by Judith Curry
The world’s leaders are touting victory as a result of the COP21 deliberations in Paris.
But, victory over what, exactly?
Some newspapers called the Paris deal ‘historic’. James Hansen called it ‘bullshit’.
Here are a few good summary articles that I’ve spotted:
- HuffPo: Historic Climate Change Agreement Adopted in Paris
- Carbon Brief: The legal form of the Paris climate agreement
- Robert Stavins: Paris Agreement – A Good Foundation for Meaningful Progress
- The Conversation: Five things you need to know about the Paris climate deal
- Nick Mabey: Framing the Paris end game
- Walter Russell Mead: A manufactured success in Paris
- Fred Pearce: Landmark agreement on climate
With regards to ‘victory over what?’, it doesn’t seem to be victory over dangerous human caused climate change. The Huffpo article includes this insightful quote: The accord ‘saves the chance of saving the planet.’
Bjorn Lomborg’s take
Lomborg has written prolifically from Paris over the last two weeks; the title of his op-eds rather speak for themselves:
- We have a treaty, but at what cost?
- 1.5 degrees target: symbolism over substance
- Is climate change to blame for ISIS?
- What does the Paris Treaty look like from Ghana?
- Two incompatible thoughts on climate policy
- What’s the price tag of Paris climate summit? Don’t ask the politicians
- Climate aid gone wrong
- Which kills more people: fossil fuel or renewables?
JC’s take
I suspect that these are factors that will determine the overall outcome of this:
- Climate change in the 21st century will be on the low end of the IPCC projections, and that we will not see anything close to 4C warming (unless natural variability somehow conspires to produce substantial warming).
- Nearly all countries will act to promote their own economic self interest, with the possible exception of Europe and the U.S. (under a Democratic President). Ronald Bailey argues that Fast Growth Can Solve Climate Change.
- People don’t really care much about climate change, as per this UN survey [link]
- Development of new energy technologies (generation, transmission, storage) and possibly carbon capture and storage technologies are the only way to make progress on the Paris objectives. The initiative spearheaded by Bill Gates looks like an important step in this direction.
- Now that the world has declared ‘victory’ on the decades long process of getting a climate agreement, perhaps local communities and governments can start focusing attention and resources on reducing their current weather/climate vulnerabilities and improving their environmental quality.
- Also, with the declared ‘victory’ and the loss of relevance of climate science, it will hopefully become ‘easier’ for scientists to obtain funding to research natural climate variability and challenge the IPCC’s consensus.
It remains to be seen whether the Paris agreement has a long tail with consequences that reverberate long into the future. The most unpredictable aspect of this is the near term variability of the climate itself. If the hiatus does survive the ‘warmest year’, with temperatures lower for the next decade than climate model projections, then the will to reduce carbon emissions may lessen.
In any event, it looks like climate change will be a significant issue in the U.S. Presidential election, which is the next big thing to watch.
Pingback: Paris: impacts? | Enjeux énergies et environnement
It’s hard to believe that a handful of cranks 25 years ago brought this all on
Bjorn Lomborg:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bjornlomborg/2015/12/13/we-have-a-treaty-but-at-what-cost/
Lomborg has no way of knowing what the meaningless Paris agreement will cost (same as everybody else).
Who does he think he is? A climate scientist? Why does he drop meaningless and baseless numbers?
“The cost (through slower GDP growth) will reach $1-2 trillion per year. ” It is a gigantic business opportunity, through government subsidies. Rich are getting richer and poor poorer. Elon Musk is into lithium batteries and electric cars, his cousin is into solar. Google (a company I actually like) asks me to bear most of cost of Ivanpah solar plant. I did not do any research on Al Gore, but I bet he is not getting poorer.
Lomborg cheated in the paper in which he said the INDC commitments would reduce CO2 emissions only marginally by 2100, based on commitments made up until 2030. There are two main problems. The first is that he omitted China’s commitment to peak CO2 emissions at **or before** 2030, even though the actions taken to achieve that all have to come before 2030. The second is that he assumed that Chinese emissions would then increase again after 2030, which doesn’t really correspond to anyone’s definition of a peak.
Thus the conclusions of Lomborg’s blog article linked to have very little basis in fact.
@jacobress, Lomborg does in fact have many ways of knowing. He is a top economist who specializes in climate change. His estimates of the numbers are probably as close as anyone can get.
“Who does he think he is? A climate scientist?” LOL. Is Barry a climate scientist? Is the Pope a climate scientist? Is Leonardo a climate scientist? No, no, and no again.
jacobress
Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus enlists experts to make detailed evaluations of costs and benefits of all the major issues from micronutrients to anthropogenic climate change. Those detailed analyses are then vetted by a team of seven Nobel Laureates. I know of no better quantitative economic evaluations. e.g., See their 2012 Outcome, and Climate Change Adaptation. You would do well to thoroughly study their methods and detailed reports. Obtain and learn from their books as well. Its possible you might learn something.
Peter Davies wrote on December 15, 2015 at 11:40 am
“The first is that he omitted China’s commitment to peak CO2 emissions at **or before** 2030, even though the actions taken to achieve that all have to come before 2030.”
They have already taken those actions. Their population will peak on or before 2030, due to measures taken years ago to limit most couples to a single child. I have met several sets of proud grandparents on the Beijing subway, beaming over their only grandchild. Only once did I make the thoughtless mistake of pulling out a photo of my two granddaughters.
China gave away a “concession” which cost it nothing because it had earlier laid the groundwork for entirely different reasons.
When they write the history books on this disgraceful global warming scam, they will point to the congressional hearings of Ted Cruz as the point that no official could no longer legitimately ignore the failure of the climate models and theories. They now have no excuse for being idiots.
Would the Nature Climate Change print it?
Congratulations to the convention of confabulators who convened in Paris FOR TWO WEEKS??? (SHEESH) for reaching an agreement on something even though few seem to know just what exactly was agreed upon and just what the real-world effects may be and where on the planet those effects may be manifested.
In post modern politics, the only thing that matters is the process.
If the process ends, so do the trips, and the perks, and most important of all, the budgets….
As an attempt to control the climate, Paris was a complete flop.
As an effort to maintain progressive power and budgets, it was a resounding success.
And since power is the real goal of all progressive policies, Paris was a win.
On the other hand, they could doing something meaningful with their lives – like addressing mental illness and aid to children and the elderly
If I hadn’t wasted so much of my life fighting the global warming scam, I’d have done something useful like fighting to retain wilderness and stopping low dosage anti-biotic use in farmer (which is the fastest way to develop anti-biotic resistant bacteria).
Indeed, I often think governments use global warming as the “opiate of the greens” – an issue to consume the efforts of greens on something that needs no immediate action – to stop them focussing on real issues that do need immediate action.
C’mon, Brian. Get real. This clutch of parasitoid clownish confabulators address real and meaningful problems for the purpose of agreeing upon real and meaningful solutions?? Let’s be careful what we wish for. The rest of us are much better off if they don’t try to do such things.
That’s 100% on point GaryM. Agenda21, Club of Rome, UN empowerment through climate fraud science is just another step in collective statism. Even if much of quoted funding is a sham in itself the basic totalitarian instruments are put in place.
The counter productive aspect of low grade skeptics who can’t put the essentials of the political forces involved is also apparent. Does Dr. Curry still think inspired science critical thinking over spaghetti chart data or the “pause” really matter?
Climate science has been largely a political enclave of the statist left-wing type for over 40 years. If Dr. Curry were really in a redemption phase she own up to that publically rather then dwelling on her relatively minor moderation since 2009 or Climatgate. Anyone with clue would have seen the cultural conspiracy of Climate agendas decades before. So even many skeptics (imagined or real) suffer from cognitive dissonance to the sort of Anti-Market totalitarian designs in full view in Paris or this current executive government in the U.S.. A government that Dr. Curry voted for it might be added.
Without total political scope the villains gain funding and propaganda campaign remains high. They’re destroying as much as possible at the academic levels and the Soviet science/social model was highly reinforced by the Paris success.
Exactly correct. As I commented on the data vs dogma thread, the only way this paradigm changes is to elect a republican who understands the depth of dishonesty of the climatariate, which includes the msm, and has the courage to take the necessary steps to either eliminate agencies like the EPA, or seriously reduce their power. That person will not only have to have courage, but the wherewithal to take on the green mobblob like the Sierra club, greenpeace, wwf, the msm and others. That person will also need the backing of a congress willing to fight the war that has been declared by the climatariate and not be intimidated into taking half measures that will enable this farce to continue. To obliterate the climatariate will require strong and fearless political leadership, something the us has not seen in a long time.
cwon – very true.
Agreed. The only people more corrupt than the politicians bloviating about climate science are the journalists who pretend to cover them.
I submitted the following to the Climate Science Blog of the Geological Society’s “Connected Community.” We’ll see if they post it. A shorter version appeared on my Facebook page:
The Paris COP-21 meeting on climate change has published its 31-page “Agreement” which can be read here:
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf
I’ve read the agreement and got the impression, perhaps mistaken, that it is an advocacy document with feel-good intentions lacking rigor and enforcement mechanisms. Key provisions are voluntary with no oversight. In other words, each country is left to decide what it wants to do simply because no agreement was possible without such a provision rendering it meaningless.
The winners were the Indians and the Chinese who are increasing coal production. The Chinese also are selling coal-fired power plants to other countries! Even US Secretary of State Kerry admitted that any agreed mitigation the US might do won’t ameliorate Anthropogenic global warming significantly.
The Agreement also has an opt-out provision after three years from signing the agreement with a one-year waiting period after giving notice. However, failure of 55 countries to ratify the agreement by April, 2016, also is an opt-out mechanism that is four months away. The most critical part of the agreement appears in the “Annex” starting on p.19.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK has described the COP-21 Agreement as “non-binding and toothless” which pretty-well sums it up. Similarly, GSA’s distinguished invited speaker at the 2015 Baltimore annual meeting, Dr. James Hansen, has stated that the COP-21 meeting in Paris is a ”fraud.” (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/james-hansen-climate-change-paris-talks-fraud). Given his credentials and GSA’s high regard for his expertise, Dr. Hansen’s assessment should be taken seriously even if his language could be viewed by some as strong.
The 12 day venue appears to have been very costly. I estimated it cost over $1 Billion to arrange the Paris meeting. Using the US State Department per idem rate for Paris of $480/day, just this item for 40,000 delegates comes to $211,200,000. Travel costs, averaging $5,000 per delegate (probably a low figure because most travelled first class) would add $200 million. Add rental of the venue, security, special limousines, flying the US President’s security designed SUV, security detail and 500 person entourage, and the costs keep climbing. Add delegates’ salaries as an additional cost.
Did the world get its money’s worth? In the Southern USA, they say “time will tell.” In my view, the venue money could have been better spent helping the world’s poor improve their economic well-being and given them a chance for upward mobility. That’s a global goal worth striving for.
George Devries Klein, PhD, PG, FGSA
$1 Billion – huge number!
I am used to huge numbers – a large part of the worlds population is not!
A large part of the worlds population lives for 1 dollar a day
$1 Billion would feed 2.7 million poor people for 1 year.
George Klein,
What could have seemed more “toothless” then small groups of largely easily identifiable leftist fringe academics babbling about carbon regulations to “save the environment” and organize “Earth Day”??
Now they are appendages of almost every government system in the world. The mix of totalitarian planning and tools associated to Paris dwarf anything they could ever imagined as a practical goal. Since they largely view themselves as justified authoritarians with a “cause” and part of large complicated social groups (the “Tribe” being one descriptive) Paris is far more then the “camels nose” under the tent.
The predictable whine from the full moon sect that “it doesn’t go far enough” will play out for decades further. Those fighting for individual rights against statist aggression can only play defensively against even greater odds as there is little interest in rooting out stealth arm-chair Marxism which is what the core of climate activism is in the West. The same sort of apathy that tolerated the Bolsheviks in Moscow in 1918 or Hitlers rise in the 30’s.
Paris is billions of current expropriation and crony enabling but the ground work for trillions and more important the total social destruction (transformation) of science reasoning (science method with objective proofs and verification) is now well in place. The Mayans or Carthaginians only killed a small handful of their populations based on superstition with political supports. The Eco-left is in the millions dead already with dreams of totally indoctrinated populations on a global scale.
The supportive media arm will likely back shelve the agenda for a time, use the structure to marginalize any dissent since so many countries “agreed”. Just as state run monetary mismanagement is accepted everyday of the week the new climate (and thereby deciders of what “science” is) authority looks permanently funded. Expect fear based copycat junk science to expand ever further through this century.
George is concerned that the lack of legal penalties in the COP 21 agreement means it is useless, but nothing could be further from the truth.
The main driver for countries responsible for more than 90% of CO2 emissions submitting INDCs in advance of Paris was not fear of legal penalty if they did not, but the knowledge that they would have to look their counterparts from other countries in the eye at Paris and all other international gatherings of country leaders. And they cannot do that if they are known not to be pulling their weight on promises and actions to reduce CO2 emissions.
In other words it is “name and shame” which is known to work very well for large companies and is expected to work equally well for governments too. You have only to see what happened to poor Tony Abbot, the Australian PM at the time of the G20 summit in Australia. He wanted the final communique to exclude any meaningful mention of climate change but got beaten up by Merkel and Obama (one suspects). In the end the G20 not only said they would stop fossil fuel use completely by 2100, but Abbot also somehow decided to make a contribution to the international climate change fund!
“The main driver for countries responsible for more than 90% of CO2 emissions submitting INDCs in advance of Paris was not fear of legal penalty if they did not, but the knowledge that they would have to look their counterparts from other countries in the eye at Paris and all other international gatherings of country leaders.”
As if these people experience shame. Hahahaha!! Remember that Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama was there – he of the drone strikes on American citizens and thousands of others.
You are naive.
A questionable ‘world leader’. ” Appropriately enough, the climate change conference kicked off with a speech from murderous Zimbabwean tyrant bastard Robert Mugabe, who isn’t exactly unfamiliar with large body counts. That includes his 91st birthday party earlier this year, which featured a feast of buffalo, impala and a baby elephant.
“Unless current trends are reversed, disaster stalks planet Earth,” Mugabe told the conference, before presumably heading for the French capital’s Parc Zoologique to see if it had a drive-through.” (Tim Blair)
Thanks for the tip Tom. My local paper completely neglected to mention His Excellency’s speech.
Here, in case anybody else missed it…
https://youtu.be/W4TPlpU0f6s
I wonder if Robert Mugabi also served “long pig”?
Bjorn Lomborg included this link: http://data.myworld2015.org/ .
9.7 million people have voted with nearly half the votes coming from the poorest countries. It shows results by age group, gender, education level and by HDI countries ‘low’ to ‘very high’.
Guess what ranks dead last overall and in nearly all categories except high and very high HDI and those over 50. The richer the country the higher it ranks.
What a bloody joke!!!
It’s interesting to compare the education levels of the Australians, Americans and British that voted. I’d say Australian school teachers have been telling their pupils to vote …. after ‘educating’ them in how to vote of course.
I should have explained that the proportion of voters who completed primary school or high school are much higher in Australia than in other very HDI countries – where most voters competed a higher level of education.
Getting rid of the likes of Mugabe is a much higher priority for most of the worlds people.
Yep, the rule of law rather than the law of rulers.
Peter, that was a fun link thanks. You touch it with a needle. Most of the mob in Paris would be quite upset when pointing out climate change “policy” is about the worst form of Western Colonialism ever invented. The original Colonialists brought basic healthcare, technology and rules of law regardless of opportunistic excess and abuse. Now the developing world will have satellites to enforce forced carbon rationing and inflate energy costs for generations. There may not be many big houses run by Europeans with third world servants to dislike. They’re going to know if they don’t know already that climate policy is an iron boot stepping on their face for all eternity and the same parties babbling about “the poor” and climate are delusional, cynical and corrupt in various measures. Once again, a tradition in fact, the poor countries are sold out of progress so their pompous leadership getting chump change kickbacks and a phony cause as rationalization. You can bet that toady elite was disproportionately educated in the West and is just as pathetic (if not worse) then the Greenshirt orthodox marketing climate policy in the rich countries.
Not even the Democrat party wants Al Gore back. We’re making progress… if you believe the unborn will all be poor and needy and their expectations for a good life must be dealt with by whatever means as the Left shall decide based on whatever tough love their models say will be best for the planet.
Good, now that we know Gates et want to build MSRs and China et al will fund emerging nations coal fire power plants can we get back to what the likely natural variability indicates. NOAA actually has a very nice subsection of their webpage and I was stuck by how likely a cooling is.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data2.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/images/data2-dome-fuji-lg.gif
What makes sense is MSRs as the grid baseband with the renewable energy treated as a novelty. If the renewable energy is available when you need it , fine. Otherwise let the renewables operators shunt it to ground. There is no reason to pay them for power that isn’t needed.
That would let us save the fossil fuel for other uses.
I find nothing but reasonableness in that proposal.
I mean I have other wishes such as not giving up the opportunity to China, but I’ll take what you offer and tell Santa about the rest.
knutesea, It doesn’t look like any global cooling is imminent on the ground of climate forcings alone. Over the last century, the rate of decrease in Milankovitch forcing has been dwarfed by the rate of increase in greenhouse gas forcing. It doesn’t look like the former is going to dominate again before a few more centuries.
Lucky us
Milankovitch forcing has been dwarfed by the rate of increase in greenhouse gas forcing. It doesn’t look like the former is going to dominate again before a few more centuries.
Milankovitch forcing and greenhouse gas forcing are always dwarfed by the natural climate cycle. When it is warm, polar oceans thaw and turn on snowfall that does not stop until the oceans freeze. When it is cold, polar oceans freeze and turn off snowfall and the snowfall stays turned off until the polar oceans warm and thaw again. This is the thousand year cycle. We will be warm for a few hundred years while the ice on Antarctic and Greenland and Mountain glaciers does rebuild. This warm period will progress just like the Roman and Medieval periods did progress and this warm period will end when the ice volume is enough to advance and dump enough ice and ice cold water into the oceans and on land to cool us into another little ice age.
CO2 correlates with temperature because the vapor pressure of a gas is a function of water temperature. Earth temperature is regulated by snowfall that is turned on when polar oceans thaw and turned off when polar oceans freeze.
Milankovitch forcing took 40 watts per meter squared away from the north and added it to the south, over the past ten thousand years, and that did non change the temperature bounds that was recorded in the ice core data for the north or the south.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page85.html
The thermostat for each hemisphere is the temperature that polar oceans freeze and thaw. Snowfall is turned on and off as needed. Temperature regulation is that simple.
Major ice ages were longer and colder because they were created by snowfall from oceans that were higher and warmer. There is not enough water in the oceans now to cause a major ice age. That water is safely stored on land in Antarctic and Greenland and Mountain Glaciers.
https://i.imgur.com/avCtZyw.jpg
Well,
If you accept the NASA energy budget at face value the situation is (roughly rounding) 15% IR out transparently and 85% absorbed by the surface layer of the atmosphere. The absorption is essentially the same as reflection.
400 >> <>
Assuming all things being equal, what happens when you cut the roughly 160 incoming energy 1 watt (yeah I know it is 163 and 58 but I like even numbers)..
393.3 (1-.85) = 58.995 so 1 watt of REAL energy has a 6.7 multiplier reduces temperature about 1.8 °C.
Just for grins we will replay it with the real numbers. 398.2, 163.3, 340.3, 57.9, the ratio of out to reflected is really 0.8545956806.
If you reduce 163.3 to 162.3, 57.9 becomes 56.9 and:
56.9/(1-0.8545956806) = 391.3226252159 or a net difference of
6.8773747841.or 6.88 given we have 3 sig figs or a 1 sig fig of 7.
So at the current temperature there is an almost 7x solar multiplier.
PA, also, the Energy Budget was for a specific duration of CERES data ( 2000 – 2004 I beleive ).
Here’s a snapshot of CERES Net Radiance I made earlier this year compared with temperature:
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/CERES_NET_anomalies_NCDC.png
The net radiance for the period is effectively zero ( balance ), though, of course, the uncertainty is probably larger than even the noisy variance depicted ( measurement uncertainty ).
But that puts even more of a question on the tidy budget charts.
And to the extent the series is accurate,
1. balance is up to date ( warming restores equilirbium ), and
2. short term ( annual and even multiple year ) variations of temperature and net radiance are not correlated.
I prepared an “interpretative” graph of the Antarctic Ice Core Data – below.
The May 2015 earth cloud-cover is estimated to be 2/3rds (http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/two-thirds-of-the-earth-is-covered-by-clouds-150511.htm); I put 70% on the graph. Has anyone generated a %cloud-cover vs time plot for the last few centuries. I assume that NOAA is keeping track of the global sea and land average temperatures separately. Where in the future would a “crossing” (“tipping”) of the two temperature curves occur? It’s the difference in behavior of the two that is the driving force. Global warming could actually accelerate the coming of the next “Major ICE AGE” via warming of the seas that bring on the “tipping” cloud coverage sooner. A bit of rise of temperature and then a drastic crash.
http://pages.swcp.com/~jmw-mcw/Curry_120000y_warm_cycles.jpg
Thanks Dr Williams.
Such an interesting correlation.
Very well presented.
I am drawn to the longer trends in this debate.
What does MSR stand for? Google wasn’t helpful with that one!
Molten Salt Reactor
Sorry Mr D
Molden Salt Reactors
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.technologyreview.com/news/542686/terrapower-quietly-explores-new-nuclear-reactor-strategy/&ved=0ahUKEwi7q5LN7trJAhXGcT4KHRidCq8QFggeMAE&usg=AFQjCNHNrSd22tkhf7vBXhfVvkhT_hNzgw
Peter M Devies,
Would you like to know how far the MSR is from being commercially viable technology that would be selected by utilities? Here’s a bit about the state of the technology and the issues to be solved: http://euanmearns.com/molten-salt-fast-reactor-technology-an-overview/
Peter M Davies,
Are you the Aussie that used to be Peter Davies? If so, how was you name taken over by a troll?
Hello Peter L. I hope that you did not think that I have been debating with you on the wind/solar thread because, I now have a twin who lives in the UK and likes to argue. So I have changed my name to Peter M so that any of those who read my somewhat brief comments will know the source of these comments to be dinky di.
Peter Lang | December 14, 2015 at 2:52 am |
Peter M Devies,
Would you like to know how far the MSR is from being commercially viable technology that would be selected by utilities? Here’s a bit about the state of the technology and the issues to be solved: http://euanmearns.com/molten-salt-fast-reactor-technology-an-overview/
Well, that is the opinion of a geologist.
Putting anything dangerous in a vessel at scuba tank pressures is pretty stupid if you can avoid it.
A nuclear reactor should operate at atmospheric pressure or preferably negative pressure. A PWR or BWR does not.
A MSR operates at sea level pressure (assuming you are a sea level). The “reactor” just has to be a soup kettle with a top, not a 6 inch thick reactor vessel. At standard pressure the chance of guillotine pipe breaks and all the other problems of operating at high pressure go away.
A pipe leak is something you clean up with a shovel..
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-sodium-save-nuclear-power/
LIquid sodium is sort of touchy. If it gets out it is very problematic. Plus it is a solid core reactor with a metal coolant.
A molten salt reactor can’t melt down because it is already melted.
There are some metallurgy issues – but a reactor was run for 4 years so they aren’t insurmountable.
There are some chemistry issues – the complexity depends on a number of design choices.
The U233 proliferation risk is sort of a joke. The general guideline is implosion weapons would need the U232 reduced to 50 PPM to be usable.
The only pure U233 device was apparently the Shakti V test and that was 0.3 KT. The composite U233 tests by other nations underperformed.
So a weak tactical device is possible. But the inevitable U232 contamination makes it easy to find. The U232 half life of 69 years makes the device hot (radioactively) and relatively unreliable.
PA – MSR operates at sea level pressure. Where?
P.A.
Clearly you didn’t read it did you. If you had you would have known it was written by an expert in the field. It was not written by a geologist.
It is really good to read this stuff from NOAA and see what they do not understand. They believe earth gets cold and that causes ice on earth. It cannot snow when the oceans are frozen. The snow that causes ice ages does happen when oceans are fuller of warm water than now. A higher ocean that is warmer than now can provide moisture for a major ice age. After it gets cold and the oceans are lower and frozen, it cannot snow much and the sun removes more ice every year than does get replaced. Every ice age ends because there is not enough snowfall. Ice depletes and retreats until earth warms again. A warm ocean that is thawed does provide moisture to put more ice on land that does cause cooling. A cold, frozen, ocean does allow ice on land to deplete and retreat and allow warming.
This is a normal natural cycle. It has operated inside the same bounds for ten thousand years. I has operated in wider bounds for a million years. It operated in this cycle for fifty million years, with support for increasing ice on land as the earth changed to circulate more warm water in polar regions. Warn open polar oceans put ice on land. More ice on land leads to a cooler earth. That ice dumps into the oceans and on land and does provide cooling. Albedo of earth is a measure of how effective this is.
Bill Gates favors Terrapower’s traveling wave reactor concept. This is different from an MSR. Both concepts are worth developing. In addition, gates has been seen investigating the nuclear concept which cannot be named.
There could be a good outcome after all, are we now post climate change?
http://www.thegwpf.com/uk-climate-diplomats-face-axe-after-cop21-paris-summit-2/
Lord Beaverbrook
That’s good news.
Have you seen this excellent report showing that the UK would need carbon price of over UKP70/t CO2 to cause investors to invest in low emissions technologies to achieve the CO2 targets for the electricity system? http://erpuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/ERP-Flex-Man-Full-Report.pdf In effect no low carbon electricity generators are viable below that. The least cost way to achieve the targets is with mostly or all nuclear.
Peter Lang,
I found this an extremely informative insight into where we are and what is necessary for the UK energy requirement:
https://tv.theiet.org/?videoid=7379
Thanks you for that link. It’s 1 h 18 minutes so I’ll have to watch it later. I noticed it is the Lord Mounbatten lecture. I often visit Mullaghmore Ireland, very close to his castle and overlooking the bay where he was blown up with his family by the IRA.
When you get to the end of it there is a thank you from Professor John Loughhead Chief Scientific Advisor at DECC, who doesn’t seem to have as much enthusiasm for the lecture points as the Electrical Engineers who were asking relevant questions.
Lord Beaverbrook,
Thank you for the link. Very interesting and much to consider. I agreed when he said that wind and solar cannot do much. Later he said maybe future solar may be able to. I am not persuaded that is true for the reasons he originally gave and especially because of the inability to supply firm power without storage. With storage included they cannot supply sufficient power to power modern society and reproduce themselves. This seem to be a physical constraint, not just an economic constraint. This short post explains this constraint clearly and references the authoritative literature: http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/
If the hiatus does survive the ‘warmest year’, with temperatures lower for the next decade than climate model projections,
We don’t need the hiatus to have temperatures lower than the climate model projections. We can have a lot of warming and still be lower than the projections. Temperature and sea level can never catch up with the projections.
No one believes the upjusted surface measurements any longer. They lost all credibility even with those who believe in warming when they suddenly gained extra warming in the last few years.
I played with this the other day. As a layman it really lays out what was done.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/12/fables-of-the-reconstruction.html
Should be taught as an exercise in an Ethics for Scientists course.
Having watched these talks for several years now, it’s become more an more obvious that western politicians just use them to pander to the green=gullible fringe in their own countries. The truth is that greens can so easily be taken in by empty promises that for a few millions they can secure the votes of millions without any serious commitment.
In a strange way everyone wins. The greens come back having got their promises to be good to people long after everyone is dead and the pragmatic sceptics win because they are just hot air with no meaningful action within our lifetime.
Judith wrote:
The UN’s “myWorld” survey to which you linked above is one that I have written about at least three times since I inadvertently discovered it a few years ago!
Long story short … Notwithstanding the “promise” that the results would be conveyed to the UN powers that be for “incorporation” into the new, improved SDG’s, it seems that sometime prior to June 6, 2015 it was determined (quite possibly by the UNFCCC Secretariat, sponsor of a Nov. 30 COP 21 side event) that the results of a very different “survey” would be featured instead!
As I had noted in September, not long after I had stumbled across this new, improved survey of UNFCCC choice (conducted by a heretofore unknown and confusingly multi-named group, whose display of data and results on the “transparency” and “ease of reading” fronts leave much to be desired!)
By contrast, one might want to compare the above UNFCCC results of choice with the results of a somewhat earlier survey, conducted by (IMHO) a far more reputable – and longstanding – organization, as I had discovered via (of all amazing sources) the BBC’s Matt McGrath who had reported (on Nov. 27):
In short: The UNFCCC’s preferred poll-pickers’ so-called one-day 10,000 views takes precedence over the UNDP’s 8 million plus, as well as the views of an established polling organization’s approximately 21,000 plus subjects, the results of which – for the record – the UNFCCC’s pollster of choice subsequently declared (on the strength of absolutely no evidence whatsoever!) to be inferior to their own!
Further links and details available on request. But in the meantime … YMMV, but I find this to be … Amazing. Simply amazing :-)
P.S. I had intended to include a link to the UN’s “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” which shows the only climate related item (which happens to be Goal 13 of 17), the long version of which, for the record, reads as follows:
Looks like I forgot (or messed up) the link – again :-( Here it is:
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld
I assume tongue in cheek, though it would be a good test for believers to test how strong their belief system is.
Staunch NATO member Turkey has found Allah and is occupying the oily parts of Iraq, helping in the struggle against ISIS (of course it is!) but making the area unbombable for Bomber Barry. Hmmm.
Turkey wants to be an energy hub and southern energy corridor, Russia wants to bypass everyone, especially Ukraine, with Nord Stream 2. Erdogan and Syriza will send New Europe all the new voters it needs, to help Europe get its mind right on matters like Qatari gas and Greek debt. Energy conflicts and tensions are now stretching from the South China Sea to Nigeria…
Time to wage relentless war on the coal of Wyoming and Eastern Australia, Mr Kerry! (Mind your bouffant.)
This is a serious question and not meant to be insulting to our hostess, but let us consider the current situation;
*Natural variability is considered unimportant
*Our Govts and science has accepted that co2 is by far the dominant factor in our ‘changing’ climate
* Moreover, that WE are the cause of the rise in co2 and therefore the rise in temperatures
* It has been agreed that temperatures must be heavily constrained by cutting co2 emissions.
Surely the latter objective is an engineering and political matter, so whilst Climate scientists have had a good run for our money over the last two decades, in the new reality what is the point of them?
Should giant swathes of the Met Office be converted to an alternative use? Do we need yet more reams of research telling us what has already been decided?
Should we not be saving the money spent on research on other more useful and practical things? Should the giant climate industry dedicated to finding a solution to a problem that they believe exists, now be dismantled?
tonyb
Seems to me that all we’ve been hearing (since at least 2009) is “Same chorus, same verse / A little bit louder and a little bit worse”. In my view, the latest and greatest from the IPCC – particularly the SPM – was, in effect, no exception.
So I, for one, would definitely vote for your suggestion that “the giant climate industry … now be dismantled”
climatereason,
This is by no means a serious comment.
I’m really looking forward to an end to climate change. No more floods or droughts. No really cold winters, or oppressive summers. After the ice has gone from Antarctica, it will make a perfect holiday spot, in case you get bored with the static climate where you live.
I have cast the runes, and I predict that on 14th July, 2106, World Peace will break out, swiftly followed by the adoption of One Universal Language For All.
I don’t need no stinkin’ sciencey scenarios. Guaranteed future facts – the future you can depend on!
How can the Warmists possibly compete with such a rock solid guarantee?
Cheers.
*Natural variability is considered unimportant…
This is not true. What is true is one side does not want to study the fact that natural variability has lost its ability to actually cool the surface air temperature… a good old-fashioned cooling trend. The last one occurred 1942 to 1950. Short lived and a hollow leg. The last real one started in the 19th century, and ended around 1905. The age of the automobile was about to commence.
Definitely more funding for the shorter term weather forecasts. An extra 10 days of reliable weather forecasts would make a huge difference to vulnerable communities!
Your question and it’s ramifications are serious. Your characterization of the current state of affairs is correct.
IMHO CAGW is a tool used by the worldwide progressive elites (the US branch being the Democratic Party of Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, John Kerry and Al Gore) to exercise control and accrue power. These elites are shameless in their distortion of the science and their corruption of scientists to achieve their ends. Unfortunately too many scientists enjoy and relish being corrupted more than they value their integrity.
Even half hearted attempts to implement the Paris Agreement can have serious negative economic impacts on all countries, rich and poor. In this sense CAGW is one of the most important problems facing the world. Fortunately in the US we have an opposition Republican Party that has done their homework on CAGW and is prepared to shut this nonsense down if given the chance. The Republican Party is far from perfect, but it is our best hope to save our economy from destruction by America’s liberal fas–sts. I intend to do what ever I can to elect a Republican President and Congress in 2016.
It is for this reason Tonyb, that I must reject your offer of running the US franchise of the poaypp.
Mark,
In which case you must believe that almost all the world is governed by progressive elites, because the climate change treaty had be be agreed, not just by a majority, but unanimously – and it was.
OK Peter, strike worldwide and replace with western.
Yes, the academics of climate change have come to a conclusion with the 34page resolution set forth by The UNFCCC COP21/CMP11. The next phase is to engineer a solution. Since CC is universally accepted by the functionaries to be a clear and present threat to all governments of the world it seems reasonable to assign the most capable and well funded agency on the planet to take control: The United States Department of Defense, led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the civilian authority of POTUS. Obviously, with so much in the science of contemporary Neo-orthodox climatology a proprietary secret one will expect a major roll for the CIA and associate covert operations. Come on folks …let’s get ‘er done!
“Should the giant climate industry dedicated to finding a solution to a problem that they believe exists, now be dismantled?”
Examine how what you deem the “climate industry” gets funded. I believe you will find that most of this funding is provided by government(s) at various levels. These government sources are likely to have increasing difficult times obtaining funding as governments are forced over the next 20 years to deal with increasing difficult budgets to manage as the population ages.
The time of governments spending far more than they generate in revenue is drawing to a close worldwide.
Hilary
Its a win win situation
WE don’t believe the giant climate industry was EVER warranted. The warmists must now believe that as the objectives have been secured there is no longer a need for cause and effect to be researched, so the giant climate industry is surplus to requirements so there is no reason the whole lot can’t be dismantled.
Now, do you want to tell Julia Slingo that she is out of a job and the Met Office is to be converted to a giant distribution warehouse for Lidl and her new job is stacking shelves?
Any offers for a giant second hand supercomputer?
tonyb
“…so the giant climate industry is surplus to requirements so there is no reason the whole lot can’t be dismantled.”
Hey! That’s my line!
Mosomoso
I am afraid your attempted rebellion is so last century. Don’t you watch Star Wars? The objectives have been secured. Generalissimos are no longer required. Instead, modest facilitators and community organisers will rule.
Get with the programme and report for duty dismantling BOM. Skips will be provided. Books and climate records should be burnt as they are no longer needed. Embarrassing books should be shredded THEN burnt.
tonyb (climate industry dismantler)
And I suppose you facilitators and dismantlers will smuggle out the old IPCC leaders along rat-lines to South America. In case you need ’em again, right?
Admittedly, Pachauri could pass for a dodgy rubber plantation manager.
climatereason,
You are overlooking a major part of the treaty, which says that individual country actions to combat climate change should be increased as time goes on. This means it is going to be even more important to understand how CO2 affects the climate than before.
And specifically, a target of 1.5 degrees C maximum increase looks like it will be adopted in future. We are already at a 1 degree C increase in surface temperatures (which the satellite datasets conveniently don’t include much of in their data sets, preferring instead higher in the atmosphere). To work out what extra needs to be done to hit 1.5 is likely to need more climate scientists, not fewer.
I think the Paris agreement is really quite artful. They wanted to avoid another Kyoto so it is completely aspirational. Thus it is not a treaty. This is something the President can legally sign, but the Senate does not need to ratify it. While it does not bind the US legally it still has political force. It can be used to justify new programs and legislation, when the Democrats have control. Likewise in other countries.
Moreover, revising the aspirations every five years gives the diplomats lifetime work. In short it flows quite naturally from the constraints and goals placed on the negotiations.
The Paris agreement does not render more climate science (mostly modeling) unnecessary. That bunch has already made the turn to regional forecasting for planning purposes. Including climate impacts in planning is becoming mandatory at many levels.
And since accuracy is low it is easy to argue that there is a great deal of research to be done. Happily (as Dr. Curry points out) this may well include a lot more work on natural variability. Global climate change and regional climate change are two very different things. This turn might ultimately lead to the overthrow of CAGW but only time will tell.
The reason they reset the goal to less than 1.5C is because they know it will be less than 1.5C even if we do nothing. They have to lower the goal in order to keep the money rolling in. Next year they will say the world will end unless we lower the temperature by 1.5C below some phony adjusted 1950 global average.
Got to love the piece by Arnold Schwarzenegger–e.g., I don’t want to be the last doctor to graduate from Harvard Medical School just before the tricorders — the fictional device Dr. Leonard McCoy used on Star Trek — become over the counter medical diagnostic devices at the 99¢ store.
When Consensus Met Reality
it departed with a Toothless Treaty!
With which we’ll be nibbled to death by ducks.
Fast Growth Can Solve Climate Change
Bingo!
If only our leaders could understand and embrace this.
It is ironic that the UNEP believed just the opposite – stifling growth.
Economic development means not only improvement of the human condition, it also means reduced population growth and reduced environmental footprint!!!
Shout it from the rooftops.
The trend is 0.2 W/m2/decade or 2 W/m2/century.
2 W/m2 is measurable, so we might actually know it happened… But this is still in the beneficial range.
The warming will beneficial. Is that really something we want to solve?
It appears we can solve climate change while sunning ourselves and drinking a beer in the backyard.
Fast growth can solve climate change. Medium growth can solve climate change. Low growth can solve climate change. Any solution is unrelated to the issue at hand, can solve a fixed problem.
The orbit and tilt moved 40 watts per meter squared out of the north and into the south, over the past ten thousand years, and that made no difference to temperature in either hemisphere.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page85.html
Observe that for ten thousand years temperature in the north and south go up and down with bounds. Observe that the red line is a hockey stick.
…we will not see anything close to 4C warming (unless natural variability somehow conspires to produce substantial warming).
Wouldn’t appear likely, given the proxy record.
It would also appear that, to the extent that a warmer world is humidified, the analogy of the tropics would apply: reduced temperature variation.
Even SM seems to think it is in the 6 watty range.
From what I can tell it won’t even hit 2 W/m2 in 2100.
There is a 7x multipiler for energy that strikes the planet so a tiny change in insolation or cloud cover dwarfs the GHG effect. Perhaps clouds self correct temperature changes.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone sensible who is predicting 2°C. The only people claiming 2°C are global warmers. The basic problem the warmers have is that they have to be dishonest about energy trends and the CO2 levels (which are being mitigated by environmental absorption). Any warmer who is honest is labeled a denier and driven from the tribe.
We are going to hit peak energy in the next couple of decades, then fossil fuel use will decline. People are going to migrate to nuclear power because only insane rich elites with more money than brains use renewables, and most people like to have power when they hit the switch and not wait for the sun to shine or the wind to blow.
When fossil fuel prices double, and they will, nuclear is the price champion and will win.
Fossil fuel prices are not going to double. By by 2050 renewable energy onshore wind and solar PV prices are going to be half that of fossil fuel, and less than that of nuclear.
It is very strange that many folks don’t seem to understand that generation that needs no fuel other than that provided free by nature is bound to end up much cheaper than all other types of generation.
Peter Davies | December 15, 2015 at 4:47 pm |
Fossil fuel prices are not going to double. By by 2050 renewable energy onshore wind and solar PV prices are going to be half that of fossil fuel, and less than that of nuclear.
Well, I like it when people make my point for me.
There is no reason to subsidize renewable energy or worry about global warming.
Warmists claim that we will be using mostly renewables in 2050 based on economic merit alone.
Why bother with RCP8.5 if it is never going to happen?
Why bother subsidizing renewables if we are going to be using cheaper more efficient renewables in 2050?
Why even worry about global warming since after 2050 it won’t be a concern?
We can’t hit disastrous warming levels by 2050 even if we try. If we are mostly using renewables (as claimed by warmists) or nuclear (as claimed by realists) by 2050 the whole global warming debate is a futile discussion of a fantasy scenario.
I think this “agreement” will have a couple of significant impacts. If America and Europe do in fact work hard to reduce carbon emissions it will reduce our economic competitiveness in a global economy. The end result will be that more carbon producing industries will shift to countries that are not interested in “climate change” and have little or no pollution control initiatives. This shifting of economic activities, which has been occurring since the 1990’s, will further erode middle class standard of living in this country.
This deal is not good for the environment and is certainly not good for our people.
it always amazes me that delegates at high powered conferences think it a good idea to ‘negotiate’ during the night or in this case, 2 nights.
We have the same hubris at other major conferences such as the EU when tackling the Greek debt crisis and the European migrant crisis. Perhaps they remain a crisis as people aren’t at their best doing deals when they should be asleep?
Bear in mind also that the negotiators often don’t have the skills they think do and the leaders parachuted in to close the deal are often complete strangers to the art.
tonyb
We have a lot of smart Jims here and one really Dim one. Jim L. has given us the bottom line on this “agreement”. And they needed 40,000 delegates to come up with that crap? Must be inflation. It only took 300 Spartans to save Western Civilization from the Persians.
Don,
“…they needed 40,000 delegates…?”
It was a pahty! Everyone had a good time, the local economy made some dough, and even a few hookers can now retire early. As for the agreement, that was just paper work required for the expense reports.
There just aren’t any major countries left who are not interested in climate change. They have all agreed to the climate treaty now.
Even India has agreed to install phenomenal amounts of renewable generation, and has shrewdly stated it is willing to commit to peaking coal soon, provided someone pays it to install yet more renewables instead.
And the shift of jobs to places like China was much more to do with worker pay levels than with energy prices.
COP-out 21
Reblogged this on I Didn't Ask To Be a Blog.
Very little will change because of the Paris agreement. Right now, there is some fracturing of the CAGW proponents between those who want to declare victory and those who have done the math, but they will soon be one big happy family again…becoming ever more extreme in their predictions and tactics (the results of the dynamics of group polarization).
Sure, there are some aging hippies who want to have some sort of closure for their movement and a sense that they’ve accomplished something, but the movement is now too big. It’s a confluence of the left’s pet projects (the transfer of wealth to the 3rd world, the demonization of big business and GOP politicians, etc) and important psychological tendencies (doomsday beliefs, the Western world’s Victorian obsession for over-control and the Malthusian school of thought).
Another factor is that the CAGW proponents can’t acknowledge the immense effort that goes into CO2 reductions. They need to pretend that nothing has happened and that all of their excellent ideas have been blocked by deniers. Otherwise, people would look at the ever-increasing CO2 levels and wonder why we’re spending all this money.
The climate wars will continue.
The following study from MIT examines the environmental impacts of windmill and photovoltaic installations when considered at a scale designed to compete with carbon fuel. Interesting reading. http://mydocs.epri.com/docs/publicmeetingmaterials/1007/6VNB68FDMHU/E234372_4_EPRI_0710_Wind_Wang.pdf
Interesting, thanks. Take away message:
“Using land-based wind turbines to meet 10% or more of global energy demand in 2100 could cause surface warming exceeding 1 oC over land installations”
Their conclusions about the impact of solar and biofuels isn’t clear to me.
I am not concerned about anything that causes warming. Any Warming does warm the oceans. Warm Polar oceans thaw and turn on snowfall and it snows without bounds until it gets cold again. The thermostats in the north and the south are the temperature that polar oceans thaw. That cannot be changed. Exceed that, oceans thaw, and snowfall is increased and warming is bounded. Sea level is also bounded.
I’ll rephrase. The takeaway message is the weather-dependent renewables like wind and solar, are not as environmentally benign as most people believe.
About a year old, but still relevant in terms of target messaging.
http://www.people-press.org/files/2014/12/12-18-2014-4.png
Pingback: Agreement reached: planet saved. Or a COP-out? | Climate Scepticism
A year ago, I commented here:
[COP22 will be in Marrakesh, Morocco, as it turns out.]
Of course, that could have been written about any of the confabs, including Copenhagen 2009 (COP15). Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Indeed. Never let it be said that these partygoers have not developed a unique expertise in the oh-so-noble art and artifice of “recycling”.
Actually Sydney today had record winds and looks like a scene of devastation. Compare that to London which, approaching the winter solstice, is today a very comfortable 16 degrees C.
So your choice of alternate location would have been proved spectacularly wrong, at least for this week!
Climate change has a lot to answer for!!!
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/severe-thunderstorms-forecast-to-hit-sydney-20151215-glohb3.html
Agreement about the most dangerous chemical in the world just took place in one of the most irrelevant countries in the world. If France was a state it’s GDP per capita would fall among the 5 lowest states in the US.
CO2 is the most wonderful chemical in the world. It makes it possible to grow green things, without which, we would not have life on earth.
Indeed, Pope, as William Happer is wont to say:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2642410-Email-Chain-Happer-O-Keefe-and-Donors-Trust.html
Here are my views. If you agree with my views I will write them up. You may pay me by donating to a charity of my choice. That shows some sort of ethical problem how exactly?
Willard | December 14, 2015 at 3:05 pm |
Indeed, Pope, as William Happer is wont to say:
More CO2 will benefit the world.
Well…
42% of our food comes from post 1900 CO2. That is a huge benefit. Dr. Happer is a wise man.
http://matadorco2.com/wp-content/uploads/co2_enrichment_chart3.jpg
If we jack the CO2 level up to 500 PPM we could get 60% of our food from more CO2.
It would be nice to get the CO2 level up to 1000 PPM then plants would grow fast – like in a greenhouse (if you increase the temperature and CO2 plants grow faster – that is why they have greenhouses).
But even 500 PPM might not be possible – because if you increase the temperature and CO2 the plants grow faster and absorb the increased CO2 and pretty soon you run out of CO2. That doesn’t mean we can’t try to hit 500 PPM anyway – perhaps by subsidizing fossil fuel.
I did listen to Happer in Austin in Nov. I met and briefly talked to him.
This was at a Climate summit. I recommend you watch the videos.
I did briefly talk to more than half of the speakers. More to some of them.
http://www.texaspolicy.com/blog/detail/at-the-crossroads-energy-climate-policy-summit-videos
Declaring war on coal means the Left must declare war on William Happer too (like William Gray before him and like Al Gore turned on his mentor, Roger Revelle before that). The Left hates Happer but not because he loves coal and not even because Happer does not fear CO2.
Academia’s self-anointed experts of climate change fear Happer because he sees right through them and has the temerity to weigh in on the views, motives and the plain ignorance of global warming alarmists: “There are people who just need a cause that’s bigger than themselves,” Happer observed. “Then they can feel virtuous and say other people are not virtuous.”
JC says: “Nearly all countries will act to promote their own economic self interest”
Now in the Guardian: India says Paris climate deal won’t affect plans to double coal output
Paul
I see the Guardian racked up yet another huge loss last year. How much longer it can struggle on I don’t know
tonyb
I predicted the demise of the Guardian when they gave nutticelli a column, Tony. Lefties never think about the practical consequences of their actions.
India’s air pollution: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/12/07/beijing-air-quality-china-pollution/76924786/
Also — With U.S. Leadership, the OECD has agreed to finance ultra supercritical (high efficiency) coal power plants in developing countries.
Also — Efforts on “Fast Mitigation” (smog, black carbon, HFCs, smog) efforts:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/12/05/at-paris-climate-talks-experts-cite-risk-looming-risk-from-industrial-coolants-methane/
““Nearly all countries will act to promote their own economic self interest””
Good. That’;s exactly how it should be. The governments are responsible to do the best they can for their people. That’s how its always been and should be. We should not be governed by a bunch of unelected bureaucrats in the UN, Brussels, etc.
Governments exist to take away rights.
Write that down.
Now, we must all obey the authorities!
My teenage grandson visited the Paris Climate Challenge website, among others, and drew a different conclusion from the media reports:
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/a-teenager-looks-at-climate-change/
Good post by your grandson. I am surprised to see anyone of that age so properly sceptical. That’s excellent.
I disagree with one things he says often – i.e. that things were worse when the planet had higher CO2 concentration. In fact life thrived in those times. And 75% of the past 500 years has been much hotter than now – no ice at the poles – and life thrived.
Yes, I also winced at that, but it is his essay. It shows how subliminal is the notion that more CO2 is “worse.”
He’s done really well to grasp the reality. You should be very proud.
How very nice of you to share.
He has a solid foundation in critical thinking.
Nourish it.
Peter Lang: you wrote: And 75% of the past 500 years has been much hotter than now – no ice at the poles – and life thrived.
This is not what you meant to write?
Thanks for picking that up.
Correction:
And 75% of the past 500 million years has been much hotter than now – no ice at the poles – and life thrived.
I read your grandson’s post. Excellent!
Your grandson cites (repeatedly, to the exclusion of others) an Australian emeritus geology professor Ian Pilmer.
Garbage in, garbage out. “Australian” and “scientist” are contradictory terms. The dingo ate more than my baby. It ate my science establishment too.
“to the exclusion of others”? Yes, one can find many other geologists saying the same as Plimer. It was a term paper to present a position, not a survey of the literature.
As far as I could tell from reading it, the document contained 3 kinds of agreements.
1. Agreements to hold meetings in the future.
2. Agreements to set up some new committees.
3. Agreements to “urge”, “request”, and “recommend” a bunch of diverse stuff, such as the writing of INDCs.
No actions related to fossil fuel use or CO2 reduction were agreed to, and nothing in it was binding.
I expect that most discussions will be about paraphrases of announcements of what is in it, rather than discussions of its literal text; and references to the fact that it has as many signatories as the UN Declaration on Human Rights, though not in those exact words. The US isn’t going to do anything that requires Congressional approval and funding; analogous statements apply to the other nations as well.
matthewrmarler
Thanks for that concise summary.
But the problem is that the “very high HDI” countries like Australia have a high proportion of rich people who are prepared to spend money on supporting the Greenies’ religion. The governments are competing to make the largest commitments to emissions reductions. They are ramping up spending on near useless renewables and other equally useless policies. The waste on useless policies will slow global GDP growth. Lomborg estimates the increase in energy costs alone will shave $1-2 trillion per year from global GDP growth. That means more poverty for longer, more useless handouts, more conflict and all that increases the economic losses.
Compare ranking of importance of climate change in the very high HDI countries the ranking in countries with lower HDI here (scroll down to the relevant chart). http://data.myworld2015.org/
Members of the Green Blob would hear that and among other thoughts would think …….. hmmmm …. eh, that’s okay the ends justifies the means, even if I am inefficiently moving towards my new frontier, it is less money and effort going into far worse manmade endeavors such as war.
If your mind can stand it, I wholeheartedly recommend immersing yourself in the minds of the people you are trying to reach. They connect the dots differently than you.
Make oil not war.
You heard it here first.
1.5 degrees target; symbolism over substance – Bjorn
Lomberg:
‘The temperature effects of the Paris climate promises for
2016-2030 from the world’s governments will be rises just
0.05°C (0.09°F) lower than they would have been by 2100.
The cost for the Paris climate treaty to achieve just that
is at least 1 trillion euro a year by 2030; even just trying
to embrace a target of 1.5°C would be ruinously expensive.’
Neanmoins, rien, rien … nous ne regrettons rien!
“climate change a significant issue in the Presidential election?”
doubt it
once the the anointed Democrat has thrown climate change fairy dust into the eyes of the true believing primary voters
the topic will be dropped
as the campaign train swerves hard from the left lane to the middle of the road
The Republicans probably want this issue off the table–it’s not a vote-getter. That probably accounts for many of the Republican absences from Cruz’s recent hearing.
rebelronin +1
“…with temperatures lower for the next decade than climate model projections, then the will to reduce carbon emissions may lessen.”
If Climate Change were only an issue of science and reality. Obama will act unilaterally irregardless of facts, science or changing political environment. I believe we will observe how destructive government by fiat can be and how very hard it will be to unravel the tangled web he has woven. He is not dumb. He can do a great deal of damage.
The remedy for Obama’s imperial Presidency has been role modeled by Nixon; resign in disgrace.
Otherwise, Congress will need to exert its control over the purse strings, targeting the most egregious agency programs. NASA my go back to flying space missions. EPA may go back to inspecting smoke stack and tailpipe emissions. DoD may go back to fighting and winning our country’s wars. All of their combined Climate Change allocations may be aggregated and fund research on making alternative energy cheaper than coal.
RiHo08,
With respect, I wonder if Government funded research would achieve any additional benefit compared with funding no research at all.
Newton managed to invent the Newtonian telescope without the aid of Government research funding. Thomas Alva Edison (and others) gave us things like the gramophone, the electric light globe and so on, without being a participant in a Government funded research program.
You get my drift, I hope. I don’t wish to belabour the point, although Warmists appear to live in denial of both history and reality.
I see no problem with a Government offering rewards for the practical application of a known theory. The British Admiralty had a prize of £20,000 for a useful timekeeper with particular properties. Harrison’s marine chronometer resulted.
Vastly expensive Government research programs have a habit of producing extremely expensive solutions to non existent problems. Alternatively, they can produce extremely expensive non solutions to problems which actually exist.
It just seems that the cost effectiveness of Government research programs is subject to reasonable query.
Cheers.
But most science now is inherently expensive, because almost all the low-hanging fruit has been picked.
Mike Flynn,
I agree with you.
IMO the government should get right out of it. There should be no government funding for energy R&D research. The energy business is enormous and can fund itself. The energy industry businesses will do the research and find the solutions to the problems and do it much better than governments, politicians and bureaucrats. For examples consider:
• The oil and gas industry – all private sector funded
• The competition in the US shale gas and fracking industries with masses of small innovative specialist firms providing services, competing and reducing costs.
• Batteries – Tesla, Panasonic, virtually all car companies all competing
• Aerospace industry – largely private sector
An excellent example of what is going on right now is http://www.thirdway.org/report/the-advanced-nuclear-industry
So why does government have to fund the electricity industry’s research?
I’ve seen what happens at close quarters having worked in Energy Research and Development Corporation. I reckon all government involvement does is to retard relevant research and competition for decades.
What the government should do is set a level playing field for the electricity industry based on clearly objective relevant requirements, then keep out of the way. Keep it simple so it will be stable for the long term no matter what happens. Remove the government imposts to the extent possible.
The link provided by Lord Beaverbrook on this thread to a lecture by Oxford Professor of economics is very interesting too.
We wouldn’t have fusion power today without government funding.
Oh… wait…
@roger
It only appears low hanging in retrospect. This has been true since forever. For example fire seems like low-hanging fruit to us but a million years ago it wasn’t easy figuring out how to rub two sticks together to make it.
I guess some of the skeptics are still combing through the 31 pages, trying to find where they hid the world government and global carbon tax clauses. So much for the Agenda 21 and Club of Rome types. Time for them to get back to reality.
Jim D: I guess some of the skeptics are still combing through the 31 pages, trying to find where they hid the world government and global carbon tax clauses.
I personally was looking for binding agreements to achieve some quantitative goals. The somewhat lauded INDCs were explicitly excluded from the agreement.
Section 2 of the agreement specifically welcomes the INDC measures, and wants to evaluate and have new ones on a regular basis.
No need for us to comb, yimmy. We know from Hansen’s reaction that none of that stuff is in there. You are really hurting, yimmy. You should find a new cause to preach about. PETA is good. They have those models getting naked all the time.
Sorry Judy, I know you don’t like encouraging certain behaviors here, but Don was pretty damn funny +1
yo, knute
Ask yimmy to get video for us, if he hooks up with PETA. He is still mad at me.
Hey Don have you stopped beating your dog yet?
Oops. I hadn’t yet read Dondon’s noting of PETA strippers. I guess his dog isn’t the only thing he’s beating. If you get my drift. And I think you do.
I want to know what are the likely economic impacts of Paris agreement. I suspect they will be much worse than Lomborg’s initial estimate of $1-2 trillion per year which is just the result of increased energy cost
What was the cost of the climate industry before and what’s it likely to become as a result of Paris?
What will be the total economic impact of Paris on world GDP growth?
What are the expected benefits (quantified in US$ please)?
I just spotted unleaded regular gasoline at $1.65 USD per gallon at a gas station today. Diesel for $1.91.
While the usual idi0ts who gathered in Paris gloat over their victory the price of a barrel of Brent Crude dropped under $35 this week. With sanctions against Iran being lifted it’s predicted to sink below $30/bbl in 2016.
So despite my health care insureance cost (private, unsubsidized) skyrocketing the past two years under “Obamacare” there is this one ray of sunshine in falling energy prices.
Drill baby drill. Frack like it’s 1999!
The Paris document makes me think of (a) Chamberlain waving his historic piece of paper, (b) The Marx brothers “Party of the first part…” sketch.
Recommends urges,
calls upon encourages,
requests resolves,
recognizes invites,
takes note decides,
furthermore emphasises,
acknowledges welcomes,
and takes into account.
It must be a wonderful thing to think that one has saved the planet.
For the rest of us, it should be a sign that the believer needs to be in an institution.
Dr Curry, i just received a journal called “Temas 82” issued by the Scientific American branch in Spain. It’s a very glossy issue loaded with articles about the climate, mostly well crafted propaganda. Page 80 has you in a full page photo in front of an article “Escepticos frente a Ortodoxos”. They seem to have done “ok”. At the end they craftily stuck Michael Mann’s hockey stick.
Right after the article about you they also have interviews with Muller and Mann.
The articles tend to be fairly standard propaganda. Interestingly, I have the digital subscriptions and get SciAm in English in paper. So this special issue came in free of charge. They apparently give them away.
interesting . . .
I can not discontinue my SciAm subscription, having done so years ago.
I can’t discontinue mine for the same reason. My wife brings home a copy for me from the doctor’s office she manages. It arrives in the name of a doctor that no longer works there. So I still use it as bathroom reading material.
I’m nearly a year behind with 11 issues not yet opened. I just finished reading an article in the September 2014 “Special Issue on Evolution” (the *other* SciAm dogma) “Climate Shocks” where it talks about how regularly repeating climate change in Africa shaped human ancestral evolution starting with the extinction of Australopithecus aferensis 4 million years ago.
The irony … it burns. In this article they boldly go where SciAm rarely treads by talking openly about regular, cyclic, natural climate change. Most of the time elsewhere the pretense is strongly enforced that climate doesn’t change unless humans do something to change it.
I weep for what has become of science and of the general science journal I loved for so many decades that kept me abreast of new developments.
Is somebody really expecting to see $100B/year???? I wonder how long it’ll take them to notice.
Does anyone have links to how they calculate aid?
When the U.S. uses the Export/Import Bank to provide financing of nuclear power plants, does this count as aid? Does China financing of their nuclear technology (e.g., Argentina) count as aid?
When the OECD uses its financing resources for ultra supercritical (high efficiency) coal power plants to developing countries, does this count as aid?
Cop21 leaves the detalls out of the text. I think any loan priced below market price may qualify. The EU also ties money grants to use of European industry.
If Obama wasn’t so obtuse they could talk to the Jamaicans, give them loans and loan guarantees for a combined cycle turbine power plant, LNG storage and methane regasifier, and godfather a deal to ship LNG to feed the plant. That would use loan guarantees for low price loans and require USA equipment and labor. It’s a win win.
I don*t think they have a basis for calculating anything. Heck, they couldn’t even specify which countries are “Developed”. The paper is all verbs, no nouns.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for generously investing in infrastructure in less developed countries, It is in our interest. This needs to be done wisely however, and intelligence is a trait I haven’t observed much of in our leadership lately.
Stuffing money down Bobby Mugabe’s shorts isn’t a good plan.
Fernando — The win/win type of things you mention is the type of approach emphasized by Jon Huntsman (R) (that I’ve talked about here at CE). Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) is trying to talk win/wins — but his poll numbers are so low.
Judith.
Bob Hoskins, climate scientist. was on Radio 4, early Sunday morning claiming that the Paris deal meant the decarbonisation of Britain’s energy. Of course, I assumed that the deal must have been ground breaking, especially when other local alarmists joined the chorus. .I checked online at Bishophill and discovered the voluntary aspect. This Sunday pantomime occurs after every yearly Saturday climax, hoping to catch folk unawares. Has climate science fallen so low, that objectivity is replaced by wishful thinking, the daydream of a child.
Further thoughts on the Senate hearing left a bitter taste, in that the words of good scientists, skeptical to the Democrat’s agenda, counted for nothing. Some good was achieved in the non-scientific aspects. A Republican victory is the best way to correct this situation: then scientists would be able to play their proper role as honest brokers.
.
South Australia is so keen to smelt metals for solar panels that the government has subsidised with $291 million.
The trouble is that SA, formerly an industrial pocket-rocket, is now our super-green state, is now an even bigger economic basket case than green Tasmania…and is now dependent on its massive wind power infrastructure (but also on every other kind of power in complicated arrangements which are all bad.)
In response to recent price spikes, there’s just been a meeting in Adelaide (once called flatteringly the Athens of the South, now called the same, but unflatteringly). The aim is to canvas “potential responses by the market or government through regulatory processes and other interventions”. I think that means they’re going to do everything that didn’t work the first time. (It’s like a remake of Heaven’s Gate or Gigli where you show total reverence for the original.)
Maybe SA could work the other way around and use solar panels to manufacture wind turbines to power smelters to make metals for solar panels…
I know I keep saying this but…can we get some adults in? And real soon. Adults. Please.
I don’t know a single person in real life who knows that COP21 even existed.
A mountain is being made out of a molehill.
David I agree with you. GW will not really be on the General Public’s radar screen unless something really dramatic happens — like in this weather report from Arizona:
Interesting — Democrats & Republicans to compromise??? End U.S. oil export ban and extend tax credits for wind and solar: http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/12/15/white-house-speaker-getting-closer-to-budget-deal-ending-crude-export-ban/
House Democrats Said to Be Open to Lifting Oil Export Ban
Second-ranking Senate Republican John Cornyn of Texas said Democrats are seeking a long list of concessions in exchange for the oil export measure.
“They are asking for the sun and the moon and the Aurora Borealis in exchange for it, and that is causing some problems,” Cornyn said in an interview
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-14/house-democrats-said-to-be-open-to-lifting-u-s-oil-export-ban-ii6dytba
Oil groups, greens condemn horse trading on energy tax credits, oil export ban
Many Republicans want to see a repeal of the 40-year-old oil export ban included in a government funding bill. The desire to lift the ban resulted in the “tax extenders” package, which was being considered separately, being brought in as a potential sweetener for Democrats. The tax extenders package is estimated to cost about $800 billion.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/oil-groups-greens-condemn-horse-trading-on-energy-tax-credits-oil-export-ban/article/2578021?custom_click=rss
Has Congress Already Forgotten About the Deficit?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/congress-forgets-about-the-deficit/420417/
Koch Industries Blasts Swapping Oil Exports for Renewable Credit
Koch Industries Inc.’s top lobbyist is warning against extending renewable-power tax incentives in exchange for lifting the longstanding ban on exporting U.S. crude.
“We do not support trading a good free market policy for more corporate welfare,” Phillip Ellender, the president of Koch Companies Public Sector, said in a letter to members of Congress. “We hope Congress will still consider lifting the crude export ban on its own merits,” Ellender added, “not by burdening society with continuing subsidies.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-24/koch-industries-blasts-swapping-oil-exports-for-renewable-credit
So much negativism here at CE. Why wasn’t this WSJ story on nuclear power and Obama not even mentioned by the Denizens?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-nuclear-paradigm-shift-1449014295
Why is this Department? —
Whenever people like Mosher, Zeke, Schmidt, etc. make a statement here at CE — tens of Denizens usually come out in scrutiny.
Yet when someone like Lomborg cites economics — he is given a free pass here at CE.
Interesting quote by Ronald Bailey in Dr. Curry’s above link: For example, since 1980 carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide air pollution is down 85, 80 and 60 percent, respectively, even as real U.S. GDP more than doubled.
Of course, when efforts were being made on these air issues, industry was saying something very different as to their economic impact.
1. There is a 90/10 rule that it takes 10% of the cost to achieve 90% of the benefit. We are down to the 1% range where the benefit is negligible and the cost is enormous. At some point a smart person says enough. But then the smart person isn’t an environmentalist.
As far as radiation:
2. Belarus and Ukraine have about 2/3rd the cancer rate of the US. There are a couple of hundred people living in the exclusion zone. Iran has an even lower cancer rate than the Chernobyl countries and they have Ramsar a region with a fairly high natural background level.
The linear-no-threshold radioactivity theory never made any sense. John William Gofman was an anti-nuclear activist. The LNT theory is that if a bullet kills you 100% a bullet traveling 1/1000 as fast will kill 1:1000. That theory doesn’t work well in practice.
Will Big Finance Join the Fight to Curb Global Warming?
http://prospect.org/article/will-big-finance-join-fight-curb-global-warming
Global warming heats up rent seeking
When political make-believe becomes scientific fake-belief, and is powered by a turbo-charged religious cargo cult paid for by the West’s captive taxpayers, big business cannot afford to ignore the vast potential of such a ready-made source of rent-collecting
http://www.afr.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/global-warming-heats-up-rent-seeking-20151216-glomrf
Paris confirms that climateering operates at two quite distinct levels.
There are those who genuinely believe CO2 emissions are affecting the climate in a dangerous way. They are unimpressed by the Paris Agreement. Noteworthy that Hansen thinks this, while Oreskes is delighted.
On the other hand, there is a large, disparate, body of people who seek some form of globalism. Possibly specific forms of global institutional government. But others, religious leaders for example, just seek a more diffuse ‘communal spirit’ to lift people beyond their self-absorbed, humdrum, material lives. These people were delighted at a demonstration of global unity in Paris, however shallow. They like climate disaster as a somewhat abstract rallying cry for some form of global ideal.
In 30+ page documents like the Paris agreement, it is usually only a handful of sentences which ‘have teeth’. They may be there, but I cannot see them.
After all, there is not even a definition of the temperature metric being used to make their headline pronouncement. 1.5C as measured by who/what?
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