys are.
Very entertaining, indeed.
lurker, passing through laughing | August 20, 2012 at 4:37 pm |
“immune to fact “
Well, as fervor is far more commonplace than religion, and avid sports fans, patriots, scholars, fans, artists and human beings of all stripes with or without religion may share it, it’s not really logical to leap from ‘fervent’ to ‘religious’. It’s more like the most irrational possible conclusion.
But entertaining? That I think we can provide. I suggest a game I like to call “Factball”.
The rules are simple, as they’re loosely based on pick-up baseball. You believe I have a team. Frankly, I can’t believe that’s so, but as it’s your opinion, you’re entitled to think I’d let myself belong to an organization or affiliation that would want me, despite all evidence to the contrary. Likewise, you seem to believe I hold to some consensus; my manifold efforts to dissuade such an error have fallen on immu.. (oh, wait, that’s your word).. er, deaf ears.
1. So, you get to name my team. Eighteen to twenty five ‘players’ who have extensively enough made their views known on a wide variety of climate facts — or preferrably active Denizens here — that we could conceivably get to know if they accept or reject facts reasonably.
You also get to name your team, of the same number of players, who share your views on climate; same conditions.
2. I, to make it fair, then get to reject up to half (less one) of your nominees to my team and either trade them to your team (where you _must_ accept them), taking the traded player in their place, or trade them to your team and drop one player from your roster, or simply drop both that player you stuck me with and any one other player on your roster. That way, we can be sure you honestly nominate only serious candidates you believe belong in the debate without ringers or stinkers.
3. No sockpuppets. Sockpuppets disqualify you, as a player can only enter if you’ve named them to a team.
4. Each round begins with you stating a fact of your choice related to climate. To simplify, (preferrably) any topic of a thread on Climate Etc. or within the curriculum on http://prezi.com/_fdaogoswjn1/climate-literacy-online-university-degree-certification/ is always fair game, as is any mutually-agreed topic.
You pitch your fact in a sentence of nine (9) words or less. The fact must be factual, not a speech, rant, thing you know to be a lie or falsehood, and verifiable by evidence, observation and inference. If you submit as fact anything not verifiable by evidence, observation and inference, any sophism, equivocation, ambiguity or fallacy, you forfeit.
5. No swearing, personal insults, insinuations, ad hominem attacks in the strict definition of ad hominem, or gossip. While there’s no penalty for breaking this rule, I thought it’d be a point of principle to include it.
6. Once you submit a fact — preferrably one relevant to the topic in the thread at the time, any nine people from either team can for the next week debate and discuss it.
7. If, by the end of the week at least half of the commenters plus one on the fact from either team (that is, those nominated by you under rule #1 above and not dropped under rule #2 above), have formed a consensus, then we will call those who retain a dispute with the consensus the deniers of the fact. If all but three or fewer commenters agree, then any commenter remaining who denies the fact is immune to fact, and is dropped from the game for future facts.
8. The game ends when one side has fewer than seven players left, at which point they lose.
Do you understand the rules suggested? (I’d suggest Dr. Curry as a referee, but frankly I doubt she’d be interested in the position.)
The point of the game is to assess what the heck team and consensus you think I’m part of, and what you think are facts that I’m immune to.
Are you up to playing?
Rob Starkey | August 20, 2012 at 11:41 am |
You believe that if we do not lower CO2 emissions that a terrible future will result (but you have very very little evidence to demonstrate that warmer is worse for humanity) Other believe in religions that also require faith in a set of belief systems.
What is the difference?
Wow. After all this time, I’m still so misunderstood in my ‘beliefs’.
I do not believe if ‘we’ do not ‘lower CO2 emissions’ that ‘a terrible future will result’;
I believe that the mountains of evidence (which you remain immune to awareness of, but let’s start with http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ as a reference point (though I don’t ‘believe’ everything NASA concludes, too) indicate a substantial Risk has been demonstrated to have most probably been caused by specific human activities — certainly to the level of the ‘reasonable person test’ accepted in civil law, and that with Risk comes cost, thus there is grounds in Tort Law for us to assign costs, and thus a duty to collect costs.
Further, it is my conviction that it is the right and proper role of government to ensure a Fair Market by standards of weights, measures and conduct of business, including the Privatization of Commons where there are administratively practical means, scarcity, rivalrous use, and excludability — all of which the Carbon Cycle demonstrates — for the purposes of maximizing the efficient allocation of resources under Capitalism in the principles of democracy.
Now, you can feel free to beat me with straw men until the cows come home, but it won’t change the fact that you’re grievously misapprending and mistaking what my beliefs are.
As to how this differs from religion:
1. Every man is entitled to his religious beliefs in the privacy of his own mind; no man owns the facts.
2. I can prove facts from observation by inference, and must be able to do so to call a thing a ‘fact’; else it is mere opinion or assertion.
3. Religion is the stuff of assertions and faith; Science is the stuff of observation and inference.
4. The law in the USA protects the religion of every citizen from the religion of every other citizen, up to and including the building of a wall between any religion and all functioning of government; Science has no protections under the law but that it is the truth, and where the law upholds truth — as it seems with every passing Congress it does so less and less — it upholds too Science; where the law upholds Science less, it is Enemy of Truth, which no religion ought abide.
See any differences yet?
Bart R
You have a right to your opinion, not to the facts.
Fact: The Southern ocean is now COOLING at -10 W/m2.
It is NOT rising at 0.6 W-years/year as predicted by Hansen.
Has Trenberth’s missing heat been found? Southern Oceans are losing heat
Another attempt to invoke the discredited denier latrine as a source.
You should realize your assertions become automatically less credible when you link to the science-illiterate-in-chief, with his long history of mistakes, misrepresentations, and out-and-out lies.
Do you have any credible sources for your “fact”?
What would you expect from Southern and Northern Ocean areas?
Certainly the logical thing to expect is that ocean cooling occurs there while ocean warming is most likely at low latitudes.
The obvious implication that WUWT and your comment try to make is without basis or at least this new paper does not give the least support on those conclusions.
It’s peer reviewed Robert – that means it’s golden.
Bart –
Just out of curiosity – what are some of the areas where we are in significant disagreement?
For one, we appear to have different thresholds for which frays to spend our time on. ;) I certainly lack your enthusiasm and endurance.
Also, I really do feel there is too much focus on carbon tax as opposed to carbon cycle fee and dividend in many of the posts you appear to favor.
A Pigouvian carbon tax might be at some level necessary or acceptable or tolerable, but it’s at best a secondary consideration.
How can you tax a thing until you first price it?
Moreover, why tax a thing until you price it?
And especially why drag the Economy down by taxing a thing that the real owners have yet to see any benefit from through dividends?
It may seem a quibbling distinction, but the air really is a fundamental human right, and one that has never been surrendered by people to their governments; nor can it be. Ergo, the Natural Market for the Carbon Cycle demands government provided standards of measures and currency of exchange to allocate this scarce, rivalrous, excludable resource most efficiently, and remunerate the owners to a level set by the Law of Supply and Demand for the imposition on their Right.
At least, I think you disagree with me in some way about that, significantly?
Because you don’t sound nearly as nutty as I do.
Put another way, though he’s still wrong, stevepostrel | August 20, 2012 at 8:46 pm | (http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/19/week-in-review-81812/#comment-230912) is far closer to the level of nuance of the analysis I prefer.
Bart –
I’m more agnostic on a carbon tax than you see to think. While I reject most of the political polemics disguised as serious criticism, I do think that criticism such as that from Pielke Jr. raise important points.
My main issue related to a carbon tax is that any debate about its merits should start with analyzing the current level of “subsidization” and negative externalities of energy from fossil fuels. The semantic dissembling about current levels of subsidization don’t impress me in the least. That would be my criticism of RPJr’s type of analysis as well. We can say that taxing carbon would reduce GDP – but I need to see the actual current public cost of ACO2 put into the equation before I can consider the analysis as “robust.”
Yes, the problem of quantifying externalities is a sticky one. It requires an honest broker. Let me know if you’ve found one.
Joshua | August 23, 2012 at 1:37 pm |
The honest broker is the Law of Supply and Demand.
Let the price of the Carbon Cycle — not ‘the air’ (other than stylistically) — fee be set according to the same rule as drives the price of all products in a Fair Market, the level at which revenue to the owners (each citizen, per capita) is maximized. If raising the fee for CO2E from $300.01/ton to $300.02/ton generates $1 more to the biweekly paycheck of every working US citizen, but raising it from $300.02 to $300.03 drops the amount in the biweekly paycheck from $200 to $199, then the price of CO2E ought be $300.02 by the honest brokerage of the democracy of the Market.
I recognize this sidesteps the Cost/Benefit Analysis you seek. That’s because the analysis you seek is impossible to do; it could never produce a meaningful number more accurate than order of magnitude, and even if it could, it couldn’t do it in a trustworthy manner.
We have to recognize what can be done and what cannot be done, and avoid wishful thinking ourselves into a corner of paralysis by analysis.
Doubtless, Bart, such a system would be better than the one we have now.
However maximizing revenue in a particular year does not account for the potential damage to the resource.
I’m especially fond of your climate debate certification idea.
I find your notion of pricing the air, novel and promising.
I suspect there is much we could agree upon.
The obvious and big problem with pricing their air, though, is that we really have no idea at all of how serious the addition of CO2; all we have is the politically motivated alarmism and bias of the IPCC et al.
This means there can be no rational way to price use of the air, so all we’ll end up with is some arbitrary, poltiicized scam masquerading as science and goodwill.
What would Week In Review be without Bart publicly massaging his ego ?
Tomcat | August 20, 2012 at 2:50 am |
It would be the same as it is every week.
Next question?
So vainglorious is Bart, he would have us accept his trademark public ego-stroking as objective analysis.
See, now, for those who use the phrase “ad hominem”, Tomcat’s provided some excellent examples.
Can you see the difference between Tomcat’s ad hominem attacks, which are a type of fallacy, and my pointing out that Tomcat’s using a fallacy?
That Bart routinely sings his own praises, is an objective fact.
Observe how he dislikes this being pointed out, and sneakily tries to change the subject (ie hide that data in a way).
No, Bart is willing to create an interesting thesis and see how well it plays out. It bothers me that I don’t have that kind of expository creativity. Some people just have the knack for it.
Tomcat | August 21, 2012 at 4:44 am |
That Bart routinely sings his own praises, is an objective fact.
Examples, please? This should be interesting.
If you can show even half as many “sings his own praises” statements as I’ve made admitting flaws, I’d be surprised; if you can show even a tenth as many statements of this nature as statements of mine about ideas, not personalities, I’d be shocked.
I think you’re delusional, or making stuff up.
Tomcat –
When did you first notice that you had a hard-on for Bart?
““The Sierra Club has serious doubts about the net benefits of natural gas,” Deborah Nardone, director of the group’s Beyond Natural Gas campaign, told Associated Press Thursday (Aug. 16).”
Imagine that.
Yeah. What kind of people would be skeptical about something like that? Dang contrarians, that’s who.
People protecting six figure salaries??
I will fill in the rest .
“doubts about the net benefits of natural gas to a sustainable future”
In that case there are none. Fossil fuel natural gas is nonrenewable and therefore unsustainable.
The only positive is that it could help drive the technology that provides a replacement.
The missing rest of the quote is this
“Without sufficient oversight and protections, we have no way of knowing how much dangerous pollution is being released into Americans’ air and water by the gas industry. For those reason, our ultimate goal is to replace coal with clean energy and energy efficiency and as little natural gas as possible.”
In other words, WHT – “net benefits.”
It’s amazing how some people “concerned” about a lack of specificity overlook the specifics so often.
“Sustainable” or not.
Just an empty word, WHT.
Human civilization is not “sustainable” by many people’s definition of this word.
As far as “dangerous pollution” is concerned, the switch from coal to natural gas (or to “clean coal”) takes care of that, since CO2 cannot be considered “dangerous pollution” by any sane person.
Max
Really? Well – now Judith doesn’t listen to anyone who doubts that ACO2 changes the climate. And she has stated that there is considerable uncertainty, but dangerous levels of climate change could result from ACO2.
Do your really think that Judith is insane?
I guess it’s time to make a place under a bus for you too, Max. Would you prefer a large bus or a short bus? Aisle seat?
Oil, coal, and natural gas have always been limited in supply and therefore “not sustainable.” And yet, they have propelled the world to its current level of comfort and even for the poor a relatively high standard of living. I think the lesson here is that we keep using them and in the meantime kick the NRC in the a$$ and get them evaluating and approving new designs.
P.E.,
It is just more evidence that big green is not a friendly green giant.
“In the end, the only solution will be to get rid of the capitalist system and institute a system where human solidarity, human needs and the preservation of the planet’s resources would become a top priority.”
Because China is such a green paradise, huh?
As I mentioned on another thread, McIntyre’s views are not extremely skeptical. He actually overlaps a lot with Muller on being very specific about what he is skeptical about in the scientific part of the IPCC reports (tree rings, surface temperature record details), and being realistic that China and India cannot be controlled as they increase emissions while they develop their economies.
The fallacy there is that no one will agree to combat climate change unless they are “controlled” by the US.
What is the evidence for that statement?
China and India are as capable as we are of recognizing that it is in their interests to combat global warming before it cripples their growing economies.
It’s insulting, and ethnocentric, to claim to be able to “read minds” in China India and state with certainty what they will or won’t do. McIntyre doesn’t know what China and India are going to do in the next five, ten, or twenty years; nor do they know how they would respond to a serious push for an international treaty on GHGs. No one does.
Also worthy of mention. Muller’s new book is out.
http://www.amazon.com/Energy-Future-Presidents-Science-Headlines/dp/0393081613/ref=la_B000AQ4JZ6_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345394590&sr=1-1
It’s getting good reviews, but that may or may not mean anything.
I’m not sure why one would use the IPCC as a policy basis knowing it is flawed, unless of course, one is aware of the flaws. What I can’t get over, that the issue “what is natural variability” is such an important part of the flaws. If one wants to use IPCC WG 1 as a science basis, recognizing its limitations, its focus upon providing substance to consensus building, there could be an opportunity to redirect resources to studying natural variability.
As IPCC is an international endeavor, buy-in would have to be sought to alter emphasis and direction. What with the present social agendas attached to the dollar signs dancing like sugar-plums in the heads of many groups of governments, NGOs’, and political change types, too many entrenched views would require more investment and leadership than is likely to be made available.
Abandon IPCC with its consensus mandate. Carve out WG 1 into a science organization. Fund climate research to understand climate. Carefully and surgically remove the energy policy from a science agenda.
Just a suggestion
One other thing about natural gas. If the supply becomes high enough, in addition to displacing coal, it could also start displacing petroleum. Compressed and liquified gas can fairly be used in large commercial vehicles, such as trucks, buses, rail locomotives, and even ships. It could also be converted to methanol for use in automobiles.
This has the potential to substantially reduce the carbon emissions per btu using technology that we know how to do now.
If the free market solution to reducing CO2 is to accidentally stumble into it by just reducing their costs, we should take that as a signal that making alternative energy production cheaper should be made a priority for government incentive programs. This would be a win-win situation.
Jim D: we should take that as a signal that making alternative energy production cheaper should be made a priority for government incentive programs.
Let me second that.
As an example, consider the initial and ongoing government subsidy for the development of turbine engines.
The simple way to do that, without favoring any particular source, is a carbon tax.
The fact is there is no free market solution in this case. I think we all know how free markets work and their limitations. They generally behave to maximize short-term at the expense of long-term gain and as such they have vulnerabilities, such as being unable to solve tragedies of the commons.
+1
As a generality I think you are right, although it is important to stress that there can be very real long-term benefits. The problem is when people refuse to examine the short-term/long-term tradeoffs because they have a free market (or anti-free market) fetish.
It’s also important to stress that this doesn’t mean abandoning a free market system. The vulnerabilities can be solved with a few alterations. A carbon tax is such an alternation and is meant to induce an artificial short-term pressure onto the free market so that (hopefully) the system will take into account a long-term concern, or in the case of fishing stock collapses an artificial cap is placed on a resource to force the market to avoid depletion.
I think both of you would benefit from a little more study of economics.
Markets are perfectly capable of focusing on the long-term; that is not what a carbon tax does.
Markets rely on owners to optimize the long-term use of resources. If you own a house, you will maintain it to maximize its value. If you own a forest, you may sell the lumber, but you will replant the trees in order to be able to sell the lumber again.
Unowned resources, however, are not used optimally in a market economy, because of the tragedy of the commons.
The tragedy of the commons is caused by the principle that when I exploit an unowned resource in a nonsustainable way, all the profit stays with me, but only a tiny fraction of the harm, which is shared across the whole society.
Suppose I cut down a stand of trees in a public park, making $1,000. If I and a thousand other people do this, the park, which has a value (suppose) of $100 million, and serves a million people, will be destroyed.
My action destroys value. For a million dollar in lumber (total) a hundred million dollars of value is destroyed. But because the whole profit stays with me, but the losses is shared among a million people, I profit: $1,000 – ($100 million/1 million = $100) = $900.
Carbon emissions, it’s the same thing. Burning fossil fuels costs money in the short term as well as the long term, but because the profit is private, and the losses socialized, the incentives of the individual are distorted.
What a carbon tax does, in essence, is create a “pretend owner” of the resource, who charges a “rent” for actions that damage it, a “rent” that reflects the total cost of society of the individual’s actions. In the example above, the city government might charge $100,000 for a permit to log in the park, reflecting the loss to society if a thousand people do this and the park is destroyed (1,000 * $100,000 = $100 million).
A carbon tax does not turn a short-term market into a long-term market; it improves the market’s incentives by eliminating the privatized-gains-socialized-losses dynamic that exists whenever unowned resources do.
Robert –
I wasn’t speaking there to capacity (although I did, specifically note long term benefits). The “market” does not exist accept as the product of human behaviors. Humans often reach for short-term gain at the expense of long term benefit.
Robert
You make claims that the carbon is a long term cost, but you do so without any relaible evidence that it is not a long term benefit. How do you know that it being warmer is not a long term benefit to the USA?
Robert has caught up to 1930s economics (Pigou) but not 1960s and later (Coase). The fundamental problem with all externality arguments is that who is trespassing on whom, and whether the trespass is welfare maximizing, is exactly what is at issue in the first place. Should polluters pay to pollute, should bystanders pay polluters not to pollute, or should bystanders adapt to pollution? Pigouvian taxation methods completely fail to address these questions; they assume that the first answer is correct, even if in fact it is not Pareto optimal or even second-best. So the idea is fundamentally misguided absent proof that adaptation is not socially preferable.
Other real-world problems with carbon taxes:
1. Any carbon tax will also have to be coupled with a carbon tariff to prevent imports produced untaxed from inefficiently displacing domestic taxed products. That will create endless opportunities for protectionist mischief and foreign policy crises.
2. A carbon tax, even one that is set correctly using the best technocratic estimate of the marginal benefit of reducing greenhouse forcing, may well end up not significantly reducing greenhouse emissions. It all depends on the empirical elasticities, which may be pretty low. (Severin Borenstein, a CAGW-believing economist at Berkeley’s energy institute, has pointed out, for example, that much of the market price of coal includes a scarcity rent well above unit cost that could absorb even fairly high emission taxes or permit prices.) In that case, the tax would create a huge new government revenue pool suitable for looting by all the rent seekers out there without changing emissions much at all. At the same time, environmental zealots would lobby and litigate to keep raising the tax until emissions went down, even if the correct market signal from the tax were that they should not.
3. The theory of the second best tells us that fixing one putative market distortion–in this case an alleged negative externality from greenhouse gases–without fixing others can make matters worse. In this case, that is not merely a generalized fear. We know specifically that nuclear power is subjected to much higher standards of expected deaths per kilowatt-hour than competing energy sources, distorting investment away from nuclear technologies. A carbon tax that might hypothetically be rational if nuclear power were not constrained in this way could easily turn out to be welfare destroying if the existing regulatory and legal regime were unaltered.
Those are just the most obvious problems with the pat blackboard Pigouvianism espoused by Robert.
stevepostrel,
Excellent points.
Robert,
Its great in theory but in the case of CO2 taxes or ETS, impracticable in the real world.
Therefore, why do you advocate a carbon tax given:
1. you can’t say whether AGW will be net good, bad or indifferent, nor by how much
2. You therefore cannot say how much the carbon tax should be if at all
3. You cannot address the practical implementation issues (i.e. it cannot be implemented in the real world, as is clear from this: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/)
4. it will damage the world economy (i.e. do great harm to peoples’ well-being)
5. it will not make the slightest difference to the climate or sea levels
And most important, there is an alternative that would be a far better way to reduce emissions: http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/17/learning-from-the-octopus/#comment-230021. Why do you not seriously consider that alternative (i.e not just make up silly and irrelevant arguments to dismiss it).
That’s an extraordinary claim, Rob — that there’s no reliable evidence that the radical warming of the climate with GHGs is not a net benefit.
Where’s your extraordinary evidence for that claim?
You might start by summarizing some of the major papers on the damages expected with global warming and explaining why they’re all unreliable.
You could start with Nordhaus et al.
And here I thought conservatives cared about the deficit.
This is typical of your soft-minded arguments: “Oh, horrors, we might balance the budget!”
You could make the same argument against ending slavery. “Oh, it will involve protectionism against slave states! Heavens! Fetch my smelling salts, again!”
If you are able to establish a broad agreement, countries subject to tariff will be few. Tariff are not economically optimal, but have always been a part of our economy, even when it was enjoying its fastest growth.
That’s unlikely, since there are:
1. Multiple options for substitution in the form of different power sources.
2. Ready access in the market to more efficient technologies that use less power at a slightly higher cost.
3. Many opportunities to conserve in response to price signals.
Because it is so often happens that new taxes are so popular that we raise them over and over.
I give you props for a more substantial argument than one usually sees at Climate, Etc., but it is obvious that your priority is not economic efficiency, but rather drowning the government in a bathtub. There’s nothing wrong with my economics — they are simply not infused with a Red-Army-type hatred of my own democratic government, as is often the style (at least on the internet) among certain economically minded “conservatives.”
Robert
With all due respect, you seem to repeatedly duck the simple question of what is the basis of your belief that warmer world is necessarily worse for humanity (or the USA specifically) over the long term. You write dramatic words like “radical warming” to justify your belief, but your use of the term radical does not make the net impacts negative to the extent to necessarily outweigh the benefits. As has been discussed previously, you and others who believe that a warmer world is worse for humanity overall over the long term are the ones who wish for people to change their historic behaviors and therefore you have the burden of proof to justify why people should make the change you desire.
If the world continues to warm, what will be the impacts to people? The real answer is we have very poor data to judge the net effects. We do not know what the impact will be to rainfall, and we have no reliable models to predict future conditions.
Robert- If you could please answer a direct question? If a peer reviewed paper was written assessing the potential harms of a warmer world, and was written based on using the output of a or multiple GCMs to forecast future conditions, and the GCMs used have been found to not accurately model observed conditions, are the conclusion of the paper valid in your view?
“With all due respect, you seem to repeatedly duck . . .”
You’re projecting, again, Rob.
You are ducking your responsibility to come up with some extraordinary evidence to back up your extraordinary claim.
If you think that cooking the planet is going to be a net gain, be a man and make that argument.
If you think there is no scientific evidence of net harm from global warming, be a man and make that argument.
If you think the existing scientific evidence is unconvincing, summarize the evidence and state the problems you have with it.
When you actually state your objections to the science, they often turn out to be based on very simple mistakes, like confusing measuring something that has already happened with predicting the future, or confusing an unchanged linear growth rate with a default case.
When you make your arguments explicitly, it is temporarily embarrassing for you, but progress happens.
Or you could just run and hide, yet again . . .
Robert is still missing the thread. The main error is that he falsely claims that economic efficiency requires a Pigouvian tax levied upon any negative externality. In fact, one must compare the relative costs and benefits of living with (adapting) versus mitigating the externality. That analysis is not close to being done. Another way of putting this is that truly optimal carbon taxes are unlikely to greatly change the amount of fossil fuel consumed. But the environmental groups will never accept this, so the cost-benefit analyses will be wildly skewed, with Greenpeace and WWF moles infiltrating the process (as they have the IPCC) so as to create much higher, inefficient carbon taxes. We already see this kind of excessive expenditure in the Superfund program, nuclear power, etc.
Ignoring the political economy problems of a growing public sector does not make them go away. Read the late Mancur Olson’s The Rise and Decline of Nations or Jonathan Rauch’s Demosclerosis for even-handed, non-ideological discussions of how economic growth and workable government are undermined by enlarging the scope of interest-group rent seeking. (Anne Kreuger also did some interesting work on the role of rent seeking in trade policy.)
A new source of revenue from carbon taxes that is not offset by tax cuts on capital would be disastrous in any case, as Nordhaus’s simulations suggest. But even Nordhaus ignores the general problems with increasing the size of the public sector beyond 20% of the economy. Any suggestion that new carbon revenues would be dedicated to deficit reduction flies in the face of much experience.
Robert’s attempt to fend off the protectionism issue with an inapposite slavery analogy does not deserve a response. His statement that we will have a global carbon tax is nonsense on stilts–India and China (and soon African nations) are not going to play that game. His argument that a little protectionism won’t kill us misses that a) we would have a big increase in protectionism and b) something doesn’t have to kill us to be bad.
And of course, there is no response on the theory of the second-best. Any uncompensated negative externality from combustion of CO2 may be countering distortionary policies that restrict energy production in general and fossil fuels in particular. And while I don’t believe this, those who think that oil companies act as collusive conspirators should realize that their view implies that energy producers are restricting output below the social optimum, so that any current failure to pay for externalities acts to compensate for this distortion.
Steve is still lacking the most basic appreciation for how a Pigouvian tax works; it is a matter of justice (protecting individual rights from trespass by polluters) as well as efficiency.
In point of reality, it is cheaper to reduce GHGs as opposed to trying to adapt to the consequences of BAU warming, as dozens of studies of the damage function have repeatedly demonstrated.
Steve goes on to spout a bunch of economically ignorant nonsense, for example:
Unsupported (and unsupportable) claims like these illustrate a mind functioning with a faith-based concept of economics, rather than an evidence-based one. The delusion of the far right — that taxes, presently at a 60-year low, cannot possibly go higher — is, like the denial of climate change and the belief that women don’t get pregnant from rape, an example of ideology trumping reasoned thought.
Robert epitomizes militant economic ignorance. With one or two tiny offsets, the the trend of the government burden on society is at now at an all-time high in the typical Western country. Only in the former neo-Marxist empire have there been even more totalitarian regimes.
Robert is correct in principle here, the issue being unowned resources preventing markets from working.
But he elevates alarmist speculation (aka IPCC/mainstream/fraud-ridden ‘science’) to proven fact, in asserting the IPCC’s claimed effects and costs of emissions.
lolwot: The fact is there is no free market solution in this case.
Right now, there isn’t a solution that will be implemented. India, China and others will continue to increase total fossil fuel consumption for decades. The US and Canada will continue to expand oil and natural gas development for decades, and the US will most likely continue to substitute natural gas for coal while increasing coal exports.
What to do?
Lacking perfect knowledge of the future, take calculated risks and invest in a diversity of possible, partial solutions. For example, continue for 20 years the recent trends of investment, increased power, and decreased costs of alternatives such as solar. As progress is made, the market will choose them, as it does now for special purposes. When commercially viable biojetfuel will hit the market can’t be foretold, but it looks to me like it will hit the market in under 20 years. And continue for 20 years research on weather and climate. Looking forward, 20 years seems like a long time; looking backward, it seems a short time and barely conceivable revolutions (optic fiber networks, computers) have occurred quickly.
20 years from now we shall collectively know much more about climate change and adaptation/mitigation technologies.
Right now, there isn’t a solution that will be implemented. India, China and others will continue to increase total fossil fuel consumption for decades. …
Seriously, you do not know that. They’re not on drugs. They’re not irrational.
No, but they want cheap energy in their own back yard…. So what makes you think they will not take full advantage?
Because they’re rational.
Like sure, we’re rational, but we don’t have to be because the people in India and China are robots addicted to fossil fuel and they’ll never step back from the fuel pipe.
Hmmmm, Chinese government = rational…. I see a problem with that. China will be using a lot of coal for energy production, it will be difficult to persuade them it should not be part of their energy policy that is helping to drive their economic growth.
JCH: Seriously, you do not know that.
Seriously, the future is not known. What we do know is that leaders in those countries countries continue to emphasize energy growth and importation of coal, and both countries continue in fact to increase their fossil fuel consumption.
As one would expect most countries to do as long as the dynamic of the tragedy of the commons prevails.
That is no reason to expect they wouldn’t agree to an international agreement that was binding on the major emitters except that, just like Europeans and Americans, they are capable of being short-sighted and foolish.
What will happen with our politics is uncertain; what will happen with their politics is equally uncertain.
China can change directions on a dime. If they conclude that AGW is a threat, they’re fully capable of moving unilaterally. I doubt they would wait for a treaty with a stubborn West.
“China can change directions on a dime. If they conclude that AGW is a threat, they’re fully capable of moving unilaterally. I doubt they would wait for a treaty with a stubborn West.”
China main direction they could change is using far less coal. There coal use has many problems other CO2. So if they change on dime, they would have changed on dime. But with use of fracking, China may change direction fairly quickly [but again for reasons having more to do with lower cost and less air pollution].
“I think we all know how free markets work and their limitations.”
We?
If the last couple days of comments shows anything, it’s the economic illiteracy of the progressive drones who frequent this place. Particularly the college edjumacted ones.
To paraphrase Will Smith in I, Robot: y’all are some of the dumbest smart people I have ever met.
+ >1
I agree.
lolwot,
You and your fellow trolls have no ideas how free markets, if what you write about them is what you actually believe and understand.
lol@ u, indeed.
lolwot: … free markets ,,, generally behave to maximize short-term at the expense of long-term gain
Dead wrong. The term depends on the view of those investing. Most investments outlive people, passing from one person to another. Typically it is elected governments that sacrifice the long term for the short.
.. unable to solve tragedies of the commons.
A tragedy of the commons occurs precisely because there is no free market, and you end up with ill-defined property rights (or none at all).
“A tragedy of the commons occurs precisely because there is no free market, and you end up with ill-defined property rights (or none at all).”
This isn’t correct. The whole concept of a commons is that no-one owns it, so it’s unclear what you even mean by property rights. Everyone has a right to use and profit from the commons. Take for example fisheries where many parties can take a boat out, fish, and then sell those fish. Are you telling me that’s not a free market? What is it then?
Short-term profit gain by the individual fisherman in this case is the optimal solution for the individual and so the free market results in all individuals taking too much fish, even if it means long-term profit loss for the fishing industry as a whole. In this situation free market forces will happily cause fish stocks to collapse and destroy the entire industry.
One way of stopping that is to place restrictions placed on the market. Restrictions such as caps and quotas. That’s definite external inference with the market, it’s not the market solving the problem.
If you disagree perhaps you can explain exactly how the free market left to it’s own devices would save a fishing ground heading for collapse.
What I said is indeed correct. A free market cannot be said to exist unless tradeable property rights in the resources in question exist – exactly unlike in a commons, which is at best a hazy system of untradeable common property rights (which is of course the whole problem).
The obvious answer is to establish clear property rights – in the grazing commons, fish stocks, etc.
“What I said is indeed correct.”
No, it’s not; it’s softheaded nonsense.
If free markets are so fragile that the existence one unowned resource destroys them, then “free markets” have never existed and will never exist.
Kitty is illustrating the fallacy of treating the market as an object of worship and the subject of a religious fundamentalism, rather than a way of describing observed human behavior. Bad kitty!
It is not practical to sell shares in the atmosphere. It’s an unowned resource and we’re stuck with it. A carbon tax, as I explained, is the next best thing to an owner, and if the cost charged for damaging the resource is similar to the cost of the damage, the benefits are similar in terms of economic efficiency.
Robert: If free markets are so fragile that the existence one unowned resource destroys them, then “free markets” have never existed and will never exist.
This and your rantings about alleged worship are soft-headed nonsense. It really isn’t difficult, Robert : markets operate on property rights. So if there are no property rights in X, there is no possibility of a free market in X.
This could either be because government sabotage or negligence has prevented property rights from developing, or because – as with the atmosphere – it does not seem practical.
In effect the atmosphere is owned by government – it decides the terms on which the atmosphere may be used. If it eventually turns out that despite all the bias and vested-interest fraud in government-funded climate science, CAGW is nevertheless true, then schemes such a revenue-neutral carbon tax will need to be considered.
From Scientific AMerican: The last thing anyone wants to see is high school students to suffer or even die from exertion in hot weather. ”
Jesus. The piety. LAst time I checked the continental U.S. has actually cooled in the last decade.
OK, so we have one vote for letting the kids die.
rolleyes
We took lots of photos of the google-ized building.
Will you be posting these soon?
It is harshness of the Little Ice Age that propelled humanity to a higher degree of advancement and prosperity in science, it is the benign climate of the late 20th century that led to the scientific hypocrisy, double standards and rise of the AGW lunatic extreme.
vukevic,
I have to quibble with you on attribution of the rise in scientific mandacity.
I would say that it was the growth of the free market within a Judeo-Christian society that propelled humanity to a higher degree of advancement and prosperity, including in science. It is the rise of progressivism/socialism/elitism in all its myriad forms that led to the scientific hypocrisy, double standards and rise of CAGW extremism in “science.”
It is true that it was the historically recent prosperity that has allowed progressives to spend vast swaths of time navel gazing about how they can impose their awesomeness on the rest of us. And yes, increasing warmth made that prosperity easier and more widespread. But I would say with 90% confidence that most of the observed rise in stupid governmental policy is attributed to the rise in progressivism.
CAGP. Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Progressivism.
We should get the UN to form an International Panel on Progressive Catastrophism. The IPPC. Where can we find a subway conductor to head it?
Gary M,
I agree.
Ia also agree with the key point of vukcevic’s comment.
I affirm GaryM’s comments.
Ethanol outrage: Corny mandate
The Ethanol grain mandate is imoral – starving the poor who have the least, wasting resources, with no benefit to climate.
Mandating penalties for not purchasing cellulosic ethanol when it does not yet exist is an even worse abuse of power.
These only “buy votes”.
All politicians who voted for mandating grain ethanol should be voted out.
I don’t think I would call it immoral, just typically warm and fuzzy logic. This year’s drought is estimated to reduce the total US corn and soybean harvest about 15%. That is in the ballpark of the annual surplus. With the ethanol mandate, there isn’t a true surplus anymore. Politicians indirectly mandated there be a surplus, bad, instead of managing the surplus, good. That is not immoral, just stupid.
CaptDallas
Dig into the issues. When “green” policies work to starve the poor to gain votes while giving no greenhouse benefit, I call that immoral!
The Effect of the U.S. Ethanol Mandate on Corn Prices
Carter et al. UC Davis 2012
Its worse this year with almost 50% of US corn forced into ethanol.
Global Food Crisis: Policy Lapses or Market Failure?
Ojha Ruby Advances in Management Vol. 5 (7) July 2012.
“It is harshness of the Little Ice Age that propelled humanity to a higher degree of advancement and prosperity in science, it is the benign climate of the late 20th century that led to the scientific hypocrisy, double standards and rise of the AGW lunatic extreme.”
whoever said 1C warming would have little effect!
whoever said 1C warming would have little effect!
1C more: one million of happy US wheat farmers paying federal taxes, the extra dosh and warmth makes rampant Hansenians proliferate.
1C less: one million of destitute US wheat farmers, no dosh, no warmth, Hansenians face extinction.
How are corn and soy crops doing in the US warmth?
Hippies stopped driving Hummers so CO2 didn’t double and now the crops have failed.
“Australian consumers can expect to pay more for bread, potato chips, cereals and many other foods as a searing heatwave across the US midwest sends global crop prices soaring. ”There has been a significant rally, up around 30 per cent, with these gains led by corn, wheat and soybeans,” Luke Mathews, a commodities strategist at Commonwealth Bank, said.”
http://news.breakingcanberranews.com/tweets/222207022521786368.iframe
Quick call them up and tell them they must be wrong. Warmth is good for crops, a heatwave should be providing a bumper harvest!
lolwot,
You didn’t mention the cost increase due to some 30% to 40% of corn and other crops being diverted from food production to ethanol production, did you? Why not? Another program advocated by the ‘Progressives’ and forced on us because of their beliefs.
‘Progressive’ agendas and advocacy are one of the major blocks to progress in the western democracies.
Shouldn’t matter Peter. I heard that warming benefits plants plus all that extra CO2 enriches life. So surely the news item is lying, surely the US just had a bumper harvest.
Yes, summer heat has devastated crops here in the Midwest. The lack of rainfall had nothing to do with it.
Unfortunately they nearly always go together. The top 1% of summers in 1951-1980 now have a probability nearer 15%. Plan for more of these.
It caught everyone by total surprise. Must be CAGW
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/perspective-on-the-hot-and-dry-continental-usa-for-2012-based-on-the-research-of-judy-curry-and-of-mccabe-et-al-2012/
Whenever something is not ‘normal first thing ‘know all’ commentators should look at are the ocean currents. This map shows
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
California current appears to be ‘cooler’ than normal (less evaporation), and by the current’s loop appearance that was the case for some time.
Les evaporation in the west Pacific less rain in US mid-west
One reasons why that could happen most likely is the Kuroshio-Oyashio and Alaskan currents system. By the next summer it should be OK since that side looks to be warmer than usual. These current systems have been temporarily disturbed by tectonic movements of Honshu in March of 2011, and break in the thermo-haline layering.
Wikipedia lists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Japan
of M8+ earthquakes are at
01 September 1, 1923 M8.3
March 2, 1933 M8.4 Major drought 1934
December 20, 1946 M8.1
March 4, 1952 M8.1 Major drought 1953-4
May 16, 1968 M8.2
September 25, 2003 M8.3
March 11, 2011 M9.0 Major drought 2012
Current takes one year to reach Canada and few more months down to California, time when the strong evaporation is needed to provide rain in the mid-west.
Month of March Japan’s major earthquake could have a high probability of causing major drought in the USA (3 of 7 all in March). Two September quakes were followed by minor droughts, but minor droughts are regular occurrence, so no correlation is established.
What do you expect from a country that names itself after a type of bacon. :)
I have asked this question on another thread but on that occasion I received no reply, but, undaunted, I will try again:
Beside ice core data, it is very hard to find historical data on the web.
The only place where I have been able to find decent data is on the British Met Office Site: Here there are several stations with complete data going back to 1931. Ignoring the urban ones, which had significant warming in the 20th century, only one had complete data going back to 1866 and that was Armagh Observatory. There were no missed readings. And, as a back up to thermometers, a thermograph was used in the early years. Other readings, such as rainfall, had been taken there regularly for several years before the temperature record even started, so this again inspired confidence in the staff’s reliability.
I was able to plot a graph of the temperature against time for the entire period.
I would really appreciate it if anyone on here knows of any other similar examples of raw data going back about 150 years, anywhere else in the world on the web.
Thanks in advance,
Mark
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/
Fill your boots!
Thankyou Adam,
This is what I have been looking for!
Mark B, it is a pleasure to commend to your attention, not 150-year-old data, but rather the 150-year old physical ideas in William Thompson (Lord Kelvin) On an Absolute Thermometric Scale Founded on Carnot’s Theory of the Motive Power of Heat, and Calculated from Regnault’s Observations (Philosophical Magazine, 1848).
Here the common-sense point is that observational records may be imprecise and/or cherry-picked, while fundamental theoretical ideas are relatively more accurate, universal, and durable.
That is why observations uninformed by theory, and theory unconstrained by observations, similarly are misleading more commonly than they are illuminating.
Hopefully you will enjoy this classic theoretical reference Mark B! :) :) :)
“fundamental theoretical ideas are relatively more accurate, universal, and durable”
“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”
“X-rays will prove to be a hoax.”
“…Space is continuously occupied by an incompressible frictionless fluid acted on by no force, and that material phenomena of every kind depend solely on motions created in the fluid.” [TRSE, vol. 25, 1869, pg. 217-260, “On Vortex Motion”]
[Faraday’s] “attention was not directed to look for Hertz sparks, or probably he might have found them in the interior. Edison seems to have noticed something of the kind in what he called ‘etheric force.’ His name ‘etheric’ may thirteen years ago have seemed to many people absurd. But now we are all begining to call these inductive phenomena ‘etheric.'”
[Is there any matter not subject to the law of gravitation?] “I think that I may say with absolute decision that there is. We are all convinced… that ether is matter.”
“I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of … I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society.”
“Radio has no future.”
“But I think we may with much probability say that the consolidation [of the earth] cannot have taken place less than 20,000,000 years ago, or we should have more underground heat than we actually have, nor more than 400,000,000 years ago, or we should not have so much as the least observable underground increment of temperature.”
All Lord Kelvin; Sir William Thomson
Reflect on Uriah Heep.
Great band Uriah Heep. Loved July Morning. Did a lot of “reflecting” listening to them.
Phlogiston Ist Die Wharheit!
http://climatetrends.colostate.edu/info?station=53005
That is a pretty good one starting in 1889 that is not on tonyb’s list. It does appear to have some UHI impact.
There is another station, Mesa Verde National Park that makes an interesting comparison.
Thanks :)
What do you do if you’re a progressive mayor of a major U.S. city, churning out millions of uneducated drop outs every year, you’ve had 250 murders in the last six months, an almost $700 million budget deficit over the last year, more than $600 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, and an unemployment rate of 9.8%?
Why you blow another $91 million of tax payers’ money on bike paths for the 1 per centers, of course.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/18/Rahm-to-Spend-91-Million-on-Bike-Lanes-for-the-One-Percent
Well, at least Rahm Emmanuel is no Jerry Brown.
$68 billion, with a B, for high speed rail, in the brokest state in the union..
And I thought the progressive commenters on this blog were economically illiterate.
(And those are the budgeted costs. Can you say “The Big Dig?” Estimated cost $2.2 billion, actual cost, in excess of $22 billion.)
Come on November 6th.
And yes, millions of drop outs per year was hyperbole. It’s only about a million per year notionally.
“Hyperbole” — also known as lying.
I’m guessing that’s not the only lie — just the one you thought you’d be called on first — right?
nationally
“Particular thanks for the reminder of the Cornwall Alliance and its detailed evaluations on climate and policy from the Judeo-Christian Western worldview.”
I severely doubt the Cornwall Alliance represents a Judeo-Christian Western worldview, it seems rather more a medieval mixture of science and theology. Part of the declaration:
“We believe Earth and its ecosystems—created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence —are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth’s climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.”
I can easily imagine a similar declaration affirming the Earth’s placement at the center of the solar system, or the special creation of all life on Earth. Yet we see three notable signers from the climate skeptic camp: Roy Spencer, Joseph D’Aleo and Ross McKitrick. This should be a very embarrassing document in light of how much concern trolling about scientific methods climate skeptics get up to. If the signing of this declaration doesn’t amount to the biggest breach of scientific method possible, what does?
If you sign a document essentially saying God made the climate impossible for humans to alter harmfully then how can that not interfere with scientific analysis on attribution of climate change and it’s impacts?
And then there’s the part of the declaration that states what they deny:
“We deny that Earth and its ecosystems are the fragile and unstable products of chance, and particularly that Earth’s climate system is vulnerable to dangerous alteration because of minuscule changes in atmospheric chemistry. Recent warming was neither abnormally large nor abnormally rapid. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming.”
Is it even good theology? If they believe the climate to be resilient and robust on faith then why even bother mentioning “scientific evidence”? It’s a little self-defeating, after-all there’s no “scientific evidence” of the existence of God, let alone that God specially designed the climate for humans, yet the premise of the declaration relies on it.
And how is this robust, resilient climate God has created compatible with destructive hurricanes and tornadoes? Or did God somehow overlook making weather stable?
As for the mention of “convincing scientific evidence”, how is this meaningful in a faith based declaration? It’s not necessary that any amount of evidence would convince someone who believed something on faith.
Good quote from Scott D. Weitzenhoffer regarding creationists also very relevant to AGW deniers:
“Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon; it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.”
Right on.
The skeptics also have two significant classes of characters. There are your basic anti-agreers who like to argue and put up a contrarian front. Usually the contrarian front is driven by radical libertarian, conservative, or reactionary politics. And then you find your crackpots who put forward some alternate theory from the conventional physics to explain climate change or to prove nothing extraordinary is happening.
Thankfully, its rare to find someone to argue that global warming can’t happen because god won’t allow it. That’s probably the case because sufficient warming is no different than armegeddon, which is one of the plausible religious outcomes, I guess. TV preacher Pat Roberts falls in this category, if you can believe it. The flip side of creationism is belief in the second coming, rapture, or whatever you want to call it. Bring it on, those guys say.
I know David Hagen is deeply religious and occasionally references the Bible, but he seems extremely logical in comparison to the contarians and crackpots. Roy Spencer is probably the same.
So that makes up probably 99% of the anti-climate science front on this commenting blog. I actually can’t think of one person that disagrees with the science that doesn’t have a political agenda or isn’t a crackpot. Willis Eshenbach perhaps?
Web,
The critique you offer is hilarious when one considers just how friggin’ stooopid you are regarding your other area of obsession- energy.
Thanks for the laugh, clown.
You know, I can’t really toss any counter-arguments your way, because pure subjective beliefs are moot. If you actually had any scientific points to make, I might give it a go. But as it is, you give me nothing to work with.
The climate clown list
Oh, no, he’s the Godfather of crackpots. Seriously. References upon request.
Creationism is like the tobacco thing. It is just another disingenuous lie used to divert attention from the lack of depth in the science behind, or not behind, global warming. It is obvious you have no viable argument to support the idea that global warming is due to the ~100 ppm man-made CO2. You don’t understand cloud feedback. You have nothing but these idiotic red herrings. This tells us all we need to know about your intellectual integrity.
It’s ironic to see you using a creationist style “we don’t understand X 100% therefore we don’t know Y at all” argument
I would say you don’t understand X 50%.
I actually can’t think of one person that disagrees with the science that doesn’t have a political agenda or isn’t a crackpot.
That’s just your attempt to hide the fact that 99% of those who agree with the politically funded ‘science’ have a political agenda, and that this political funding is what injected a political agenda in the first place.
Skeptics who take exception to this are merely reacting to the political agenda underlying alarmism. It is alarmism that has politicized the debate, not those reacting to alarmism.
The facts led somewhere you didn’t like, so you declared war on the facts.
And you’re losing the war. ;)
Robert : The facts led somewhere you didn’t like, so you declared war on the facts. And you’re losing the war. ;)
The “facts” being the “settled” government-funded science recommending more government, that is crucially dependent on hiding data and other Climategate-type frauds.
Yes, your beloved fraud army has done very well indeed.
Louise
So why should we fund leftist intolerance and bigotry?
Academia Nuts: The Left’s Bias Against Conservatives Is Real
lolwat
Anthropogenic global warming was manufactured by smoothing out all oscillation of the global mean temperature before 1970s but not touching it afterwards and calling this phase of warming man made.
‘That’s because the drop in CO2 levels is largely attributed to the country’s increasing use of natural gas.’
Congratulations, US. The Australian Labor- Green alliance which governs us just slapped a $23 per tonne of CO2 tax on us, allegedly to reduce CO2. I think this government has a limited life.
Oh Judith, how you will suffer in the cause of entertaining us. We ought to be grateful. Are they doing it in 3D? It is well over 30 years since I was in the US so will be interested to see the changes, but maybe it’s a period piece, so no change?
But all of this does not make up for the mistakes by the IPCC in analysing early 20th century climate. Those mistakes which become more evident every year, have propagated to today.
“The Australian Labor- Green alliance which governs us just slapped a $23 per tonne of CO2 tax on us, allegedly to reduce CO2. I think this government has a limited life. ”
Yes, it’s too low.
Alexander Biggs,
Yes. And the Australian carbon tax will cost at least $10 for every projected $1 of savings. But, as most people realise, no benefits will be delivered and the costs will be far higher than is being admitted. The costs will ramp up far more than is admitted. The compliance costs are not even included. Read more about this here: What the carbon tax and ETS will really cost http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/
Yes, Peter, $23/tonne is just a ‘foot in the door’ start. If it was really necessary for us to slash carbon the figure would be >$60, but the relation between CO2 level and global temperature has been grossly exaggerated. See my web site. Incidently you need to be a little more careful with your selection of photos for the web site you linked. the picture shows a cooling tower with steam (not CO2) emitting. All it tells us is that there is a steam driven turbine but its fuel could be anything including nuclear which emits no CO2.
Alexander Biggs,
Good point about the cooing tower. I didn’t even notice it. I’ll mention that.
Alexander Biggs, regarding the $60/MWh you mentioned would be necessary to have much impact, it is interesting to note that the wholesale cost to generate our power with renewable energy would be around $300/MWh (see Figure 6 here: http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/ )
Alexander, were you in Tulagi in 1942?
JCH. Yes, I was in Tulagi in 1942. I was a member of the crew of a Catalina flying boat of the RAAF (see my web site). Were you there? Did you know me? We should not be using Judith’s web site for private correspondence. You can find my email address on my web site.
Smith & Searchinger show GHG from biofuels have been strongly underestimated:
Crop-based biofuels and associated environmental concerns, Keith A. Smith, Timothy D. Searchinger 7 JUN 2012 GCB Bioenergy Vol. 4 #5 pgs 479-484 Sep. 2012, DOI: 10.1111/j.1757-1707.2012.01182.x
Many of the world’s leading climate scientists didn’t see the drop coming.
That is expected. Many of the world’s leading climate scientists don’t see anything coming because they are using flawed theory and models.
Or maybe because their area of expertise is climate science, not political science or economics.
Real sciences know about the subjects they’ve studied. They lack that super useful ability of the deniers’ fake experts to know anything about any subject.
“real sciences”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
weak
George Will reviews environmentalism’s track record at predicting the future of the earth by the technique of reviewing the past. Using newspaper archives, Will takes us back to yesteryear where we are confronted by one of environmentalism’s many predictions of doom. Then he speeds the archival time machine forward to show what actually happened. The depressingly consistent result is that environmentalism has missed the mark by a country mile.
The modern disaster cycle began in 1972, when “when we were warned (by computer models developed at MIT) that we were doomed. We were supposed to be pretty much extinct by now, or at least miserable. We are neither. So, what went wrong?” Will asks.
That year begat “The Limits to Growth,” a book from the Club of Rome, which called itself “a project on the predicament of mankind.” It sold 12 million copies, staggered the New York Times (“one of the most important documents of our age”) and argued that economic growth was doomed by intractable scarcities.
The modelers examined 19 commodities and said that 12 would be gone long before now — aluminum, copper, gold, lead, mercury, molybdenum, natural gas, oil, silver, tin, tungsten and zinc …
Technological innovations have replaced mercury in batteries, dental fillings and thermometers; mercury consumption is down 98 percent, and its price was down 90 percent by 2000. Since 1970, when gold reserves were estimated at 10,980 tons, 81,410 tons have been mined, and estimated reserves are 51,000 tons. Since 1970, when known reserves of copper were 280 million tons, about 400 million tons have been produced globally, and reserves are estimated at almost 700 million tons. Aluminum consumption has increased 16-fold since 1950, the world has consumed four times the 1950 known reserves, and known reserves could sustain current consumption for 177 years. Potential U.S. gas resources have doubled in the past six years. And so on.
The modelers missed something — human ingenuity in discovering, extracting and innovating.
They missed a lot else. What went wrong was the mistaken application ceteris paribus — the idea that initial assumptions would not change over time. The environmentalists took man out of the equation, discounting both the effects of his genius and the equally limitless possibilities of his stupidity. The result is that the predicted future looked nothing like the actual past as seen in hindsight.
George Will flips through the other doomsday predictions and compares it to the results. A “population bomb” was going to overpopulate Europe, according to Paul Erlich. In actuality the Europeans are having to import people to make up for the lack of a replacement workforce. And so forth and so on. Time after time the environmentalists called out a result like a wannabee Babe Ruth. Time after time they struck out, their credibility saved only by the media’s inability to keep score and inexplicable tendency to give them one more turn at bat.
Still the Greens got some things right. They predicted a day when “the furnaces of Pittsburgh are cold; the assembly lines of Detroit are still. In Los Angeles, a few gaunt survivors of a plague desperately till freeway center strips . . . Fantastic?” No. In actual fact, these came true, at least in part. As Victor Davis Hanson reminds us, parts of California are actually reverting to 3rd world status, but not for the reasons the Greens predicted. It was not a lack of raw materials or famine which blighted them but policies that were at least partly caused by the environmentalists themselves. Hanson describes the gaunt survivors in California’s interior.
http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2012/08/19/the-past-future-tense/#comments
Which just goes to show that some people love doom. They are super gullible. They participate in packs to sell their message of doom. These are the messengers of catastrophic warming. These are the people who attend conferences like Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban and Rio+20. These are the people who give a standing ovation to the scaremongering film at the start of the Copenhagen conference.
What a sad lot!
You should check the Matt Ridley piece in Wired Magazine.
The reduction in CO2 emissions is almost entirely due to what fuel is being dispatched for electrical generation. When nat gas prices rise, which they will, then coal will once again be dispatched ahead of nat gas. Any change due to EPA regs and retired power plants will be longer term.
“The reduction in CO2 emissions is almost entirely due to what fuel is being dispatched for electrical generation. When nat gas prices rise, which they will, then coal will once again be dispatched ahead of nat gas.”
Adjusted for inflation, nat gas is at 1970 prices:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/04/natural-gas-spot-prices-below-2-lowest.html
Natural gas could become cheaper.
Despite what many might assume, it quite possible the more demand or use of natural gas could decrease costs and price.
Or more market demand opens up more opportunity addition production. And unless think the 1970 was some magical period of efficiency, it should possible lower prices below 1970 prices. But prices of anything will go up and down. It seems to me that there push to use more natural gas decades ago [because it was cheap and environmentally friendly] price when up due lack of supply, then we huge potential and actual supply, and there previously existing infrastructure which could distribute this increase supply- giving a near instant boom in availability of using natural gas. Add to this, is likely more infrastructure is being added, allowing greater use.
If you have the infrastructure in place, and the prices in increase, one significantly increasing the market value of any supply which developed.
So add supply of natural gas, could lead conditions allowing large but expensive natural reserves to be tapped- ocean methane hydrate deposits are huge, but costly- costly mainly because no one knows how to best mine them. So if the world [not just the US] increase it use of natural gas, creates the new infrastructure that distributes and consumes nat gas, this is sort of subsidy or driving force which could allow for ocean exploitation of methane hydrate. Or large demand for anything is “money in the bank” for investors leaving a comparable small problem of developing the technology to make it happen.
They are currently producing shale gas at a loss to maintain leases. Prices are already up about 40% from the 2 dollars in your link as drillers reduce rig count and the market figures out that electrical generation uses a lot of gas. I am not so foolish as to predict specific times and prices but I believe the trend will be up for the next year or more. I predict long term average prices in the 3.5 to 5.5 range for the next few years.
“If Americans wish to reclaim their prosperity they must embrace freedom.” ~Martin D. Weiss Ph.D.Government vs. Prosperity, 13 August 2012
It is clear that the climate consensus clowns will not accept news, favorable to their goals, if it is not conforming to their political views.
What a hoot.
Thanks, Dr. Curry. Good luck with the fall semester.
Peter Lang, you and TEPCO management and also the that guy Wagathon works for all need to get together and decide: “When things go south, who’s gonna clean up the mess?” :cry: :cry: :cry:
Oh and be sure to let us know just as soon the job’s done, OK? :?: :?: :?:
A physicist (cough) was recommending nuking it from space on another blog. Listen to that guy. He’s a genius and smart and all that stuff.
The denialist faith that mockery and abuse are effective remedies for disasters caused by short-sighted greed, willful ignorance, and irresponsible denialism is wonderfully novel! :) :) :)
P.E., please let us know how effectively denialist methods work in cleaning up the mess! :roll: :roll: :roll:
fan, the smiley’s are not getting less creepy, and your idiocratic behavior is restricted to a spectrum of rresponses that seems to get smaller and smaller.
Interesting how Fan has absolutely no answers whatsoever to the bulk of opinion here – skepticism of the crooked mainstream climate science – choosing instead to systemtically address the handful of denialists.
It’s like when children with over-large egos who can’t handle their contemporaries, then desperately try to look important to other children two or three years younger.
+1
How has society come to this? The answer is clear…
Hot World Syndrome is a phenomenon where the global warming apocalyptic content of mass media imbues viewers with the notion that the world is a hotter and more intimidating place to live than it actually is, and prompts a desire for more protection than is warranted by any actual threat. Hot World Syndrome is one of the main conclusions of the anti-humanism movement of the United Nations. Additionally, murderous examples of failed socialism — as witnessed by large segments of Leftist-lib society from the safety and comfort of Western civilization — has created a global psychosis, causing people to turn on the morals, principals and ethics that otherwise would sustain their spirits and prevent them from succumbing to moral decline and mental helplessness. Individuals who do not rely on the mainstream media and who understand the floccinaucinihilipilification of the cabinets and cabinets full of worthless global warming research, have a far more accurate view of the real world than those who do not, are able to more accurately assess their vulnerability to present and future weather conditions, and all the myriad vagaries of life over which they have no control. The global warming realists do not fear the hand of man and tend to be nicer people with a life and have a wider and healthier variety of beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles. Towing a boat to the river with the family in the back of a SUV is not evil, no matter what the liberal fascists may wish to believe today.
A major trick of the AGW camp is to smooth out the oscillation in global mean temperature and the corresponding forcing before the 1970s and to claim the cyclic warming since 1970s is man made.
The cooling from the 1880s to 1910s is smoothed out. The warming from 1910s to 1940s is smoothed out. The slight cooling from 1940s to 1970s is smoothed out. What is not touched is the warming starting from the 1970s. This gave an exaggerated climate sensitivity of 3 deg C for doubling of CO2, when the more likely value is only about 1 deg C.
CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing EVERY YEAR for the last 14 years, but it has refused to increase the global mean temperature above the maximum recorded 14 years ago. To overlook this pause, they have stopped to talk about trends (climate) and have started talking about the weather with their “nth warmest in the record”.
To account for the lack of warming, they now want to increase the effect of aerosols or increase the amount of the defused heat into the deep oceans in the climate models.
Here is the evidence for the above statements:
Smoothed GMST before 1970s => http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
Actual observation that show the oscillation before 1970s =>
http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd
Look at how IPCC smoothed out the warming from 1910 to 1940 and the slight cooling from 1940 to 1970.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-9-5.html
The models don’t properly represent the known observed data. As a result, they cannot be used to predict the unknown future, as they don’t properly represent the known past.
Regarding the 2011 IPCC report on renewable energy, here is a critique of it:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/09/ipcc-renewables-critique/. I would not support some of what the critique says, but there are some interesting comments on the thread. For example, this by John Morgan:
RiHoO8 recommends that we abandon the IPCC. Amen to that.
The IPCC is not a science research body but a politically funded organisation with political aims. As pointed out in a post on Jo Nova ithe IPCC, responsible for advice to governments on investing public money, in the billions, the IPCC falls way short on the kind of due diligence for investment, expected of the private sector.
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/07/spending-billions-why-not-do-a-due-diligence-study/
I was at the lecture in London a few days ago. Steve M largely echoed Richard Mueller in the excellent video Judith posted some days ago, except for attribution which did Steve did not really get into.
Steve M has to be one of the most reasonable voices in the whole debate. If you are a policy maker you have to consider the advice you get from the body drawn up to provide you with it. But the IPCC is derelict in its duty in regards to giving that advice and it needs to do much much better. He touched on due diligence, that much of the science that goes into the report should be subjected to commercial, engineering levels of examination, that is a legal requirement of any expensive venture in the commercial world.
He would not get drawn on the political question that sadly seems to obsess many skeptics, while acknowledging that there maybe something to it. It was an excellent presentation, very funny, and measured marred only by the horrendous sound set up, which must have annoyed him.
The take away points; 1) whether or not you agree with the concern about global warming, any policy aimed at mitigating it should be realistic, and 2) above all, society needs to build resilience (and reduce exposure) to weather extremes that could easily occur regardless whether man is affecting the climate or not.
Agnostic,
Thank you for that. Excellent.
But these take away points make little sense. Re 1 if there is no concern then no mitigation policy is realistic. All mitigation is unrealistic. Re 2 we already have a lot of resilience (because these events are common) so building resilience per se is a vacuous concept. If the claim is that we need to build more that has to be argued for in specific cases. What kind, where and at what cost?
Steve’s audits have been very useful, but if this is his venture into policy then it needs to be audited. This stuff is expensive.
By mitigation, I am sure he simply means able to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. I am fairly sure that he is doubtful – though not certain – that it would have any serious effect on temps.
He made the point that we absolutely do not have a lot of resilience. We are resilient for once in a decade events but not resilient to once in 100 year events, and furthermore, some parts of the world are hardly resilient at all. The Indian ocean has 15% of the worlds cyclonic storms, yet the damage and loss of life is near 80 or 90% (I forget exactly the figures he quoted).
On top of that first world modern society is spreading into areas that cause it to be affected by rare climate events and as a consequence it is suffering more damage. You can make yourself resilient, but you have to accept these extreme events will happen from time to time. Tink of the damage done by the bush fires in Australia or California or Portugal. Think about the recent and highly avoidable Brisbane floods.
As Steve pointed out in his talk, extreme climate does not equate to extreme climate disaster.
[McIntyre] would not get drawn on the political question that sadly seems to obsess many skeptics
How silly of them to obsess on something as trivial as a root cause.
Indeed Tomcat, fundamentally we are fighting a dangerous political movement. Climate is just a pawn in the game. One must never lose sight of this unhappy fact.
It’s sad because it stops becoming a question of truth and becomes a matter of opinion. That’s not how science is supposed to work.
I can’t object to the suspicion being raised, that fear of global warming is being used for political ends rather than as a genuine concern, but I can equally object to it being characterised as entirely a political issue.
In fact, I would argue that the vociferous and political nature of some skeptics objections to CAGW contributes to the wholly unnecessary tribal and polarised nature of the debate. If GW was a serious and evident problem, then I would expect my government and by extension governments the world over to do something about it. But because governmental intervention is almost by definition an anathema to right wing liberatarians, it’s objected to on that basis rather than on the basis that the scientific evidence doesn’t support it.
Now we have a situation where egos are invested, hubris has taken hold and you are a believer or non-believer. Politically motivated skeptics must take some of the blame for this mess, however right they might be about the science.
While I’m on it….it’s a patent nonsense to me that big government equals bad, small government equals good. There are many examples of government enterprise being efficient and successful and many many examples of corporate enterprises being extremely wasteful, corrupt and inefficient. Sometimes the results of this inefficiency plays itself out spectacularly before our eyes. Furthermore, the global financial crisis demonstrates that unfettered capitalism is inherently self-destructive, and the reason we had it was because of too little government not too much.
Agnostic – climate is a complex scientific issue. It exhibits spatio-temporal chaos. Feedbacks, especially of clouds, is not well understood. Skepticism is based in the lack of solid science. It has nothing to do with tobacco, the Koch brothers, big oil, creationism, or politics. Politics is merely a side issue that supplies additional motivation to examine the science. CAWG’ers attempt to use all the peripheral issues as red herrings to detract attention from the fact their science is incomplete. Richard Muller, who appears to be sincere and honest, explicitly stated that his belief in global warming is just that, a belief. See his 1 hour interview with Climate One, posted by Dr. Curry previously. Any climate scientist who claims the extra global warming possibly caused by the ~100 ppm man-made CO2 will cause a catastrophe is going on a gut feeling, not solid science.
I can’t object to the suspicion being raised, that fear of global warming is being used for political ends rather than as a genuine concern, but I can equally object to it being characterised as entirely a political issue.
(1) It’s funded by government, and government stands to benefit hugely from it. Vested interest simply screams out.
(2) Government climate science is riddled with politically motivated corruption, as Climategate etc showed. To this day the leading lights continue to hide data etc etc, and the bulk of the rank and file (with the odd exception) make no protest; corruption and bias is thus accepted as part of parcel of climate science consensus. So who in their right mind is going to take them at the word ?
And so it would be little short of a miracle if politics is not the major factor in CAGW alarmism.
Agnostic –
I would also like to commend you for two excellent posts. I will disagree with you, however, about Stevie-Mac not being drawn on the political:
I think that the lack of qualification in that statement makes it, in effect, political – certainly given the full context of the debate and how that type of statement is perceived from a political perspective.
Joshua
How is it not a realistic evaluation of international affairs? It is not as if efforts had not already been made to get a reasonable treaty
Rob –
I think it is an unhelpful over-statement that in balance, will only fit in to fuel the overtly political food fight.
Joshua
It is really a central question and to avoid it is ignoring the elephant in the room. Extensive efforts were put into trying to achieve a treaty on CO2 reduction, but in the end it was not achieved. Without an international agreement, CO2 emissions will continue to rise and nations that undertake individual reduction efforts will be penalized economically
>1.3+
Agnostic, you like many, seem not to understand the nature of the political system. It is the decision system of democracy, not some corrupt artifact. CAGW is not about science, it is about political action. As a result the movement’s scientific claims have attracted the attention of a great many policy people, including me, many of whom have found these claims wanting, again including me. I have no interest in climate science per se, as my field is cognitive science. Yet I have been forced by unhappy political circumstances to spend the better part of the last 20 years immersed in climate science.
Put another way, this blog does not exist because climate science is interesting. It exists because a political movement is trying to use questionable climate claims to gain enormous political power. Absent this movement the scientific debate would barely exist.
Exactly. Nobody cares about the science. Everybody cares about the policy. The entire field would be just another esoteric scientific specialty except for the policy implications. Policy is the tail that wags the scientific dog.
David, the question as to whether there is warming and what it is caused by is a scientific one. The question as to what to do about it, if anything is a political one.
Investigating our effect on the environment is, and has been an extremely important socialogical one which is part of the maturation process of modern society, that includes welfare, equality, emancipation and many other worthy issues we would no longer dream being without. The modern world contains many more people than at any time in man’s history, and the extent of our society and its effect on our environment is unprecedented. It is a worthy question to ask “are we having such a profound effect as to actually change the climate and is it deleterious? If we are what should we do about it?”
You know the answers to this as well as I do – the first part being scientific in nature, the second political. The point Mueller and McIntyre make with regards to the second question, is 1) adaption and building resilience is vastly more likely succeed, and 2) the solution cannot be found at a personal level, or by building windmills or driving electric cars. It has to be at the sort of scale that can only be managed by governments.
The IPCC truly has a lot to answer for, in that it’s advice to policymakers is so poor. It leads to living embodiment of the principle of unintended consequences. Making energy more expensive in order to curtail its use so as to reduce emissions can be more harmful to mankind and with greater certainty than any resulting change in climate imagined to have been caused by them. They simply don’t know with the confidence they claim that the climate will be affected in the way they think, or that it would even be a bad thing anyway. Yet as a policy maker, that’s the advice you have, and despite yourself you would have to take it.
The suspicion viewed by some of the politics-centric skeptics of government is out of all proportion with reality…not a whole lot dissimilar to the exaggeration coming from warmists claiming certainty on the science that is unwarranted. It’s the “us” and “them” mentality and it’s more prevalent in some parts of the world, notably the US than it is in others. Governments within democracies are made up of people they are meant to represent. It therefore has its strengths, weaknesses and characteristics you see throughout society. An individual operating in that environment is going to have the same broad psychological motivations, and self-actualisation as other members of society, the same tribal mentality that makes the cheer their favourite footy team, athlete, or war hero.
By viewing the initially scientific question of whether there is dangerous warming caused by man as an initial of big v little government, skeptics put the cart way before the scientific horse. As a result of reducing the argument to this, those politically opposed to them will view the skeptic view as being typically selfish motivated right wing propaganda, rather than actual legitimate scientific objections.
And then the calm, measured voices of reason gets lost in the ensuing bitch fight.
Fine words, Agnostic. But it is not how we view the scientific question, rather how we view the scientific practice, which has been corrupted by the political movement. Ironically, it is the skeptics who are pursuing the scientific question. Without us the bogus claim of settled science would have triumphed. Both the IPCC and the USGCRP are political institutions. Science has seldom seen such a scandal.
Science has never had this kind of leverage.
I know that certain people will bring up the Manhattan Project and the Space Program. Those weren’t scientific programs. They were technology programs with specific measurable goals. They either succeeded or they failed.
So again, science has never had anything close to this kind of economic leverage before. There shouldn’t be any surprise at the way the whole thing got hijacked by political activists.
Agnostic,
You’ve missed a vitally important question between your first and second questions. What are the consequences of warming (or cooling)?
Without a good answer to that question, the politicians cannot do their job.
And this is the question that is very poorly addressed so far. It’s been attempted by Stern, Garnaut and others. But these studies were highly politically partisan. They have been largely discredited.
More recently Nordhaus has done some excellent work. But the inputs are extremely uncertain and many are probably biased towards exaggerating the consequences of warming. His results are most sensitive to the damage function, which is highly uncertain.
For the politicians to do their job, they need good advice on the consequences of warming. Not just scientific papers but properly documented cost-benefit analyses. These must be done and documented to the standard needed for due diligence. This work has not even begun. It is resisted by scientists. They don’t understand it and don’t believe it is necessary.
Agnostic,
Why do you single out the skeptic side on this point. I feel the skeptics are reacting and responding to the attrocioulsy bad policies the CAGQ Alarmists want to impose on society, such as:
– Kyoto Protocol
– Carbon tax and cap and trade regimes
– renewable energy
– blocking development of nuclear energy
– World government (Agenda21)
– ever more regulation
– oppose market based solutions (CO2 tax and ETS are not market based solutions they are government imposed, bureaucratically controlled markets that will be tampered with by government and bureaucrats for ever)
– more tax
– more bureaucracy
And all this without any proper due diligence.
Good point. However, from my perspective it is the CAGW alarmists (i.e. the elitists who make up perhaps 5% to 10% of the electors in the western democracies and 0.01% of world population) who I see as
Agnostic,
True. But it can be tackled in one of two ways and not both. One way will succeed the other will fail (as it has done to date and will continue to do as long as that is the way being advocated.
One way is to increase regulation, tax, bureaucracy, big-government and strangle the world’s economies
The other is to reduce regulation, bureaucracy, government and by so doing allow innovation to thrive. Removing the impediments that have blocked development of nuclear power is an example of how reducing regulation could provide an enormous reduction in CO2 emissions and also allow the world economy to improve.
The way advocated by the CAGW Alarmists and ‘Progressives’ is doomed to fail (as it has been doing since the 1992 Rio Conference and was made clear to all but the ideologically blinded at Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban and Rio+20.
On the other hand, reducing the regulatory constraints that prevent us having low-cost low emissions electricity generation would meet the wants of the CAGW Alarmists (reduce emissions from energy) and meet the needs of most people: secure, reliable, cheap energy.
By the way Agnostic, many skeptics have the calm, measured voice of reason. Perhaps you are not listening. Or if all you can hear is the street brawl, well that is the way of democracy. But in the long run it is surprisingly reasonable. This is a political fight, which the skeptics did not start. Factor that into your analysis.
This is a political fight, which the skeptics did not start. Factor that into your analysis.
Yes that is a crucial point that Agnostic avoids – politically funded climate science that predictably concludes more politics is needed. And does so by hiding data and other forms of dishonesty, about which is it quite unrepentant.
Indeed he does more than duck the point, he labors to have others duck it, since he condemns skeptics for bringing the systemic fraud and bias to light, blaming them for everyone seeing what a “mess” it is – the implication being that the mess should be swept under the carpet and the pretense made that government climate science is doing its honest best.
A separate point is that CAGW, if true, would not justify government force because of the scale of the problem, as he suggests, but because of its nature – the negative externalities/costs not borne by the consumers of fossil fuel.
The reason the Manhattan Project and the Space Program weren’t hijacked by totalitarian activists as climatology has been, is that they didn’t have anything like the scope for huge increases in taxes and politicization of society.
Can be, or will be? I suggest to you Nordhaus’ papers on the cost/benefit of mitigation.
Most scientists do not claim to know with a high degree of confidence what exactly will happen when, later this century on the BAU path, we make the Earth hotter than it has been in the last 15 million years.
However, we do have many reasons, from economic analysis to the fossil record of prior periods of rapid warming to the changes already observed — to expect the harms from this to greatly outweigh the benefits.
Robert said:
What Nordhaus shows is: a policy that implements and maintains an optimum carbon price throughout the world and captures all GHG emissions from all sources in all countries, implements the pricing mechanism in unison across the world and increases the carbon price periodically in unison everywhere across the world, would have a net benefit of $3.5 trillion compared with a cumulative GDP of $2,200 trillion – i.e. negligible (0.02%).
However, these minuscule benefits could not be achieved, as explained here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/ .
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/comment-page-1/#comment-515886
I have not seen an objective, impartial persuasive analyses of the probability that the proposed mitigation strategies (like CO2 tax and ETS) will have a beneficial effect on climate or sea levels. Have you?
Robert,
Most scientists do not claim to know with a high degree of confidence what exactly will happen when, later this century on the BAU path,
What was the projected price of coal that produced the BAU path?
IIRC Steam Coal was expected to remain in the $40/ton range. The price of steam coal on global markets is now running nearer $100/ton.
Current trends are not going to continue because most of the world has run out of ‘inexpensively extractable coal’.
Australia and the US Midwest are exceptions to the Global Trend but hardly constitute ‘most of the world’.
Low doc/no doc sub-prime [politically-based] national banking requirements produced the current/continuing financial crisis; i.e., state interference – NOT freedom – mandated present threats, including fiscal and monetary deficits.
Root cause, bed rock , yes. Nice irony from Tomcat.
‘Nothing would sleep in that cellar, dank as a ditch
Bulbs broke out of boxes, hunting for chinks in the dark.
Shoots dangled and drooped,
Lolling obscenely from mildewed crates,
Hung down long yellow, evil necks like tropical snakes.
And what a congress of stinks!
Roots ripe as old bait. Pulpy stems, rank, silo – rich,
Leaf – mould, manure, lime , piled against slippery planks.
Nothing would give up life:
Even the dirt kept breathing a small breath.’
Roethke.
I know some people dont want to take any notice of WUWT, but the latest entry
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/20/us-record-lows-outpace-record-highs-127-to-4-this-weekend/#more-69601
is strictly factual, and shows how many low, as compared with high, temperature records were set in the USA this last week-end. With Fan contiuing to bore us with stories of how little ice there is in the Arctic, while carefully not noting how much ice there is in the Antarctic, I think people need reminding that science ought to report everything that is going on; not cherrypick the data to make it appear that the measured, empirical data somehow supports CAGW. It does not. The only “scientific” support for CAGW is hypothetical estimations, and the output of non-validated models.
Despite my many requests for such information, it remains a fact that there is no empirical data from the 20th and 21st centuries that proves that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes surface temperatures to rise enough so that the change in temperature can actually be measured.
Jim
Look how IPCC climate models smoothed out the oscillation in GMST before 1970 and called the cyclic warming since then man made:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-9-5.html
Thank you for reminding us to check for new Arctic ice-melt records, Jim Cripwell!
Hmmmm … oh yes … Neven posts Record dominoes 2: Arctic ROOS sea ice area.
The dominoes of denialism are falling daily … isn’t that amazing Jim Cripwell? :) :) :)
Fan, you write “The dominoes of denialism are falling daily … isn’t that amazing Jim Cripwell? ”
sarc on/ Reference please. What “domino of denialism” fell yesterday? sarc off/
Hidden Antarctic Rift Valley?
James Hansen’s scientific prediction of “acceleration of sea-level rise this decade“ remains on-track to be fulfilled, eh Jim Cripwell? :) :) :)
Unless Hansen’s prediction was no acceleration in sea level rise he’s not on track at all.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
But sea level has been rising for a very long time. The last inflection point upwards was around 1850 – well before CO2 was significantly augmented by man-produced emissions. Another fail for Hansen and Fan of More BS.
Fan
Once again you are referring only to very modern Arctic dominoes (from 1979).. People of a similar alarmist nature to you were saying exactly the same in 1922;
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m3d2-Arctic-Ocean-is-warming-icebergs-growing-scarcer-reports-Washington-Post
“The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway.
Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.
Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.”
The red hot arctic was news in all the media as this Pathe newsreel demonstrates;
“To Prevent Repetition Titanic Disaster – Ice “Patrol” now finds & warns all vessels of location of Icebergs brought down by abnormal heat from Greenland Coast.” From 1922
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/ice-patrol-aka-to-prevent-repetition-titanic-disas
In Part 1 of my series on Arctic ice melt I examined the warming of the arctic that commenced in the early 1800’s and lasted for some 60 years, which was first officially noted when the Royal Society brought it to the attention of the British admiralty;
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated….. this affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. pp.149-153, Royal Society, London. 20th November, 1817.
Part 1 was carried here;http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/
You will be delighted to note that I am currently writing Part 2 which demonstrates once again that historical context is required in order to gain a better perspective of todays events which bear remarkable similarity to the past.
tonyb
ClimateReason, what did the British Admirality discover when they sent expeditions to the Arctic to check the anecdotal reports you describe?.
Uhhh … they found ice-bound disaster, over-and-over again.
So … never mind! :cry: :cry: :cry:
Fan
The reports are far from ‘anecdotal’ in as much the first ever sponsored Royal Society arctic expedition was mounted as a direct result of the abnormal warming. The leader of the expedition-Willam Scoresby-is buried not ten miles from my home. The legancy lives on in a variety of books and reports that are no more anecdotal than your accounts of arctic warming snce 1979 (from an icy high point)
If you read my article you will see I deal with the various reports you linked to, which again point to remarkable similarities to the present. Many expeditions today try to penetrate to the far north and some fail-just like in the old days. The arctic is rarely very cold or very warm for year after year , it goes in phases within the overal context of a warming or cooling trend.
So Fan, anecdotal Royal Society expeditions, Anecdotal books and science reports, anecdotal graves, anecdotal newspaper reports and most remarkable of all anecdotal news reel. No doubt the Vikings were anecdotal as well?
In your eyes is nothing real unless its modern and warm?
tonyb
ClimateReason, please let me say that I enjoy your well-reasoned, respectful posts very much … even when I don’t agree with them!
Two elements that greatly shift most scientists’ Bayesian assessment of the proposition “James Hansen’s worldview is essentially correct” are: (1) radiation transport theory, together with (2) the (geophysically fast, geophysically large) anthropogenic increase in CO2 concentration.
Given that a purely historical analysis entirely disregards the above two lines of climate-change evidence, it is scarcely likely that historians and scientists will reach similar conclusions! :grin: :grin: :grin:
Is that not evident, ClimateReason? :?: :?: :?:
Fan
I think I will bring togerher all my historical Climatology articles together under one title ‘The Anecdotal Viking.’ I shall dedicate it to you, R Gates and Mosh. Good eh? :)
If the subject wasn’t so important to the overall debate so much time would not be spent by so many people in trying to put over their view of the past.
Here is my view and that of BEST-a 300/400 year increase in temperatures into which Dr Hansens Giss figures are merely a staging post -and not the starting post- of increasing temperatures.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/14/little-ice-age-thermometers-historic-variations-in-temperatures-part-3-best-confirms-extended-period-of-warming/
I am currently trying to detemine the exact period of the downturn in climate somewhere around 1250/1350AD as it appears we have long periods of warm temperatures and then a considerable downturn and then a long slow thaw again.
Judging by the great variability of the climate my surmise is that co2 makes little difference once it reaches a concentration of around 280ppm. What d you think Fan?
Tonyb
tonyb, The Anecdotal Viking
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/SouthernExtentreconstructionwithGISS24Sto44S.png?t=1336877309
The southern hemisphere reconstructions provide a decent reference.
@A Fan
If you could manage to put together a whole post without smileys and without the word ‘Bayesian’ appearing at all, I might be tempted to start reading them again. I tried this one, but gave up.
When the stupid gimmicks get in the way of your message, you’ve failed to communicate.
Just saying.
Little Laitie, It’s worse that you are a nasty sock-puppet wrangler. Every unique sock-puppet adds Bayesian weight to the evidence.
Tony,
Where in your research have you taken into account the intentional exaggeration of a melting Arctic made in the historic past by would-be explorers and others who needed financing for endeavors into that region? The actual discovery of a NW or NE passage back then would have made the discover and their financiers very wealthy as the riches brought by Asian trade would be that much easier to access. Don’t you think there was a huge motivation back then to simply lie about how much melting was actually going on? From the ill-fated attempts at transarctic travel, we know they were at the very least, catastrophically wrong in their estimation of melting, of they weren’t just outright intentionally lying. Thankfully now, we’ve got satellite images to confirm and watch the melt, year by year and sq. km. by sq. km.
When the Arctic becomes ice free in the next few years…it will be the first time in many thousands of years. That you can be sure of…unlike the exaggerations of some explorer who needed financing to find a short cut to plunder Asia.
How’s that ice-free summer prediction coming along? Good, I wish. It would be really nice to tap the massive fossil fuel resources lying under the shallow Arctic ocean. Reliable summertime shipping channels would save a ton of money for intercontinental trade too. While ice-free summers are not new (see here http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/faq/#summer_ice ) they’d be new for the industrial age and will be an economic boon. Let’s cross our fingers in hope that it comes to pass.
I do not disagree, Jim, but I notice your reference to surface temps. This has become standard in alarmism, I suspect to avoid the satellite issues. But the fact is that while droughts, floods, heat waves, etc., occur at the surface, all are basically atmospheric phenomena. So the fundamental physics issue is atmospheric warming, not surface warming. Such warming we do not see.
David, you write “I do not disagree, Jim, but I notice your reference to surface temps”
Thanks David. This, I am afraid, is just my lack of precision in writing on a blog. I suppose I really mean atmospheric temperatures, and I certainly do not disregard satellite temperatures. I was under the impression that Christy and Spencer had worked out how to convert the “brightness” temperature at 600 mbars to surface temperature. I was trying to distinguish between the proponents of CAGW emphasis on total heat content, as opposed to temperature.
It seems that the lapse rate could be used to convert the lower trop temps to a surface temp estimate.
But if you do that you falsify the surface statistical models, which show the great warming from 1978-1997, which AGW is based on, when the satellies show none.
“Differences between the NIC ice chart sea ice record and the passive microwave sea ice record are highly significant despite the fact that the NIC charts are semi-dependent on the passive microwave data, and it is worth noting these differences. . . We find a baseline difference in integrated ice concentration coverage north of 45N of 3.85% ± 0.73% during November to May (ice chart concentrations are larger). In summer, the difference between the two sources of data rises to a maximum of 23% peaking in early August, equivalent to ice coverage the size of Greenland.”
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1058&context=usdeptcommercepub
Right now, the NIC charts for August show 2012 and 2007 about the same, with a dip for 2007 starting this time of the month. And the extent shown is higher than NSIDC shows, consistent with the above finding.
Robert’s right. The slowed economy is going to continue to contribute to a reduction in CO2 emissions; but not significantly, and only by default (without taking charge of new directions any time soon).
Of course it could be otherwise. We could be taking charge of new directions. That is what a confident, growing economy would be doing.
That kind of taking charge is a key aspect of managing the problem, and it is in fact promoted as a strategy by ‘the green movement’. There are many different trends in Green economics and Ms. Curry just makes herself look like a political dinosaur, each and every blog entry. Denizens like to it? Fine.
But it doesn’t change the fact that the U.S. economy will not be growing the way it has in the past 50 years or so, again, any time soon – no matter what you do – and that you need to make better sense not only of ‘the green movement’, but also democracy movements, which are growing to address the social impacts.
In the U.S., you are almost certainly looking at the cost of fuel going up because what is available is more expensive to get at. It has nothing to do with anything you can control, and nothing to do with anything anyone else e.g. China or India, is doint to you or taking away from you. And while the concept of new cheap fuel is a nice idea, it is just an idea, and you need to have many pokers in the fire to have a resilient economy.
Climate change denial in the United States and on this blog is so fashionable, that you continue to make no plan.
Your choice.
Elsewhere, the ‘green movement’ shifted tactics quite a long time ago and has influenced the perspective of growing economies to focus on responding to market forces i.e. Green stakeholders, in ways that benefit not only the economy but social supports.
Which is why, John C, my response to your question is ‘no’. It is no, because it would require more knowledge and understanding to intentionally mislead, poor gal. ;-)
Climate change denial in the United States and on this blog is so fashionable, that you continue to make no plan.
Please go read the fine print in the Energy Act’s of 2005 and 2007.
The energy acts of 2005 and 2007 provided strong incentives to develop and demonstrate at scale a very long laundry list of alternative energies as well as a minor exemption from some provisions of the Clean Water Act for hydro fracking.
You can’t make a 40 year plan if you don’t what technologies are going to be available and what are the pro’s and con’s of the various options.
The US EIA got the sign wrong on their predictions of the average price of delivered coal almost every year between 2000 and 2010. US EIA predicted down and the price went up.
In 2005 we were building LNG import terminals in the US on the expectation that our domestic gas resources would soon inadequate. It’s 2012 and that expectation proved to be completely false. We are awash in gas…maybe we should build a demonstration natural gas plant with CCS.
Sometimes, the best plan is to try as many options as possible and see what works and what doesn’t, which is exactly what the Energy Acts of 2005 and 2007 were designed to do.
It’s also not smart to commit until it’s completely clear that you have to. In the 1930s, all the futurists were advocating building dirigible ports in all the major cites. Anybody who wasn’t on the dirigible bandwagon was a knuckle dragger afraid of the obvious future.
Harrywr2, PE, David Springer,
You’ve made excellent points. There are many excellent points on the Climate Etc Threads
But there also many mind-bogglingly ignorant comments, almost all of which are by CAGW alarmists.
@Martha whoever the f*ck that is:
No, you just don’t like the plan. The plan is to not strangle our economy at the worst possible time then with sufficient economic growth we can invest heavily in R&D to find economically attractive alternatives to fossil fuels
You’re looking for a plan based on panic and extreme actions that begins immediately. You can look elsewhere. We’ll see how it works out for Australia and Europe first as those appear to be where the lunatics are running the asylums.
Martha,
Yes we could. But not by imposing even more laws and regulations on business and industry. Doing so is strangling our productive capability and forcing businesses, industries and jobs to move out of our countries.
Instead, what we need to do is to unshackle the innovative and productive capacities of our nations.
Countries like the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Russia, China, Korea and Japan could produce low cost low emissions small nuclear power plants suitable for most of the world’s electricity markets – if we allowed them to do so.
To do that we need to remove the excessive regulations that are preventing it happeneing.
“Which is why, John C, my response to your question is ‘no’. It is no, because it would require more knowledge and understanding to intentionally mislead, poor gal.”
Ok Martha, so you think Judy is too dumb.. I get it, same ol’ same ol’ from you, I guess I shouldn’t expect anything less in the future.
Tell me, what’s going on in the confident growing EU economy that is working so profoundly well with green energy initiatives? Is Germany’s choice of mothballing CO2 emission free nuclear a good example? Is this one of the pokers in the confident growing EU economic fire you speak about? Richard Muller had an article in the WSJ this weekend, an excerpt from his new book. It focused on nuclear panic and over reaction to Fukashima. He describes how negligent the health effects due to radiation exposure from the leak were/are in comparison to the huge losses due to the actual earthquake and tsunami. Yet everyone focused on the nuclear power plant as the big problem. The big problem was actually Japan shutting all the nukes down and starving itself of energy, it made a bad situation worse. How was that for a plan? So what is the EU plan? How are you all getting cheap energy to help drive that stellar economy of yours? Here in the USA right now it is home frakked abundant natural gas. It’s real and it’s cheap and it’s not a concept… how long will it last? Dunno. What I find interesting is how you believe ‘green movements’ actually drive economies. They don’t, unless they result in products and practices that are cheaper than BAU. That’s why coal is out now in the USA for power generation, because natural gas is so much cheaper. Lower CO2 emissions are just a by product of that switch, it wasn’t planned… it just happened all on its own, that’s part of the beauty of it and part of the lesson we should learn. If you can make energy cheaper using non fossil fuel resources (perhaps nuclear), there would be no need to have plans for CO2 mitigation. It would take care of itself. No need for a CO2 mitigation plan… and well, perhaps there would then be less need for a ‘green movement’. Hmmm, tell me Martha, if you had a choice of either cheap, non fossil fuel CO2 emitting energy that resulted in no need for mitigation planning vs the need of a ‘green movement’ to drive CO2 mitigation planning…. which would you choose?
“Be an octopus: start football practice during colder weather, and move inside sports like basketball to the warm season.”
Better yet, eliminate them both in public schools. They’re a huge drain on budgets and academic focus. The US is #1 in the world in football (American) and basketball. Unfortunately football and basketball doesn’t raise living standards like math and science does. Let’s get K12 refocused on reading, writing, math, and science.
“US CO2 emissions drop to 20 year low. The big news for the week. As reported by the Capitol Report of NM:”
Pielke Junior’s comment at the end of the report that natural gas won’t solve the long term CO2 problem is correct. It doesn’t even solve the short term problem because the problem is MORE CO2 IS BETTER.
We are on the cusp of entering a new technologic age marked by bioengineering a.k.a. synthetic biology. Biology depends on atmospheric carbon as the basic building block for all kinds of useful things not the least of which is solid, liquid, and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels that can be drop-in replacements for the same fuels from fossil sources.
Carbon in the atmosphere will soon become a valuable commodity and before 2050 (mark my words) we’ll be wanting international treaties restricting how much carbon can be removed from the atmosphere instead of how much can be added.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_biology#Engineering
Say, fan, taking the long historic view of climate, (CET temperature records, proxy records). * gives a vantage point of climate patterning and variability that a narrow and particular (myopic) focus, excludes. The myopic focus is sometimes referred to as cherry picking.
* re proxy, exclude *sus* tree ring or upside down data, fan. :-) x 3
Beth Cooper, please note that ClimateReason asked very much the same question, which scientists answer per this link.
Thank you for this thoughtful question, Beth Cooper! :) :) :)
“While developing economies have the greatest proportion of their economies at risk, they’re not alone. ”
One might wonder about the repercussions of the US only growing enough grain for US consumption and none for export.
While Mr. Levy may be a competent film director, his command of English leaves something to be desired. Anyone with a passing knowledge of grammar understands that the word unique is a superlative and cannot be modified. Thus, it is impossible for anything to be one of the most unique— even Georgia Tech.
A few things to keep in mind are that the figures represent a reduction in the US not globally. Moreover, the obvious political-correctness revealed by the reasons given for the decline is hilarious—totally oblivious of the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression as the explanation for reduced use of energy. We’re fast on the road to Greece and the government is borrowing dollars to operate the railroad all the way there. Reduced CO2 means reduced energy use and that means a moribund economy, a reduced standard of living, and an ever-growing Democrat party voting block that looks to Government to feed it and a growing army of government retirees who thank unions instead of the taxpayers for their fat pensions.
Global CO2 emissions:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n1/full/nclimate1332.html
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n1/images_article/nclimate1332-f1.jpg
http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/CO2REPORT2012.pdf
In the past decade the average annual increase was 2.7%.
The aiborne fraction is decrasing…
BREAKING NEWS: CLIMATE-CHANGE HISTORY IN THE MAKING
Thanks to Neven’s redoubtable Arctic Sea Ice weblog, we know that the Ellesmere Island Arctic Ice Shelf has broken up.
That ancient ice-shelf was the oldest sea-ice in the Arctic: 5500 years old … now it’s gone forever. :eek: :eek: :eek:
The rational Bayesian odds in favor of the proposition “James Hansen’s worldview is essentially correct” just received another colossal boost, eh?
Yikes. :cry: :?: :cry: :!: :cry:
—————————-
In lesser news, Intrade now has the probability of a record ice-melt at 90% … and climbing like a Michael Mann hockey-stick blade. Denialists lost their shirts, eh?
Ice shelves are not sea ice, maroon.
Oh little “lurker”, against all the odds, somehow, by some incredible mischance, you have posted another not-quite-correct assertion. Oh dear! :) :) :)
That is, your post’s claim is entirely wrong, eh lurker? :oops: :!: :oops: :!: :oops:
fan,
They are not.
And your little faces thing is something a psychiatrist could probably help you with.
fan of bs,
You are not only creepy and obsessive, you are stoopid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ice_Shelf
“Ice shelves are thick plates of ice, formed continuously by glaciers, that float atop an ocean. The presence of the shelves acts as “brakes” for the glaciers.”
When even wiki sinks the pretnetious creepy obsessive garbage you spew, you are truly a joke.
Little “lurker”, please note that Mark B (number 2) has demonstrated mastery of two lessons that you are still struggling to learn:
(1) Mark B recognizes his mistakes, and
(1) Mark B is thankful for learning opportunities.
Very well done, Mark B! :) :) :)
Little “lurker”, in contrast to Mark B’s rapid learning, the inability to master the above two lessons is pathognomonic of Dunning-Kruger cognition … which leads straight to irrational denialism! Yikes!
So it’s good to learn a lesson from Mark, eh little “lurker”! :) :) :)
The very best thing that we can all do for society, world leaders and ourselves is just this: Immediately Reclaim Your Birthright !
Here are instructions for doing that:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-818
I am not a scientist, so I could be wrong here. But aren’t ice-shelves made of fresh water…like glaciers?
(I wasn’t being sarcastic. That was a genuine question.)
Mark B, even ice that freezes directly from the sea (like the now-vanished Ellesmere Island ice-pack) is reasonably pure freshwater, because most of the sea-salt is expelled during freezing as brine. The brine-expulsion process is vividly shown in the wonderfully scary Planet Earth video Icy Finger of Death. Highly recommended for kids especially! :) :) :)
“An ice shelf is a thick floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland and Canada. The boundary between the floating ice shelf and the grounded (resting on bedrock) ice that feeds it is called the grounding line. The thickness of ice shelves ranges from about 100 to 1000 metres.
In contrast, sea ice is formed on water, is much thinner (typically less than 3m), and forms throughout the Arctic Ocean. It also is found in the Southern Ocean around the continent of Antarctica.”-
Wikipedia
So ice shelves are obviously not made from sea ice, as is claimed by you.
“Sea ice is largely fresh, since a lot of the ocean salt is expelled during ice formation. The resulting ice is riddled with minute brine-filled channels and consequently is still salty (about 1% salt, compared with about 3.5% salt in the ocean)”-
Wikipedia
1% salt water is still not the same as fresh water.
Mark B (number 2), readers of Climate Etc can verify for themselves, at State of the Cryosphere: Ice Shelves that
Now those massive 5000-year-old ice-shelves are gone … totally gone … :eek: :eek: :eek:
Yea, the Bayesian odds that “James Hansen’s scientific worldview is right” just got a whole *lot* bigger, eh? … :eek: :eek: :eek:
Marc B, let’s not be a Sally Sourpuss today! :) :) :)
Straight from Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice weblog:
It’s fun to learn new facts, Marc B! :) :) :)
Fan, as I said at the start:
“I am not a scientist, so I could be wrong here.”
Well, I was wrong. But thats OK, because I’ve learned something new. Thanks for the info.
The average of IPCC models have represented the 20th century GMST by two straight lines as shown except for short deeps in temperature accompanying the occurrence of volcanoes.
http://bit.ly/NBZZ27
The actual temperature is cyclic with a long warming trend as shown.
http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd
From the above two graphs, as the climate models have not represented the oscillations of the known 20th century climate, they cannot predict the unknown future climate.
On feedback, fan, cool clouds and cooling rain. Don’t know what happened ter the AGW hotspot and Trenberth’s missing heat…
Water planet,
Viewed from space, like a snapshot
From the gods, a shimmering orb
Netted in a cloud haze.
It’s very clear.
The anti-nukes, CAGW alarmists, renewable energy advocates, greenies, ‘Progressives’ share the same ideological beliefs.
They are economically irrational.
They want more regulation, more government, more taxes, more bureaucracy and they hate the free market.
They use scaremongering to advance their ideological agendas.
I wonder why rational people would trust anything they say or adopt anything they advocate?
Yeah, Diogenes, confusion about superlatives is jest the worst thing! Somethin’ I really, really hate. )
Much discussion of what to do about global warming but no discussion at all about the science and measurement of it. Apparently the existence of warming is a taboo not to be questioned by any right-thinking climate scientist. I will try to explain why this is wrong. First, let us agree that it is anthropogenic greenhouse warming we want to analyze and distinguish from other types of global warming. For that purpose we must analyze what global temperature is actually telling us. And to do that we must understand the the basic laws of physics that control absorption and emission of radiation. There is no question that the greenhouse effect is real. It is due to two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and water vapor, that jointly keep the temperature of the earth above the freezing point of water. This is not the same as the enhanced greenhouse effect that is due to additional carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere. It has been measured at Mauna Loa since 1958 and has been increasing linearly since that time. This being the case, the enhanced greenhouse effect should also be increasing linearly, in step with it, from year to year. But if you look at the global temperature curve you find that this is simply not true. Temperature has increased over the past century all right but by fits and starts and not at any time in step with measured carbon dioxide content of the air. To get a quantitative measure of how much greenhouse warming to expect it is useful to calculate the temperature increase when the amount of carbon dioxide is doubled. Svante Arrhenius was the first to do that and his result was five degrees Celsius. This was too high and modern calculations give about one degree Celsius. But this is not enough to frighten anybody so IPCC is using an ad hoc addition to it – greenhouse effect from water vapor. It works like this: first carbon dioxide warms the air. Warm air can hold more water vapor, this additional water vapor does some greenhouse warming of its own, and we get to perceive their combined warming. Their present calculations put the combined greenhouse effect somewhere near 3 degrees Celsius which is above the 2 degrees Europeans have chosen as their maximum allowable limit. This is the reason for all the mitigation measures, emission control projects, and carbon taxes in the world. But is this true? Lets take the idea of positive feedback from water vapor. If it is true then the amount of water vapor in the air should increase in tandem with the amount of carbon dioxide measured by Mauna Loa. To my knowledge, satellites have not noticed ant such increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That is an important parameter impinging directly on the degree of warming to be expected from carbon dioxide. Some of these billions spent on climate study should have been directed at settling this point but nothing has happened and we are expected to take that on faith. But there is worse to come. Ferenc Miskolczi studied the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere when he was at NASA. He came to the conclusion that for a stable climate to exist the infrared optical thickness of the atmosphere had to have a value of 1.86 (30 percent transmittance). To keep it that way, the existing greenhouse gases should compensate any deviations from it by means of a feedback system. In practice, this meant carbon dioxide and water vapor. Carbon dioxide cannot be adjusted but water vapor has an infinite reservoir in the oceans and can vary. This of course went directly against the IPCC idea of positive water vapor feedback and he was severely criticized in the blogosphere. But he found a way to put this to an experimental test. Using NOAA weather balloon database that goes back to 1948 he was able to prove that the infrared transmittance of the atmosphere had been constant for the previous 61 years. During that same period of time the amount of carbon dioxide in air increased by 21.6 percent. This means that the addition of all this carbon dioxide to the atmosphere had no effect whatsoever on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. Miskolczi’s peer reviewed article has been out there now for two years and no peer reviewed objections have appeared. Do I have to remind you of the IPCC’s view of peer reviewed science? From Miskolczi it follows immediately that climate models predicting warming from the greenhouse effect are invalid and their predictions of dangerous warming ahead are worthless. And all the laws based on the use such “scientific” predictions as justification for their existence have lost their justification and need to be cancelled. Furthermore, since the enhanced greenhouse effect has turned out to be a non-effect it is clear that no observed warming can be greenhouse warming. With this in mind, lets take a look at global temperature records for the last century. To start with, the first ten years of the century saw cooling, not warming. The early century warming then started suddenly in 1910 and stopped equally suddenly in 1940. There was no parallel increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 1910 which rules out the greenhouse effect as a cause because radiation laws of physics do not permit it. Bjørn Lomborg assigns this warming to solar influence and I agree with him. Forty percent of the century is now gone without any sign of human-caused change. There was no warming in the fifties, sixties, and seventies either while carbon dioxide increased relentlessly. People then were worried about a a coming ice age and newspapers and magazines had articles about it. There has never been any satisfactory explanation of why this rise in carbon dioxide failed to cause any warming for these thirty years, just contorted hypotheses trying to explain it away. One of them blamed smoke and aerosols from war production for blocking out the sun. And by now seventy percent of the century has passed without any human-caused warming. There was no warming in the eighties and nineties either, just alternating warm El Nino and cool La Nina phases of ENSO. Hansen imagined that the 1987/88 El Nino meant global warming had arrived and said so in front of the Senate. There were actually five such El Nino peaks during this period, each one followed by a cooling La Nina. Global average temperature stayed the same throughout the eighties and nineties as shown by UAH and RSS satellites, GIStemp from NASA, and NCDC temperature data. The period came to an end in 1998 when a super El Nino inaugurated the second warming period of the twentieth century. In four years global temperature rose by a third of a degree Celsius and then stopped. A third of a degree is substantial warming if you consider that IPCC only allocates 0.6 degrees to the entire twentieth century. Its cause was the large amount of warm water carried across the ocean by the super El Nino. It, and not an imaginary greenhouse effect was the cause of the very warm decade of the 2000-s. This, and not an imaginary greenhouse warming, is the cause of the very warm first decade of our century. The super El Nino of 1998 is still the highest temperature peak on record. Hansen has claimed a few peaks in the 2000-s higher than that but he is obviously wrong. I checked out his GIStemp and found that all these claimed peaks are erroneous outliers that should be removed from the record This still leaves the Arctic warming to be explained. I am sorry to say, that one is not greenhouse warming either but is caused by Atlantic currents that carry warm Gulf Stream water into the Arctic Ocean. So here is the real global temperature story: there is no greenhouse warming now and there has not been any for a century. And human-induced climate change? Total fantasy that has cost us trillions of dollars for nothing.
Jumping Jehoshaphat, man, have you never heard of paragraphs?
Despite lack of paragraphs I always read Arno’s posts because what he says always makes sense to me.
Now if Arno were to give citations to the many conclusions he has drawn, his take on things will have considerably more weight than than the prognostications of the alarmists.
Oh don’t be a grammarian, just learn to enjoy my style. Here are some citations. First, my book is entitled “What Warming? Satellite view of global temperature change.” Amazon has it. There is much more in it including an explanation of why volcanic cooling does not exist. There is also a section about Arctic warming in it but, darn it, a month after it went to press an important paper by Spielhagen et al. came out that I should have referred to. What I did was to expand that section into a journal article and publish it in E&E 22(8):1069-1083 (2011). Miskolczi’s latest paper is in E&E 21(4):243-262 (2010). He later presented additional results at the EGU meeting in Vienna in 2011. I have one of his graphs in my article.
What Warming
Arctic Warming is not Greenhouse Warming E&E 2011
Arno, when I mentioned citations I really was hoping that your views are based on correct scientific discourse, involving the accumulated work in progress available from the literature.
There are many others who merely present their personal opinions in the form of assertions that are contrary to the views of mainstream scientists and which have not been subjected to the peer review process.
Self-referencing does not assist the evaluation process that readers need to make about what has been written and whether it stacks up. While your conclusions usually appeal to my instincts, I have no way of knowing whether it is simply confirmation bias on my part.
OT Funny that WordPress has published my password instead of my name! Oh well…. I will need to change it now!
Arno
Look how they have smoothed out all the oscillation in GMST before 1970s, and called the untouched warming after 1970s is man made.
http://bit.ly/NBZZ27
Girma – That is a crime against temperature. The entire global temperature curve is comprised of a succession of El Nino peaks alternating with La Nina valleys, interrupted occasionally by irregularities caused by oceanic phenomena. “Detrending” and using a running mean both destroy information carried by these oscillations. I have determined that there was no warming whatsoever in the eighties and nineties, just warm El Nino peaks alternating with cool La Nina valleys while the mean temperature stayed the same. This is not just one temperature source – I checked out UAH satellites, RSS satellites, NASA GIStemp and NCDC temperatures. But Hansen gets up in 1988 and announces that warming has started! That year was quite warm because it happened to be the peak year of the 1988 El Nino. But that El Nino was just one of five El Ninos in the eighties and nineties, each one followed by a cooling La Nina period. The period ended with the 1998 super El Nino that brought a step rise in temperature and made the 2000-s very warm. Look at figure 15 in my book.
StartlinglylongwindedstringofserialfallaciesandbaselessconjecturestiedtounsubstatiatedspeculationsrunningonwithoutstructurenuanceorcompositionaldifferentiationsoastomakedistinguishingstylisticeccentricityfromfactualandmethodicalerrorheedlesslydifficultcreatingaformofFUDsodenselypackedastobenotworthbotheringtodelveintofromfronttobackorevenbypickingrandomstartingpointsandreadingforwardorbackwardseekingsenseorsensibilityorlogicorreasonwithouttrippingoversyllogismandsophistrysothickitleavesasmudgeontheretinaofthereaderandsuggestsoneprotesttheillmanneredhabitofaberrantparagraphstructureevenmorethanthecontortionsofinferenceandcalumniesagainstthosewithbettermannersandbetterrationalexpositionwhileatthesametimelackingtheentertainmentvalueofsomethingtrulyexceptionalinanywayanddisposingonetoaskorevendemandwhatcouldpossiblybethoughttobethebenefitofhavingwastedtheelectronstosetthewordstoscreenandyetwealsomustaskwhereforetheabsolutismandcertaintyofthisdoggedlydifficultwithoutbeinginformativeorinspiringpiece?
That’s why I maintain the Climate Clown guide and why Robert has the IdiotTracker going. As some famous blogger once said — Document the Atrocities!.
s/b …increase in water vapor with atmospheric carbon dioxide…
Forget
El Nino, fan, Atlantic currents . .. water planet. Hope yer readin’ Arno Arrak’s posting, fan.
Beth Cooper, to the extent that people post scientific arguments that are rational and observations that are verifiable … Arno Arrak will simply conclude that these people are agents of “the criminal conspiracy”. :) :) :)
That’s how denialism works, you see! :) :) :)
Fan, before dismissing Arno Arrak you might consider the possibility the conspiracy is real. It could explain Muller’s switch, and also may have something to do with McIntyre becoming soft on AGW. Stranger things have happened. You may be too young to remember, but John Birch Society Co-founder Robert Welch exposed President Eisenhower and his brother Milton as serving the conspiracy, so it didn’t start with global warming.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Watts turns, although sometimes I think he is already serving the conspiracy in a reverse way. I don’t know about Curry. She may be a double agent, playing both sides against the middle. She’s hard to figure out.
Max_ok
Don’t be ridiculous. It is not a “conspiracy” that government funding produces results that favor increasing the size and scope of government.
It is simply vested interest, government advancing its own cause, just as any other organization or person does. The only difference is that government is allowed to use force to achieve its ends, while everyone else has to be reasonable and negotiate with each other.
Negotiates? HA HA, that’s a good one. The way to run a business is to be predatory and show the competition no mercy. I admire the way Wall-Mart “negotiates” small businesses into bankruptcy.
Wall-Mart does indeed only negotiate, in the sense that it does not and cannot use proactive force or the threat thereof in its dealings; only government can do that.
That it may undercut competitors into bankruptcy, thereby bringing cheaper/better products to the public, does not contradict this.
Are you kidding ? Wall-Mart is bigger than some governments. Sure, Wall-Mart doesn’t use military force to achieve it’s goals. It doesn’t have to. It can use bribery.
BIG BUSINESS GOOD !
BIG GOVERNMENT GOOD !
Cooperation between the two is the way to go. China has figured that out.
A fan of *MORE* discourse: You talk like an idiot. Proof of what I said is demonstrated by Figure 15 in my book. I based it upon satellite data but since then I have checked it against NASA GIStemp and NCDC temperature records and find that they are all unanimous: there was no warming in the eighties and the nineties. There were just ENSO oscillations while the global mean temperature stayed the same as signified by a horizontal straight line from 1979 to 1997.
Arno Arrak, are you entirely certain there hasn’t been An Anomalous Recent Acceleration of Global Sea Level Rise?
Such that Earth’s net energy budget is imbalanced, whereas individual thermal reservoirs fluctuate decadaly?
Of course, there *IS* one alternative explanation …
Scientists choose the former explanation; denialists choose the latter explanation.
Gosh … it’s not complicated, Arno Arrak! :) :) :)
A fan of *MORE* discourse | August 21, 2012 at 11:07 pm
You, fan, have chosen to make a travesty of this discussion. Since you contribute nothing to the discussion I hereby make a request to the blog owner to remove you and all your posts from this blog.
Why are CO2 emissions in the US at a 20 year low?
It may not be politically correct to mention the reason. But, the reason is totally obvious: the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression.
And, how have the AGW true believers progressed over the last twenty years of global warming alarmism? They all are mystics now—diviners—lacking any sort of skepticism or objectivity. To them, the scientific method is essentially a big falsehood. Their reality is outside traditional science—i.e., not really of THIS world at all—but, of some OTHER world where their view of things is completely “natural.”
You are exactly right, Wagathon.
That is why true believers do not like you, me, Assage, or anyone else who leaks the truth past official gatekeepers of information: The institution George Orwell called the Bureau of Information – ones now called the Office of Science and Technology Policy, US National Academy of Sciences, Department of Energy, etc. ad infinitum.
As noted here, http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-818, the truth about precise observations and measurements has plagued true believers since ~1945:
Nuclear rest mass data
Neutron-capture cross sections
Element/isotope abundances in meteorites, planets, the Moon and Sun
Earth’s global temperature
Solar oscillations
Solar circulation, composition, eruptions, neutrinos, and storms
Except for disagreement with this long list of precise observations and measurements, the AGW story is almost believable.
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://www.omatumr.com
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about
Wrong again Wag. It dropped because of the shift to the use of natural gas at power plants. But fear not, the coal not burned here was shipped overseas to be burned there…so your old friend King Coal is still making money.
Obviously, CO2 is a byproduct of burning natural gas. When people drive less and fly less and businesses produce less the amount of energy consumed is less. It’s the economy stupid.
Coals ‘market share’ of the electricity market is way down since 2005…50% to 34%. Total electricity generation is mostly unchanged from 2008.
However, CO2 is a function of power generation and transportation. Transportation is significantly down in the US due to the depression.
If words are to have any meaning we must agree there isn’t really a “global warming debate” at all.
We are well past that. Coal-fired electric power plants today produce more than 50% of the electricity in the U.S. at a relatively low cost and that provides a lot of room for a healthy increase of revenue enhancements to the Government. After coal, nuclear (20%), oil and natural gas (21%), and hydroelectric (7%) provide all but 2% of the remaining production of electrical energy.
There is no debate about whether these plants will be closed because if they were all of the current government taxes on energy would stop rolling in. And the government knows that you will pay whatever energy costs may be even if taxes go up; it takes energy to live and there is no debate about that either.
http://evilincandescentbulb.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/no-debate-the-left-owns-the-global-warming-energy-crunch/
Peter Lang said in his post on August 20, 2012 at 8:47 pm |
“It’s very clear.
“The anti-nukes, CAGW alarmists, renewable energy advocates, greenies, ‘Progressives’ share the same ideological beliefs.
They are economically irrational.
They want more regulation, more government, more taxes, more bureaucracy and they hate the free market.”
——-
Peter, they seem like swell people to me. I especially like the renewable energy advocates. The world needs more of them, and fewer pollution advocates. I don’t know why you feel so threatened, unless you are heavily invested in oil or coal. If it is a pocket book issue for you, then I can understand your being alarmed.
BTW, I’m progressive, and I don’t hate the free market. I always liked the competitiveness of the free market when buying. However, I never welcomed competition when selling. My view of the free market is practical rather than ideological. I think free-market ideologues are sappy.
I
It is definitely a positive thing to see U.S. CO2 output falling because of the shift from coal to natural gas at electric power generating plants. It would be better of course if it was falling because of a shift completely away from fossil fuels. Also, unfortunately, much of the coal not burned here was shipped overseas to be burned, so the CO2 ended up in the atmosphere anyway, but just wasn’t generated from the U.S. Best if that coal just stayed in the ground.
John
It’s true, I don’t find Ms. Curry to be as bright as you do or she does. So what? You asked me if I thought she was manipulative, and my answer is ‘no’. Frankly, I don’t find either of you very interesting; and I was not addressing either of you or your ideas.
I’ll take a minute to do that, now.
“So what is the EU plan? How are you all getting cheap energy to help drive that stellar economy of yours?”
I’m not European.
“What I find interesting is how you believe ‘green movements’ actually drive economies”
What I said, is that the ‘green movement’ has responded to market forces. It doesn’t mean it drives the economy: it means it is a part of it. Many, many things ‘drive’ an economy.
“That’s why coal is out now in the USA for power generation, because natural gas is so much cheaper. Lower CO2 emissions are just a by product of that switch”
The EIA is the source of the information in that article. Don’t uncritically regurgitate energy statistics from government, in an election year. Natural gas remains relatively cheap and will for some time and a shift from coal by electric plants was not exactly a surprise to anyone since it has been occurring for at least a decade. Lower CO2 emissions have been occurring since the downward trend in the overall growth of the economy. The report in question assesses three months, in an unusually warm winter. Efficiencies will decline as we are forced to pursue other processes of extraction. And ,while displacing coal with natural gas may be one of many helpful short-term strategies, it is part of transitional support and and not at all soleley or primarily responsible for CO2 emissions being lower for the first three months this year.
Nice you can share your opinions on this blog.
“Frankly, I don’t find either of you very interesting; and I was not addressing either of you or your ideas”
Funny that, after coming here to read what Judy is posting on a fairly regular basis, commenting and then responding directly to my question.
“I’m not European”
Sorry about that….. you don’t seem to have any identity.
“Nice you can share your opinions on this blog.”
Yes it is, that we can agree on.
• In reply to Arno Arrak | August 20, 2012 at 9:50 pm | as you rightly say there tends to be more debate thse days on what to do about global warming but not so much on the science and measurement of it. And I agree that to do that to do that we must understand the basic laws of physics that control absorption and emission of radiation. But now we part company: There is no question that the greenhouse effect is unreal. It is NOT the so-called greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and water vapor, that jointly keep the temperature of the earth above the freezing point of water.
As you say, they absorb and emit the radiation they receive from the earth, and that process is what maintains our equilibrium temperature in the range 14-15 oC, because they emit the all radiation they absorb, as Tyndall showed back in 1861, so there is no permanent warming effect from the radiation they absorbed, because as Tyndall states their emission offsets the absorption.
Such warming from the earth’s radiation as there is, is due to the inert gases nitrogen and oxygen, since they neither absorb nor radiate, so do or would have a greenhouse effect, as shown by their total absence from the LW infrared spectrum. Luckily for us, as we would cook if left to the blocking of radiation by N2 and O2, they eventually combine into N2O, which is present in the LWIR spectrum, even if only at 319 ppb (less than 1,000th of the CO2) and thereby emit their relatively small radiative forcing (W0.16/sq.m.) into space through the relevant wavelengths (mostly at about 8 μm) of the spectrum.
You are absolutely right about the so-called enhanced greenhouse effect allegedly due to additional carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere. It has been measured at Mauna Loa since 1958 and has been increasing linearly since that time. This being the case, the enhanced greenhouse effect should also be increasing linearly, in step with it, from year to year. But if you look at the global temperature curve you find that this is simply not true, as shown by my own papers (ACE2011, TSWJ 2012, both at my website http://www.timcurtin.com).
As you say, temperature has indeed increased (slightly , 0.75 oC) over the past century all right but by fits and starts and not at any time in step with measured carbon dioxide content of the air: “To get a quantitative measure of how much greenhouse warming to expect it is useful to calculate the temperature increase when the amount of carbon dioxide is doubled. Svante Arrhenius was the first to do that and his result was five degrees Celsius. This was too high and modern calculations give about one degree Celsius. But this is not enough to frighten anybody so IPCC is using an ad hoc addition to it – greenhouse effect from water vapor”.
“In theory it works like this: first carbon dioxide warms the air, and warm air can hold more water vapor, this additional water vapor does some greenhouse warming of its own, and we get to perceive their combined warming. But how much?”
A temperature increase of 0.75 oC over 100 years will not result in significant increased evaporation (as many have shown, eg Paltridge, Farquhar at al). Increases in the capacity of the atmosphere to hold H2O due to ring temperature, per Clausius-Clpayeron, are OK, but annual increases in temperature of only 0.0075 oC since 1900 are trivial both for C-C and increasing evaporation.
Thus the IPCC’s present “calculations” are actually guesses and based on no measurements at all.
You are right that if the IPCC’s view is true then the amount of water vapor in the air should increase in tandem with the amount of carbon dioxide measured by Mauna Loa, but my own econometric papers cited above show that not to be the case.* They also in effect support the results of Ferenc Miskolczi’s studies the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere when he was at NASA. AS you say, from Miskolczi it follows immediately that climate models predicting warming from the greenhouse effect are invalid and their predictions of dangerous warming ahead are worthless.
• When you say “satellites have not noticed any such increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide in the atmosphere” I assume you meant to refer to atmospheric water vapor, as atmospheric CO2 is indeed increasing if only by 0.3% p.a.
trccurtin
Agreed.
Look how their models smoothed out the known oscillation of GMST before 1970 and left the warming since then untouched and called it a man made one => http://bit.ly/NBZZ27
Tim,
This is pretty dense. Are yous saying that N2O is the strong absorbing gas?
This is useful to know because every clown has to have their own unique alternative theory to the established climate science. That’s what makes a good circus.
So while global average temperatures continue their decade+ period of flatness, the Arctic ice is melting. Something to do with winds and currents maybe. Just not CO2.
Martha impugns our host on Climate Etc. bad form and untrue. You also say that the green movement has responded to market forces. Hardly, when intermittent, inefficient wind and solar energy is heavily subsidised and not allowed to fail. Though in a real market they would not be able to compete with reliable 24/7/365 technologies
ANOTHER RECORD FALLS Per Neven’s Arctic Sea Ice weblog, the Cryosphere Today sea-ice area has dropped to a record-breaking low.
The sobering planetary reality of climate-change is the reason more-and-more rational skeptics accept the logical force of a simple syllogism:
How are DENIALISTS responding?
Oh, the usual! :lol: :lol: :lol:
• Nuttier-and-nuttier denialist scientific theories!
• Greedier-and-greedier denialist economic theories!
• Crazier-and-crazier denialist conspiracy theories!
• Dumber-and-dumber political sloganeering!
What denialists forget is this: “Nature cannot be fooled”. The general nuttiness, greediness, and craziness of denialism does not fool nature for one second, eh? :) :!: :) :!: :)
And that is the simple reason why, in the long run, denialism ALWAYS loses, eh? :) :!: :) :!: :)
Fan
The sceptics are responding by pointng out that the record dates back only to 1979 and that we have been this way before.
tonyb
That argument is growing a bit weak. We certainly have not been this way before, else we would surely know what is ahead, and once the Arctic is ice-free, and our CO2 levels, methane levels, and N2O levels continue to increase…we probably are talking Miocene climate.
Yeah, Fanny, we get it now.
(a) CO2 is going up
(b) Ice is going down (well some of it anyway)
Therefore (a) causes (b). Please collect your Nobel Prize on the way out.
Tomcat, with respect, two key lines of evidence that greatly shift most scientists’ Bayesian assessment of the proposition “James Hansen’s worldview is essentially correct” are: (1) basic radiation transport physics, together with (2) the (geophysically fast, geophysically large) anthropogenic increase in CO2 concentration.
Given that denialists entirely disregard the above two lines of climate-change evidence, it is scarcely likely that denialists and scientists will reach similar conclusions, eh? :!: 2¢ :!:
From your first link:
“By the 1970s, thanks partly to such one-dimensional studies, scientists were starting to see that the climate system was so rich in feedbacks that a simple set of equations might not give an approximate answer, but a completely wrong one.”
I think this haven’t changed by the 2010s, even the non-feeedback -> feedbacks approach is wrong. It’s still giving a completely wrong answer. I have to repeat again – heat transfer (energy exchange) at the Earth’s surface is multi-modal – heating is by solar radiation only and cooling by evaporation, radiation and convection. For example:
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
The Earth’s cooling power as a whole (in average of course) is composed of:
Surface radiation: ~10%
Atmospheric radiation: ~90%
But, all in all, it’s a nice article, showing how the calculations (and understanding) are still very primitive and can give completely wrong answers.
Fan, I notice you persist in
– addressing the handful of alleged denialists, when virtually everyone here except the blinkered truebelievers like yourself here are skeptics, who do not disregard physics etc issues.
– ludicrously ignoring that politically-funded climate science is riddled with corruption a la Climategate, and a resultant bias favoring its benefactor the state; that its “conclusions” are circumscribed by an overriding political agenda
– pretending radiation physics and lab experiments are the last word in the debate; have you ever even mentioned feedbacks ?
Hansen and the ‘consensus’ indeed have previous little more than curve fitting and a passionate devotion to moving the world in a totalitarian direction, whether or not the CAGW guess turns out to be true. And as their failure to discipline Mann and Jones and the other Climategater frauds shows, there is hardly an honest soul amongst them.
– Endless moronic smileys. I guess though that accurately reflects the underlying intellectual vaccuum, so perhaps we should be praise your honesty.
@tomcat
I must agree with your remarks about endless moronic smileys.
I have a rather sad and pathetic vision of an ageing man no longer sure of what is going on around him…and probably (understandably) rather scared. So he adopts the ‘safe’ strategy of smiling at everybody he meets in the hope that they won;t do him active harm and may indeed respond positively to him.
Good idea until they work out that he really is bonkers.
“Martha impugns our host on Climate Etc. bad form and untrue.” Sob.
“You also say that the green movement has responded to market forces. Hardly, when intermittent, inefficient wind and solar energy is heavily subsidised and not allowed to fail. Though in a real market they would not be able to compete with reliable 24/7/365 technologies” Rah Rah Rah.
Beth,
You are melodramatically off point. I was asked a question by a denizen. That question, and my short answer, was of no relevance to either my comments at the time, or to anything else. It still isn’t. You are a like John, consistently ignoring most of what anyone says, and all information that might lead to any rethinking.
Raise your standards a bit. Your idea that discussion of the green movement, and stakeholders, is limited to the United States — and within the United States, to wind and solar issues – is really limited. Obviously, domestically produced renewable energy is an issue. So are many, many other things. The green movement and the development of related social-political parties is actually a major influence, in many ways. The environmental movement has evolved, split, and also failed in many respects… however, your haggling is at such a low level you can’t discuss any of those complexities. What you spew is a poorly informed, one-sided conversation that at its heart, I find essentially anti-democratic.
p.s. We don’t have to agree on anything. It’s really a relief, and quite empowering, to recognize that.
Martha – one thing you said in particular applies to people of all stripes. There are a variety of environmentalists. Some think nuclear power is a solution, some don’t. Some believe the Earth should revert to a state before man became ascendant, some think we just need to “get along” with the Earth. Point being that within any delineated group, there are variations. This is also true of the left, the right, lukewarmers, AWG’ers, CAWG’ers, and skeptics.
Martha seems to be some sort of self-appointed blog fool, and it is clearly a job she takes to quite well.
Martha, that was a fine post!
Tomcat, it is evident that you do not see the forest for the trees! The “forest” being the primary elements of climate-change science, and the “trees” being the details.
Let’s take a look at the “forest” Tomcat! :) :) :)
————————-
HOW CLIMATE-CHANGE SCIENCE IS WINNING THE RATIONAL DEBATE The strategy for validating and verifying the science of climate-change is set forth in Hansen et al. Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications (2011). The crux of the validation and verification strategy is simple: specify Earth’s energy imbalance as a thermodynamically valid measure of climate-change, then redundantly verify that imbalance by multiple overlapping global-scale observations. E.g., observe (1) ocean temperatures, (2) ice-mass loss, and (3) sea-level … the verfification arising because two of these observations imply the third. If this multiply redundant validation and verification succeeds, then Hansen’s scientific worldview wins.
HOW CLIMATE-CHANGE SCIENCE IS WINNING THE MORAL DEBATE This strategy is set forth in Hansen et al. Scientific Case for Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change to Protect Young People and Nature (2012). These authors remind us of our moral responsibility to our children and grandchildren, and to *their* children and grandchildren. This moral argument properly accounts the societal implications of future ice-sheet collapse; thus Hansen’s moral worldview wins.
HOW CLIMATE-CHANGE SCIENCE IS WINNING THE ECONOMIC DEBATE This strategy is set forth in Good and Reuveny On the Collapse of Historical Civilizations (2009). The Good-Reuveny argument is simple: collapse can be averted by rational free markets if-and-only-if the social discount rate is 1/200 or lower. This low discount rate properly accounts the economic cost of future ice-sheet collapse; thus Hansen’s economic worldview wins.
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HOW RATIONAL SKEPTICS CAN DEFEAT HANSEN’S WORLDVIEW There is really only one way: Hansen’s scientific worldview must be falsified by Nature. So if it comes about that the earth’s energy budget returns to balance, and in particular the ocean-warming and ice-melting that cause sea-level rise slow in coming decades, Hansen’s scientific worldview is wrong … and all our present understanding of climate science will have to be very substantially revised. Yikes! But hey … if it happens, it happens! *nbsp; :) *nbsp; :) *nbsp; :)
So it’s simple, eh? Nature herself — and *only* Nature herself — can prove Hansen’s worldview wrong. Which is *good*, eh? :grin: :!: :grin:
That’s the way science has *always* worked, eh? Which is *GOOD*, eh? :grin: 2¢ :grin:
And so the methods of denialism — willful ignorance, personal abuse, cherry-picking, and sloganeering — are all utterly *FUTILE*. Which is *VERY GOOD*, eh? :grin: 2¢ :grin: 2¢ :grin:
You do realize there is a difference between global warming and CAGWism? Lots of people accept that it’s warming, but find no compelling evidence of CAGW. You think if it was so clear-cut as you make it out Barack Obama wouldn’t be trying to prevent it? Or Dr. Curry would be out sounding the alarm just like Dr. Hansen?
Warming would have benefits, in addition to some negatives. This seems to be lost on the CAGWers. Longer growing season, net increase in rainfall, expansion of arable land in the north, etc. The IPCC even projects improved crop productivity with up to 3C warming, not even factoring in adaptation practices and improvements that could increase yield. Where is the countervailing argument that we are on the verge of catastrophe? Dr. Curry and other climate scientists apparently don’t see it. And it certainly doesn’t seem to jive with reality which shows a warmer climate has generally been associated with increased biodiversity on earth.
As for sea level rise, IPCC says 7-23 inches per century. Recent history says 3 mm/year, or 10″/century. The total ice sheet collapse is a pipe dream, and even if it could occur, it would be on the timescale of thousands of years.
James P, that is why Hansen-predicted “acceleration of sea-level rise this decade” would invalidate your worldview! :cry: :cry: :cry:
Whereas (what might be called) “The New Climate-Change Denialism” resorts to denialist cognition that is *exactly* like General Buck Turgidson’s: “Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed!” :grin: :oops: :grin: :oops: :grin:
Can Hansen explain the acceleration in 1850? I think not.
BTW, like I said I used to be a rank-and-file alarmist myself. But then I wizened up and took a critical look at the evidence. Nature is in the process of falsifying Dr. Hansen’s alarmism. 20 years ago, Dr. Hansen claimed Manhattan would be under water today. That looks like it didn’t exactly come to fruition, does it?
One is a scientific theory, while the other is a pathetic red herring invented by deniers when their efforts to deny the actual theory got too embarrassing?
Nonsense. I was a rank-and-file alarmist for years, convinced the world was on the precipice of disaster. But guess what? That disaster isn’t happening? The warming has slowed, most of the alleged increase in extreme weather has been debunked by Dr. Hoerling & the NOAA research team, and better understanding of past climate’s have shown the alarm to be excessive and that the earth has been much warmer in the past with greater biodiversity than today. Even the IPCC doesn’t support Dr. Hansen’s view of a 20 foot sea rise, so why should I? Apparently, Barack Obama and other world leaders don’t buy it either. Dr. Curry certainly doesn’t buy it.
If Obama doesn’t get re-elected, do many imagine he going to become a strong voice for the AGW cause? Or is it mostly going chose the path of Jimmy Carter?
@A Fan
Would the Southern Ocean losing about 10 Wm-2 count towards as ‘getting the energy budget back into balance’? Seems to be very relevant to me.
See the latest paper from GRL
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL052290.shtml
@A Fan
Warning: I don’t think the paper mentions the word ‘Bayesian’ anywhere. I hope you’ll be able to cope.
LOL … “General Turgidson, we’ve heard quite sufficient from you, thank you very much!” :lol: :roll: :lol: 2¢ :lol: :roll: :lol:
@A Fan
Very droll, I’m sure. Ho very Ho.
But have you no comment on the excellent news that things aren’t turning out as bad as you feared?
You have proclaimed good news Latimer Alder … “The recall code is being acknowledged … we ought to all just bow our heads and give a short prayer of thanks for our deliverance. Lord? … “ :cry: :oops: :cry: :oops: :cry:
Fan
Could you please tell us all the year when we had a perfect climate and which we could get back to if only we would follow Dr Hansens advice?
1730? !830? !930? 1990?
Please tell us, because if we are to be led back to the promised land of the perfect climate before man started to interfere it would be nice to know whay year we are aimimg for.
tonyb
Climatereason, committing this century to a full-melt future would be imprudent, eh? :cry: :oops: :?: :oops: :cry:
Fan
It was a straightforward qurestion, please give a straightforward answer. Which year(s) do we need to aim for as a pre anthropogenic ideal?
tonyb
Climatereason
Anyone who expects a straight answer to a straight question addressed to a flailing nutter, must themselves be in need of some help …
Batedbresth
I have made it my life’s mission to get a straight answer from fan but he always waltzes away rapidly, usually to another thread
Tonyb
climatereason | August 21, 2012 at 3:06 pm |
“Fan
Could you please tell us all the year when we had a perfect climate and which we could get back to if only we would follow Dr Hansens advice?
1730? !830? !930? 1990?
Please tell us, because if we are to be led back to the promised land of the perfect climate before man started to interfere it would be nice to know whay year we are aimimg for.”
It’s an interesting question.
If we assume that they are strongly influenced German Romantics as:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/7-8/the-roots-of-green-politics-in-german-romanticism
Then probably isn’t really much about temperature of planet. But rather it’s about returning a feudal society with it’s common people wholesome desires to be farmers and the elites can dream about being princes.
And it seems were somewhat vague about their optimum time period – and could any period stretching back roman times, and mostly about living in the country and large towns and cities being the source of evil.
So ice skating at winter fairs fits the wholesome value, as well as heatwaves in midsummer frolicking. And when comes something important, to no one can actually notice the small differences in temperatures discernible by network of temperature recording- rather such measurement are signs of the future. There entrails read by the high priests which tells how present evils are leading to our certain doom.
Climatereason, to persist in asking wrong questions, is more foolish even than arriving at wrong answers, eh? :) :) :)
That is why our common-sense appreciation climate-change hell need not await a perfect appreciation of climatic heaven!
Is that not scientific common-sense *and* solid Judeo-Christian-Muslim theology, oh climatereason? :) :) :)
Fan
Is it a ‘wrong; question because you can not answer it?
It is pefectly straightforward, surely. You believe man is messng up the climate and need to follow Dr Hansens advice in order to get back to a ‘normal’ (my word) climate.
Just when is this normal climate supposed to have happened?
tonyb
fan
That is the first tme you have ever admitted you do not know the answer to a question. We are making progress.
To summarise; you want us all to follow Dr Hansens advice so we can return to the ideal climate (i.e. non agw) that appertained at some completely unspecified date in the past?
That’s certainly a compelling prospect that all sceptcs will want to eagerly pursue.. .
tonyb
To continue your analogy, Hansen is a climate hypochondriac.
So climate-change is double-good, `cuz it’s a *dry* heat! :roll: :roll: :roll:
Is that how denialists see it, P.E.? :roll: :roll: :roll:
fan
So, that would be the drought monitor service that began in 1999? Thats even less impressve than citing record ice loss from satellite inception in 1979
tonyb
Bated- probably an accurate assessment. I think fan used to post a Gates, but he seems to have become a nutter with all the smiley faces
Notice that the fan of bs uses religious metaphors in defending his climate idiocy.
Did someone say “religious metaphors?”
Here’s one for Beth Cooper! :) :) :)
:) :) :)
fan,
Dude you have gone nutter.
Reading your increasingly bizarre stuff is like watching some poor psychotic having an episode in public.
Please tell us you are not teaching. Please.
Say, Martha my comments, however limited, aren’t limited to the US as you claim.Here’s one source in the UK, Mott Macdonald Report on costs, coal Gas CCGT Nuclear, on shore and off shore wind charts, including carbon costs, excluding carbon costs and also including additional costs. In CIVITAS, Rith Lea 2012,
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/files/electricitycosts2012.pdf
Also cited on posts here, Peter Lang’s ‘100% renewable electricity for Australia-the cost’ posted on Brave New Climate 9th February 2012. Peter is a retired geologist and engineer with 40 years experience in energy projects through out the world, providing policy advice to governments.
Peter Lang’s review of ‘Simulated scenarios with 100% renewable electricity in the Australian National Electricity Market, (Elliston et al 2011,) finds that ‘ Their scenario does not have sufficient capacity to meet peak winter demand, has no capacity reserve and is dependent on a technology-gas turbines running on bio fuels’- that exist only at small scale and at high cost.’ (p2)
Technologies analysed included Solar Thermal, (CST) plants, roof top solar (PV) Hydro and Pumped Hydro and Gas Turbines running on biofuels.
fan, Tomcat would be quite at home in the forest, but the birds had better watch out, lol.
Hmm, seems Martha’s right about me low level comments.
A note on filling a cavity: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/21/has-trenberths-missing-heat-been-found-southern-oceans-are-losing-heat/#more-69655
Follow the hot link to the original.
Here is an investigation into something that I described as a known unknown here a few months ago. Pick an area on the surface, say a 100 mile by 100 mile square with Midway Island in the middle, and consider the surface and the column of atmosphere above it. The heat flows through that volume are not known, and the effects of CO2 increases on those heat flows are not known. That paper describes the heat flows around one moored float. They claim (this requires confirmation by future researchers) that the Southern Ocean in that locale is losing heat, on the average, though fluctuations in the heat flows are great.
Don’t like the concept of “cavities” in atmospheric science? Other concepts that come to mind are “Swiss cheese”, “aerogel”, and “spongiform”. The debate about AGW will end when all of the cavities have been thoroughly studied and adequately filled in. Or, perhaps, when someone makes an accurate 30 year prediction.
MattStat, They are just too stubborn to admit that the non-linear aspects of climate are making them look like idiots.
Over on WUWT, they were discussing geoengineering. Talk about a money grubbing scam. Let’s fix our “broken” climate because we all know the world was oh so much better during the LIA. These scam artists are dangerous.
Bart
Actually, no I see little difference between your perspective on AGW and a religious belief system.
I visited the site http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ that you posted and it did not provide any real evidence to describe why they believe a warmer world is worse overall over the long term. It merely listed a series of issues that may or not be of concern. The issues identified:
1. sea level rise- There was nothing written to explain why the current rate of sea level rise is a concern or any evidence that the rate of rise will necessarily increase or when it is feared to increase.
2. global temperature rise- There is no information showing why this is a negative for humanity
3. warming oceans- There is no information showing why this is a negative for humanity
4. shrinking ice sheets- There is no information showing why this is a negative for humanity
5. declining arctic sea ice- There is no information showing why this is a negative for humanity
6. glacial retreat- There is no information showing why this is a negative for humanity
7. extreme events- There is great debate whether there is valid evidence to support this claim and there is no evidence that the situation can be changed.
8. ocean acidification- There is substantial evidence that this is a vastly overstated fear. Ocean Ph levels vary naturally at a local level by ranges greater than the long term changes suggested to be happening due to human released CO2.
You write about risks about what might happen and then inappropriately try to link those perceived risks to tort law. Sorry, but you would fail a legal test since you can not demonstrate a clear cause and effect.
You write about the “right and proper role of government”. Bart, you must understand that your perspective is simply your perspective and that you are trying to force it upon others with a different perspective. That would be much easier with a stronger justification based on clear evidence. You write: “Religion is the stuff of assertions and faith; Science is the stuff of observation and inference.” The line is really not clear. Christians have faith because they believe that Jesus lived and performed the acts described in the various books of the bible. Skeptics of Christian beliefs would argue that the books of the bible are not 1st hand accounts and merely are stories written down decades after the actual events. In the case of AGW, you do not have clear evidence either. What you have is some evidence and then a lot if inferences. You have combined all these inferences into a belief system that you are sure must be correct.
Rob, you have committed a mortal sin against the prophet Al-gore. You must atone for your sins by retrofitting your home with solar panels and exchanging your gas-guzzling SUV for a hybrid.
But seriously though, valid point. The church of global warming has yet to offer a compelling case for the need of urgent action. I agree that it’s warming, and left unchecked, it could be a problem. But there’s not clear proof to support the end-of-the-world doomsday crowd, just as there’s no proof to support the outright deniers position that it’s all a giant hoax.
James P. | August 21, 2012 at 5:11 pm |
just as there’s no proof to support the outright deniers position that it’s all a giant hoax.
Of course there’s proof, the basic ‘science’ backing AGW is fiction.
There’s no AGW Greenhouse Effect of ‘greenhouse gases warming of 33°C from -18°C to 15°C because:
no show and tell is ever produced, no matter how often asked for;
there’s no Water Cycle in the AGW fictional fisics world, without which the Earth would be 67°C in the real world;
no AGW Water cycle means no rain, in the real world all pure clean rain is carbonic acid which is fully part of the Water Cycle and as such has the same residence time as water in the atmosphere, 8-10 days, rain brings down all carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so carbon dioxide cannot accumulate for hundreds and even thousands of years;
carbon dioxide cannot defy gravity to accumulate for hundreds and even thousands of years, it is heavier than air therefore will always naturally displace air to sink to the ground,
in the fictional fisics of AGW there’s no direct heat reaching the Earth from the Sun, thermal infrared, which is what it takes to heat real world matter;
this has been replaced by, its properties given to, Shortwave, (shortwave in longwave out), this cannot heat matter so cannot drive our weather system;
this sleight of hand is done to pretend that the only downwelling from the atmosphere of thermal infrared comes from the fictional backradiation.
That’s enough to be going on with to show that AGW fisics is a deliberate fiction relating only to an imaginary world and not the real one around us, its fisics is seen to be created by tweaking real world physics and so a deliberate Con to promote the fiction of AGW. Because it does not describe the real world it is at best a giant hoax, but it’s not funny except to those who created it..
Demonstrably false: there are more than two dozen references at the bottom of the page. Your claim that the page “merely listed a series of issues” is either a really dumb mistake, or a lie.
Another factual error on your part. The page cites:
Church, J. A. and N.J. White (2006), A 20th century acceleration in global sea level rise, Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L01602, doi:10.1029/2005GL024826.
Having made those basic factual mistakes, the rest of your arguments are dubious, unless you supply detailed proof.
Then cite that evidence. As a non-scientist who frequently makes basic errors in science, don’t expect your assertions to carry much weight.
Idiot Robert- The is no evidence in the paper that the rate of rise is of a concern or any evidence of when the rate of rise will increase. There was no factual error.
Look up the Scrips study on the PH of the ocean- no factual error
I am not your google and you don’t seem to actually want to learn so you are not worth the time to post links to articles you will not learn from.
“Idiot Robert”
Ooops! I guess you’ve got no argument, since you resort right away to ad hom.
“The is no evidence in the paper that the rate of rise is of a concern or any evidence of when the rate of rise will increase. There was no factual error.”
Wrong on all counts, sorry!
You might have a little more credibility to play with if you hadn’t claimed that the source was just a series of assertions with no evidence offered. Now when you misrepresent the paper you said wasn’t there, it’s not very convincing.
“Look up the Scrips study on the PH of the ocean- no factual error”
That’s not a citation, Rob — full title or a link, please. Also, one paper does not “substantial evidence” make. Try five or six, for starters.
So in summary, you open with ad hom, you go on to claim that a paper about accelerating sea level rise doesn’t say anything about accelerating sea level rise, and you fail to cite any evidence for your claims that ocean acidification is no big deal.
Not very convincing, Rob, sorry! Try again! :)
Just tired of exchanges with you.
You’re tired of getting shown up, you mean.
Can’t you cite a single source for your argument? Just one?
Robert,
I am most interested to see improved data to better calibrate the ‘Damage Function’ used in Nordhaus D ICE and RICE models. What I am looking for are authoritative, engineering quality, cost estimates of the damage costs for different amounts of global warming. Do you know of such estimates – better than what Nordhaus uses (and not the partisan propoganda rolled out by the CAGW alarmists). I am looking for authoritative, impartial, objective cost estimates.
We’ve had Al Gores nonsense about Manhattan being inundated. We’ve had Australian Government appointed “Climate Commissioner” continually preaching dooms day scenarios (such as the dams will never fill again), we’ve had predications of 50 million climate refugees by 2010 (actual number = zero), and so on.
Nordhaus says:
(p24, http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Accom_Notes_100507.pdf)
Nordhaus (2008) Figure 7-5 here http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf shows that only 1% of population and 1% of world output lies below 1 m elevation. Message, slow sea level rise (at the rat of a few mm per year) is not catastrophic. It is a cost and we should be able to get proper estimates of the cost, taking proper account of the fact that dwellings and infrastructure are continually being upgraded and replaced; and applying commercially realistic discount rates (e.g. 10% pa).
Anthoff et al(2010) The economic impact of substantial sea-level rise (Figure 10 and 11) show the total damage cost of a sea level rise of 1 m by 2100 is about $1 trillion. This is an insignificant cost given the world’s cumulative GDP to 2100 would be around $3,500 trillion (discounted at 4.3%)
Peter, thanks very much for all of your hard hitting and fact based posts related to energy on this and other threads. It’s obvious, most of the warmers on this blog do not want to engage you on this topic. In reality, you’re offering them a viable way out. Very revealing.
Jim
JimJ,
Thank you. But isn’t it strange how the CAGW alarmists don’t want to debate this. They prefer to sidestep it an continually repeat their advocacy for carbon tax and cap and trade schemes.
Rob Starkey | August 21, 2012 at 2:56 pm |
While this is seriously off topic, it’s also so seriously off-base as to need to be nipped in the bud; I’ll take it on first, and separately.
You write about the “right and proper role of government”. Bart, you must understand that your perspective is simply your perspective and that you are trying to force it upon others with a different perspective. That would be much easier with a stronger justification based on clear evidence. You write: “Religion is the stuff of assertions and faith; Science is the stuff of observation and inference.” The line is really not clear. Christians have faith because they believe that Jesus lived and performed the acts described in the various books of the bible. Skeptics of Christian beliefs would argue that the books of the bible are not 1st hand accounts and merely are stories written down decades after the actual events. In the case of AGW, you do not have clear evidence either. What you have is some evidence and then a lot if inferences. You have combined all these inferences into a belief system that you are sure must be correct.
Actually, Thomas Payne wrote about the right and proper role of government. I merely invoked it. I have no interest in forcing others to throw off the yoke of ignorance or take up the banner of democracy against their will. If people want to be blind followers of blind leaders, that’s up to them, and no business of mine so long as they keep it private, and out of the tax-funded workplace.
Christians have faith because they’ve heard the call to Christ, not because they’ve had read to them a series of stories about Jesus. Many Christians know that some of the stories are fabrications, and yet choose to take the lessons of their morals and ethics to heart, instead of literally upholding myths to oppress and repress others by rote and with anger, fear, greed, envy, sloth, gluttony or lust.
What I have is values that tell me to render unto Science what belongs to Science. Combining evidence and inference is a godly service, if done truthfully, and produces not a belief system but a body of knowledge.
You’re very confused if you don’t understand these distinctions, and certainly have no foundation to teach on Christianity.
Bart : I have no interest in forcing others to throw off the yoke of ignorance
Such a nice and unassuming man, that Bart.
How slightly webstalkingly creepy.
Seems I’ve attracted yet another obsessive groupie. Again.
Well if you keep praising yourself to the skies, what do you expect ?
Tomcat | August 22, 2012 at 11:09 am |
Aha!
We now have some evidence that explains the problems you have with understanding climate. You have an extraordinarily low standard of where the skies begin, if self-professed complacency and apathy qualify as praise.
How do you walk around without bumping your shins on the sky?
Rob Starkey | August 21, 2012 at 2:56 pm |
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
One would think that if NASA meant to list issues that may or may not be of concern, instead of evidence, they’d have given the link the name http://climate.nasa.gov/listofissuesthatmayormaynotbeofconcern instead. So I have to be skeptical of your interpretation, but at least you showed up, and that’s half of life.
Also, let’s recall what I actually said I meant to provide by the link, having been thus warned to be especially skeptical of your claims:
I believe that the mountains of evidence (which you remain immune to awareness of, but let’s start with http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ as a reference point (though I don’t ‘believe’ everything NASA concludes, too) indicate a substantial Risk has been demonstrated to have most probably been caused by specific human activities — certainly to the level of the ‘reasonable person test’ accepted in civil law, and that with Risk comes cost, thus there is grounds in Tort Law for us to assign costs, and thus a duty to collect costs.
1. sea level rise- There was nothing written to explain why the current rate of sea level rise is a concern or any evidence that the rate of rise will necessarily increase or when it is feared to increase.
Okay, so not to put words in your mouth — though you appear not to have that scrupple — but can we take this as acknowledgement that there’s a mountain of evidence of sea level rise and Risk, else you’d be addressing what I actually said instead of some straw man?
Because I meant only to use the NASA evidence page as a jumping off point (hence, reference), as apparently NASA also intended when they provided links to http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_data_cmar.html so you would see and follow http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_drives_intro.html and following, which would then address why the current and projected rate of rise — also richly supported by evidence — is a concern.
Why do you resist simply doing your own research for yourself and force others to drag and drop every little detail for you? Please, carry on with the example I’ve shown, and click through links at the relevant sites and pages to get to the evidence where it’s been filed, and not just to the top-level page of the site.
2. global temperature rise- There is no information showing why this is a negative for humanity
This concept of clicking on links and drilling down to the information you’re looking for, it’s really alien to you entirely, isn’t it?
Here, you’ll run into an issue that’ll be hard for you to handle, as the first link for temperature evidence refers to a page that has moved to here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/anomalies.php
See? I can be helpful to people just learning how to use the Intertubes. By all means proceed according to this example to traverse the tree of links to the evidence you claim doesn’t exist and the information showing why this is a negative. Me, personally, I don’t need to go as far as NOAA does; I settle for Risk for some, as that’s enough for me while the NOAA has some sort of national mission or duty to go further, and does.
3. warming oceans- There is no information showing why this is a negative for humanity
I trust you to have followed the methods shown in the two prior numbered issues, and to know how to drill down and use links to get to information where it actually is, and not at the top level of the referring cite, where it isn’t.
If you have problems at this point, let us know. I’m sure someone here at Climate Etc. can show you how to click a link.
… ibid for 4-6
7. extreme events- There is great debate whether there is valid evidence to support this claim and there is no evidence that the situation can be changed.
Great debate means _more_ Uncertainty, rather than less. Which in the world of Risk Assessment means _greater_ rather than less cost of Risk, in that opportunity loss is greater, among other issues.
Also, while I doubt NASA’s links will get you to any site on the Intertubes that will give you the equivalent of a Masters in Mathematics, so you could understand how Chaos Theory works at a competent level of application of its methods, but I can offer you an analogy. Imagine you’re in a room full of hornet’s nests, with a big sharp stick in one hand, thrashing away and beating the hornet’s nests, and then you stop; do you imagine the hornets will swarm more, or less, than otherwise because you’ve stopped perturbing their nests?
8. ocean acidification- There is substantial evidence that this is a vastly overstated fear. Ocean Ph levels vary naturally at a local level by ranges greater than the long term changes suggested to be happening due to human released CO2.
You don’t do me the same courtesy as I offered you of pointing to a legitimate, verifiable, valid source of this evidence. I hope it isn’t WUWT, Idsos or GWPF. Because that “vastly overstated fear” phrase sounds like one of Monckton’s propagandisms. Were the inferences about Ocean pH (see, it’s little-p, BIG-H) at this site you haven’t alluded to made by competent oceanographers, or, y’know, some weak-blooded aristocrat or AD-certified meteorologist? You note, I’m skeptical of your assertions.
You write about risks about what might happen and then inappropriately try to link those perceived risks to tort law. Sorry, but you would fail a legal test since you can not demonstrate a clear cause and effect.
Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere. So, you’re giving legal opinion about what is and is not a tort, or will or will not fail or pass a legal test; that means you’re claiming to be competent in law. Are you? Which bar have you been called to? Which bench do you serve on? Because there’s US Supreme Court and British High Court precedent on clear cause and effect in AGW, so I’m eager to hear how your intepretation overcomes this obstacle.
Since this in an open thread,
EPA strikes out in court again.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/federal-court-obamas-epa-recognizes-no-legal-limits/article/2505495#.UDPcgEys_zj
A good ruling
Of course, it’s going to the SCOTUS, but what’s interesting is the parallel to the Obamacare case; the kingpin question was if these restrictions don’t apply to their authority, what restrictions do?
I suspect it won’t make it to the SCOTUS before the election, and if Romney wins, the feds will withdraw the case.
What about the ruling that COx is dangerous and EPA can mandate controls? I thoought that was supported in Fed courts. So they can’t make rules that SOx and NOx must be reduced more than currently feasible but a different court ruled COx can be subject to controls?
Coal power plant shutdowns are planned after elections so no air conditioning in Georgia does not impact Nov electrions. The CAGW crowd is sneakey smart
ps; tonyb at climate reason , fan will never answer fact based climate questions. Any new papers on middle ages warm data trends? Interesting to see how they compare to Sierra temps around then.
Different rule. I’m not up on all of this, but this had to do with regulating what had previously been a state matter and was only incidental wrt CO2. This was their scheme to punish Texas and other “red” states.
There is specific language in the clean air act in regards to states rights.
S
o the question isn’t whether congress can pass a law compelling states or individuals to do X,Y or Z. Obamacare was specifically about Federal Powers.
The question in this case is weather congress passed a law specifically prohibiting what EPA intended to do.
Correct. But the question in front of the court boiled down to, if EPA could do this, was there anything EPA couldn’t do. And the answer from the EPA lawyers was basically hammada hammada hammada. That’s the similarity.
Cheap natural gas …
“By Matt Daily and Braden Reddall
(Reuters) – Huge writedowns on natural gas fields point to cuts to come in oil and gas producers’ reserves from untapped fields at the end of this year, which will constrain their ability to borrow and may herald more asset sales.
Bank loans are a lifeline for the many smaller U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies that rely on debt to cover their drilling costs.
Several indebted producers, under pressure from low gas prices, took writedowns on the value of gas still underground because prices are down by a third from last year.
Ultra Petroleum Corp (UPL) took a writedown of $1.1 billion, or equivalent to a third of its stock market valuation, while Quicksilver Resources Inc (KWK) took an impairment just shy of $1 billion.
A $429 million writedown for Exco Resources Inc (XCO) was accompanied by the Dallas company cutting 140 of its 1,092 workers plus about 160 contractors.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/analysis-natgas-writedowns-signal-bank-191409388.html
Are the mark downs related to market conditions, or to amount of reserves: IOW is it what the reserves can be sold for per mcf or barrel, or is it how many mcf’s or barrels are there in the reserves?
(Not you, WHT).
The write downs apply to known but untapped reserves, and known reserves have gotten larger. The large amount of gas being produced has lowered the price of natural gas and therefore also of the untapped reserves.
Fan
I suggest you read ‘summary and discussion’ of your own link, plus this extract
‘Holgate and Woodworth (2004) and Church et al. (2004) find that rates as high as the current rate have occurred for other 9-yr segments throughout the 1950–2000 period, indicating that the current rate is not distinguishable from a decadal variation in global sea level.’
Sea levels constantly fluctuate and it is meaningless to average them or try to apply a global figure.
In private emails to me Simon Holgate confirmed that sea levels rose faster in the first half of the 20th century than in the second half although it was statistically indistinguishable.The Willis 2004 figures on Souther Ocean temperatures may need revisiting of course.
tonyb
tony b
As you point out to fan, Holgate (2007) found that average decadal rate of sea level rise showed considerable decadal variability (from around +5 to -1 mm/year) over the 20th century, with an average rate of +1.74 mm/year.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg
Holgate also found that the average rate of rise was higher over the first half of the century (2.03 mm/year) than over the second half (1.45 mm/year), as you also pointed out to fan.
Despite all the histrionics by fan, the recent rate of rise is not unprecedented or even unusual.
Max
Manacker and climatereason, in restricting your cognition to sea-level rise as observed in isolation, you are forgetting David Deutsch’s maxim of 21st century science:
In the present case, the observed acceleration in sea-level rise is rationally assessed in conjunction with radiative heat-trapping from accelerating CO2 levels, accelerating Arctic and Antarctic ice-mass loss, and accelerating ocean-temperature rise.
This integrated worldview is rational, eh Manacker and climatereason? :) :) :)
And sustained acceleration of sea-level rise turns denialist economic analyses into … well … utter nonsense, eh Manacker and climatereason? Yikes. :cry: :cry: :cry:
These integrated considerations illuminate a robust, accelerating, rational Bayesian probability increase that “James Hansen’s worldview is scientifically correct”, eh? :) :) :)
Fan seems about right, except for a few details:
– sea-level rise not accelerating, perhaps even decelerating
– Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking
– ocean temps not well enough known to be said to be rising (or anything else)
There is nothing in the abstract for An Anomalous Recent Acceleration of Global Sea Level Rise that is contradicted by anything Holgate has written in his peer-reviewed papers of 2005 and 2007.
In Holgate’s comments in the press (as of 2011), he seems to think it is too soon to label the slight acceleration that is in the data as an actual acceleration, but clearly agrees what they are seeing is there.
Fan
In isolation? I am writng a three part series on Sea level rise (part 1 completed) and have some 350 papers to reference. How is that ‘in isolation?’
I think you need to look further than 1979 (satellites) 1999 (drought monitor) and 9 year periods, as with this study. You’ll be telling me next that its hot today where you are which proves AGW.
I have mentally put aside a copy of my forthcoming book on historical climatology’ to be entitled ‘The Anecdotal Viking’ Although I think ‘Don’t panic’ might be equally good.
tonyb
Hope you include the very high correlation coefficient of 0.994 between secular GMST (after all the oscillations in GMST are removed) and sea level rise as shown => http://bit.ly/KBBlN9
This suggests the sea level rise is caused by the increase in the secular GMST.
Tonyb what is your judgement on the NAS recent report of Sea Livel rise on the Pacific coast? Lots of charts show big problems along the sandy So Cal coasts. World climate report said “They extrapulated ocean thermal expansion and melting ice water to come up with 4-5 feet rise.” Terraces in the coast indicate sea levels that high in pre historic times but what about this prediction in your view?
Scott
I think you have referenced this before and I believe I have it in my dossier of papers that I am going through in order to write part two of ‘historic variations in Arctc Ice.’
Could you provide a link to it again please so I have it in front of me instead of buried within a pile of other references?
Tonyb
Tonyb
National Academy of Sciences web page around June 2012. Register with them for free to read online or download PDF. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13389
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13389
Name of report is ” Sea Level Rise for the Coasts of California, Oregon and Washington; Past, Present and Future”
I think this will work.
By the way thanks for your work on the historical record and perspectives.
Scott
Scott
Thank you, much appreciated.
I will have a read and see if I can put it into context with other material
tonyb
BatedBreath (and Climatereason too), for a thorough, integrated review of all the factors you mention (and many more) by far the best single source is the recent survey Earth’s Energy Imbalance and Implications:
Thus, if in the coming decade an acceleration of sea-level rise-rates is observed, then there will be a corresponding acceleration in the rise-rate of the Bayesian probability that “James Hansen’s worldview is scientifically correct.”
And rightly so! :grin: :grin: :grin:
And this acceleration would turn present-day denialist economic analyses into pure nonsense, eh? Yikes! :cry: :cry: :cry:
Is that not true and correct, BatedBreath and Climatereason? :grin: :grin: :grin:
That’s true Fan – if the situation changes such as to make your currently false claims about sea-level rises etc become true, our conclusions may very well change. hohoho tiddly-bum da da dum tee dum (sorry, not up to your awesome speed on web smilese semiotics/iconography/whatever)
Bated
Good point. If the rate of sea level rise accelerates to over 10mm per year i will change my position on the issue although I am still not sure mitigation activities make sense
A fan of *MORE* discourse
Those faces you include are very distracting and it is childish to include them.
I hope you stop doing it. Why do you waste your time with them?
The faces only advantage is to easily identify and skip your post.