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Can anyone point to any authoritative analyses that evaluate the probability that the mitigation policies that are proposed by various groups would succeed in delivering the claimed benefits? The question is about the probability of success of policies (i.e. policies like Kyoto II, carbon pricing, timetables, policies to benefit renewable energy over other energy sources, etc)
Can anyone point to any verifiable harm from CO2 increasing for a century or two?
I don’t think there are net benefits on any path. The main question is which path limits the damage the most, so I would rephrase that question bearing that in mind.
Alexander Biggs,
@ January 14, 2014 at 9:12 pm
No! Not at all. The question is asking:
for references (links)
to authoritative studies
of the probability
that the advocated climate mitigation policies (e.g. carbon pricing)
would succeed in the real world
at delivering the benefits claimed by the policies’ proponents.
I am making no assumption about whether or not GHG emissions are having a negative effect.
I don’t believe there have been studies of whether or not carbon pricing or any of the other proposed mitigation policies can be successfully implemented in the real world, let alone survive for as long as would be required to deliver benefits, let alone deliver the claimed benefits.
I hope this makes it clearer.
Alexander Biggs, I’ll frame the question another way and use the example of carbon pricing:
What is the probability that carbon pricing can succeed in delivering the claimed benefits (such as prevent sea level rise, prevent extreme weather events, prevent global warming, or whatever the benefits the proponents claim for their policy)/
This may be broken down into sub items such as:
– what is the probability that the world will agree to implement a global carbon pricing scheme, that it will survive for a century or until the job is done (i.e. it has delivered the claimed benefits)?
– what is the probability that a global carbon pricing scheme will apply to all (or nearly all) GHG emissions sources in all countries
– what is the probability that a global carbon pricing scheme can be maintained and adjusted as necessary uniformly across the world as an when necessary and everyone will comply, no cheating?
– If a global carbon pricing scheme is successfully implemented and maintained at the optimal carbon price for all sources, what is the probability the claimed benefits (such as control the sea levels and prevent climate change) would be achieved?
[Those who advocate mitigation policies need to clearly define what are the benefits they claim their policy would achieve.]
So, back to my question: can anyone point to authoritative studies where such analyses have been done (i.e. the probabilities the proposed mitigation policies will deliver the claimed benefits)?
“What is the probability that …” Well, Peter, when you put it like that, I have to say, non-authoritatively, “Not significantly different from zero.” I’ll be very surprised if you get a satisfactory answer to the contrary.
Peter Lang | January 14, 2014 at 10:09 pm |
I believe I may have posed a similar challenge to the distinguished Mssr.’s Mosher and Istvan around the time http://www.sustainableprosperity.ca/dl1026&display came out; (the long process of publication seems to have left the other shoe waiting to drop on this one). We appear to get more and more alike with time. Certainly the denizenry has the cumulative talent and resources to mount a credible attempt at your questions.
You might find http://www.carbontax.org/progress/where-carbon-is-taxed/ and http://search.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=ENV/WKP(2013)10&docLanguage=En useful starting points for your global survey.
Since more than three links lands a reply in moderation, and Dr. Curry has better things to do this week than moderate, I’ll stop this reply with those.
Bart R,
Thanks, but those two links do not attempt to address the question I asked. I am not asking about what is being attempted and is being advocated around the world, I am asking about the probability of achieving the claimed benefits. Can I ask you to please read the question again.
http://epi.boisestate.edu/media/21329/keibun%20mori,%20nothstein%20and%20hammerschlag%20-%20carbon%20tax%20modeling%20for%20washington%20state.pdf presents the first layer of the onion radiating out from BC, its neighboring state WA’s potential for success using only the BC carbon pricing model. Which in turn would have the effect of ratcheting up BC’s carbon price, as it is “waiting for its neighbors to catch up”, if WA were to go forward.
I don’t know if you think the Economist is terribly authoritative — some do — but they wrote http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/08/climate-policy-canada about pressures on the rest of Canada to be more like BC.. or like the USA. As expected, other Canadian provinces are making plans to follow the example of BC, as WA is (www.competeprosper.ca/uploads/2013_AR_12_Final_121113.pdf), which again would form the framework for a ‘carbon pricing race’ to see who can lever up their carbon price fastest.
Zeke Hausfather at B.E.S.T. did an excellent analysis (Explaining and Understanding Declines in U.S. CO2 Emissions</I<) of multiple factors leading to US CO2 emission drops, too, which might form a component for your study, just as it may be part of the B.E.S.T. argument favoring fracking.
Bart R,
Again, these have do not address the question I asked. Can I refer you to the question and ask you to read it carefully, pars it and understand it.
Most would agree that mitigation and resilience are better than no mitigation and no resilience, even though it costs money up front to prevent or pay for disasters later.
(Excuse my terrible italics faux pas above, please.)
http://archive.irpp.org/po/archive/dec08/courchene.pdf leavens some of the optimism of the Canadian case with some hard challenges first observed in 2008, before data came in about the effectiveness of BC’s carbon pricing scheme. Notice that BC wasn’t alone in Canada in carbon pricing of some sort, but going by Dr. Elgie’s figures was alone in carbon pricing success.
Now, your own submission (www.environment.gov.au/submissions/carbon-tax-repeal/peter-lang.doc) doesn’t bear up to scrutiny, when one looks at the other analyses, making assumptions that carbon pricing can’t work unless it is global, and other absurdities. Considering the data appears to show that the BC carbon pricing case leads to benefits for the nation that prices carbon, and the Washington state case appears to argue that higher carbon price is better, those who backslide and dither — like other Canadian provinces did in the past, and like Australia, and much of the USA, despite the many advantages Zeke Hausfather noted — generally get left behind in the race to prosperity.
What you’re probably looking for is more like http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/opinion/2317129/we-need-a-strong-and-sustained-carbon-price-to-combat-climate-change to motivate the level of sophistication in an analysis a person could claim authoritative.
Bart R,
You are dodging the question and pushing your barrow that carbon pricing can deliver benefits of ???. You have not addressed the question. You are dodging it.
The fact you have posted all these links, none of which address the question, suggests you don’t know of any authoritative work that addresses the questions I asked. And I expect you may also recognise there is next to zero probability carbon pricing (r the other mitigation policies proposed by the Left to date) would succeed, in the real world, at achieving the benefits claimed by the proponents.
I don’t believe your intentions are honest, but if they are you might like to define what benefits carbon pricing would deliver – i.e in terms of net benefits from climate change, sea levels or whatever. I am asking you to define the measurable benefits you say carbon pricing will deliver, not mumbo jumbo.
Bart R,
So what is your specific criticism of my submissions to the Senate Committee enquiry on repeal of the carbon tax legislation? Is your criticism of the work I quoted from Nordhaus, Tol, Australian Treasury or my combination of them? Please be specific so I can address the criticism or fix it if there is an error.
The link to my submission to the Senate Committee on repeal of the carbon tax legislation is: http://www.environment.gov.au/submissions/carbon-tax-repeal/peter-lang.doc
(See Submission #2)
Correction: this is the link to my submission to the Senate Committee inquiry (see Submission No.2): http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Clean_Energy_Legislation/Submissions
The link Bart R posted and I reposted is my earlier submission to the Department of Environment. The content is the same.
Peter Lang | January 15, 2014 at 12:15 am |
Yes, Peter, I get that none of the links I posted is a complete answer to the questions you asked. I said as much. See the terms “starting point”, and the suggestion to mount an attempt at your questions through the cumulative resources of Judith’s denizenry.
You’re not going to find your answer handed to you like Pablum to an infant. For one thing, you’ve asked a series of questions framed on assumptions that are in themselves not the sort authoritative people generally entertain. For another, you’ve built a set of dominoes each reliant on a postulated prior finding. And finally, you seem impatient for pat links, instead of the slow, steady methodical progress one might make by actually reading them thoroughly and building actual understanding instead of merely objections.
It’s not any answer at all. It’s just diversion to push the (probably useless, high cost irrational) polices you want to push.
What assumptions? I’d suggest that is your interpretation, not assumptions in the questions.
Yes. I asked for the links to any work that has been done to address my questions, not a pile of references about carbon taxes.
Peter, probably millions of people,amd probably lots of people in high places, have asked the same or similar questions.
And they have probably met with the same sort of excuses for answers.
You’d think someone, somewhere, would attempt to work out some definitive answers.
Yea! I agree. But it sure doesn’t seem like it does it? It makes me wonder why the proponents of these schemes don’t want to know if they are likely to succeed in meeting their (asserted) objectives?
The meanest scientific intellect can work out why IPCC ‘science’ is baseless** but it takes a bit more effort to work out what really happens.
As pCO2 increases, pH2O in the low middle troposphere decreases. This keeps OLR constant at constant surface temperature, an empirical fact. Hence we are at the null point of a control system which ensures SW thermalised = LW to Space at a given radiation entropy production rate consistent with a given decrease in terrestrial entropy and increased terrestrial enthalpy (= GHE).
If the latter two change, so does the mix of wavelengths in OLR at constant radiative flux, and with it will change the composition of the atmosphere and the lapse rate warming of the surface.
To imagine that you can achieve control of these extensive thermodynamic properties by spraying seawater etc. into the atmosphere indicates a serious failure of logic due to fundamental ignorance of thermodynamics.
**Sagan, copied by Houghton, made a stupendous radiative physics’ mistake in imagining the Earth’s surface emits to the atmosphere real net IR energy flux equal to that a black body would emit in Space to a sink at absolute zero.
I suspect it came from a few teachers of Physics in the 1950s who seriously misled their students. Us engineers do reality checks like looking for Conservation of Energy instead of accepting the perpetual motion machine of the 2nd kind on which IPCC pseudo-science is based!
I haven’t checked Peter, but you may find something at
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/
Just a thought
The impossibility of success of those pushing carbon dioxide mitigation seems not to have daunted those involved in the effort. So what motivates them?
===========
Nobility
Sancho Panza scoffs.
===========
Peter, At first stab I got this from wiki that points to the AR4:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation#Costs_and_benefits
Yohe et al. (2007) assessed the literature on sustainability and climate change.[166] With high confidence, they suggested that up to the year 2050, an effort to cap greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at 550 ppm would benefit developing countries significantly. This was judged to be especially the case when combined with enhanced adaptation. By 2100, however, it was still judged likely that there would be significant effects of global warming. This was judged to be the case even with aggressive mitigation and significantly enhanced adaptive capacity.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch20s20-es.html
Maybe a good place to start since it is in the AR4?
@ Peter Lang
“Can anyone point to any authoritative analyses that evaluate the probability that the mitigation policies that are proposed by various groups would succeed in delivering the claimed benefits? ”
Wow Peter, someone FiNALLy asks an EASY question.
Answer: No.
Follow up comment: Nor can anyone point to an authoritative analysis that demonstrates that if ACO2 emissions were completely halted at noon on 20 Jan, 2014 there would be ANY measurable impact on the Temperature of the Earth, the rate of seal level rise, the extent of ice in the polar icecaps, the inventory of polar bears, or the date that the cherry trees will blossom in DC over the next 50 years.
Nevertheless, regulations will be promulgated to control ACO2, taxes will be imposed on ACO2, and bureaucracies will be created to collect the ACO2 taxes and enforce the ACO2 regulations.
Peter
As Bart R points out the Case of BC indicates the following:
1. You can introduce a carbon tax without killing the economy. duh.
2. You can lower other taxes as a result. duh.
3. Introducing a carbon tax decreased emissions.
4. reduced emissions gives us more time to make smarter choices
about energy generation in the future… including moving to nukes.
The questions are..
Can this work outside BC?
Can carbon taxes be kept revenue neutral
How sustainable is a carbon tax as a source of revenue
each of these questions is answerable. The nice thing about having states and provinces that can do experiments is you to fail and learn or succeed and learn. Personally, I’m in favor of canada doing all sorts of experiments.
Mosher,
1. Emissions are neither costs nor benefits. The costs and benefits of impacts can be estimated, but not the costs and benefits of emissions. basic. I am surprised you didn’t know this
2. Emissions reductions in a state, country or region do not represent global emissions reductions. They may actually cause global emissions to increase – e.g. USA. Europe and Australia have forced, through excessive regulation, high energy intensity industries out of their countries. They are moving to countries where energy is cheaper but emission intensity is higher, so they are increasing global emissions although they are reducing emissions in their own country. Furthermore, when imported embodied emissions are included in a countries emissions, these countries have not reduced their emissions.
Nordhaus, Tol and other have been making it really clear for a very long time that without a high participation rate carbon pricing cannot deliver the expected benefits. I explain it better here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/
Or better still in my submissions to the Senate inquiry on the repeal of the carbon tax legislation here.
Or you can read:
Nordhaus (2013) “The Climate Casino”
Nordhaus (2008) “A Question of Balance”
Tol (2013″ “Climate Economics”
Steven Mosher | January 15, 2014 at 11:58 am |
The thread’s become an exercise in how many horses can be led to water and flatly refuse to drink.
More or less all of Peter’s questions are addressed somewhere in the links supplied, either directly or by implication, requiring only modest use of inference to apply the simple, parsimonious principles that have been proven in the particular cases to the globe in general. All that would be left to the reader is some valid test to prove the hypothesis that holds valid in North America holds over the domain of the question, which one presumes to be Australia, judging by Peter’s writings.
I’m not sure anyone can fix that level of broken ability to reason in such an advanced form; but good of you to carry on the effort.
Bar R,
Dead right Bart R. And you are the main culprit. You provided an extreme example of obfuscation, diversion and avoidance. And convincingly demonstrated that the most basic work to justify the mitigation policies advocated by the CAGW alarmists has never been done.
-Can anyone point to any verifiable harm from CO2 increasing for a century or two?-
No one can know what CO2 levels could be by 2214. By 2114 coal might as significant a hay for horses.
Whether China will harm anyone for burning more than 4 billion tons of coal per year, in terms people living in America or Europe, that seems unlikely.
But seems a given it will do considerable harm to people living in China.
Mining coal, transporting, and burning it for electric power, all have risks to people and environment.
And there is no doubt that [unless the Chinese were more reckless than they appear now] that using nuclear energy would do less harm to the Chinese people.
Fracking to get natural gas, could be something Chinese could do quicker as compared to convention nuclear power plants [include their pebble reactors]. And Chinese using natural gas instead of coal, would reduce the amount harm done to Chinese people.
What a fascinating juxtaposition…
So first we get this:
And then we get this:
So we get a question for which Peter believes he (probably) already has his answer.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you climate “skepticism” in a nutshell.
Oh, and BTW…
Faustino, and kim, and phatboy, and gbaikie, and Bob have absolutely definitive answers.
So much for uncertainty, eh?
“Can anyone point to any authoritative analyses that evaluate the probability that the mitigation policies that are proposed by various groups would succeed in delivering the claimed benefits? The question is about the probability of success of policies (i.e. policies like Kyoto II, carbon pricing, timetables, policies to benefit renewable energy over other energy sources, etc)”
There are none.
As that would suggest people involved were competent and took their responsibilities seriously.
Instead they are Banana republic amateur hour.
Q: If the Carbon Tax in BC is so good, why is the population growth slower than in Canada as a whole?
“If the Carbon Tax in BC is so good, why is the population growth slower than in Canada as a whole?”
____
I guess that would presume that a good metric for the success of a tax is whether or not it increases the human population? Odd metric.
-Joshua | January 15, 2014 at 12:44 pm |
Oh, and BTW…
Faustino, and kim, and phatboy, and gbaikie, and Bob have absolutely definitive answers.
So much for uncertainty, eh?-
Here is a certainty, no one 20 years ago knew what global temperature would be in 2013.
Not everything is uncertain or in doubt.
For example:
The past IPCC models are wrong.
By this late point in time, it should be a certainty for all people still breathing that the IPCC future global future projection are wrong- due present global temperature not matching those projected temperatures.
That you can’t see this as a certainty, has nothing to do skepticism.
Or it has nothing to do with being scientific or rational.
And another certainty is that If IPCC says they are very confident of future projection, they are either crazy, or they imagine others are crazy.
It’s either one or the other. Or probably mostly likely, bit of both.
k scott makes an EXCELLENT point:
To which I might add, if the United States is so good, why is the population growth so much slower than in Somalia?
Bet you “warmists” never thought of that, huh?
Bart R.
funny I used to be in favor of more nukes until I started reading peter lang.
he’s the kind of proponent that makes you disbelieve in what he is pushing. He’s like an anti shill or anti PT barnum.
You comments confirms that facts and rational argument is confronting for CAGW alarmists.
Mosher,
1. Nuclear is the safest way to generate electricity
2. Nuclear is the least-cost, low-emissions way to generate electricity
3. The cost of nuclear can come down a lot if we remove the irrational impediments that are blocking it.
4. If we allow it to be cheaper than coal, it will replace coal without any central decrees and demand and UN and government policy interventions. It will just happen because it is cheapest and fit for purpose – if we remove the impediments that are blocking progress.
5. You and everyone else can help if you will inform yourself of the facts – do the research, objectively and dispassionately – and then get out and explain what you’ve learnt to others.
Heh – you ask for evidence that mitigation policies actually mitigate the projected harms, and instead all you get is fluff explaining the economic and social benefits of new taxes. when you complain no-one answered the question, you get told they showed you the benefits – which is NOT what you asked about – and you are now presumably firmly in the “denier” or “delayer” camp.
Bart R and co: it ain’t that hard, surely, to answer the question, is it? Doesn’t some-one, somewhere have the info Peter asks for? And if not, what is the real point of introducing things like a carbon tax, given we have NO IDEA, apparently, that they can/will actually reduce CO2, extreme weather, sea rise etc?
KNeel.
people propose mitigation because they want to achieve the benefit of reduced emmissions.
People oppose mitigation through taxes because they argue that taxes will destroy the economy.
Bart presents a case. BC employed a carbon tax and they got the desired benefit: reduced emmissions. Further, they did so in such a way as to mitigate the adverse effects of a tax.
What is the desire benefit of mitigation? reduced emmissions.
a carbon tax achieved that without any adverse effects.
Now, you may want to argue that the benefit of reduced emmissions is not really a benefit. That’s just another way of saying you don’t believe in physics.
Putting C02 in the atmosphere is a risk. We cannot predict the risk with any accuracy. it could be a big risk or small risk.
Since we don’t know the risk its also hard to quantify the benefit of lowering that risk. But whatever the risk is lowering it is a good thing, of course depending on the cost of lowering it, which in this case is more well known than the risk.
When the risk is uncertain and the cost to mitigate is more well known than the risk it’s really hard to determine if your cost of risk abatement is outweighed by the benefits.
In situations like this it makes sense to do some experiments. British Columbia is a good experiment. They should try a couple more. alberta and ontario. Maybe a couple US states should give it a whirl. experiments are good.
Mosher,
Your answer is a complete nonsense and show you have nto a clue what you are talking about on this subject. You’ve displayed that in previous comment when youv’e ventured to talk about impacts (while also admitting you know nothing about impacts). You’ve showed it again in this really ignorant statement – you don’t even know the difference between emissions and impacts, and don’t seem to understand that emissions are not impacts and are neither a cost or a benefit
Hmmm. Just how much more well-known? Is this a case of the extremely, very much, and extraordinarily uncertain and the extremely, very much and exceptionally uncertain?
“The cost of lowering it,” requires a comprehensive cost/benefit analysis that includes the evaluation of positive and negative externalities with a very high level of confidence.
Would you mind pointing me to such an analysis, that would justify your “more well-known risk” – or is this something that you’re just calculating on a dinner napkin or off the top of your head?
Not to say that I disagree with your bottom-line, that experimentation is good and that anyone arguing against experimentation is merely, actively, seeking to confirm a bias.
Joshua
the cost of adding a 25 cent tax to gas ( as BC did ) is known more certainly than the benefit of the reduced emissions.
In fact its the knowledge that makes the experiment worthwhile and doable.
Bart R’s first response did answer the question. It’s a story that claims a carbon tax in BC – that results in a 28-cents-per-gallon increase in the gas tax (7 cents per liter) – single-handedly reduced emissions by 10% and is universally beloved by all residents and businesses.
With only one minor caveat- it’s so wonderful that they have to stop it:
“Mary Polak, the provincial environment minister, acknowledges that the carbon-tax rate has been frozen for the next five years so as not to nobble BC’s industry, which must compete with rivals elsewhere that face no such levy.”
Not, of course, that it would nobble BC’s industry. Perish the thought.
But by all means- put your 28-cents a gallon tax hike into a bill, promise a 10% reduction in emissions and no adverse impact whatsoever (other than the impact you’ll have to prevent by freezing it) and we’ll all take a vote. Let’s do it before the mid-terms so you can get maximum benefit out of the proposal.
Oh, one question. Does a 10% reduction in some emissions in developing nations save planet earth?
Sure, sure, sure, ‘absolutely definitive answers’. For whatever questions you have.
=========
Bart R,
You made a criticism of my submission to the Senate Committee inquiry into repeal of the carbon tax legislation. I asked you for specifics, and haven’t seen your answer. I’d appreciate your answers so I can address the criticisms or fix any errors. If you cannot provide the specific details of your criticism so I can address it, would you be so kind as to withdraw it.
For completeness, here is your criticism and my comment you haven’t answered yet:
The link to my submission to the Senate Committee on repeal of the carbon tax legislation is Submission No.2 here: http://www.environment.gov.au/submissions/carbon-tax-repeal/peter-lang.doc
Damn, second link is wrong, sorry:
The link to my submission to the Senate Committee on repeal of the carbon tax legislation is Submission No.2 here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Clean_Energy_Legislation/Submissions
“Now, you may want to argue that the benefit of reduced emmissions is not really a benefit. That’s just another way of saying you don’t believe in physics.”
Man, how disappointing coming from a smart guy who pretends to be fair. Are you kidding? You cannot prove….you cannot come close to proving….that global warming will be harmful. The flip side of that incontestable assertion is that you can’t even prove it won’t be a net benefit. Every time I start to think you guys really might have something that resembles a point, I see one of you say something colossally stupid.
Sorry, above meant for Mosher.
Mosher
“people propose mitigation because they want to achieve the benefit of reduced emmissions.”
Of course they do – but this statement merely states the obvious (that people tend to advocate what benefits them personally).
“People oppose mitigation through taxes because they argue that taxes will destroy the economy.”
From so vague as to be meaningless, to so specific and definitive – you appear to be suggesting that this is the ONLY reason that matters to those who object. Is this the same Steve Mosher who would write a scathing repost of anyone who dared to leave such a response to him? Oddly enough, I’m guessing it is – just a bad day, we all have them.
“Bart presents a case. BC employed a carbon tax and they got the desired benefit: reduced emmissions. Further, they did so in such a way as to mitigate the adverse effects of a tax.”
Tue enough. Yet there MUST be a cost involved, even if this is minimised – just the cost of administering it, if nothing else. So, how many tons of CO2 did that tax stop being emitted? How much would that CO2 have increased the temperature in 2100? How much sea level rise mitgated by 2100? Feel free to add to the list if you like. Total that up. Is it more or less than the cost? If it’s more, you can easily justify the cost. If not, perhaps it’s not worth it. If it’s not worth it, why do it?
What? You can’t really say? Hmm, even if you project the SAME changes to global? Still too uncertain? But hang on, if it’s that uncertain you can’t seriously expect anyone to believe that it’s worthwhile to burn money in the process of shuffling it from one side of my balance sheet to the other “just in case”, can you?
“What is the desire[d] benefit of mitigation? reduced emmissions.
a carbon tax achieved that without any adverse effects.”
I disagree. The desired benefit of mitigation is less anthropogenic climate change. If it was anything else, why am I a “climate change denier” not a “CO2 denier”?
“Now, you may want to argue that the benefit of reduced emmissions is not really a benefit. That’s just another way of saying you don’t believe in physics.”
It really is bad day for you, isn’t it? Do I really need to explain the ridiculously of this particular statement? To Steve Mosher?
I wonder if AR5 WG3 will address my question. It wasn’t addressed in AR4.
The question I suggest IPCC should answer is:
Q. What is the probability that the proposed mitigation policies would succeed in delivering the claimed benefits (whatever they are)?
The question is about the probability of success of policies – such as: Kyoto II, carbon pricing, policies to advantage renewable energy over other energy sources, legally binding international agreements with penalties for breeches of commitments, targets and timetables, etc.
There are authoritative analyses which show they won´t work if the policies are carried out by a single nation or a group of nations, but exclude China, India, and other large CO2 emitters. A carbon tax does reduce fossil fuel consumption, and it can reduce economic activity. But unless it´s applied worldwide and population growth is contained all it does is delay a given temperature threshold by months or a few years. This of course assumes the climate sensitivity is more or less as discussed in the IPCC reports. It seems the best solution is to impose a carbon tax but reduce taxes elsewhere. This tends to be a regressive tax, but it does reduce fossil fuel imports and may actually help the economy because the overall tax load doesn´t increase. If the small tax does the job without causing economic harm then it may be a good idea to increase it again. Given the regressive nature of such a tax then it may be necessary to design something which offsets the additional tax on the lower ranks of taxpayers.
Fernando Leanme,
Thank you for all that. I should have explained that I do know all that. I’ve followed the arguments for carbon pricing since about 1992. What my question is about is:
1. What is the probability that global carbon pricing can be implemented with a sufficiently high participation rate that will make it sufficiently attractive for countries to participate and to stay in? (e.g. see the chart of cost to participants v participation rate here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/
2. If it is implemented initially, what is the probability it will survive until the job is done?
3. What is the probability that carbon pricing can actually reduce emissions by the amount required?
4. If emissions are reduced by that amount, what is the probability that this will deliver the benefits claimed by the proponents/
5. What are the benefits the proponents claim the carbon pricing scheme will deliver?
6. Wrapping that all into one, what is the probability that carbon pricing will deliver the claimed benefits?
7. What are the uncertainties on the probability estimates?
8. What was the methodology used for estimating the probabilities?
9. Who are the organisations and authors who have done this work (to estimate these probabilities of success)?
“it tends to be a regressive tax” is the understatement of the year award.
All the expected reductions in emissions come when people stop doing things they enjoy doing now. Which would be, by definition, a reduction in economic activity. BC showed that tolerance of the tax is inversely proportional to the amount of its increase. Why would that be? Well let’s examine how it would progress:
The people who would stop activity first, with a smaller tax rate, would be poorer people- those who feel the tax most painfully. City dwellers would be unaffected because their mayors already give them “free” or heavily subsidized public transit, but at some point they’ll feel the pinch of higher prices for all goods and services.
The next co-hort to stop or reduce activity will be those in rural areas and suburban areas- where public transportation is less available due to population density. These folks will also be unhappy to note that all their carbon tax “refund” money gets funneled to cities like New York- where people taking the subway and enjoying all that clean nuclear power don’t pay the tax, but collect the refund.
Finally, since China, India and Brazil aren’t dumb enough to go along, the “action” has no impact on global warming precisely because policy-makers chose the policies that are least likely to be adopted by developing nations (but which best fit a political desire in developed nations). To take up a topic from a previous thread- when activists insist on policies that are least likely to accomplish their stated goal, then the words “fraud” and “hoax” appear.
Jeffn,
Well explained.
+1
Ya’ gotta love jeffn’s selective view of subsidization for various modes of transportation.
I love “skeptics.”
On a related note:
–snip–
China Offers Cash in Bid to Cut Air Pollution
–snip–
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/10/15/to-help-cut-pollution-china-offers-cash-rewards/
This whole discussion on the success of BC carbon tax is hilarilous. The tax has certainly been particularily successful in raising money for BC’s broke economy. But to suggest that it has been successful in reducing fuel usage is a joke.
Go read comments from former NDP MLA David Schreck and anti-HST and NDP backroom guru Bill Tieleman on the stupidity of the reports bragging on the success of the tax.
These two gentleman were big supporters of the tax but their analysis show how easy it is to dismantle the mushy reports of success. Anyone that knows anything about the effects of price changes in fuel, understands that fuel is price inelastic, meaning that a 1% increase in price produces less than a 1% drop in demand. Yet these so called research reports showing the success tell us that adding 5% to the price produced a 17% drop in demand. If true thats pretty damn exicting news for economists.
Brian
Brian,
Yes. Another example is Ireland’s carbon tax. Raised to help bail Ireland out of its GFC banking fiasco. But no measurable change to the climate and zero evidence it would ever make any difference to the climate even if it lasted forever.
U.S. Leading the World in CO2 Emission Decrease from Reduced Coal Use
While America has long been criticized by the international community for not taking a leadership role in reducing carbon emissions, it’s clear now that the work being done to move the country beyond coal is having a significant effect. Coal was responsible for 33 percent of U.S. electricity last month, down from 50 percent just 10 years ago. According to analysis by the Vancouver Observer, CO2 emissions from the average American are now at the same levels that they were in 1964. What’s more, these reductions put America on track to meet and even exceed the goal President Obama set in the Copenhagen Accord of decreasing U.S. CO2 emissions by 17 percent by 2020.
http://ecowatch.com/2012/06/18/us-leading-the-world-in-co2-emission-decrease-from-reduced-coal-use/
Gas is cheap because of the Bush-Cheney policies which reduced impediments to the oil and gas industry, not because of the Obama regulatory impositions designed to raise the cost of electricity on coal plants.
Steven Mosher said on January 15, 2014 at 3:31 pm
“Bart R.
funny I used to be in favor of more nukes until I started reading peter lang.
he’s the kind of proponent that makes you disbelieve in what he is pushing. He’s like an anti shill or anti PT barnum.”
__________
My experience is similar. Before I started reading Peter Lang’s pro nuclear power propaganda, I was a little wary of nuclear power. Peter’s fanaticism has made me even more wary. I am appalled by his call to relax regulations on safety in order to have more nuclear power.
Which just goes to demonstrate how irrational and lacking in objectivity are the CAGW fanatics.
Fernando Leanme | January 16, 2014 at 6:58 am |
“…..A carbon tax does reduce fossil fuel consumption, and it can reduce economic activity. But unless it´s applied worldwide and population growth is contained all it does is delay a given temperature threshold by months or a few years. This of course assumes the climate sensitivity is more or less as discussed in the IPCC reports. It seems the best solution is to impose a carbon tax but reduce taxes elsewhere. This tends to be a regressive tax, but it does reduce fossil fuel imports and may actually help the economy because the overall tax load doesn´t increase. If the small tax does the job without causing economic harm then it may be a good idea to increase it again. Given the regressive nature of such a tax then it may be necessary to design something which offsets the additional tax on the lower ranks of taxpayers…..”
One could say that our current rate of tax and restrictive regulation, is causing more CO2 emission. In a number of ways.
But if we replace our current taxation on production [income tax] with taxation on carbon use [which is essentially an tax on energy use, and in sense subsidizes energy generated without CO2 emission. And we could eliminate in case of US other subsidizes [ethanol, solar, wind, etc] as these
if reduce CO2 would already be subsidized. And further subsidization is thought to be needed it could done at state level.
Then for low income people who are working, it would be less regressive
in terms of taxation. Or they are already being taxed repressively by current
taxation system. They may realize it, but since anything the buy is taxed
the products they buy have increased price needed to make that product.
In terms of fuel imports, it would act like a tariff on imports.
One make many arguments against tariff on imports, but if the intention is help domestic production by inhibiting exports, that helpful aspect in terms of arguing for tariffs on imports. But if intention is not to increase domestic
production there is less value of tariff on imports. Or if tariffs were always good we have that as only way to tax anything. Free trade is generally a better policy, and tariffs are essentially anti-free trade.
Or this has been tried and “there are problems with it”.
But the whole push for carbon taxes has been to increase taxes rather than
to have it balanced or lower taxes for some people.
So I think if goal was to lower taxes, the result could up with it not actually lower taxes by much and replacing one kind of tax for different type. But idea is add a new tax, it simply be about increase in taxes, and more regressive taxation.
gbaikie,
I think you are missing the main point. Carbon pricing cannot work unless it is global and unless a high proportion of the emissions from all sources are measured and pay the price. By high, I mean about 80% or more. If it isn’t clear that that can be achieved, rational decision makers will not commit to it. Therefore, it is highly unlikely it will ever be able to be implemented, let alone maintained for however it takes to do the job, given the economic effects of less than near-full participation and realities of global politics.
The point of asking my original question was so I could find out if anyone had analysed the probabilities of success of a global carbon pricing system. From the answers provided so far, it seems pretty clear that such analyses have not been done. That is disgraceful, considering the enormous cost of the mitigation schemes being proposed by the CAGW alarmists.
Judith,
Have you ever looked at the psychology of the masses…
Professor Curry,
I would appreciate comments from you or your readers on the conclusion from the first two chapters of my autobiography, A Journey to the Core of the Sun – Coincidence
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Chapter_1.pdf
and A Journey to the Core of the Sun – Acceptance of Reality
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Chapter_2.pdf
Peter Lang: The question is about the probability of success of policies (i.e. policies like Kyoto II, carbon pricing, timetables, policies to benefit renewable energy over other energy sources, etc)”
These policies accept the greenhouse gas theories of CO2 as being correct and are therefore an admission that the IPCC science was correct.. Surely a successful attack on their science which has failed to show that further increases in global temperature will occur, render the above policies unnecessary.
test
Total, the French oil company, will begin exploration for shale nat gas in Britain. They may have 1,300 trillion cubic feet. I tried to post the article, but it ain’t happening.
According to Web Salt/vinegar/mustard/pepper model the gas discovered cannot be extracted as removing gas means that there is less gas left and so removing some means that the remainder is worth less.
The UK really squandered their riches
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/north-sea-oil-money-uk-norwegians-fund
The fact is that UK oil production was down 14.5 per cent last year and 18 per cent in 2011, which accurately matches science-based modeling predictions that I first made 8 years ago and updated last year:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-rise-and-decline-of-uk-crude-oil.html
Is this important? Some people think it is. Lots of other people stick their head in the sand and act as if it is irrelevant.
I wouldn’t call it squandering.
A few people got very rich from the oil and bought a bunch of new cars. The government got some more tax which they spent on missiles to bomb iraq. I bought a cheaper TV so I could watch advertisements in HD.
I will bet you that the UK oil reserves will more than double in the 2014 to 2024 decade.
Shortly after the US Department of Energy helped broker a deal that would see television set-top boxes save their users a billion dollars’ worth of electricity, another branch of the government has decided to undercut energy efficiency efforts. As part of the new budget deal announced today, Congress has voted to eliminate standards for light bulb efficiency, standards that would see incandescent bulbs phased out in favor of technologies that convert far more electricity into light.
These ideas were first enacted during the Bush administration, via the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Incandescent bulbs were unable to meet the standards, so they would eventually be forced off the market in favor of LEDs and compact fluorescent bulbs. But Republicans have since soured on the bill, viewing it as an intrusion on the market and attempting to identify it with President Obama. Recent Congresses have tried many times to repeal the standards, but these have all been blocked.
However, US budgets are often used as a vehicle to get policies enacted that couldn’t pass otherwise, since having an actual budget is considered too valuable to hold up over relatively minor disputes. The repeal of these standards got attached to the budget and will be passed into law with it.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/01/as-part-of-budget-deal-congress-blacks-light-bulb-efficiency-standards/
This is among the many reasons why our future is not in fission, but using the fusion from the sun and storing it locally in chemical bonds:
http://phys.org/news/2014-01-harness-sun-energy-day-night.html
Very rapid and exciting developments taking place in artificial photosynthesis. Among the many reasons I am optimistic about our energy future.
And more good news:
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-hydrogen-oxygen-nanoparticles.html#nRlv
Here.
Unfortunately, R. Gates, our future is NOT in fission or in fusion unless we first correct misinformation that is being taught in modern textbooks about mass (m) that is stored as energy (E) in the nucleus.
Every textbook graph of Weizsacker’s “nuclear binding energy” must be replaced with Figure 1a, 1b or 1c of Chapter 2 of my autobiography (see above link) so future engineers and technicians can design and operate reactors to safely harvest the energy (E) that is stored as mass (m) in the nucleus.
R. Gates, “our future is not in fission, but using the fusion from the sun and storing it locally in chemical bonds”.
Photo-synthesis already does that.
CO2 is the fuel consumed in making the chemical bonds in starches, sugars, proteins, etc.
And CO2 is the combustion product released when you and I use those foods to sustain our lives.
Why concentrate on “storing it locally”? While the technology for storing and transporting hydrogen is very immature (expensive and unsafe), we have every reason to suppose it could be made cheap and safe with enough attention/support.
Meanwhile, bio-technology to convert it to methane or liquid fuels will probably be fairly easy to develop, and from there it can be fed into storage, transport, and distribution systems with already mature technology.
This will (dramatically, IMO) contribute to reducing the cost of solar energy, as parts of the planet remote from the ultimate consumers can be used for the sunlight collecting technology.
Hello Hindenburg. First, it is necessary to solve the very tiny problem of H2.
+1 billion.
omanuel at http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/14/open-thread-5/#comment-436975
“Photo-synthesis already does that.”
The EPA has thought of that, and has moved to block any move other than submission:
AP. “EPA Proposes Restrictions for New Wood Stoves.” Text.Article. FOXNews.com, January 7, 2014. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/01/07/epa-proposes-new-restrictions-for-new-wood-stoves/
$$$$$ “The federal Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new standards for wood stoves that would reduce the maximum amount of fine particulate emissions allowed for new stoves sold in 2015 and 2019.”
Most of the problems with using hydrogen have been addressed in the Space Program, and military equivalents. Hydrogen in bulk (liquid or high-pressure gas) remains dangerous and expensive to use, but there’s a lot of enthusiasm for solving this technological problem. I’m skeptical, but wouldn’t rule it out for the mid-term, perhaps 3-7 decades. Maybe sooner.
The technology for producing hydrogen from electrolysis may not be mature, but as long as the pressure is kept low (partial vacuum), and the amounts are small, any danger can probably be eliminated fairly soon, at a reasonable price.
One reason I favor using bio-tech to convert hydrogen (and CO2 originally from the atmosphere) directly to methane, liquid hydrocarbons, or carbohydrates (for food and fabrics, including graphite precursors), is that the biological systems involved are already adapted to using very low partial pressures of hydrogen. Using CO2 to oxidize H2 is a energetically favorable, so can run downhill with low starting concentrations of both precursors. (But not so favorable that it reduces the efficiency of the reaction to an unacceptable extent.)
Bio-reactors can also be designed to be miniaturized, and mass-produced to generate the volume required. Mass production can usually reduce the cost per quantity processed, helping to reduce the overall cost. This also means the small installations can be distributed in areas where large installations are impractical. OTOH, large generating installations can be produced simply by using a lot of mass-produced units.
It’s important to realize that we have yet to see the full impact of the IT revolution(s) of the last few decades, especially in terms of controlling very large assemblies of mass-produced processing units at low cost. Hardware costs are continuing to drop exponentially, and the cost of developing software is not proportional to the number of units that will run it. (The same is true of genetic engineering for methanogens or other hydrogen-using Archea.)
Very large assemblies of small, mass-produced solar power collectors (producing hydrogen) feeding small, mass-produced bio-reactors producing methane, liquid fuel hydrocarbons, and carbohydrates have enormous potential for the future.
There are probably enough potential energy producing processes that one or several will gain dominance in the future; the more is the pity that we’ve wasted so much money and effort on the dinosaurs, wind and solar.
============
Yes, Kim, “we’ve wasted money and effort on the dinosaurs, wind and solar” and hidden the source of energy that Aston discovered in the cores of atoms.
In the last paragraph of Aston’s Nobel Prize Lecture on 12 December 1922, Aston reported “the human race will have at its command powers beyond the dreams of scientific fiction !”
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1922/aston-lecture.pdf
Mankind foolishly used those powers to kill, or threaten to kill, the citizens or leaders of other nations in 1945-1968.
Mankind is now at a crossroads, “WE WILL WORK TOGETHER or WE WILL DIE SEPARATELY.”
Queue up the propaganda machine …
Democrats Plan to Pressure TV Networks Into Covering Climate Change
Sens. Sanders and Schatz are gathering colleagues’ signatures on a letter asserting that the shows are ignoring global warming.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/democrats-plan-to-pressure-tv-networks-into-covering-climate-change-20140114
From the article:
Senate Democrats pledging to get more aggressive on climate change will soon pressure the major TV networks to give the topic far greater attention on the Sunday talking-head shows.
Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, are gathering colleagues’ signatures on a letter to the networks asserting that they’re ignoring global warming.
“It is beyond my comprehension that you have ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, that their Sunday shows have discussed climate change in 2012, collectively, for all of eight minutes,” Sanders said, citing analysis by the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America.
Sanders mentioned the letter during a press conference with most other members of Senate Democrats’ new, 19-member Climate Action Task Force, and he elaborated on it in a brief interview afterward.
jim 2
Luks like ve need sse Propagandaminister, Herr Doktor Josef Goebbels, to edukate sse people (ve heff vays to make you unnerschtand).
.
Be careful what you ask for. Seems to me the reason climate coverage has been so small is a general reluctance of the news media to report that the wheels are falling off the climate wagon. If the media increased their coverage Sens. Sander and Schatz might not like what they say.
Congress can write and sign all the letters they want. It’s when they write bills that I take notice. Personally I think we should encourage graft and corruption. It keeps them busy with relatively undestructive things.
“Personally I think we should encourage graft and corruption. It keeps them busy with relatively undestructive things.”
!= sense
Non sequitur.
Academia and media are largely dominated as leftist operative cultures, organizations and then there are all the associated activists filtering in between.
It’s all looking rather raw because the clock is ticking to outright lame duckery that begins after the blow-out 2014 midterms. These are last ditch efforts to build some totalitarian infrastructure from existing tools like the EPA and IRS. The secondary goal is to incubate whatever is possible for minority status, pleasing the green extremists is a tactical long-term political decision. AGW is down to core academic and media infrastructure already, they are dead on mainstreet and even many liberals want to invest in other dogma like “income inequality” etc. AGW is a tired losing meme and with the EU retreating this issue will truly be in the backwater come next spring.
It is sicking to see how far the democracy, checks and balances have sunk. The group think cabal of AGW really highlights it but it certainly doesn’t begin or end on the topic. Expect Obamacare to be sanitized right through election night. The one thing that is really getting difficult for this government is the general economy beyond the inflated large cap earnings floated by the Fed. The economy is in dire straights at the street level, eventually the money will sense the transition of failed power and want to exit and see what the next order will be. Then the stock market is poised for a serious decline and that will be another death blow to this government. Massive credit imbalances and devalued money are the core economic principles that dragged the economy forward, private confidence is lower now than before the 08′ crisis began. Nothing here is sustainable, it’s a scorched earth policy and they are down to the last few cows to kill in the barn. So AGW isn’t going to be the decisive issue but it is indicative and metaphorical. They have no new ideas and have hunkered down in the bunker with true beliefs and the kool-aid. They will look back in awe and wonder why “Climate Change” was set as priority and distractions for years to come when they do the postmortem of the Obama political death spiral. Really, it was a gift to the GOP as nothing overwhelming could really be achieved with the ideology and the public. Totally obtuse.
So the media, in its own pathetic way, realizes all of this more than the academic operative wing of the AGW advocates. The whining reflects the different view of the current circumstances and the splits that happen from failed leadership. AGW was never a centrist idea and Obama made his decisions to head right into the rocks. All the media propaganda in the world isn’t going to change the direction. It looks even more ridiculous in fact.
cwon14
Your comment about the clock ticking immediately set me thinking about the Doomsday Clock which relates how close we are to a nuclear holocaust. I then thought it would be interesting if there was a catastrophic climate change count down clock .
Guess what…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_Clock
tonyb
They bet on the grey mare.
They bet on the bay.
Had they bet on Ol’ Stewball,
We’d be free men today.
================
Tonyb,
There is the farcical Al Gore countdown clock from Rush Limbaugh;
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2006/01/27/algore_we_have_ten_years_left_before_earth_cooks
The clock you reference is a partisan farce. Mocking Reagan for saying he would win the Cold War and increasing nuclear risks……which in fact he did!
It worked in the UK, and is still working. Deaths from cold on the UK notwithstanding.
Futerra. “Rules Of The Game.” Marketing. Futerra, October 14, 2005. http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/RulesOfTheGame.pdf
“Why were the principles created?
“The game is communicating climate change; the rules will help us win it.
“These principles were created as part of the UK Climate Change Communications Strategy, an evidence-based strategy aiming to change public attitudes towards climate change in the UK. This is a ‘short version’ of a far longer document of evidence that can be found at http://www.defra.gov.uk.
“There is plenty of evidence relating to attitudes towards and behaviour on climate change, general environmental behaviour change and the whole issue of sustainable development communication. As we reviewed the research for these principles, one ‘überprinciple’ emerged:
“Changing attitudes towards climate change is not like selling a particular brand of soap – it’s like convincing someone to use soap in the first place.”
It also worked in the 1930s: Völkischer Beobachter (The People’s Observer)
Mark Steyn Spectator article on ship of fools worth a look.
On a lighter note is the bottom of the ocean always 4 degrees as this is where the densest water is and why doesn’t the ocean freeze when only the surface area is getting that minuscule amount of heat. How can radiated heat from the sun heat the vast amount of water in the oceans especially at depths it does not get to.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT wrong.
Ocean temperature below the mixed layer is given at 3C. The average basin temperature is 4C.
The addition of salt to water alters both the freezing point and the temperature/density relationship. Seawater freezes at -2C and it also reaches its greatest density at the freezing point.
FAIL
Angech,
I don’t think David Springer gets it.
Maybe he doesn’t realise that there are vast fresh water lakes under the Antarctic ice cap, where temps get down to -90 odd on the surface. Same reason.
Oh well.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn
Dear Mike Flynn. The needs of the many must outweigh the needs of the few.
Oh by the way what the freezing temperature of ocean water and abyssal temperature of ocean water have to do with lakes and rivers underneath Antarctic ice?
I just wrote a nice comment recently about Lake Vostok being 5000 square miles, average depth over a thousand feet, and is the largest of 400 known Antartic lakes. There are rivers too. Ice is a pretty good insulator and pressure lowers the freezing point of fresh water a bit. Ice flows slowly too so there’s a lot of frictional heat.
You just let me know when the subject changes from ocean to water under the Antarctic ice sheet and I’ll talk about that. But it was about the ocean. Even though Agnech specifically said the ocean in his comment Steyn’s article “Ship of Fools” is about a ship that managed to get trapped in sea ice. It was still out at sea. It wasn’t sailing beneath the ice on the continent.
You boys need an article on how sea ice forms? It initially forms at -2c and the salt is excluded so it’s fresh water ice a couple degrees below the melting point. Underneath as the salt is excluded and salinity rises the freezing point is lowered and being heavier than bottom water due to temperature and salinity it sinks. Thus is born the return leg of the oceanic conveyor belt running cold along the bottom back to the tropics.
Always eager to learn I didn’t know offhand how deep the ice was over Lake Vostok or Vostok’s temperature.
http://www.lakelubbers.com/lake-vostok-978/
It’s under about 10,000 feet of ice which is a pressure of about 300 bar (atmospheres). That lowers the freezing point of fresh water down to about 30F. It’s “calculated” temperature is -3C, same as the abyssal ocean. It’s probably salty or calculated temperature is wrong by a degree or two or a combination of both.
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/60170/freezing-point-of-water-with-respect-to-pressure
Lake Vostok is heated with geothermal heat above the freezing point which isn’t altered very much due to pressure. Ice is a good insulator and five miles of it is a really good insulator.
Still I must ask and answer questions!
Just for kicks let’s see how the geothermal gradient performs in ice vs. regular continental crust.
If you start digging the temperature of the earth rises 1 degree F for every 70 feet. That’s called the geothermal gradient.
So 10,000 feet down in the crust the temperature is about 150F above the surface. The average annual temperature at Vostok Station is -120F. Therefore if ice has the same geothermal gradient as crust then the temperature at the bottom of the ice column over Vostok Lake should be 30F.
We can double check that assumption by looking at engineering data
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html
where we find thermal conductivity of ice and granite with overlapping ranges (depending on type of granite).
All sanity checks passed!
Is the children learning?
DS, by lack of response, no.
Sorry. Time zone differences.
Dave Stringer – thanks for the response. It wasn’t all that hard to attempt imparting knowledge, rather than just patronising buzzwords, was it?
I agree with your comments about the geothermal gradient. As you point out, deep sea temperatures never get below the freezing point of the water at that depth, and unfrozen water can exist beneath 3000 meters or so of ice.
No wondrous CO2 greenhouse effect needed.
As to your comment about the conveyor belt transporting cold water from the Poles to the Tropics, may I suggest that this mechanism has significant flaws in explaining the similar temperature profile in bodies of water effectively isolated from cold Polar water – both fresh and saline. Time to invoke magic, I suppose.
in any case, may I thank you for pointing out that the surface of the Earth occupies a point between the white heat of the core, and the approximately 4K of outer space. Once again, no wondrous greenhouse effect necessary.
You might care to explain why the water at a depth of 1.5 km in Lake Baikal is around 4C, and the rock at the same depth is around 50C. The 4C temperature is reached at about 300 m, and remains more or less constant. It’s easily explained.
You are on the right track. Obviously, behaviour of fresh water is somewhat different to that of saline water, but you will find that once again, basic physics without the influence of CO2 is all that is needed.
It’s fairly obvious that many people do not realise that the crustal depth is variable, probably ranging between 3 km and 70 km (according to the USGS). The impact of this is that the slope of the geothermal gradient is of course quite variable, assuming the underlying mantle temperature remains relatively constant at the measuring point.
This needs to be taken into account when assassin the surface temperature impacts of isostatic rebound effects. Up or down? How fast? And so on.
Once again, thank you for attempting to explain why deep water does not freeze, and why unfrozen water may be found beneath 3000 meters of ice cap.
If you had tried just a little harder, and provided just a little bit more explanation, I would have congratulated you. As it is . . .
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
David Springer,
Apologies for the typos. Assassin for assessing is one such. Blast the automatic correction!
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
David thanks for your input. A couple of follow ups. Sea water has varying density hence a 2 degrees freezing point is relative to the actual salinity of the sea water. It doesn’t freeze at its densest as you did indicate the sea water left after some freezes is even more dense and sinks not freezes.
Your physics might be wrong in regard to the when salt water at any aprticular concentration of salt is most dense, as normal water is most dense at 4 degrees C and less at freezing point sea water might be most dense at say 2 degrees C and be less dense when it freezes at -2 degrees
C . Finally, at the bottom of the Mariembad trench why isn’t the water boiling if it goes up a degree F Every 70 feet down?
I was taught in Physical Oceanography that sea water gets warmed by the sun, some of it evaporates, this makes the warm surface water saltier and denser. Because the ocean has spots where water evaporates in large quantities and the water vapor doesn´t come down as rain right there (say the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean), the water gets very salty and sinks. As it sinks it gets colder, which means it´s even denser (now it´s denser because its salty and cold). Eventually it forms a current, and the current sinks quite nicely. This salty water is colder than surface water, but it´s not as cold as the water below, so it delivers heat down into the deep ocean. It just takes a bunch of time and the heat transfer effect is subtle. There are other ways to make cold salty water (for example when the ocean freezes the ice is fresh and the water underneath tends to get saltier). I hope this helps. I haven´t studied oceanography in many years, but the process must be the same.
While we write back and forth, CO2 keeps going up and up and up and green things keep growing better and better and better and temperature keeps in the same range that it has been well bounded in for ten thousand years and is not even looking like it is about to go up. Now that we have warmer, wetter oceans, it is snowing too much for temperature to increase very much. If the oceans get warmer than now, the oceans will get even wetter than now and it will snow even more than now. There is an upper bound on temperature and we are at or near that upper bound. Temperature is not going up. Albedo is not decreasing. Ice Volume on Earth is not decreasing. This warm period will top out just as the Roman and Medieval Warm Periods topped out. Read you history books. A cold period will follow this warm period. It always does.
I love wet oceans! Cant stand the dry ones, I cant float my boat.
R Gretsy,
Yes you can. We cater for your wants. Try the Henley on Todd Regatta at Alice Springs. Here’s some pictures:https://www.google.com.au/search?q=alice+springs+boat+race&rlz=1C1CHNU_enAU490AU490&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=f3LWUqeDKcnnkgWN3YH4Dw&ved=0CEEQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=739
Can’t float your boat in a dry ocean? Then it sinks instead? How does that happen?
I forgot David about ships of the desert i.e. camels
R Gresty,
All you need is some dehydrated water. You can get some at your closest Warm Store. They stock all sorts of impossible things and theories.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
R Gresty
I guess technically boats rest on land not float. But maybe if it’s on a trailer then it floats (moves lightly, as if suspended) on the highway! :-)
“Now that we have warmer, wetter oceans, …”
I didn’t know oceans could get any more wet than they already are. Any way you could help me understand this idea HAP?
John Carpenter,
When the water is warm it is wet.
When the water is cold and frozen, it is dry.
You get no Lake Effect Snow from a Lake that is cold and frozen over.
You get no Ocean Effect Snow from Polar Waters that are cold and covered with ice.
You get a lot of Ocean Effect Snow from Polar Waters that are warm and wet.
Consider Lake Erie.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=82836&src=eoa-iotd
http://io9.com/any-opinion-has-its-proponents-but-opinions-arent-fact-1499803821
Like your opinion that the pauze does not exist?
Nature (magazine) now even disagrees with you (although they call it a “stall” LOL), as does Trenberth…
The pause supports the idea that we need to consider the fundamental thermodynamics in addition to surface temperature readings.
Core foundations for more sensible discussion of climate:
• Concise overview of heat engines = p.433 [pdf p.10] here:
Sidorenkov, N.S. (2005). Physics of the Earth’s rotation instabilities. Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions 24(5), 425-439.
• Elaboration on heat engines = section 8.7 (begins on p.175 [pdf p.189]) here:
Sidorenkov, N.S. (2009). The Interaction Between Earth’s Rotation and Geophysical Processes. Wiley.
• http://imageshack.us/a/img850/876/f0z.gif (credit: JRA-25 Atlas)
With all the climate talk, has anyone else noticed that weather events kill people, not climate? Floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes . . .
Keep it up long enough, and some genius is likely to tell you the climate has changed!
Talk about putting he cart before the horse. First control the weather, and you can have any climate you want in 30 years.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
This is upside down thinking Mike. Weather is what we experience everyday, but real forcings on the climate system are what dictate the course of the climate. To move that system on way or another, you apply a forcing.. Climate then becomes the sum if all forcings.
Mike Flynn | January 15, 2014 at 7:51 am | Reply
“With all the climate talk, has anyone else noticed that weather events kill people, not climate? Floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes . . . ”
Climate kills people too. It’s cold in Canada in the winter. Cold in Canada in winter is climate not weather. It’s a characteristic of the ‘temperate’ climate type. Therefore people who die of exposure to cold in Canada in the winter are killed by climate.
Individual hurricanes are weather but we can predict that few if any people in Canada will be killed by a hurricane because they form in tropical climates and lose energy going inland. It’s kind of iffy whether that’s climate or weather. Same for tornadoes. Few if any people are killed by tornadoes in Canada. Wrong climate type for tornadoes. In a sense this makes tornadoes and hurricanes both have some super predictable characteristics largely due to the predictability of climate.
R. Gates
Like everyone Mike Flynn is a work in progress. Some of us need more work than others is all.
Maybe it’s different in the east, but in the Dakotas hypothermia usually happens when there is severe weather: blizzard or extreme cold with high winds. So it’s the climate, but there is usually a weather component (often an alcohol component too).
How many people die in blizzards in tropical climates?
Blizzards are characteristic of certain climate types and alcohol is probably a huge contributing factor for number of people who die of exposure in certain countries Canada being one of them.
“Like everyone Mike Flynn is a work in progress. Some of us need more work than others is all.”
___
Very magnanimous of you and I would not disagree.
It seems as though climate is the average of weather.
I can’t quite find weather events being defined in terms of climate. I’m sure one of you will point me to a definition of weather which is derived from climate if any such definitions exist.
In the meantime, am I right in my belief that climate is defined as the average of weather over an arbitrary period of time? If so, you cannot have climate before you average weather events. Climate kills no one. Cold, heat, floods, and so on, do.
I understand that Warmists claim that they can average events which have not occurred yet, and can probably concoct some silly and irrelevant analogies to avoid the simple fact that climate is the average of weather events that have already happened.
Their collective ability to see into the future is no better than mine.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
ARE AMERICANS LOSING OR GAINING FREEDOMS?
Many if not most climate contrarian regulars at Climate Etc. fear loss of personal freedoms if governments take measures to curb the rise in man-made global warming. I believe fear of loss of freedom along with the fear of cost of these measures is at the root of their skepticism about or denial of the potential harm from continued global warming. If one starts with the premise government’s actions (laws and regulations) usually destroy freedoms without producing any positive results, then opposing growth of government makes sense. Whether this premise is sound, however, is debatable.
As government has grown and laws and regulations have changed have we experienced a net loss of freedoms? I don’’t believe we have in the adult lifetimes of those who post here at Climate Etc. I will compare the freedoms Americans have lost with those they have gained since 1950.
FREEDOMS LOST
Freedom to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age, and sexual orientation.
Freedom to use asbestos, lead paint, hazardous chemicals such as chlordane.
Freedom to litter and pollute.
Freedom to smoke in the workplace and public places.
Freedom to drive without using seat belts.
Freedom to drive while using a hand-held cell phone and while texting.
Freedom to hunt, kill, or posses endangered species.
Freedom to buy incandescent light bulbs.
Freedom to not have health insurance and avoid paying for medical expenses you can’t afford.
FREEDOMS GAINED
Freedom from discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age and sexual orientation
Reproductive freedom (right to use prophylactics and abortion)
Freedom from breathing other people’s tobacco smoke
Freedom to keep firearms, including handguns, in your home for self defense
Freedom to stand your ground with lethal force when threatened ( 16 States)
Freedom to openly carry a firearm in public ( depending on the State)
Freedom to carry firearms in National Parks
Freedom of the press for the sexually explicit
Bedroom freedom for consenting adults
Same-sex marriage freedom ( some States)
Freedom to use medicinal marijuana (some States)
Recreational marijuana freedom (two States)
Freedom from involuntary commitment to a mental institution if you are crazy but harmless
NOTE: While I believe I have identified most of the freedoms Americans have lost and most of those they have gained since 1950, I am not sure my lists are complete. I welcome additions.
GAINED:
Freedom to shop on Sundays.
LOST:
Freedom to arrive at the airport a few minutes before departure time and jump on your flight.
Freedom to hit the quarterback after the whistle, of even before the whistle.
Freedom to have the day off on Sunday.
MOCS-
. “I believe fear of loss of freedom along with the fear of cost of these measures is at the root of their skepticism about or denial of the potential harm from continued global warming”
Exclude me from that stereotype. When the AGW argument is shown to be true based on real data using the scientific method, I will gladly support appropriate measures, with a loss of freedom if necessary. Just using the lame excuse that they could not come up with anything else, ala, the IPCC, just doesnt cut it.
Thanks, JCH, I forgot about those.
Airline passengers may get the freedom to use cell phones in flight. However, many passengers see this as a loss of freedom from being annoyed, and I would be one of those.
MaxOk
Max for President!
I agree with you about mobiles on planes. However I would also like to ban mobiles in restaurants etc and also when people answer them in the street and bellow into them. Mind you I accept that would be a tad unreasonable.
However, when you are president perhaps you can pass the ‘no wittering ‘ law whereby only meaningful discussions are allowed on mobile phones. Should cut down calls by around 97% (peer reviewed figure)
tonyb
JCH
In Britain , provided you have printed off your ticket and only have cabin baggage you can generally arrive half an hour before the gates shut. That’s at regional airports, I wouldn’t like to try that at Heathrow where the security queues will be much longer
tonyb
Re comments by climatereason January 15, 2014 at 10:07 am
Tony, thank you. I fully agree with you about cell phones.
I wonder whether cell phone usage has resulted in a net increase or a net decrease in productivity.
I don’t want to open a big can of worms, but all of your gun-related “freedom gained” items were actually freedoms that had always existed but which were either removed and returned (in some places) or threatened with removal (in all places).
“Freedom from..” is a formulation of some controversy. For extreme example:
You didn’t lose the freedom to choose your own doctor, you gained the freedom from having to choose a doctor.
There were also freedoms lost. Detroit, for example, and to a lesser extent the U.S. president lost:
the freedom to spend unlimited amounts of other people’s money
jeffn said: I don’t want to open a big can of worms, but all of your gun-related “freedom gained” items were actually freedoms that had always existed …
jeffn, you may have a point, but I was referring to freedoms gained or lost since 1950, a year I chose because I believe most readers became adults after that year.
BTW, if you go back in time far enough, people had the freedom to use marijuana, and even cocaine and opium.
jeffn, I agree with you that “Freedom from..” is a formulation of some controversy.
Some of my neighbors want the freedom to use their fireplaces, but I want the freedom from breathing the fumes from their fireplaces.
When I lived in an apartment, a neighbor wanted the freedom to play music loud, but I wanted the freedom from hearing the music.
I hope that by exercising my freedoms I am not taking away the freedoms of others.
Max, re “Freedom”. I note that your sources and sinks of “Freedom” are “Government”.
For myself, what I want “conserved” in America is the Liberty of its citizens. It is a founding principle that also conserves life and and the pursuit of happiness.
Liberty is the endowed right of the individual citizen to decide what is best for himself or herself, and to act upon it under Constitutional law. Liberty is neither libertinism nor licentiousness. Therefore, the survival of Liberty requires self-discipline and respect for the Liberty of others. Over-reaching regulation, executive orders and open-ended legislation leads to Authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is a form of Tyranny.
LOST:
Oops. Don’t know how that happened:
Anyway: LOST-
Riffing on JCH’s… Freedom to play professional hockey w/o a helmet, or to be a catcher in professional baseball w/o a mask, or to play professional football w/o a helmet.
As Beth and Jim2 often point out, this is all part and parcel of our march to serfdom*
But the worst of all is that whole incandescent light bulb thing.
I WANT MY LIGHT BULBS BACK!!!!11!!!!1!!!!!
* as long as freedom from discrimination, protection against exploitation, etc., = serfdom.
LIGHT BULB FREEDOM !
I’m sorry, but light bulb freedom is not high on my list of things to be concerned about. It annoys me when a bulb burns out, but otherwise I don’t spend much time thinking about light bulbs.
” I don’t spend much time thinking about light bulbs”
Heh, you must not have any good ideas lately eh?
Just couldn’t resist that set up.
MaxOK,
I appear to have the freedom to do anything I like, with the resources to hand. I am free kill someone I dislike, should I choose.
There may be consequences, but I am still free to do as I choose. The prisons are full of people who exercised their freedoms. Freedom seems to a fairly flexible term, usually used to remove someone else’s.
I seem to be free to live a contented life. I don’t ask for more than that. It is interesting to note competing freedoms fighting for dominance.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Losses for Americans since 1950, an incomplete and randomly ordered list:
The freedom to take drugs known to be safe that you and your doctor think would be good for you unless the FDA believes that they are effective. Extended effect is a much smaller set of useful medicines than would otherwise be available.
The freedom to build and buy new housing in desirable areas.
The freedom to hire employees based on their IQ.
The freedom to fire employees risk-free without having to articulate one of a narrow set of acceptable and verifiable causes.
The freedom to put your kid anywhere you want in your car.
The freedom to work for less than the minimum wage.
The freedom for kids to learn chemistry with real chemistry sets.
The freedom to move your money wherever you want without reporting it to the government as long as you pay your taxes.
Freedom from forfeiture of your assets to the police absent a criminal conviction.
The freedom to operate new toilets, showers, and washing machines that use adequate amounts of water to provide desired cleanliness.
Depending on location, the freedom to renovate your property without second-guessing by architectural or historical-preservation review boards.
The freedom to drain swamps and puddles on one’s property.
The freedom to kill predators threatening one’s herds or livestock.
The freedom to buy a health insurance policy that you prefer from a company that can profitably offer it to you rather than one that the government approves.
The freedom to build anything of consequence without pro forma but expensive and dilatory environmental impact assessments.
The freedom to operate a business of any size without spending countless hours filling out forms and getting approvals that have almost no tangible effect on anything real but can be used to ensnare one in technicalities and criminal prosecution if someone powerful decides to target you.
The freedom to use, without legal risk, objectively neutral and sensible business practices that have a disparate impact on specified demographic groups.
The freedom for children to play unsupervised without their parents facing legal jeopardy.
The freedom to decide whether to allow or not allow tobacco smoking in one’s private business.
The freedom to sell classic children’s books or toys that may contain trace amounts of lead.
The freedom of professors and students to court and marry one another.
The freedom to publicly criticize the President without significant risk of investigation by the IRS and other regulatory bureaucracies.
The freedom to donate as much money as you want to the candidate of your choice and to do so anonymously. (The anti-Eugene McCarthy law.)
In many jurisdictions, the freedom to participate in state and local politics without complex and legally hazardous reporting requirements.
The freedom to drink legally before one is 21.
The freedom to travel without being stopped and questioned at police or INS checkpoints on a random basis.
The freedom from having your door busted in by a SWAT team under a “no-knock” warrant issued based on flimsy probable cause.
The freedom to put thoughts in writing without having to worry about expansive discovery rules in civil litigation.
The freedom to contractually waive your rights to sue someone.
That’s a funny list, steve. Let me pick out my favorite:
Yeah. Nothing hilariously one-sided about that view of the “extended effect.”
‘Cause the only thing missing as a result of FDA regulation are “useful” medicines.
Re comments by Pooh, Dixie on January 15, 2014 at 1:15 pm
Pooh, Dixie, I’m sorry I can’t empathize with you. The government is not depriving me of freedoms, at least not any freedoms I want, nor do I fear it will. To the contrary, the government tries to prevent the selfish, irresponsible, and criminal elements of our society from depriving me of freedoms. Thank God for government !
I believe any lack of freedom I have is self-imposed. Irrational fear as well as rational fear can tie one’s hands.
I must guard against me, not the government.
America’s Dwindling Economic Freedom
Regulation, taxes and debt knock the U.S. out of the world’s top 10.
http://judithcurry.com/2014/01/13/forthcoming-senate-epw-hearing-on-presidents-climate-action-plan/#comment-436761
jim2, I believe most if not all of those countries the Heritage Foundation has ahead of the U.S. in economic freedom have universal health care, frequently referred to as “socialized medicine” by conservatives. That’s ironic.
The country fast becoming the world’s #1 economy, China, ranks #137th in economic freedom. I guess the message here is economic freedom, as measured by the Heritage Foundation, is not a good predictor of economic power.
Some of the freedoms stevepostrel fears losing ( his post of January 15, 2014 at 8:51 pm) make me wonder if he has had problems with police and other law enforcement officers:
“The freedom from having your door busted in by a SWAT team under a “no-knock” warrant issued based on flimsy probable cause.”
“Freedom from forfeiture of your assets to the police absent a criminal conviction.”
“The freedom to travel without being stopped and questioned at police or INS checkpoints on a random basis.”
I refer to
http://www.thegwpf.org/maurice-newman-mother-nature-suggests-partys-ipcc/
Maybe someone from Australia can answer a question for me. What is Maurice Newman’s status vis-à-vis your Minister of Finance and the head of your Central Bank?
The climate fascists will be out in force at the Senate hearing tomorrow, the last death spiral attempts of this failed administration to impose the cultural revolution of AGW through dictatorial initiatives. None of it would have a prayer of passing an actual voting process. After the impending mid-term election disaster for Obamaism it will all be looked backed upon as agenda seeding and undermining the democracy that failed.
Here’s another example of what it translates to locally, the full stupid in Massachusetts;
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/01/14/mit-professor-urging-climate-change-activists-to-slow-down/
50 million in crony spending nonsense in the name of “fighting climate change”. Weather is again “climate”. Dr. Lindzen does what he can with the media, Keller is a grade C tool as a contrast to the usual grade A Massachusetts left-wing fanatic propaganda standards.
Here’s a fun topic. It has now been “scientifically proven” views on genocide predict views on global warming.
You can check out the original post or go to the WUWT reposting where there’ll be more discussion.
Seems the conspiracy inclination of many of the posters at WUWT have caused them to believe what you wrote even after you say it was all just a wierd joke. Some irony in how you create more evidence to what Lewandosky has shown.
Huh? What would believing it have to do with conspiracies? Thinking some portion of the global warming movement supports genocide doesn’t mean one thinks there’s a conspiracy to commit genocide.
As for believing it, so what? The accusation global warming proponents support genocide has been made for years. The fact some people believe the accusation has nothing to do with my results. They aren’t saying my results prove something. They’re saying my results happen to be right. That’s fine.
Yes, your accusation about genocide has been made for years. The accusation is part of the belief in a vast conspiracy to take over the world. Bizarre stuff. The commenters at WUWT ate it up.
So… you’re insane?
That’s the only reason I can think of you’d think believing people support genocide means you think there’s a conspiracy. There is no connection between the two.
Compare natural variations with global warming.
e.g. see Richard Lindzen MIT Professor Urging Climate Change Activists To ‘Slow Down’
In fact, Dr. Lindzen was his too benevolent self in the face of stupidity but he was saying much more then telling activists to “slow down”. The distortion of in the headline implies sympathy for basic alarmist science concepts that he was mocking. So “slow down” = CAGW supporters are imbeciles but the good professor isn’t going come right out and say it. The header is completely deceptive but at least was permitted a short comment. That’s about all that is allowed in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts.
If he were more direct he wouldn’t be allowed on Massachusetts media at all and I’m pretty sure he knows it as well. Keller is a hack who has some of the Dr. Curry and David Brooks media persona as conservative dissent on climate change. At least liberals like to pretend as much, it’s part of the farce.
cwon14 Do you have anything constructive to say?
Re: “Hack” no need to waste time abusing others.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), many in the professional climate study community pretty much ignore Lindzen as he forever tarnished himself by his association with Heartland. Not judging whether it should be this way or not, but it is the reality of the situation.
DH,
They gave Dr. Lindzen less than three minutes and then misrepresented his statements in the header. He never stated that activists should “slow down” which is pulled out of a hat and is flattering to “activists” and the general warming meme.
I can think of a dozen more suitable titles; “Questions warming activists”, “Rejects Global Warming Claims” etc. etc.
Pointing out the manipulation is constructive.
R. Gates, Skeptical Warmist
Since Dr. Lindzen is beyond question in actual credentials the only solution is invent contrived meme’s like “funded by big oil” which in itself is irrational conspiracy theory. Dr. Lindzen is hated by “consensus” because he doesn’t cow to the political thuggery involved in climate change hype. “Heartland” is just a coded lexicon among left-wing climate activists.
A shameful process you should denounce.
R. Gates
Prof. Richard Lindzen has a sterling reputation, untarnished by your ad hominem attacks on guilt by association. The Heartland Institute has further strongly advanced the cause of science by providing a “red team” publication “Climate Change Reconsidered II” showing the science ignored by the IPCC. His unflappable insight and perspective are critically needed in this era of unwarranted catastrophic predictions and pressurizing politicians to increase funding and rule by adding “green” taxes.
Science advances by aggressively testing hypotheses against data, not by politically correct rhetoric.
If Lindzen was as smart as perceived by some of you he would have stayed clear of Heartland. His message would have had the chance for actually being received by a wider audience. It was critical error on his part.
“The Heartland Institute has further strongly advanced the cause of science…”
—-
Don’t make me laugh. Their proven paid advocacy is anything but to advance the cause of science. They will be forever a joke to real science, and the best that those who have paid Heartland can do now is funnel their money to other shill organizations.
R. Gates
You again commit the ad hominem fallacy of guilt association re Lindzen. Then you commit a similar ad hominem fallacy of guilt by funding against Heartland. The corresponding accusation can be made against the Sierra Club being biased on global warming because it accepted $ 26 million from the natural gas industries.
Try addressing the science. e.g. address the papers cited and summary in Climate Change Reconsidered II
“Solar intensity vs. earth temperature. A great correlation. Adapted from Hoyt, D. V., and K.H. Schatten, 1997, The Role of the Sun in Climate Change: Oxford University Press, New York, 279 p.” ~Dr. Lee C. Gerhard
http://www.warwickhughes.com/geol/LG51.JPG
Good one!
2 fundamentally-key dimensions are missing from that widely-misinterpreted summary:
☼ Trivial Extension of Milankovitch ☼
Western climatologists must totally ignore solar activity, the key independent variable in all climate change. The Left ignores myriad other factors too: ENSO and other natural cycles, water vapor and clouds, air pressure, winds, cosmic ray intensity. Helping us understand what amounts to purposeful ignorance in the face of easily observable phenomena Dr. Tim Ball observed, as follows:
The analogy that I use is that my car is not running that well, so I’m going to ignore the engine (which is the sun) and I’m going to ignore the transmission (which is the water vapor) and I’m going to look at one nut on the right rear wheel (which is the human-produced CO2) … the science is that bad!
All – I would love for you to indulge me in a discussion of GISP 2 ice core data.
I have fundamental questions about this data and how suitable it is as a proxy for global temperatures.
A plot of GISP 2 data can be found here: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/gisp2-ice-core-temperatures.jpg
The data ends at the year 1855. This appears to be missed by some, and often the little ramp at the end has been called “Global Warming” or “Mann’s Hockey Stick” which is patently disingenuous.
Some people tack on little bits of data to the end of this plot to suggest that current levels of warming are not remarkable. However, this appears to be mixing “apples and oranges.” Splicing ‘global temperature’ data to Greenland data seems fraught with pitfalls, and something that would be easily abused by political proponents on either side of the CAGW debate.
So my questions are three:
How good a proxy for Global Temperatures is the GISP 2 data?
How accurate is the GISP 2 data? I.E. Are all the swings of 2-3 degrees C over the last 11,000 years real, or are they instrument error? What do the error bars look like? CAGW skeptics often say “Look at the GISP 2 data during the entire Holocene! It shows that temperature swings of the past have occurred without significant changes in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and that today’s temperatures are unremarkable!” This is a powerful argument against the CAGW meme… If it’s REAL.
I have seen ultra smoothed temperature depictions of the Holocene with rapidly rising hockey sticks (either real or modeled) at the far right side of the plot. How are these depictions of the Holocene temperature record resolved relative to the GISP 2 data which shows variations that are 5-10 times as much?
See this plot for an example: http://www.realclimate.org/images//Marcott.png
The two plots I have linked are dramatically different. Which is an accurate representation of the Holocene? (ok, that’s 4 questions).
Thanks for your indulgence. -walt
Walt – You can look at the data yourself, and learn much about the process of extracting temperature information, from these excellent sources:
Greenland Ice Core Data
The Two-Mile Time Machine
Pat – thank you kindly for the links.
GISP2 is not a proxy for global temperature.
Global temperature has a far lower variation in temperature and doesn’t show such pronounced peaks and troughs.
The reason being that GISP2 is a proxy for central greenland temperature. Many regions in the world not only exhibit different timings of peak and troughs than central greenland, but central greenland has some of the largest temperature variations on the planet.
That’s what I gather anyway.
Iolwot
There are very many places that have considerable temperature variation. See figure 2
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/16/historic-variations-in-temperature-number-four-the-hockey-stick/
Tonyb
There is something weirding going on in the press recently after the global warming induced circumpolar vortex dipping down almost to the 35th parallel, making another visit to the US MidWest and Eastern Seaboard. It seems that the usual chatter of how warm the world will be has now been focused upon how cold we in the Northern climes have been recently. Some people are saying right out loud that there are benefits of the weather being very cold:
The nut baring trees will go dormant during the “unprecedented” cold and for the spring, these trees will emerge from their slumber and be ready to have an improved nut crop and harvest next fall.
The invasive species beetles, from Asia or someplace like that, their larvae will perish in the bitter cold leaving few beetles to carry forth their invasion.
And my favorite by far, the Great Lakes appear to be icing over this winter which reduces evaporation, the major source of Great Lakes water loss, and the water levels will rise. Boats landlocked these so many years will be freed to egress the now navigable rivers, harbors and shoaled waters. Great Lakes commercial shipping will be able to carry so many more thousands of tons per passage of Mesabi Range teconite to the steel making cities to the south. And this summer, my yacht will strike less often the glacier smoothed hidden reefs lurking beneath the surface waters.
Even NOAA, that’s right, NOAA has a picture of Lake Erie covered in fast ice.
A few more wintery reality checks like we have had, and we may yet hear the voices in the hallowed halls cry “hold ‘nough!”
Bring on the little ice age jr.
People will suffer but we can stop move on to restoring freedoms from cap and trade.
Scott
NASA NOT NOAA
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=82836&src=eoa-iotd
Pictures worth a thousand words.
Why would you dream that NOAA, even NOAA, would not publish a cool picture of a frozen Lake Erie?
Or NASA, even NASA?
Many are agreed that combustion of fossil fuels is the primary anthropogenic contributor to global warming. While many believe that CO2 is the cause, I believe that the heat emissions are far more likely because the annual heat emissions are four times the amount that can be attributed to the actual annual atmospheric temperature rise. In any event we need to re-examine our premises before going farther with proposed solutions. With regard to CCS, carbon capture and storage, it should be recognized that 18,000,000,000,000 pounds of CO2 must be removed to lower the concentration by one part per million. What will be the cost? How much will that lower the temperature? As we try to discourage the use of fossil fuels do we focus on the carbon or the heat content of the fuels? It makes a difference if we advocate for replacing coal with natural gas for example. (If hydrogen were being burned we would still get the heat but no CO2). Nuclear power is similar in that it is CO2-free but it emits more than twice the total heat as its electrical output. So I believe that it is important to re-evaluate the relative impact of CO2 and heat emissions.
“Many are agreed that combustion of fossil fuels is the primary anthropogenic contributor to global warming. While many believe that CO2 is the cause, I believe that the heat emissions are far more likely…”
____
You, and others have suggested this before, and unfortunately (as also discussed before) the numbers just don’t add up. The amount of heat added to the atmosphere and oceans (yes, ships and submarines do in fact warm the ocean very slightly) is many orders of magnitude less than the TOA energy imbalance caused by forcing from the rapid increase in GH gases. The amount of heat added from the combustion process is not non-zero to be sure, but globally it is so small as to barely register when compared to the 1 x 10^22 joules per year or so that are being added to the global climate system from the change in GH gas concentration.
I don’t think you can ever find enough stupid people — certainly not the French — to ever believe this. But then, a quite a few certainly were bowled over by the claimed mystical properties of CO2. Maybe you could be more imaginative like–e.g., the average French nuclear power plant produces more heat — that is discharged into streams and oceans every year — than if you burned stacks of pallets 5 high and laid them end to end with a bonfire stretching from Heavens Gate, California to Thermopolis, Wyoming.
There is a very high probability that advocated climate mitigation policies will make a lot money for a lot of people, at the expense of those who pay taxes and at the expense of those who use energy.
JCH
I have been following the rise and fall of the Great Lakes for many decades. Over the last decade or so, there have been regular reports out of the US Coast Guard station in Cleveland Ohio and from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor attributing global warming as the culprit in the diminishing water levels of the Great Lakes. NASA has been an irregular participant in that theme.
Several years ago, when Lake Huron was frozen over, both from USCG and U of M reported just the opposite, that Lake Huron was open and that meant the summer shipping season was going to be a bust. There were chimes from various Ministries of Ontario, also with shores on the five Great Lakes, decrying the dredging and otherwise draining of this great resource and we will all perish from lack of fresh water.
The US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) are charged with keeping sea lanes open and require the latest data on water levels, the ACE keeps tract daily of water levels on the five Great Lakes. You can get that data by searching for: Great Lakes water levels and clicking on ACE Detroit district and checking current data.
The water levels of the five Great Lakes are largely determined by the amount of snowfall in Northern Ontario which drains into Lake Superior and Lake Huron (through the Georgian Bay) and the amount of evaporation from the surfaces of the five Great Lakes. Evaporation accounts of @ 95% of the Great Lakes water losses.
When the Great Lakes are ice covered in the winter, there is considerably less evaporation so that the time the ice covers the Lakes, means more water left for a water level rise.
When one reads on a regular basis the newsprint media, horror stories of boat marinas going out of business due to low water levels, and all sorts of projections about people’s water supplies, beach front weeds and property losses, etc, etc, etc. However, any good news, as this year’s cold and snowy weather reflects, rarely gets any ink, until I spotted a researcher I think from Michigan State University (not the down the street Univ of Michigan) talking about the benefits of the cold. So, I thought it worth mentioning in an open thread.
It is also worth noting that Erie and Ontario are little higher than average and Superior is down just a bit. Just like everything else, the water levels go in cycles and in a few years it will be back up again. In 1986, the Michigan Legislature appropriated $6 million to combat high water levels along the shoreline, as I recall, of Lake Michigan. The Corps increased dredging activities in the Detroit River, thereby accelerating drainage of Huron into Erie, may also be contributing. I put my money on being back to normal in a few years.
God forbid any newspapers suggesting it might be natural or manmade in a way other than Global Warming.
Heh, whistling past the icehouse, the graveyard of alarmist pretensions.
=========
Dr. Nicola Scafetta has an excellent new paper on “The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system.”
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/2/1/2014/prp-2-1-2014.pdf
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/
If global warming is not in pause because the ocean are taking the extra energy, then why do stratospheric cooling is also in pause ? http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/msu/global/ls/nov/1mo
I just can’t figure how stratospheric cooling can be affected by ocean heat uptake. Can anyone help ?
If oceans (lakes, clays) take up more heat than they give off, then oceans get warming, and vice versa. All other heat is lost to the vast, cold, empty reaches of limitless space.
David,
You need to understand the overwhelming direction of energy flow is from ocean to atmosphere to space. Increasing GH gases reduce that flow by altering the thermal gradient between ocean and space. The stratosphere cools precisely because there is less net energy flowing through it on the way to space because of increasing GH gases in the troposphere lower down in the atmosphere. Heat is not flowing from atmosphere to oceans on a net energy basis–quite the opposite in fact, as over 50% of the energy in the atmosphere at any given time came directly from the oceans as sensible or latent heat.
Uncertainties in Climate Feedback
Influence of non-feedback variations of radiation on the determination of climate feedback Yong-Sang Choi, Heeje Cho, Chang-Hoi Ho, Richard S. Lindzen, Seon Ki Park, Xing Yu
Theoretical and Applied Climatology
January 2014, Volume 115, Issue 1-2, pp 355-364
Nature magazine has just endorsed Judith’s notion that natural variability, e.g., the PDO not only exists but is driving the hiatus:
http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525#/warming2
The notion in this article is that when we get a really big El Nino that releases so much heat, it flips the PDO into a 20 to 30 year period when the ocean stores heat instead of releasing it. This could well be right, but it doesn’t seem that it has been demonstrated because, at least in my view, modeling doesn’t demonstrate it. Modeling missed the natural variability, should we trust modeling to explain it? Perhaps, but not quite yet. It could be that changes in clouds and water vapor have more to do with the different phases of the PDO, in which case there might not be the massive storage of heat in the deep oceans posited by the article.
It may be news to Nature but, 15-year old Kristen Byrnes (Ponder the Maunder) forecast the coming PDO and the effects it would have on global arming back when the EU was awarding Al Gore a Nobel.
“Modeling missed the natural variability…”
____
Uh…that is exactly why systems that exhibit deterministic chaos are inherently going to drift because of such variability.
In terms of the pause, there are two important factors at work, of which, the switch to the cool phase of the PDO is only one. Over the past 10 to 15 years we’ve seen an increase in the stratospheric optical depth and we’ve had a very sleepy sun with a weak solar cycle. These two factors have caused a reduction in the energy entering the climate system. But on the output side, the cool PDO means there was an even greater reduction in the net energy leaving the oceans to atmosphere. Thus, less input to the oceans but even less out, means net ocean heat content has increased. Over the long-term, increasing GH gases (don’t forget about methane and N2O) mean that less latent and sensible heat will be flowing from ocean to space, and this is exactly why the overall energy of the climate system is increasing, as displayed by rising ocean heat content, rising sea levels, and large reductions in overall net continental glacial mass. In terms of AGW, the “pause” is a head-fake, as overall energy in the system continues to accumulate at a very steady multi-decadal rate or perhaps the rate of accumulation is increasing slightly these past 10 years.
To R Gates: the linked article in Nature paraphrasesTrenberth as saying that no more than 20% of the lack of warming in the pause is due to weakened sun, volcanos, or increased pollution from China and elsewhere: “Trenberth, for example, analysed their impacts on the basis of satellite measurements of energy entering and exiting the planet, and estimated that aerosols and solar activity account for just 20% of the hiatus”
Not that Nature is always right, far from it, or that these points are necessarily right, but just so you and other readers will know that the article takes that stance.
“It could be that changes in clouds and water vapor have more to do with the different phases of the PDO, in which case there might not be the massive storage of heat in the deep oceans posited by the article.”
____
The cool phase of the PDO means precisely that there is lower latent and sensible heat flow from ocean to atmosphere. It is completely consistent with increasing ocean heat content, as confirmed through both Argo floats and Jason and Topix (for sea level rises.
“and estimated that aerosols and solar activity account for just 20% of the hiatus…”
____
Yep, that sounds about right. The cool phase of the PDO is a bigger player in reducing the sensible and latent heat flux from ocean to atmosphere. The “pause”as a measurement of sensible tropospheric heat is the direct result. The head fake comes from those who focus on the sensible heat in the troposphere, without looking at the bigger picture of overall energy in the earth climate system– the bulk of which is in the oceans.
Gates-
You are doing such a wonderful job of rationalizing and using imaginative approaches and excuses for the pause that in not too many more years you will be where many here have been for a while.
“You are doing such a wonderful job of rationalizing and using imaginative approaches and excuses for the pause that in not too many more years you will be where many here have been for a while.”
____
Dennis,
If you can provide me some alternative thermodynamics or proof that the Earth climate system has been losing, rather than gaining energy, I’d love to see it. Tropospheric sensible heat (upon which the “pause” is based) is such a relatively minor part of Earth’s climate energy system, and depends so much on ocean to atmosphere sensible and latent heat fluxes (hence why ENSO and the PDO affect it so greatly), that it makes an exceptionally poor proxy for gains or losses of energy in the climate system. But it seems some so-called skeptics are not keen on recognizing this solid physics based fact.
The PDO’s relationship to global mean temperature is obviously very different in the current cycle than it was mid-20th century. The PDO peaked and started trending downward in ~1940. The surface air temperature followed suit in ~1942.
On this cycle the PDO peaked in 1983 and started its downward trend. The surface air temperature hasn’t followed suit.
From 1940 to 1970 there a long, flat, cold bottom to the PDO. No such thing has taken place this time.
The trade winds are currently normal. The article is wrong there. ONI just slipped to -.3, so there actually is anomalously cold water in the Eastern equatorial Pacific. A month ago there was almost none. It’s still La Nina leaning neutral, and the temperature is going up aggressively; as in, like it would if ACO2 is a notch under 400 ppm.
It’s very interesting to see Mark Cane mentioned there. I thought his papers on ENSO were excellent, but I cannot imagine these people are being oblivious to the fact that the PDO is not behaving like a cycle that has much negative influence when there is ACO2 a notch under 400 ppm. It does not even remotely look like the 1940-to-1970 pattern. The bottom of the trough is likely going to instead be the bridge to the next turn upwards, which about due.
Wagathon said January 15, 2014 at 6:14 pm
It may be news to Nature but, 15-year old Kristen Byrnes (Ponder the Maunder) forecast the coming PDO and the effects it would have on global arming back when the EU was awarding Al Gore a Nobel.
______
Waggy, you are too easily impressed. In 2006 Julie Byrnes just got lucky and forecast the global temperature pause that began in 1998. So what? She’s got nothing on me.
In 1990 I predicted the 1987 stock market crash, and in 2012 I predicted the 2008 crash. If that doesn’t astound you, in 2013 I also predicted the 2007 housing crash.
W and in 1990 I predicted the 1987 market crash
That last line is the wine speaking, not me.
Oh yes, natural variability is completely responsible for the pause.
The CSALT model takes into account the SOI, LOD, and other free energy factors that compensate temperature increases.
http://imageshack.com/a/img20/9572/sz4.gif
Underlying the pause, the CO2 factor continues to increase.
How do you calculate your SOI ‘thermodynamic’ impact Web?
Show your steps for how you get your curve
The thermodynamic impact of SOI is accomplished via a variational approach.
I am not going to show all the steps from typing on a phone but you are welcome to review the derivation at my blog http://ContextEarth.com
I have been able to hindcast temperature values 15 years prior to the earliest data used in the model by applying the SOI values.
Two important bits of insight regarding SOI. Since it always reverts to the mean, it has bounds on what contribution it can make. Second, there is some hope in being able to model the behavior more readily than modeling the entire planet.
“10 years left to solve the global warming problem,” as Dr. Roy Spencer reminds us eight later what Al Gore prophesized back in January 2006. “In the grand tradition of prophets of doom,” Spencer says, “his (Gore’s) prognostication is not shaping up too well… still no statistically significant warming.”
Wagathon,
If present temperatures refuse to increase, the case for global warming can still be made by adjusting the values of previous measurements downward, as Steven Goddard notes:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/ncdc-hiding-the-decline-for-yet-another-year/
What prescience! Four days ago Roy Spencer responded to Phillip Haddad most recent post concerning latent heat alarmism.
Spencer was moved to respond to John Holdren amazing claim that, “recent cold weather was due to global warming,” and that the warming was caused by waste heat from humanity’s use of energy, as follows:
“What is astounding from a science perspective is that Holdren blamed warming on waste heat, the result of humans and their energy use, rather than a slowly increasing greenhouse effect. He predicted that the localized nature of this waste heat would eventually spread to be a global problem.
“But a little research and few minutes of math (which I assume Holdren learned at some point) would have revealed that humanity’s waste heat generation is, from a global perspective, trivial.
“Assuming today’s global energy use is about 150 petawatthours per year, and dividing that by the number of hours in a year and the surface area of the Earth, this yields an average energy flux of 0.03 Watt per sq. meter. This is about 100 times smaller than the estimated heating from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is almost 10,000 times smaller than the rate of solar energy input into the Earth.
“It scares me that someone with so much energy policy influence has so little knowledge of basic physics.”
Wagathon,
It is interesting to note that you and I are able to interpret Phillip Haddad’s post in opposite ways. I read it as pointing out that thermometers measure radiation. More sources of heat, more likely that temperature will be seen as elevated. Seems logical to me. Kill off seven billion people, let all their heat generating processes grind to a halt, and it would seem reasonable that a thermometer would read a lower temperature overall.
All this talk of average emission per square unit is pretty silly. Just as silly as talking about average temperature in a desert when you are dying due to excessive heat, or dying from hypothermia, even though the average temperature through 24 hours is 20C, which shouldn’t kill all that quickly.
My story is that the greenhouse effect is just Warmist latter day Lysenkoism.
I’m sticking to it, and so far, so good!
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
…perhaps, if climatists switch to anal thermometers.
Wagathon
No switch needed – they’re already anal.
Max
@ Bart R | January 15, 2014 at 12:22 am |
(Excuse my terrible italics faux pas above, please.)
http://archive.irpp.org/po/archive/dec08/courchene.pdf leavens some of the optimism of the Canadian case with some hard challenges first observed in 2008, before data came in about the effectiveness of BC’s carbon pricing scheme. Notice that BC wasn’t alone in Canada in carbon pricing of some sort, but going by Dr. Elgie’s figures was alone in carbon pricing success.
*****
Just because fuel use went down at the same time the carbon tax was introduced does not prove the carbon tax was effective. The US housing market slid down the drain about that same time. Also, there isn’t proof that the BC economy wasn’t hurt – in fact some economic stats did go down after that. And also, how many businesses relocated after that? There is a lot not accounted for.
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/2035/carbon+hurting+businesses/8739247/story.html
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/wapos_incomplete_coverage_of_british_columbias_carbon_tax.html
Two interesting links that are a useful antidote to the BC-proves-I’m-right fetish of some denizens.
Jim 2,
Thanks for those two links – two more examples showing how gullible are the CAGW crowd. Mosher and Bart R are two examples demonstrating their motivated reasoning on this subject.
The relevant ceteris are almost never paribus.
The two articles you linked make some of the points I made in a reply to Mosher above. I’ll repeat it here because it is buried in the thread and probably will be missed by many.
Peter Lang | January 15, 2014 at 9:59 pm |
Mr. Lang, you don’t explain it better. You don’t explain it very well at all. You may propound it, and your literary flourish may be better in some artistic way than the writings of Tol or Nordhaus — that would be a subjective judgement — but your writings lack the rigor needed to be called better, if you are speaking of authoritative documents.
You need more data. You need more math. You need to show your data are sufficient. You need to show your math is correct. You must make explicit the many assumptions you now have implicit. You must explain the exceptions that have been cited that so damage your argument. You must show you have simplified your explanation in terms of total assumptions to the accurate or very nearly true limit. You must show you have been parsimonious in allowing exceptions to your explanation to the accurate or very nearly true limit. You must show your explanation to universally apply to the accurate or very nearly true limit. Otherwise, the rational space your explanation occupies is inferior in explanatory power in these three dimensions upon which Science relies.
Participation rate is important, but Nordhaus and Tol are wrong about the role of participation rate because they inaccurately assume participation is costly, as opposed to beneficial. If participation is in and of itself beneficial to nations as we have seen from the data in the case of British Columbia, then participation does not play the role of a drag, but of an impetus.
The entire foundation your explanation stands on is thus wiped away.
Now, you do ask interesting questions.
It’s a scandal that so few have done the chore of rigorously going ab initio from one end of the problem space to the other end of the policy space to produce a decent, authoritative, business-case-like document inclusive of the full scientific bases and policy discussion apt across the multiple major economies of the world.
It remains a question if such a document would even contemplate Australia, sorry. You might not qualify on the condition of major economy, and I’m not seeing a lot of Australians stepping up to volunteer to pay for their inclusion in such a production.
Who pays the piper calls the tune: so far, the largest and best effort of the sort you demand without offering to pay for have come out of the President’s advisory bodies, and rest on among other building blocks the IPCC reports.
Given the timing of AR5, we can expect significant work is being done behind the scenes by such bodies to produce new works that address these questions from America’s perspective for the President’s use.
You can, even as an alien to these shores, find the generously-provided answers to your questions starting http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf as they apply to a country you are on the far side of the globe from, if you choose to avail yourself.
You will note that this document itself is as lacking as your own in examining assumptions, exceptions and universality; you must drill down on each topic to first sources on your own to find the base arguments and probabilities involved in this twenty page summary meant to briefly digest the conclusions of tens or hundreds of thousands of pages for you.
But I believe you’re up to the challenge.
You might find guidance from http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/071105_ageofconsequences.pdf – a 2007 document that is now painfully dated in terms of how much farther we’ve come in the Science, and highlights how far we’ve slid on policy.
Good luck.
Old-growth logging cancels B.C.’s carbon savings, Sierra Club says
Dirk Meissner
Victoria — The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, Feb. 27 2013, 9:14 PM EST
Last updated Wednesday, Feb. 27 2013, 9:20 PM EST
One year of logging old-growth forests in southwestern British Columbia blows away a year of carbon emissions reductions made through climate-change fighting initiatives like the carbon tax, says a Sierra Club report released today.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/old-growth-logging-cancels-bcs-carbon-savings-sierra-club-says/article9140723/
What varies is the rationalizations made by the deniers in the face of solid science.
From the article:
British Columbia’s Carbon Tax Freeze “Not Cool” Says ForestEthics Advocacy
Apr 3, 2013
British Columbia's premier, Christy Clark
British Columbia’s premier, Christy Clark. Photo © Flickr/Kris Krug
By Ben West, Tar Sands Campaign Director, ForestEthics Advocacy
An email to British Columbia’s Liberal Party supporters today suggested that the province’s premier, Christy Clark, is about to announce a five year freeze on BC’s carbon tax.
“Not only is this a bad policy decision but it’s a really poor choice of words given that the tax was part of a plan to do our part in the international effort to stop global warming. To put it simply, this freeze isn’t cool,” said ForestEthics Advocacy’s tar sands campaign director, Ben West.
The BC carbon tax was announced as part of the BC Climate Action Plan in 2008. The tax was scheduled to increase in 10 dollar increments from the date it was introduced, creating financial incentives for BC businesses to cut their carbon emissions. A three-year schedule of tax increases was supposed to bring the tax from 10 dollars per tonne emitted up to 30 dollars a tonne as of July 2011. Since then no further increases to the carbon tax have been announced.
http://forestethics.org/blog/british-columbias-carbon-tax-freeze-not-cool-says-forestethics-advocacy
The Carbon Tax – Everyone is a Fan.
Quoting from the article jim2 cited:
“On the other hand, the carbon tax’s costs have largely been borne by only one group of people — the working class — while big businesses in BC have benefited through a myriad of tax breaks and subsidies given to them by the provincial government.”
_______
Congratulations, jim2, you have found a carbon tax Republicans could get behind.
But I’m afraid that article didn’t give you the facts about how that Commie government in B.C. is compensating the poor for the regressive nature of the carbon tax.
I’m afraid much to the dismay of energy hogs and pollution advocates, the tax is a howling success. That should come as no surprise. A revenue-neutral carbon tax is a no brainer.
Max_OK
Revenoo nootrul?
Ah ain’t never seen no tax thet wuz “revenoo nootrul” cause thers always sumbody thet ends up pickin up the tab an sum smart po-li-ti-shun thet uses the money fer his buddies an pet projecks. An the whole tax machine with all them boo-ro-crats itself ain’t revenoo nootral anyhow.
Mah granpappy wuz right when he kep them revenooers out with his shotgun.
Cain’t do thet no more, but jest don let em fool ya bout a “revenoo nootrul tax”.
Max_not from OK
Max_CH, you are missing the opportunity to tell me wind speed varies.
Max_OK
Huh?
http://www.mmpa.org/Uploaded_Files/2c/2c48c69c-303d-4fc7-8d88-2153190d1fcc.pdf
Max
Wind is predictably unpredictable. It follows max entropy.distributions for wind speed and can be concisely characterized.
Max_CH, lately you have been talking a lot about wind intermittency and wind farm capacity factors, so I thought wind was one of your favorite subjects.
Anyway, Max_CH, you have missed your opportunity to talk wind with me because it’s past my bedtime. Goodnight.
Ben West, bien pendant; when you’re reduced to using weather wilding and the latest decade is the hottest as persuasion, then you’ve pretty much reached the end of the rope and it’s about to go taut.
=============
Heh, a little birdie ought to tweet in Ben West’s ear that cutting old growth forest releases pre-industrial CO2, the good kind, which calms weather. It makes about as much sense as the rest of the stuff he spouts about biosequestration. Truly, does he consider himself persuasive? To what class of low information citizen is he appealing?
============
From the article:
Even from the viewpoint of bourgeois economics, the BC carbon tax is considered to be a regressive consumption tax; because it is a flat tax, people who earn less pay disproportionately more than those with higher incomes (particularly corporations). The carbon tax operates by imposing a price on businesses for all of the carbon that they produce in the province. The problem with this scheme, under capitalism, is that businesses only operate on the basis of making the greatest amount of profit possible. Therefore, any increase in their costs will ultimately have to be borne by consumers. The following is a concrete example of the effects of the carbon tax on ordinary working-class people: the price of carbon is set by the BC government, and currently stands at $25-per-tonne. The petroleum industry passes this on as a 7-cent-per-litre surcharge on all gasoline sold in BC.
These surcharges, at least in the bosses’ minds, should begin to create a “Green Shift” in the economy. Because there would be very real costs associated to carbon-intensive industries, both industry and people would begin to make “green” decisions in order to save money. This “Green Shift” theory has not translated well into the real world, once again because of the limits inherent within the capitalist system. Many businesses have found little incentive to shift their production methods after being rewarded by the BC government with a myriad of tax cuts and subsidies to offset the increased cost of production. Many working-class people would undoubtedly like to make changes to their lifestyle, however they cannot practically do so. Ordinary people do not have extra money laying around just waiting to be invested in a new “green” alternative. Instead, they are taxed upon consuming the necessities of life, from heating their homes to commuting to work. For example, many workers and students may wish to drive their cars less but cannot do so as there is little investment in public transportation. Others may want to invest in “green” home technology but are unable to do so because the costs are still too prohibitive. Meanwhile, although real wages continue to stagnate, workers’ pockets continue to get lighter as they are faced with higher costs for the basic necessities of life.
The so-called “Green Shift” has not occurred for corporations, either. As the global economy continues to struggle, the BC Liberal government fears that the carbon tax will turn away investors and make the BC economy uncompetitive. In order to prevent this, the provincial government has thrown hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more, to businesses in the form of tax breaks and government subsidies — essentially negating the effects of the carbon tax and giving corporations little reason to shift towards “greener” production. This is the depraved logic of market-based environmental solutions — in the end, any talk of defending the environment ends if profits are put at risk.
http://www.marxist.ca/analysis/environment/908-carbon-taxes-a-solution-to-the-environmental-crisis.html
Thank you Komrade!
CO2 removal may be a major suggestion in the upcoming AR5 WG3 report according to this. Emission reductions don’t look like they will hit the targets alone.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/15/climate-goals-un_n_4602208.html
Jim 2,
I wonder if they will suggest this as an option: http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/
:)
yes, we’ll have to start sucking in CO2 and stop breathing it out!
Jim D
Agree with you that “no-regrets” schemes for reducing CO2 emissions at the source will not significantly change the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
However, the biggest problem with “carbon capture and sequestration” (CCS) is that it is a highly costly endeavor with no inherent added value.
To equip half of all planned coal-fired power plants in the USA with CCS would involve estimated cost of $12.7 trillion, for a theoretical reduction in warming by 2100 of 0.6C. This is $2 trillion for every tenth of a degree of warming that might be averted.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6112/6208819043_0931707315_b.jpg
Although I doubt it, this might be considered in some guilt-driven, rich industrialized nations, but will never be rolled out to the fast-growing underdeveloped nations, who will be the main generators of CO2 in the future.
A second potential problem is that the unintended negative consequences that could result from CCS are unknown.
I think this one’s DOA, Jum
Max
phatboy said on January 16, 2014 at 1:26 am
yes, we’ll have to start sucking in CO2 and stop breathing it out!
______
Mine is already a part of the carbon cycle. If yours isn’t, scientists will be eager to study you. Don’t let them do it for free. Get some money.
The atmosphere is in direct contact with the oceans – any CO2 extracted from the air will be outgassed quickly, forced by the pCO2 gradient. Even if it was possible to suck any significant quantities cost-effectively, which it is NOT.
And it makes as much sense as sucking H2O out of air.
The cost of not taking action on climate change predicated on CO2 increase is presented as a major guilt trip by warmists here, who seem incapable of recognising a simple 50/50 proposition. If one possibility is that we will all be doomed by taking action in one direction, then there is a 50
percent chance the actions they take to cool the world could also cause catastrophe.
This is based on their belief human actions are able to influence the temperature of the world and cause climate change of a massive degree.
In that case surely the best way ahead is not to rock the boat by unwise mitigation strategies with an unknown outcome.
US Energy Information Administration (EIA) is calculating that US 2013 energy-related CO2 emissions will be 2% higher than 2012, http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=14571# .
“Once all data are in, energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2013 are expected to be roughly 2% above the 2012 level, largely because of a small increase in coal consumption in the electric power sector. Coal has regained some market share from natural gas since a low in April 2012; however the impact on overall emissions trends remains fairly small.
Emissions in 2013 are slightly more than 10% below 2005 levels, a significant contribution towards the goal of a 17% reduction in emissions from the 2005 level by 2020 that was adopted by the current Administration. This level of reduction is expected to continue through 2015, according to EIA’s most recent Short-Term Energy Outlook.”
EIA also has an interesting comparison of natural gas production and consumption between the US and OECD Europe from and after 2005 – http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=14591 .
“From 1995 to 2005, both OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) Europe and the United States experienced relatively flat natural gas production. Natural gas consumption rose steadily in Europe over that period, but it was flat in the United States as rising use of natural gas for power generation was offset by declining use of gas in industry. Since 2005, significant production growth has outpaced rising consumption in the United States, reducing net imports of natural gas by 58% between 2005 and 2012. Production and consumption in OECD Europe have both fallen moderately since 2005, reducing Europe’s net imports by only 6% between 2005 and 2012.”
I hope this is useful.
MK
Climate change: The case of the missing heat
Sixteen years into the mysterious ‘global-warming hiatus’, scientists are piecing together an explanation.
http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525
Graph of the day?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/ipcc-amo-pdo-warming.jpg
Lol.
Lol indeed. What do you expect to see in your graph?
Warm PDO -> warming
Cool PDO -> cooling
Something (roughly) like this:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1900/mean:120/derivative/normalise/plot/jisao-pdo/normalise/from:1900/mean:120
“The graph says “why global temperatures have not risen much since 1988”.
What it should say is why global surface air and sea surface temperatures have not risen much since 1988.
Bob Tisdale had a post on WUWT recently that explained how ENSO transfers heat from the ocean to the atmosphere, or doesn’t, depending on trade winds. He described this as a “natural contribution to global warming”. Yet neither his article, nor his answers in comments, seemed to me to explain the mechanism by which this process added any heat to the global system.
I don’t see how the broader PDO does so either. At least warmists have a coherent explanation for how an El Nino increases global temperature, apart from the release of heart from the ocean to the atmosphere – by increasing cloud cover that they claim causes a net increase in heat content by preventing radiation of heat. (How they know the effect of the clouds is net positive, I have not heard. Tisdale’s explanation of clouds causing net cooling seems more logical to me.)
I don’t think these oscillations cause a net increase or decrease of the actual total heat in the climate system at all. I suspect that at most, they cause temporary increases and decreases in global surface temps as heat is moved about within the system.
The heat released from the ocean by an El Nino was already there before the El Nino began – the heat is a cause, not an effect. It seems the same to me with a La Nina. There is an increase of heat in the ocean as a result of the relative lack of clouds, but that heat is simply accumulated until it is released in the following El Nino.
It always puzzled me that “global average temperature” increased during an El Nino (when heat is being released from the oceans to ultimately be radiated to space) and GAT declines during a La Nina, when more heat is actually being stored in the oceans.
If we were actually measuring global average temperature (or heat content), it seems to me that the reverse would be true.
Put another way, it is easy to see how these oscillations result from increases and decreases in heat, but not how they “cause” them, naturally or otherwise.
Regarding ENSO,
“I don’t think these oscillations cause a net increase or decrease of the actual total heat in the climate system at all.”
____
There is a slight decrease in net energy in the climate system at the conclusion of a large-El Nino event. A larger than normal amount of energy fluxes from ocean to atmosphere, and thus a larger than normal amount fluxes from atmosphere to space, where it is lost to climate system. We see this loss of energy reflected both in flattening or even slightly lower sea levels and in flattening or slightly lower net ocean heat content in the several months to a year after the El Nino event has peaked. Tropospheric temperatures peak about 6 months after the El Nino peak, as that is when the maximum sensible heat is reflected in the tropospheric readings…i.e. the 1997-98 El Nino SST’s peaked in late 1997, but the tropospheric temperatures peaked months later in 1998. One thing to remember is, much of the energy being measured in the high SST’s reading during an El Nino, is energy on its way out of the ocean to the troposphere.
@GaryM | January 16, 2014 at 12:41 pm |
I’m sure you know that clouds increase albedo, with a cooling effect during the day. They also produce a “greenhouse” effect, acting as a black-body at IR wavelengths and blocking radiation from the surface and radiating at a reduced level to space, while increasing the downwelling IR to the surface. The magnitude of this “greenhouse” effect depends on their temperature, which in turn is usually dependent on their altitude.
These effects oppose one another, and which dominates and by how much depends on many factors, including latitude, time of day, temperature of clouds and surface, etc. We can suppose that those claiming a net positive effect from the delta in cloudy air from an El Nino are basing their claims on the specific factors that are changed during an El Nino.
Note the fact that I’m pretty sure I know why they think the effect is positive doesn’t mean I agree. I’m skeptical, but don’t choose to dig into it. Of course, it could just be that the spreading out of warm water on the surface, vs. smaller but deeper warm water pool in the Western Pacific during neutral and La Nina times means more higher surface temperature readings.
The direction of temperature in 1942 changed dramatically after the PDO stared heading aggressively downward in 1940.
It is the change in PDO direction that normally drives temperature. This is true because the surface of the Eastern Pacific gets colder almost instantly because of upwelling cold water. When the PDO hits neutral, the surface temperature plateaus. When it starts upwards, the surface temperature almost instantly warms because warm water from the Western Pacific sloshes over the surface of the Eastern Pacific. It happens very quickly.
The PDO went southbound in ~1984. Downward for almost 20 years. It’s overdue to head northbound.
In think that ‘graph of a couple of days ago’ is this
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/screenhunter_1716-jan-13-17-41.gif
A. Scenario C = Fictional CO2 levels as fed into models.
B. Measured temperatures track Scenario C.
Therefore: Models = Fiction.
QED
Communism is the best climate solution;
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/01/16/un-climate-chief-declares-communism-best-for-fighting-global-warming/
No conspiracy theory required, it’s right there in the mission statement.
The Left has certainly proven how effective it is in helping to destroy the economy.
In 1992 Deng Xiaoping (supposedly) said “To get rich is glorious.” Since then, China has embarked on a program called the “socialist market economy”.
There’s certainly no sign that the system in China is “democratic”, and they retain the “Communist” designation in name, although that may be primarily for historical reasons.
It’s highly debatable how the system of “government ownership” of certain large key industries compares, economically, with the “Western” system of very large public stock corporations controlled by management selected through political manipulation of large funds and (government regulated) banks and other financial institutions (most of whom care only about stock prices 2-3 years in the future, where stock prices are primarily determined by speculative short-term investment).
There’s a long history of semi-capitalist and pseudo-capitalist nation-states in Europe imitating most of the benefits of the (somewhat) free-market capitalism of England and the US by imitating many of their policy moves.
China appears to be imitating many of the early policies of the US, trying to achieve a similar result. Opinions of their efforts will probably mostly be determined by the pre-conceptions of the people holding those opinions. The future will tell.
Elections Don’t Matter, Institutions Do
What’s the big panic in the tarsands community?
http://www.thestar.com/business/economy/2014/01/15/now_or_never_for_oilsands_executives_say.html explains it: if the government of Canada doesn’t skip over environmental and economic review and subsidize pipelines to any coast it can while the most industry-friendly government ever is in power, China will find alternate energy sources and will not turn back to tar in our lifetimes. Notice this is not about getting fuel to US markets, it’s about getting bitumen to US refineries for export to Asia. The number of permanent jobs this will create in the USA is net zero or negative – those refineries would run to capacity producing cheaper fuel for domestic use, or higher-priced fuel for foreigners; either way the lion’s share of the money goes to foreign profiteers. The land expropriated for pipelines under Eminent Domain goes out of productivity forever, and all jobs associated with that land is gone. That’s a strip 100′ wide by thousands of miles long.
And what is fueled? Mostly the Asian fertilizer industry, that burns coal to bind nitrogen to oil and gas to form ammonia. America can do that at home, and without burning coal, or wasting oil, from natural gas and the waste heat of industry, or geothermal, or concentrated solar in the massive sun belt of California, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico; America could do that from peak production of intermittent sources, taking advantages of ‘excess energy’ by demanding it when it’s there, instead of the tail wagging the dog and industry telling American home owners when they can get electricity to cook dinner.
Ah yes, It’s now or never!… we’ve heard that before… Al Gore said humanity had just 10 years to stop releasing C02. That was 8 years ago and still no global warming. We’re familiar with the usual anti-business aspect of Leftist politics but pushing their pushing of AGW is beginning to look more and more like a cheesy Hollywood comedy-horror show.
OK Bart you are on;
tell me how you would power a fertilizer factory, final product ammonium nitrate, in Arizona, using solar power.
I am really interested in where you are going to get all the cooling water from and how you will run 24/7/35.
I want to know how you will build your electrolysis plant (carbon or noble metal electrondes?) and how you are going to safely deal with the H2/O2 saturated acid solution, especially how are you going to cool the liquor and how you are going to get rid of the O2 contamination.
Also tell me how you will build and operate the nitrogen stills.
Then I want to know how you will run you Haber-Bosch reactor continuously for the normal 3-3.5 years, before a complete iron recharge.
DocMartyn | January 16, 2014 at 8:45 pm |
Gee, Doc.. I was thinking of using pipelines to solve most of those problems.
Hot rock thermal storage underground would address the 24/7/365, if you really want to run at peak all the time, using supplemental HVDC from wind farms, tide farms, plus geothermal, biomass and the like in a fully-integrated smart grid of complementary production facilities, akin to a more sophisticated and distributed version of the German “three industry center” model.
As for the technical details of the plant, wouldn’t the bidders for the plants in the Market be the ones to work those out?
As these problems have been worked out everywhere such plants operate, and it’s a multi-trillion dollar worldwide industry (one of the fastest-growing industries in the world, far outstripping fracking), why wouldn’t I have confidence of Market solutions?
“why wouldn’t I have confidence of Market solutions?”
You are suggesting building a pipeline into a desert to carry water.
You are suggesting building a heat storage system that has never been built.
You are suggesting building an electrolysis plant that has never been built.
You are suggesting building the infrastructure to support a huge solar power array and the workers/families to service it and the chemical plants.
You are suggesting that direct hydrolysis of pumped water will be cheaper than methane conversion; then you believe that it can be delivered because it is a ‘Market Solution’.
You are quite insane. You remind me of the people who constructed the White Sea – Baltic Sea Canal.
DocMartyn | January 18, 2014 at 8:50 am |
Whosaidwhatnow? Direct hydrolysis of pumped what?
READ HARDER.
I was referring to sewage pipelines carrying organic wastes to feed the pyrolysis system. You’re having an entirely different conversation.
Solar pyrolysis of organic waste to generate producer gas and pyoil; hydrotreating of these products to ‘drop in’ replacement of natural gas and diesel is well-established and as feedstock to ammonia production is a natural co-production option.
Then the middle of the desert would have biochar, high-density fuel, nitrogen fertilizer, and yes, pyrolysis distillate does contain enough pure water to be of some use. Meanwhile, fast-growing sun-belt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Belt) urban and industrial and agricultural and timber centers with huge organic waste disposal issues would have that problem solved by fluidizing their organics into a sewage stream to those places with enough sunlight to recover them to valuable components, and far enough from population centers to overcome any NIMBYism.
With California in the middle of its, what, tenth drought of a century in twenty years, it would be quite insane to propose what you thought I said. It would even be quite insane to imagine anyone said it.
Electrolysis. Pfft. What’s up with that?
Peter Lang started this thread with the following question:
“Can anyone point to any authoritative analyses that evaluate the probability that the mitigation policies that are proposed by various groups would succeed in delivering the claimed benefits?”
My answer was ‘No’.
245 (and counting) comments later we have had responses like this one from Steven Mosher:
“Bart presents a case. BC employed a carbon tax and they got the desired benefit: reduced emissions.”
or this from Jim D:
“Most would agree that mitigation and resilience are better than no mitigation and no resilience, even though it costs money up front to prevent or pay for disasters later.”
which, as Peter reminded all and sundry many times, didn’t answer the question. Paraphrasing, it was ‘Does anyone have any evidence that the policies implemented to mitigate CAGW will in fact MITIGATE CAGW?’.
Not ‘Will they be revenue neutral?’. Not ‘Will they reduce ACO2?’. Not ‘Will they destroy the economy?’. The question was, ‘Will they have measurable efficacy?’
So far, after blowing enough smoke to induce another ice age and talking about everything imaginable OTHER THAN efficacy, the response to his question remains ‘No comment.’.
Bob Lud
That was funny.
Scott
‘‘Does anyone have any evidence that the policies implemented to mitigate CAGW will in fact MITIGATE CAGW?’.”
that is hardly a paraphrase, more like a spin
The question was:
“Can anyone point to any authoritative analyses that evaluate the probability that the mitigation policies that are proposed by various groups would succeed in delivering the claimed benefits”
the CLAIMED benefits in the case of the BC tax was reduced emissions.
Not CAGW.. which nobody even has a definition for.
There was a group ( one of various)
They proposed a policy ( tax carbon)
They promised a benefit ( lower emissions)
They delivered.
It could have been otherwise. They could have raised taxes and people could have kept on emitting C02 at the same rate.
They did not promise mitigating CAGW.
They promised to reduce emissions.
They did.
Lang ask for an example. he got one. His problem, not Bart Rs.
Now, lets reframe it as you would
“‘‘Does anyone have any evidence that the policies implemented to mitigate CAGW will in fact MITIGATE CAGW?’.”
1. No because the only policy that would do that is a global treaty .
So reframed your way the question makes no sense on its face.
Bob, you write “‘Does anyone have any evidence that the policies implemented to mitigate CAGW will in fact MITIGATE CAGW?’.”
Of course they don’t. No-one has ever measured how much adding CO2 to the atmosphere actually changes anything to do with climate, and until this is done, there can be no way of measuring whether any measures have changed an effect which has never been observed in the first place.
@ Steven Mosher
“the CLAIMED benefits in the case of the BC tax was reduced emissions.”
No, Steven, the CLAIMED benefit was not reduced emissions. The CLAIM was that if we reduce or eliminate ACO2 by taxing it and regulating it, the BENEFIT will be that CAGW will be avoided; seas will cease rising, we will no longer be plagued by hurricanes, tornados, floods, drouth, and warm weather, polar ice caps will grow and prosper, the polar bears will proliferate like unto rabbits, and a whole litany of fallouts from ACO2, ranging from nuisance to catastrophic, will cease their falling. Absent its putative effect on the ‘problem’ of CAGW, there is NO intrinsic benefit in reducing or eliminating ACO2.
” No because the only policy that would do that is a global treaty .”
And the original question was “Does anyone have any evidence that the policy, or policies, or taxes, or regulations, global treaty, global dictatorship, or global anything, would actually ‘do that’?
From certified, self-identifed Climate Experts and their sycophants: a resounding ex cathedra YES!
On the evidence: No.
1. No because the only policy that would do that is a global treaty .
Steve, I hate to pile on; a) because in the main, you’re heading the right direction in much of what you say; and, b) everyone else criticizing what you have to say is so very wrong it’s embarrassing to be associated with them, however distantly.
I don’t believe in the effectiveness of global treaties, on the whole. Many are more loophole-filled than Switzerland has secret bank accounts or Swiss cheese has holes. Some have impact due extraneous factors, and on the whole it’s better to have them than not, arguably, but they are not the “only policy” that can have global effect. They’re not even the best policy.
The BC carbon pricing scheme is effective because it’s better for nations than other approaches independent of its impact on externalities.
As a pricing scheme, carbon pricing has two obvious but distinct means of use: in tax, and in the Market.
This form of pricing, if used as a tax, is cheaper and on the five to seven common fundamental principles of what makes a good tax that tax technicians use to evaluate such things, if used as a tax is hands down the best of the lot. Now, I’m the farthest thing in the world from an expert on taxation, but if for instance 9,135 out of 9,136 technical tax experts all said that carbon taxes were the best way to go, it would be pretty weak to not at least explore their claim.
And that logic is better than a global treaty, on its face for any nation.
If used as a replacement for other taxes, say to collect the same revenue level as the worst of the taxes on the books in any nation, then because it’s such a technical win, it will be a way of getting rid of the most odious violations of personal rights inflicted on the nation while still generating the revenues the government is convinced it must have. Such ‘tax shift’ from more bad taxes to less bad taxes, even when ‘revenue neutral’ results in lower taxes as it is less costly and has the Pigouvian effect of shifting tastes in consumers away from being parasites on society toward making purchases that fairly pay for what the buyers get.
And that logic is better than a global treaty, on its face for any nation.
If not used as a tax, carbon pricing as a consumer-to-business fact of life will grow wherever consumer groups form and lobby for businesses to include the price of carbon emission in their goods. This is good Market sense, as consumer need for internalizing externalities to the Market is met efficiently, and the Market self-corrects, leveling the playing field. So when you see the “I paid for the carbon I emitted” sticker on your next purchase, you’ll feel good about buying from that vendor, you’ll feel good about the product, and about yourself as a consumer.
And that logic is better than a global treaty, on its face for any nation.
Your reasoning is impeccable. How many nations do you predict will adopt a carbon tax within the next 400 years, barty?
Don Monfort | January 17, 2014 at 2:46 pm |
How many choose a carbon tax? Don’t know; don’t care. But I expect all of them will price carbon, one way or another, in the next decade. As soon as any of the big trading nations figure out they can apply trade sanctions against nations with inferior carbon pricing under current trade law with impunity, the others will snap to.
A discussion on the similarities between the way climate change is playing out in the public and media and the lance armstrong doping saga would be rather interesting. There seem to be many similarities in the storylines
Michael Mann is sort of the Lance Armstrong of climate science, although he still hasn’t publicly admitted to any bad science along with his supporters. I don’t know why Wahl and Ammann’s replication of Mann’s hockey stick isn’t better known. It has to be the biggest scientific farce since Piltdown Man.
One difference is that the French, for example, are not following the alarmists around and digging through their trash to get evidence against them. The EU is a part of the AGW hoax.
For a few weeks there, I thought (some decision maker(s) in) China had done something halfway brilliant. From a recent news story about the opening of emissions trading in Guangdong Province in south China:
I took this to mean that emitters had to pay for emission “credits” for 3% of their emissions. When I looked more carefully just now, while preparing my response to cwon14 above, I realized this was just more of the standard socialist planned economy junk: 97% of the emission credits were issued free to “deserving” businesses, while 3% were put up for auction.
But I’d like to talk about what I thought (for a few weeks) they’d done:
Suppose the emission trading scheme started out by requiring emission credits for 3% (of total emissions), and credits were issued for slightly under 3% of the projected usage, all at auction.
Suppose also that anybody in the province engaged in removing and sequestering carbon from the air (or water in mixing contact with the air) automatically received full emission credits.
And suppose that the government made certain long-term commitments how the percentage required would grow from 3% to 100% over several decades, and how the number of permits issued would decline from almost the number needed to 0%, over perhaps a decade.
It seems plausible to me that this could foster the rapid growth of technologies, and industries using them, for extracting carbon from the air. Much of that industry would probably be local (or at least locally owned), since one way to avoid the risk of market fluctuations in carbon credit pricing would be for the emitter to own the extraction and sequestering technology itself.
Another option, that could probably be applied synergistically, would be to allow emission without credit for anybody using at least 3% fuel from “renewable” sources. (I.e. with carbon originally from the modern atmosphere.) Keep the percentage identical to that for carbon credits.
Here emitters would have a choice: buy credits or buy fuel from “renewable” sources, either way in the percentage rising from 3% to 100%. The key would be how well the customers, and investors in carbon capture technology, felt they could rely on the government to follow its commitment WRT the percentages involved.
Back to cwon14’s comment, the relative ability of a non-democratic ruling institution like the CCP to inspire confidence, compared to for instance the “democratic” government of BC, would be tested in the marketplace. If it worked, it could well bring a province, nation-state, or other polity to a point of zero net emission over a few decades without significant impacts to economic growth.
I doubt however that a socialist institution like the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) would be able to decide to implement such an experiment, even if somebody suggested it to them. I’d like to see them prove me wrong, though.
Average temperature of near-surface atmosphere: 14.5C
Average temperature of deep ocean: 2C
Seems to me that based on the second law of thermodynamics the ocean should be cooling the atmosphere and heating up in an attempt to achieve equilibrium.
If the heat capacity of the ocean is 1000X as much as the heat capacity of the atmosphere*, then a 1C rise in atmospheric temperature could be consumed by a 0.001C rise in the ocean’s temperature. Of course, all of the heat from the atmosphere doesn’t go into the ocean… much is radiated out into space, so the ocean heating should be EVEN LESS.
ALSO, the time-scale over which this heat transfer occurs, it seems to me, should be enormous. Plots of the temperature of the atmosphere and the resulting sea-level increase as the earth exited the last ice age suggests that this heat transfer occurs over many thousands of years.
So the point of all this Physics 101 discussion is that it seems to me that the ocean provides a HUGE damping, or negative feedback to temperature changes in the atmosphere… but there could be a prodigious lag.
Given that Climate Modelers appear to have missed this somewhat important fact “SURPRISE! the ocean ate my warming” it’s hard to believe the amplification numbers of 3-4 that they spout out. Seems to me the amplification number created be the ocean should be something like -0.999 in the long term!
But I’m a piker. What am I missing?
* http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch5s5-1.html
Walt,
To understand global climate system energy balance it is best and most accurate to talk about net energy flow between major components of that system. The net flow of energy (in regards to the climate system) is overwhelmingly from sun to ocean to atmosphere to space). In the ocean to atmosphere leg of that net climate energy journey, the net flow is in the form of both latent and sensible heat flux, witht the latent portion being the far larger portion. Net evaporation from the ocean to atmosphere with all that latent heat vastly overhwmelms any flow in the opposite direction on a net global basis. That latent heat flow is at the heart of Earth’s climate system. In regards to GH gases, and specifically noncondensing GH gases, it is their concentration that dictates the rate of flow of energy from ocean to space on a long-term basis. Increase GH gases warm the atmosphere a little, but the bigger effect is in the alteration in the rate of energy flow between ocean and space.
Thanks R Gates… I will ponder that for a while!
Energy in equals energy out. The rate of energy flowing from the ocean to space through the atmosphere remains unabated.
Regardless of the amount of moisture and CO2 in the way.
The air, CO2 and moisture can be at different temperatures depending on the amount of energy they adsorb. this depends in the main on the density of the atmosphere and its composition.
for instance if we had twice as much oxygen in the air we would be approximately 20% hotter, twice as much nitrogen, approximately 80% hotter even though neither are greenhouse gases, just normal atmospheric heated by the sun gases.
Don’t let Gatesy fool you.
There is hothouse earth and icehouse earth. How does earth go toward one or the other without an energy imbalance?
Walt, basically everything Gates said is wrong.
Unless you understand the dynamics of the movement of heat in the system, which we do not, you cannot really say very much at all.
With regard to the oceans, 5 km isn’t very deep, its only half way.
JCH
Hothouse earth , heat in equals heat out. Physics 101.
Icehouse earth , heat in equals heat out. Repeat physics 101.
How does one get from one to the other without an energy imbalance?
It was the CO2 which done it.
Only joking, you cannot have an energy imbalance as a cause.
Energy in equals energy out.
You could of course have a hotter sun, a colder sun, a closer sun, a further away sun, volcanoes, an asteroid impact, a Milankovitch cycle or anything really that alters the total amount of energy reaching the earth or where it is absorbed in the atmosphere.
angech,
You obviously do not realize that energy balance works on the full radiative spectrum, and the temperature change depends on the primary wavelengths of the electromagnetic radiation.
Walt, the 20th century average global sea surface temperature was 16.05°C, while the land was 8.55°C, so the sea keeps the atmosphere warmer, and some of the land too. That’s what would be expected from such a large thermal reservoir.
More bad news for climate alarmists/Chicken Littles:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/166844/government-itself-cited-top-problem.aspx
Well, it’s not really news. Just a reiteration of previous polls. Foreign aid and people not being nice enough to each other are bigger problems than AGW, which does not even show up in the poll results. That seems about right.
But don’t despair. I saw a Smart car on the road today. And as soon as confidence in the government and government funded climate scientists is restored, the folks will come around to enthusiastically embracing the drastic and feckless mitigation schemes of the unelected EPA apparatchiks.
It’s possible BC froze the carbon tax because of the bad BC economy. Also, the lefties start touting how the carbon tax hasn’t hurt the economy knowing full well the tax increases every year. Just because it doesn’t hurt the first few years, if it doesn’t, does not mean it won’t be very painful later on.
From the article:
The March numbers show B.C.’s jobless rate climbed to seven per cent, a jump from the February setting of 6.3 per cent. Jobs Minister Pat Bell said 22,400 full-time positions vanished in B.C., offset by a gain of 7,500 part-time jobs, leaving nearly 15,000 people looking for work last month.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/04/07/what-happened-to-b-c-s-job-creation-plan/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/16/the-journal-nature-embraces-the-pause-and-ocean-cycles-as-the-cause-trenberth-still-betting-his-heat-will-show-up/
“…article that cites Trenberth as saying: “The 1997 to ’98 El Niño event was a trigger for the changes in the Pacific, and I think that’s very probably the beginning of the hiatus,””
Trigger means a dragon king event, maybe.
“Eventually,” Trenberth says, “it will switch back in the other direction.”
A regime change. Not inconsistent with chaos theory.
Trenberth. The Chief. Is there a difference?
From the article:
Cummins also criticized the BC Liberals’ refusal to address legitimate business concerns about the unfair carbon tax, saying that grain-growers, ranchers and the cement industry got absolutely nothing in the way of financial relief.
“The government promised to provide farmers with a carbon tax exemption on coloured fuels, but legislation to enact that change won’t be introduced until the fall – long after the current government has been defeated by provincial voters,” observed Cummins.
Moreover, other than a passing reference to the struggling cement industry, the budget failed to address local producers’ concerns over soaring cement imports from the United States and China.
“The BC Liberals today admitted that British Columbia’s carbon tax is the only one of its kind in North America,” said Cummins. “And it also disclosed it was unlikely that any kind of ‘broad-based carbon pricing strategy’ would appear in the near future in other jurisdictions.
“It’s an admission that B.C. is out-of-step with our competitors – and yet this budget failed to provide any kind of relief to an industry that provides hundreds of British Columbians with high-wage jobs.”
http://www.bcconservative.ca/bc-liberals-to-face-voters-with-business-un-friendly-budget/
I was just reading up the Arctic Dipole on Wikipedia, where it says:
“However, the Arctic Oscillation cannot be ignored when considering sea ice export from the Arctic. By itself, circulation associated with a positive phase Arctic Oscillation results in an increase in sea ice export, while the negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation is associated with reduced Arctic sea ice export.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_dipole_anomaly#Impacts_on_Arctic_Sea_Ice
In fact there is reduced sea ice extent with the negative AO episodes, as in summer 2007. The NAO has a strong influence, where the negative episodes also result in reduced sea ice extent.
Every year thousands of Canadian have no choice but to seek medical care outside of the country’s single-payer health care system, according a report from a Canadian free-market think tank.
In 2013, nearly 42,000 Canucks left their homeland to avoid long wait times and inferior care that plagues their centralized health system.
The report from the free-market Fraser Institute found that 41,838 Canadians became “medical tourists” in 2013 and sought care outside of their hockey-loving country. While there were slightly fewer people fleeing the Canadian health system in 2013 than the previous year, the number leaving still amounts to nearly one percent of medical patients in Canada.
“Canadians may leave for a number of reasons including a lack of available resources or appropriate technology, a desire to return more quickly to their lives, to seek out superior quality care, or perhaps to save their own lives or avoid the risk of disability,” Nadeem Ismail, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“That a considerable number of Canadians traveled and paid to escape the well-known failings of the Canadian health care system speaks volumes about how well the system is working for them,” Ismail added.
Each year the Fraser Institute surveys physicians across 12 major medical specialties about how many of their patients received non-emergency care abroad in the past year. The Institute then combines these numbers with data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/16/report-tens-of-thousands-fled-socialized-canadian-medicine-in-2013/
jim2 the Fraser Institute is a fountain of foolish free-market propaganda. I hope you are only quoting Fraser for amusement, and haven’t turned into a silly free-market fruit cake.
We should have Canada’s health care system. Canadian’s pay far less for health care than Americans and live longer than Americans.
Several years ago I needed emergency medical attention while traveling in Canada. The Canadian doctor apologetically said he couldn’t treat me for free because I wasn’t a citizen. My bill was a whopping $10.
Americans health care is so expensive, some our citizens have to leave the country to get affordable care. I know someone who saved thousands of dollars traveling to the Kiev for major dental work.
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The Fraser Institute maintains a rigorous peer review process for its research.
New research, major research projects, and substantively modified research conducted by the Fraser Institute are reviewed by a minimum of one internal expert and two external experts. Reviewers are expected to have a recognized expertise in the topic area being addressed. Whenever possible, external review is a blind process.
Commentaries and conference papers are reviewed by internal experts. Fraser Forum magazine maintains a list of reviewers that it uses to review all articles published in the magazine.
Updates to previously reviewed research or new editions of previously reviewed research are not reviewed unless the update includes substantive or material changes in the methodology.
The review process is overseen by the directors of the Institute’s research departments who are responsible for ensuring all research published by the Institute passes through the appropriate peer review.
If a dispute about the recommendations of the reviewers should arise during the Institute’s peer review process, the Institute has an Editorial Advisory Board, a panel of scholars from Canada, the United States, and Europe to whom it can turn for help in resolving the dispute.
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/about-us/peer-review/overview.aspx
Jim – medical tourism. 1% of canadians – how many came to USA? 0.25% of Americans leave for medical tourism ~750,000. Does this match your figures?
291 and counting posts since Peter’s opening question (followed by multiple repeats, explanations, and paraphrases) re evidence for the efficacy of ‘climate change policies’ and so far exactly zero responses maintaining that there was any.
For example, there have been multiple responses extolling the wonders of a ‘carbon tax’; how it should be implemented, and its predicted effects on the economy and personal freedom, but none presenting evidence that a carbon tax would have a measurable impact on the Temperature of the Earth, or the slope of its time history plot. Which is the ostensible reason for the carbon tax (and other ‘climate change policies’) in the first place.
I don’t expect any.
He didn’t ask for “evidence” he asked such things as “the probability that global carbon pricing can be implemented with a sufficiently high participation rate that will make it sufficiently attractive for countries to participate and to stay in?”
How is anyone meant to answer that question?
Here’s a thought; What’s the probability that Iran won’t develop nuclear weapons?
OMG your policy can’t work unless you know the %.
From the article:
Former Top NSA Official: “We Are Now In A Police State”
Posted on December 18, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
32-year NSA Veteran Who Created Mass Surveillance System Says Government Use of Data Gathered Through Spying “Is a Totalitarian Process”
Bill Binney is the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information. A 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency, Binney was the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees.
Binney has been interviewed by virtually all of the mainstream media, including CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, PBS and many others.
Last year, Binney held his thumb and forefinger close together, and said:
We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state.
But today, Binney told Washington’s Blog that the U.S. has already become a police state.
By way of background, the government is spying on virtually everything we do.
All of the information gained by the NSA through spying is then shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally “launder” the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way … and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/former-top-nsa-official-now-police-state.html
Cher’s Come-To-Jesus moment …
“her apparently lost her trust in the federal government on Thursday.
I Wanted 2 share a Sad feeling.When I Was Young,WE DIDNT TRUST GOV.Later,I Had HOPE Now I know not 2 hope& may never trust in it again Joe
— Cher (@cher) January 16, 2014
The cause of the star’s angst with government is unknown but Twitchy speculates it might have to do with a tweet about fracking:
#FRACKWHORES
— Cher (@cher) January 16, 2014
The star recently followed up with a response to a fan about politicians letting voters down:
.@RepRepublic They ALL Let Us Down #Lowerself. THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT; RE-ELECTION (Not EVERY1,but MOST)NOT PPL OF USA ITS A “DIRTY” BIZ
— Cher (@cher) January 16, 2014
”
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/cher-obama-let-us-down
IPCC predictions: Assuming accuracy, what will the Earth/USA be like 2 degrees C hotter than now in 2100?
In AR5, the TCR is 1.0 – 2.5 degrees C. AR5 main track projects that we will double C02 from where we are now (about 400ppm) by about 2100 (750ppm). The mean of projected TCR, it is 1.75 degrees. Round up to 2.0 degrees for good measure. So, 2.0 degrees hotter in 2100.
1) Is this a fair extrapolation of AR5?
2) Are there any good papers describing predicted changes for 2.0 degrees?
Jim – medical tourism. 1% of canadians – how many came to USA? 0.25% of Americans leave for medical tourism ~750,000. Does this match your figures?
I’m calling him right away!! Is there a two-for-one offer? If I call in the next thirty seconds, do I get more?