COP15: First draft of Copenhagen's political declaration
1641 CET: Here is my take on the latest draft of the declaration:
"We're into a strange dark limbo-land here. The draft political agreement that leaders are supposed to sign today has gone through more changes than Eva Longoria at an awards ceremony."
Click here to read it in full.
1335 CET: Here are some thoughts on Barack Obama's speech:
"A year ago, I sat in a news conference at the UN climate conference in Poznan and listened to Senator John Kerry pledge that an Obama administration would lead the world on combating climate change."
Click here to read it in full.
1117 CET Here is a copy of the first draft of the political declaration put before governments last night [4.24Mb PDF].
1142 CET A few more details on the draft document rejected by governments last night.
One key issue for constraining climate change is the date by which emissions should peak and begin to decline.
Many scientists analyses - including the IPCC's suggest it should be no later than 2020, possibly 2015. The initial draft of this agreement said "as soon as possible".
On finance, developing countries as seeking for a specific pledge on how much of the $100bn by 2020 figure that Hillary Clinton endorsed yesterday should come from public finances - as yet, there's no number, and there's concern that funds from the "innovative mechanisms" suggested for private financing would not be reliable.
Some developing countries are also determined to have a commitment to achieving a legally binding treaty with a specific time-frame - a year at most.
1046 CET I've managed to dig out a few details of the draft political agreement that was sent down to governments during the night.
The key sticking point appears to have been the lack of a firm plan for what should happen next.
There was no commitment to a legally-binding treaty, for example, which many developing countries have been insisting on.
The language was unclear on whether to continue using the Kyoto Protocol as an instrument for cutting emissions, as developing nations have been insisting, or whether to lump everything together under a new agreement.
There was lack of clarity on key numbers - for example, emission cuts from developed nations.
The third draft is being drawn up as I write.
0943 CET How quickly the weathervane moves here in Copenhagen.
Yesterday morning, the summit was heading for the rocks. By the end of the day, with Gordon Brown, Kevin Rudd, Hillary Clinton and their ministers rushing from meeting to meeting, the lights were back on - some sort of deal was likely.
It has clearly been a long night. A draft political agreement drawn up, sources say, by a group including the UK and other EU countries, the US, Mexico, Australia and others - possibly Brazil - was thrown back with much distaste by the overall grouping of countries here.
Once again, a largely Western bid for control of this process had foundered; Western hands had been ripped off the levers of power.
So what happens now? We have draft texts that have been worked on for months - years in some cases - and many delegations are reportedly insistent that this is what should go before leaders.
Seeking a fast exit (Angela Merkel and Barack Obama are certainly scheduled to be out of here well before the day is done, probably others too) the small group is maintaining its diplomatic push.
Many delegates here are tired beyond belief. Some negotiators have been up for most of the last three nights. There is a huge, technically complex agenda to be negotiated.
The Western spin is that developing countries are objecting to procedure. That's part of it - but it goes far, far deeper.
For many developing countries, it's a story of repeated broken promises and high-handed treatment.
As to how this thing turns out - right now, I'm out of predictions.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~44~RS~)
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Richard Black wrote:
So what happens now?
Probably not a lot really, but then most people aren't really that bothered, they'll just keep on going. It's not an election winning issue, nothing has changed. And we’re now looking forward to Christmas.
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Cognitive dissonance runs riot. Confusion reigns. Bring back Guy Fawkes to sort out the mess.
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My prediction:
A collection of professional politicians who habitually present themselves as "saviours of the planet", attending a hugely expensive meeting to "save the planet", are very unlikely to leave the meeting without an announcement that, yea, verily "we have saved the planet". -- Rejoice!
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Re you're previous article on why men are sceptics
perhaps you should read this link richard.
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/women-dont-want-to-face-global-bullies/#more-5458
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"Many delegates here are tired beyond belief. Some negotiators have been up for most of the last three nights. There is a huge, technically complex agenda to be negotiated."
And this is exactly what happened with the Lisbon Treaty signing us irretrievably into the EU with the loss of our sovereignty. Is this any way to negotiate a 'world governance' treaty?
Beware the vested interests - they are the ones pulling the strings.
OBAMA INVOLVEMENT
(And it was Goldman Sachs who funded much of Obama's election campaign.)
Oh and by the way in case you missed it, Richard -
Fantastic response from Joanne to your "Climate 'scepticism' and questions about sex" blog. Unlike you she likes to talk about the 'science'.
"Note that Black, like other uninvestigative journalists, assumes that there is “overwhelming evidence”. I challenge Black to name and explain one paper with empirical evidence that carbon dioxide leads to major warming (meaning more than 1.5 degrees C). There’s plenty of evidence that carbon causes minor warming, and there are plenty of “simulations” that claim to show major warming. But a simulation of the climate, can only ever give us simulations of evidence. We need evidence from the real climate, not the fakes ones. But there is nothing empirical. The lack of empirical evidence does not in and of itself prove that carbon can’t have a major role, but it proves that Black is wrong and that there is not overwhelming evidence."
http://joannenova.com.au/2009/12/women-dont-want-to-face-global-bullies/
Or will you simply resort to insults via third party quotes as you normally do.
We'd all be interested in some 'overwhelming evidence'.
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I'll leave it as an exercise whether they really have "saved the planet", or simply surfed the unprecedentedly unquestioning attitide of the worshipful journalists present.
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Come home Richard, your comfy warm Yeti slippers are waiting for you. If you can get home that is, throught the blizzards.
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http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/17/lord-monckton-reports-on-pachauris-eye-opening-copenhagen-presentation/
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Slightly OT, but I have a couple of questions about the famous leaked emails. I haven't had the time to read what they're all about as deeply as many of you, and would be interested if anyone could answer the following questions:
1. Do they really call the science into question?
2. Is there anyone who previously believed in AGW who now doesn't, as a result of seeing what was in the emails?
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Copenhagen, the meeting of the great, the good and the labeled bad. Although it looks as if nothing positive has happened there have been changes. The fact that everyone came together and met is a positive change. The fact that delegates felt safe to argue for what they needed is positive. The fact that most delegates stayed at the negotiating table is positive.
When has a project gone entirely right? Whenever a large group of people meet to enable change, they first have to get to know each other. The people have to gradually let go of their own negative or false beliefs and exchange them for new learning. Those who sincerely want major changes have to let go of their impatience and accept that change takes time. Changes will occur but not speedily like in a one and a half hour movie.
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"For many developing countries, it's a story of repeated broken promises and high-handed treatment."
Yes, I agree. Many of these 'developing countries' have been breaking promises and behaving in a high handed way for years.
I find the idea that the worlds biggest and fastest growing polluter - China - can include themselves in a block of 'poor' countries and demand to further INCREASE emissions whilst we have to trash our economies with massive decreases almost beyond belief.
Equally the idea that countries already taking the brunt of the changes will be faced by fabulously rich african leaders using the process as a pretext for yet more aid is laughable.
If this GLOBAL heating thing is true then there needs to a be GLOBAL reduction in emissions.
Talk about yet more aid to africa, global equality etc etc exposes some totally different agenda - which is the suspicion that many of us had from the beginning.
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8. At 09:56am on 18 Dec 2009, LabMunkey wrote:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/17/lord-monckton-reports-on-pachauris-eye-opening-copenhagen-presentation/
He's alright this chap isn't he.
Dear Lord Monckton,
I being an average working Joe, husband and father of three would like you to forget climate change for a moment and put your mind to the business of winning the next election.
You might not get a lot of votes, but you’d certainly get mine.
Love John
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Here's something to get you all going on. It seems that parts of the 2006 Wegman report on the Hockey Stick controversy had a secret and undeclared ghost-writer whose objectivity might be questionable (the only other possibility is that the alleged ghost-writer - Donald Rapp - has plagiarised the Wegman report. No-one would be risk plagiarising a report that is so widely known, would they?)
http://deepclimate.org/2009/12/17/wegman-report-ghostwriter-revealed/#more-1273
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So, what you mean is that it's a fudge. Well knock me down with a feather.
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tom, interesting.
I wonder if the emails of similar denialist luminaries should be opened up for public review.
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"1. Do they really call the science into question?"
No more than the IPCC does already with their reports.
Read them.
Chapter 9 has a section: "Uncertainty in the Spatial Pattern of Response"
And the most touted "hide the decline" was reported in the literature (hardly hidden!) for years.
"2. Is there anyone who previously believed in AGW who now doesn't, as a result of seeing what was in the emails?"
There's people who *say* that.
But find out their history? Not possible.
There have been some scientists who didn't think AGW was proven (and publicly said so) but now publicly say they do think it's solid.
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Its -10 C here this morning (18th Dec 09).
Relatively warm compared to the last few ice ages.
There history of the planet over the last 1 million years indicates that there is a natural global cycle of heating and cooling. Heating periods of several 100 years have occurred previously well before the "industrial age". These warm periods had nothing to do with greenhouse gases made by humans. It is very possible that the current temperature trends are simply a repeat of these past warm periods.
See http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
Otherwise you are likely to feel totally misinformed about this issue.
Don't believe the newspapers on this subject . . . . . .
Check how much C02 is in the atmosphere and how much is due to humans.
Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying land plants . If humans reduce their C02 emmissions by 1 billion tons, that still leaves 185 billion tons . . . . . . . !!!
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Tom Crispin: Try http://bishophill.squarespace.com/
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In Tara at this fateful hour...
This is their last chance.
They won't go home in disgrace.
Writing up "lasting agreements" on no sleep rarely accomplishes the task.
Someone needs a few hours' break to rest -- they can just sign whatever they have, and get some sleep, or get some sleep first -- and then sign whatever they have.
And the little courtesies matter, too.
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#13.
Yet another coven of alarmists chewing the fat.
They are all the same - a bunch of squabbling adolescents with no sense of reality or perspective.
(And that applies to both sides of the AGW "debate").
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# 9 DisgustedOfMitcham2
Maybe we should wait until the investigation is completed, but at this stage I would like to highlight the way quotes from one of the emails has been taken out of context and used in a campaign of misinformation and smear. This is the notorious "hide the decline" email. If you read the email in context there is nothing untoward here, they are just finding a way around the well documented ‘divergence problem’ with post-1960 tree rings. The issue is explained more fully here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Hockey-stick-divergence-problem.html
and here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2009/1215/Climategate-global-warming-and-the-tree-rings-divergence-problem
Surely scientists shouldn’t be pilloried for substituting reliable data from thermometers for unreliable data from post-1960 tree-rings? The ‘divergence problem’ does raise issues about the reliability of tree rings for reconstructed past temperature, but that is not the way the issue is being presented in the popular press and on certain blogs. Instead we are seeing a mass misinformation campaign that ultimately only discredits the sceptic case.
On your question 2, I’m not going to respond as I count myself amongst the persuaded.
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Roland D, didn't you read the link?
The fudge was the report had a few things to say about MBH98 being a bit weak. That was the best a denialist ghostwriter could manage.
Read the link. The fudge is the message "The Wegman Report slams MBH98".
Right, that's 10 now.
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Raise your glasses of Eggnog or Blue Nun and sing along.
All together now:-
Imagine theres no global warming
Its all just been a lie
CO2 is not a pollutant
The Polar Bears arn't gonna die
Imagine all the people
Living another day
Imagine theres no Kyoto
It isn't hard to do
Gas at 99 cents a gallon
And no carbon taxes too
Imagine all the people
Driving SUV's
You may say I'm a denier
But I'm not the only one
31 thousand scientists
Say the worlds climate follows the sun
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It is the birth of a reality of a new future.
What do you mean by 'we' anyway? and 'over many years'? what was wrong with Kyoto? Why the need to amend so radically? You simply meant the end to the struggle for world control and globalisation? Who cares, the Polar Bears won't notice, it is Cooling anyways.
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Richard Black writes of "the heavyweights", "the big guns"...
sensiblegrannie writes of "the great, the good"...
Have you no self-respect, either of you?
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"Surely scientists shouldn’t be pilloried for substituting reliable data from thermometers for unreliable data from post-1960 tree-rings? The ‘divergence problem’ does raise issues about the reliability of tree rings for reconstructed past temperature, but that is not the way the issue is being presented in the popular press and on certain blogs. Instead we are seeing a mass misinformation campaign that ultimately only discredits the sceptic case."
erm, they arnitrarily stopped using tree ring data when it stopped showing the trend they wanted, and then added thermometer data which did.
The graph they posted did not show the up-to date tree ring data which shows a decline.
You cannot mix two data sets like this.
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@11. jon112uk #11
I find the idea that the worlds biggest and fastest growing polluter - China - can include themselves in a block of 'poor' countries and demand to further INCREASE emissions whilst we have to trash our economies with massive decreases almost beyond belief.
Well, to be fair, much of china is pretty bad off. Sure, they're WAY better off than a lot of countries but they're only just barely in the top 100 of adjusted per person purchasing power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita
Could be a lot better, could be a lot worse...but I'll wager a few that are higher would be considered by most to be "developing".
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"The graph they posted did not show the up-to date tree ring data which shows a decline."
OK, 11, but then wait until the weekend, but this post is classic example of the PR punditry and half-truths that denialists revel in (when they use it. Use it against them and they'll scream blue murder).
"tree ring data which shows a decline IN THE TREE RING THICKNESSES."
Which isn't a decline in temperatures as the "hide the decline"ers wish you to believe.
Now how do you hide a decline in temperatures BY USING THE REAL DATA?
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@28
i'm not commenting on the temp trend (re-recent drop?) until i've had a chance to calculate the data myself. But, unless i'm mistaken this tree ring thickness data is used as a proxy for temp- as they use it on the temp charts. They have data, again as far as i'm aware, that passes past 1961, but chose to omit it as it doesn't follow the trend. Now regardless of what that trend is, this isn't acceptable practice.
agree?
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Or wake from a nightmare?
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Could somebody please explain what caused the "Medieval Warming Period" .
If scientists can't even explain this past warm period, how do they expect us to believe that they can not only explain the current warming and but also predict what will happen in the next 200 years . . . .
FIRST STEP : Scientists need to fully explain the past temperature changes !!
Then the public may be convinced . . .
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The will of sensible people must prevail over nitpicking the text to death. It is possible to do lasting damage by being too fixated on a particular turn of phrase, when what is far more elusive -- and more necessary -- is the breakthrough of simple, straightforward statements of unity.
This has been shown more than once in history. The fate of Christendom was sealed over such absurd minutiae as calendar issues and arguments between astronomers. Now, a thousand years later, we are still looking for the way out of that blunder, that resulted in wars & millions of lives destroyed.
I would think by now we have learned a few lessons, as humankind. Our predictions on when warming should "peak" are not to be allowed to stand in the way of actually getting started on a collective effort.
Which is what this is all about: taking the action out of the planning stage into an actual implementation stage that will involve millions.
The disagreements need to be set aside. 2015, 2020, 2025: we won't get there, we won't arrive at improvements, if we allow obsessive-compulsive proofreading, editing, rewriting, retranslating to take over.
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27. At 10:58am on 18 Dec 2009, poitsplace wrote:
"Well, to be fair, much of china is pretty bad off. Sure, they're WAY better off than a lot of countries but they're only just barely in the top 100 of adjusted per person purchasing power."
====================
Fair comment, but I'm not trying to make a case the Chinese are rich. (I understand from recent reports 1/3 now have western life styles, 2/3 do not)
My point is that IF the 'elephant in the room' is some world ending apocalypse climate change then this is a global issue needing global emission cuts. Who is doing it - poor, rich, socialist, capitalist etc etc - is irrelevant. A molecule of CO2 is a molecule of CO2. But that is only the case if global climate is the real issue.
All this stuff about rich/poor, aid, people INCREASING their emmissions is exposing some other agenda - not climate and saving the world.
A lot of people who are being expected to give up their jobs and live in the dark are rightly suspicious of what that real agenda is.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Again, by dragging their feet, and arriving late to the negotiations, the US leadership is making it difficult on everyone else, because, I am quite certain, they are rehashing territory already covered.
There's no going anywhere with this simply by treading water. America simply cannot afford to have the entire world view it as the ultimate stumbling block to human survival.
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#28 U14260427 wrote:
"how do you hide a decline in temperatures BY USING THE REAL DATA?"
You can do almost anything you like using "real data" as long as you start off with the data and then afterwards cobble together a hypothesis of your liking to fit it. Using that method, the hypothesis never "sticks its neck out", and never really gets tested. It never faces the "tribunal" of observation.
What you can't do is get a genuine TEST to deliver the result your hypothesis predicted will happen. It is quite easy for the real world not to comply with your hypothesis that way -- unlike the backwards way.
I'd guess that you have no experience of real science, because if you did you would realize that in real science you START OFF with a hypothesis, which predicts some experimental or observational result. THEN you test it to see if the predicted result actually happens. In other words, in real science you get the "data" AFTERWARDS. That way, the hypothesis genuinely sticks its neck out.
I don't think the collection of scientifically illitrate clowns and their hangers-on in Copenhagen will ever get that message. So take comfort in the thought that you are not alone!
Perhaps you're a psychologist? -- Psychologists routinely assume that hypotheses are constructed AFTER the "gathering of data", which explains why psychology is not a genmuine science either!
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#26. "erm, they arnitrarily stopped using tree ring data when it stopped showing the trend they wanted, and then added thermometer data which did."
Arbitrarily??!! It isn’t arbitrary at all. The divergence problem with post-1960 tree ring proxies at high latitudes is well documented. You can identify where tree ring proxies diverge from the instrument record by looking at the instrument record. It is the practice to validate proxies for temperature against other proxies and, in this case, instrument records if those are available. That is all they did. Would you rather they stick with the tree rings that can be demonstrated to be incorrect?
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To sensiblegrannie:
My wife Underacanoe suggested I turn off all other windows when viewing the Youtube video "Home."
It worked! Both at the library and on my home computer, with the BBC window open (takes up a lot of room apparently), the video paused frequently - very hard to watch.
But alone - no problemo.
Hmm, just thought of something - alone - that's the very best way to learn about yourself climbing. Interesting.
- Manysummits -
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"That is all they did. Would you rather they stick with the tree rings that can be demonstrated to be incorrect?"
the point is. if the data from 1961 is shown to be wrong- via modern recording methods (thermometers) then that throws into question ALL the tree ring data. Ergo, it shouldn't have been included at all.
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If the real dream was to get the United States to agree to commit unilateral economic suicide through the use of scare tactics based on junk science that effort has failed. This devil is as good as having had a stake put through its black heart, climategate being the last nail in its coffin. If the threat of global warming actually is as real as those who have tried to alarm us would have it, they could hardly have gone about the job of persuading us more foolishly. If anything they have persuaded us of just the opposite. It looks more and more like a ruse.
And how to end up such a fiasco? By coming up with not a plan but a series of numbers, targets. 100 billion a year every year for the poor counties. 25% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020. No plan for where the money will come from, who will get it, how it will be used, who will monitor it to see that it doesn't just line the pockets of corrupt politicians like so much of our well intentioned charity in the past. Everyone with their hand out. No idea as to how to achieve a 25% reduction in barely a decade, who exactly will reduce, which industries, by what means, and what impact it will have or why the plan will be fair or how it will achieve the goal. How do we know that 25% will make any difference at all or that it isn't far too much. Just numbers pulled out of the air. No anything except a prescription to turn our lives upside down with less than even a compelling explanation of why it is necessary. Europeans may be accostomed to having this kind of megalomaniacal trash shoved down their throats with little they can do about it but Americans do not and will not submit to it. Ding dong the wicked witch is dead.
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Now we’ve finally got the point of it, £100 billion.
Our contribution could be say £1.5 billion
The average cost of heart by pass surgery in the UK is around £20,000, and the NHS needs more money to treat more people.
£1,500,000,000 (£1.5 billion) = 75,000 peoples lives.
Or for all those country’s pledging the £100 billion = 5,000,000 (5 million lives)
I know it's a simplistic example, but still, it's still a high price to ask people to pay.
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To jr4412:
And Greetings to you Jr!
Good to see you back. You are probably one of the few to understand what I meant in my 'last blog' post.
Here's something both of us will understand, I think - Richard Black's end of blog comment:
"For many developing countries, it's a story of repeated broken promises and high-handed treatment."
---------------------------
'White Man speak with forked tongue' jumps to mind.
The only debate in my mind now is whether this 'trait' is endemic to the normal human being - or a learned 'civilized' behavior?
And is there such a thing as a 'normal' human being?
I do my own polls at work and around the city on climate change and the state of the planet.
Not very encouraging.
In Weston Price's day, before he wrote "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration", he found that there was no point in doing further clinical studies in North America, because they were no normal physical humans here. So he travelled for seven or eight years around the world finding groups of aboriginal peoples who were 'untouched' by our civilization, and subsequently 'touched'.
'Untouched' humans had magnificent teeth, bodies, and social and individual character.
'Touched' groups from those same tribes were degenerate, both physically and mentally - some frighteningly so.
In my opinion, that's where we are - degenerate, wearing suits.
- Manysummits -
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Thank you for posting the copy of the first draft, Mr Black.
Immediately, it is obvious what so many delegations objected to: it is simple & straightforward, a little vague -- but really not as vague as all that.
Probably many governments, not all of them highly developed or accustomed to "business at the speed of thought" (that wonderful expression Bill Gates used as the title of his book), expected something considerably longer and more involved, written in more of a rhetorical drone, and including all kinds of specifics about alternative energy, geographic names, that sort of thing.
Actually, I think it is a perfectly fine agreement, one that ought not be too difficult to polish -- but really only slightly -- into acceptable shape.
The best Agreements are often the shortest ones. This one is quite effective: it outlines exactly what has been agreed to, and indeed that marks progress. It is brief enough to be simple, and simple enough to be strong -- because, in fact, long contracts such as those they give you when you buy a car or accept employment are often very weak precisely for being so voluminous & self-important. (You should see the contracts they give teachers in California! They weigh about six pounds and are impossible to understand if you merely read English.)
The defining moment of this Conference will be the words spoken by President Obama: also not that many words, and spoken without any of the great fervour that was shown in Oslo. But they were sincere words, and the first straightforward expression of resolve by an American Chief Executive to taking America in an entirely different direction in terms of our relationship to the planet & the rest of the world.
So in that sense, indeed, a corner has been turned. Agreement is Here.
The hard work that now must begin to be done will involve billions of pairs of hands, and most particularly rely upon the energy of the young: our generation, and our children's.
And that work cannot be delayed.
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Manysummits, No. 42: " 'untouched' humans " may have had "magnificent teeth & bodies" but as to the social and individual character -- that is a stretch.
The Jean-Jacques Rousseau view of "the noble savage" has been retreaded a number of times, but it does not get any more traction for all the effort.
Consider the perspective of the female half of " 'untouched' humanity."
Do you seriously imagine the Guarani people of the Amazon forest -- the closest we have today to truly 'untouched' communities, as even the aborigines of Australia are now selling their artifacts to Madison Avenue art dealers, who presumably are not paying in shiny beads -- have a more enlightened "social and individual character" in the way they interact with their women & children?
Is FGM "magnificent"? It is defended by people who would like to keep their communities as 'untouched' by modern thinking as possible.
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wrt "hide the decline"
If you are graphing a best guess of temperature over time then for each year you plot the best available evidence of what the temperature was. You don't plot data which you know is wrong.
If the authors feel that paleo data post 1960 doesn't represent temperature, ie is wrong, then it is valid to not include it in such a graph.
If they feel the instrumental record since 1960 represents temperature, then it is valid, even necessary, to include that instead.
The instrumental record takes precedence over paleo reconstructions. It's more accurate. If the paleodata disagrees with the instrumental record, it's the paleodata that is wrong. This is the basis for knowing that the post 1960 temperature decline in paleodata is wrong.
The question is what about the pre 1960 paleo data, is that wrong? According to the scientists, no. Their hypothesis is that the post 1960s divergence is unique to the span of the data.
So given all of this what they did is perfectly valid to replace post 1960s paleo data with instrumental data as they were effectively drawing a best guess single line plot of temperature.
For a paper on the subject more explaination would be given, error bars, etc. But for a report such a simple graph is reasonable. People can refer to papers if they want more info.
In light of all this talk of "fraud" is ludicrous. It's clear that most of the people crying fraud have completely the wrong end of the stick anyway. In my view most of the allegations are coming from people who think the "hide the decline" was hiding a temperature drop since 1960. Yet we all know temperature has risen since 1960, so this allegation is based on a false premise.
I note that if you dare point out that it's warmed recently by posting satellite records, etc, other psuedoskeptics will jump in to berate you with "strawman! noone is denying it's warmed recently!"
Tails you lose, heads you can't win.
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The Prime Minister of Ethiopia spoke with great command of the substance of the question, and in particularly uttered a very worthy summation: that we risk "genocide through inaction."
And it is true: not only in the lives that may be lost in the countries most severely affected, now and in the years immediately before us, but even in places that we imagine to be safe & secure, in the affluent coastal zones of the world -- as the Katrina disaster foreshadowed.
There are many excellent statements being made this morning in Copenhagen. So far, the only speaker who has articulated any kind of ambiguity -- even the merest hint of controversy -- around the climate crisis has been the President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev.
And that is because in Russia there are so many dinosaurs left over from the Soviet system, that just as during the years of struggle it took to get Vladimir Putin to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the obstructionist element remains entrenched in certain bureaucratic niches.
A goal for the assembly gathered in Copenhagen, and participating from elsewhere, must be, once again, to continue to clarify for those who remain behind on the information curve, that there is really no doubt whatsoever about the adverse impact of mismanaged human activity on the planet, and our own habitats.
Russia remains profoundly disadvantaged by mismanagement & the intransigence of corrupt interests. They will need support & encouragement to improve their enforcement of existing environmental protection policies, to improve the regulatory regime and to advance further with infrastructure overhaul.
That means we need to move further away from the persistent preference by certain Western powers to carry on with tactics intended to isolate Russians and keep them in some kind of simmering stagnant state, by perpetuating Cold War frictions that really have no further place on the international scene.
Russia's old-growth forest assets, not to mention all kinds of other vital natural resources, are a compelling reason for choosing to continue to upgrade these relations, rather than to attempt to degrade them (as was the custom even just months ago). Europe & China both understand this; perhaps America can also gradually embrace an attitude of greater engagement, in a positive way.
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Though they won't admit it, most politicians at COP15 know the science is still not settled, hence they are not complete idiots (other than Gordon Brown) who has nailed his colours to the mast of alarmist agw. Still, what does he care? He is a goner within a few months. He probably thinks that if he drinks the UN koolaid, they'll give him a job once he's been ejected from No 10.
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Let's talk about real shared sacrifice. We've heard about how we have to live less comfortably with less heat in the winter, less air conditioning in the summer, drive less in more dangerous less comfortable glorified golf carts, put up with exposure to disease on public transportation, and sit in the dark eating only vegetables because meat consumes so much more energy to produce and contributes to GHGs. But who has considered the fact that in the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, yeast turns sugar into ethyl alcohol AND....CO2. That's right, consumption of alcoholic beverages contributes to global warming too. But don't think you tea totlers are off the hook. The fizz in your fizzy drinks is....CO2. And eventually to put it delicately, it all finds its way into the atmosphere. And while it may not seem like there is much CO2 produced in the making of a single bottle of wine or whiskey, or beer, or a glass of soda, when you add up how much of it we consume, it definitely adds to the total CO2 burden. So until I see people willing to give up their alcohol and soda, I know you alarmists are not really interested in any personal sacrifice to save the planet, it's just part of your game of economic warfare against the affluent. Cheers.
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#17 John Lloyd wrote:
"Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human activity."
Since non-sceptics will not accept this figure, I ask again: would a non-sceptic please volunteer an approximate figure for man-made versus natural CO2?
Anyone?
Anyone?
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@28 and @37 - U14... and Aposus
Evidently there seems to be some difficulty in understanding the use of tree rings as temperature proxies.
At a given point in time (in this case around the early 1990s) the width of tree rings was calibrated to the temperature record using techniques called dendrochronology and dendroclimatology. The assumption is that the growth of tree rings is tied to climactic effects, and therefore they can be used to estimate the temperature and climate factors during the life of the tree.
However, based on that calibration it appears that analysis shows that since the late 1950s, the tree ring width proxy does not match the more accurate instrumental record.
The consequence of this is that one can infer that if the proxy does not currently match instrumental records, there may well have been times in the past where they would not have been a good proxy for temperature (unfortunately we have no instrumental record to cross check their accuracy against 1000 years ago).
Given this, there is obvious doubt over the accuracy of the tree proxy data - and the AGW scientists recognised this by ignoring it in their temperature reconstructions from the 1960s onwards. However, they were not particularly open about doing that, and whilst the IPCC reports may refer to it, the overwhelming public message has not addressed it until the UEA emails were released.
Anyone care to guess why they would not want to make it publicly clear that their temperature reconstructions for before 1850 were largely based on proxy temperature information that does not actually match the instrument record?
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Some who see it as it is -
A TRIUMPH FOR THE KLEPTOCRATS AND THE CORPARATOCRACY
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Maria says: "The Prime Minister of Ethiopia spoke with great command of the substance of the question, and in particularly uttered a very worthy summation: that we risk "genocide through inaction."
What a laugh. The African nations just see this as another opportunity to manipulate the developed nations into giving them more money for nothing.
There's another useful idiot born every second, particulalry here in the UK.
Maria, you go ahead and give them all your money for a cause which has not factual basis.
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@49 bowman:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm
I believe these figure are widely available and very few (sceptics included) doubt them.
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#53 selfevidenttruths wrote:
"I believe these figure are widely available and very few (sceptics included) doubt them."
I wonder if someone could direct me to a non-sceptical source of some such figures?
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This is an outrageous misuse of the word 'genocide'. It is hysterical, sentimental, igorant twaddle. Get real.
"we risk 'genocide through inaction.'"
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22. At 10:46am on 18 Dec 2009, U14260427 wrote:
Roland D, didn't you read the link?
It's a fair cop, guv. I didn't read the link, by which I assume you mean the comment above mine.
For the very good reason that the comment was not visible when I posted, being under moderation. I was replying to Mr Black's post. I'm sorry if that's not the done thing here.
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Richard Black writes:
"There was lack of clarity on key numbers - for example, emission cuts from developed nations."
yes, "we" prefer to have others pay to clear up our mess -- sad indictment, shows that the majority of living creatures on this planet is still seen as mere objects to be exploited by the "rulers".
Flatearther #2.
"Cognitive dissonance runs riot. Confusion reigns."
neat summary.
John Lloyd #17.
"Its -10 C here this morning (18th Dec 09). Relatively warm compared to the last few ice ages."
weather == climate ? simplistic.
Maria Ashot #35.
"Again, by dragging their feet, and arriving late to the negotiations, the US leadership is making it difficult on everyone else, because, I am quite certain, they are rehashing territory already covered."
you seem to forget that they "have GOD on THEIR side". ;(
Dempster #41.
"Now we’ve finally got the point of it, £100 billion. Our contribution could be say £1.5 billion"
roughly equal to one-thirteenth of our current spending on the Trident subs; good money for a worthy cause, eh?
manysummits #42.
"'White Man speak with forked tongue' jumps to mind."
well, they are lawyers after all.
MarcusAureliusII #48.
"Let's talk about real shared sacrifice."
what, like the (estimated) 750,000 dead civilians of Iraq??
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@Bowman54: I just did. I am a little sceptical myself on some issues, but I don't think this is the one to build your case upon.
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@ Sparklet: Thanks for a great link.
So what happens now
Another conferance and another jolly
Helping the alarmists to make a lot of lolly
Clive James on radio has completelely destroyed this alarmist nonsense
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I have said before I am not a new member you made me change my screen name?
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I'm not really trying to "build a case" here, I'm just interested to know what a non-sceptic would say is a reasonable figure X for the proportion of man-made versus natural CO2. I don't mind if X is exaggerated, as long as nearly everyone can agree that the figure is "X of less".
I heard a non-sceptic arguing with Ian Plimer on Irish radio recently, and when Ian Plimer gave his usual figure of 3%, the other guy dismissed it as "ridiculous" without suggesting with any figure of his own. If he had said "it's more like 60% than 3%", or whatever, fine, but he just didn't say anything. You directed me to a "sceptical" site. Does realclimate offer any figure of its own? What is the "official" AGW figure?
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@bowman: will reply shortly - sorting out xmas stuff!
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@ Maria Ashott
"The disagreements need to be set aside. 2015, 2020, 2025: we won't get there, we won't arrive at improvements, if we allow obsessive-compulsive proofreading, editing, rewriting, retranslating to take over."
What you mean is you do not like the truth? The leaked emails show many things but the most important is that global warming is man made up.
People who create no welth are very clever at spending other peoples money.
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Sorry about this forgot the link to Clive James
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00p6vln
More of this on the BBC would be appropriate?
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54. At 1:28pm on 18 Dec 2009, bowmanthebard wrote:
I wonder if someone could direct me to a non-sceptical source of some such figures?
You can't get more non-sceptical than this site!
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Thanks to everyone who is working on my question -- I really appreciate it.
If the "official" AGW line is that we can control the climate with such precision that the average temperature rises by 1.5 rather than 2 degrees, there must be an "official" figure for how much CO2 we contrubute to the atmosphere, right?
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As a U.S. taxpayer, I think my country should agree to a reasonable sum for the amelioration and mitigation of global warming effects on poor countries. However, I believe that money will do more harm than good if it is stolen by crooked politicians to live the high life. Therefore, I do not think any of the money should be disbursed unless it goes to countries whose leaders have been democratically elected in fair elections, there is a way to be certain that none of the money will be stolen, and that the money should only be paid in the form of progress payments for work that is already completed.
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'As to how this thing turns out - right now, I'm out of predictions.'
*hand in the air*
me sir! me sir!
1)make 'denialism' illegal and confiscate the property of the rich, white, right wing men who espouse such an evil, irresponsible philosophy. use those properties and monies to fund 'carbon capture and storage' facilities and nuclear power plants.
2)rush forward with the next meeting in 6 months. climategate has seriously dented the effectiveness of the AGW propaganda machine and reaching an internationally binding (as in 'you can't leave once you're in) treaty before the plebs and the sheeple cotton on is vital.
3)find new leaders. al gore et al have no credibility except among those who can only be described as unthinking followers (OOC anyone seen Penn and Teller getting loads of eco-activists to sign a petition banning dihydrogen monoxide ie H2O? rofl). all the followers need is a 'noble' cause they can moralise about with their friends and a strong, charismatic leader, i suggest maurice strong.
4)continue to grow the enron style derivative market in carbon up to 2 trillion a year by 2020. 100 billion is chump change.
5)pay off the media induced collective western/white guilt using said chump change while sweet Al and his buds rake in the real dough behind the scenes.
6)concoct some new scheme to fleece and control the 'citizens of the world' even more.
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tears of our forefathers #68.
my money's on (4) and (6).
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68. At 3:03pm on 18 Dec 2009, tears of our forefathers wrote:
'6)concoct some new scheme to fleece and control the 'citizens of the world' even more'
That's a point, how about an oxygen consumption tax.
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Some common sense spoken in the Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704238104574601762696721506.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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After listening to Alec Jones and his guests, one being Lord Monckton, I do wonder if we are witnessing a charade. Tell the world the deal is not done and we have nothing from all this scientific nonsense, called Copenhagen, the world leaders cannot agree. But do not tell them the prime purpose of the Copenhagen agenda was not to bring in carbon taxes, but the setting up of the machinery of world government.
All this absolute rubbish about man made climate change is merely the pretext. There is no global warming. The earth is going colder slightly.
The agenda is the bureaucracy that is being created. Then as carbon taxes come in to fund this monster, we will be fed the rubbish that a great good is being done for the world.
If these politicians think they are fooling us , at least some are awake. Some who can see through this rubbish on global warming. Until we take full and absolute control of our lives , well we all know what happens to sheep.....
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When i hear humans claim they can dictate the upper limit of temperature increases to mother nature, one really has to pinch oneself.
The idea that we can use our Co2 emissions like a thermostat dial is complete pseudoscience and I cannot believe any physicist worth his salt really believes that is a realistic proposal.
By all means make promises about Co2 reductions but making delusional promises about how we'll limit temperature increase is just plain barmy.
All I can say is within a few short years, if not sooner, many politicians, organisations and private individuals are going to look like complete numpties. Our kids will look back on this agw hysteria as we look back at medieval christianity.
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"Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of nature. She shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
jr4412: good quote sir!
my bet for their next trick: ban cremation (too much black carbon and co2) and preemptively tax us on decomposition gases!
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richards done a new thread y'all.
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@infinity #45
"The question is what about the pre 1960 paleo data, is that wrong? According to the scientists, no. Their hypothesis is that the post 1960s divergence is unique to the span of the data.
So given all of this what they did is perfectly valid to replace post 1960s paleo data with instrumental data as they were effectively drawing a best guess single line plot of temperature."
WHAT?!?!?!?!? See THIS is why its "heads I win, tails you lose"...because your whole argument is invalid. The only place CONVERGENCE exists is during the calibration period of the proxies. This is also exactly why you DON'T graft one dataset onto another and treat it as if it was coherent.
On the other hand, implying that someone isn't a "skeptic" (pseudoskeptic) because they catch you and these other people trying to foist a textbook example of bad science on everyone...THAT is a great example of "heads I win, tails you lose" approaches.
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ignore my 75. confuzzled by the timestamp updating at the top! apologies!
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@bowman:
"Consumption of vegetation by animals & microbes accounts for about 220 gigatonnes of CO2 per year. Respiration by vegetation emits around 220 Gt. The ocean releases about 330 Gt. In contrast, human emissions are only around 26.4 Gt per year.
Land plants absorb about 440 Gt of CO2 per year and the ocean absorbs about 330 Gt. This keeps atmospheric CO2 levels in rough balance." (From the link above)
(Of the 26.4 Gt per year about 15 Gt is absorbed by CO2 sinks, mainly the oceans & forests.) In other words we are adding around 15 Gt of CO2 a year to the atmosphere, hence the rise in concentration of atmospheric CO2.
So the 3% figure is about right (26/770). The argument is that CO2 levels were roughly in equilibrium until emissions as a result of human activity started to become significant. Of course these figures are not precise, they may vary by around +/- 6%.
I am quite sceptical as to whether we can 'control' the amount of warming to the degree of precision that you mention. Current estimates about the effect of a doubling of CO2 levels from the pre-industrial era range from a conservative 1 to 6 and beyond. There are still a lot of uncertainties. Below is a list of emission for 2006. It does not include emissions from deforestation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions.
Hope this is of some use.
Hope this is of some help.
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one thing is for sure in around 50 to 100 years we will know who was right!!!!
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#71 BrazenEarlyBird
Thanks. Excellent link. Quote from Mr Lilley:
"The tendency of those committed to the theory of catastrophic man-made global warming to unquestioningly adopt the assumptions, at every stage, that maximize the expectation of calamity should alert us that groupthink is driving the movement."
Mr Lilley has it got it exactly right.
Everybody (non-sceptics and sceptics) need to take a step back.
There is no rush. The planet has been around for a very very long time.
There is even the possibility that high C02 levels will actually stimulate plant growth which in turn will increase C02 absorbtion. ( i.e. the problem may be self correcting to some extent ). It is also possible that some simple solutions would be the most effective. One such solution would be for every human on the planet to plant an extra 10% of vegetation, food crops, trees etc which could more than absorb the production of CO2 caused by pollution. Stopping the destruction of the rain forests could certainly help - why not simply start by funding that. Unfortunately there are a sizable number of people pushing for rapid expensive solutions because these are clearly in their financial interest . Simple solutions are preferable .
We don't need a vast financial market in carbon credits run by spivs.
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lol ignore my 77, its just that the new post is found by clicking 'previous' for some reason.
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Comment posted on United Nation Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen
URL: http://en.cop15.dk/frontpage
My name is Karl Smid. This is not an alias, it just me. I am not a scientist, I am not an environmentalist and I have no hidden agenda. I am just one person, part of diverse range of species that inhabit this planet and part of the rich tapestry that we take for granted every everyday.
I live in the Netherlands and was born and raised in New Zealand, two countries that will be permanently altered by any increasing sea levels, one because it has a massive coastal landscape and the other because the majority of the country lies below sea level. I put my trust in a democratic process that should provide a sustainable living infrastructure for myself, for my family, for my friends and for all the others that live together on this planet, whether they be less fortunate than myself or more fortunate. I have followed, as much as I can, the process and progress at Copenhagen and I ask myself, how this can be happening? I constantly hear that Copenhagen is the outcome of 2 years of preparation work, but we have known about these issues for at least 2 to 3 decades and our chosen representatives are still no closer to getting things on track.
I hear discussion about the developing world and the developed world, but we all share the same space. The reality is that our desire for change splits us into 3 divisions;
* Those that will make the changes to balance the ecological environment of the planet.
* Those that want to make the changes, but can’t and need our help.
And finally
* Those that can make the change, but for whatever reason, CHOOSE not too!
Sadly, the scales of balance are weighted in favour of the last group and the political process has not been prepared enough to find a meaningful solution in Copenhagen.
What do I do now? Do I turn my back on the political and democratic process or is this a wakeup call for all of us to find away to re-dress the scales of balance and challenge ourselves to dig deeply into our own physiology and ask ourselves, “Is what we are doing now, the right thing? Are we preparing a solid and sustainable future for ourselves, for our children, for all future generations to come and all the other co-habitants of this planet?”
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umm, have the mods collapsed under the strain? no new comments have gone through for 45 odd mins now. its normally 15-25.
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54. At 1:28pm on 18 Dec 2009, bowmanthebard wrote:
#53 selfevidenttruths wrote:
"I believe these figure are widely available and very few (sceptics included) doubt them."
I wonder if someone could direct me to a non-sceptical source of some such figures?
**************************
I doubt if you'll find such a link.
It is the sort of info that is ignored by the alarmists as it does not suit their argument. Along with lots of other non-supportive data.
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bowman:
i replied to your slanderous ( ;) ) post from the other thread.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/12/cop15_tumbling_towards_a_deal.html#P90001712
the nitwit you refer to was prof watson from the UEA. no i ain't him, if you haven't guessed; i'm an antiscience flatearther! my disclosure was honest. sorry i spoilt your cyclical debate with mr kazer sir. did you really not find his conflict of interest relevant or surprising?
respectfully
TOOF
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#78 selfevidenttruths wrote:
"Hope this is of some use.
Hope this is of some help."
It is both useful and helpful, and I'm very grateful -- thanks!
If anyone disagrees with the figures cited, speak now!
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Do you know how many potentially billions of dollars are out there if they set up this “cap-n-trade” boondoggle modern day environmental sale of indulgences? Do you think for one minute that Al Gore is promoting this because he cares about the whales and trees? He is looking at potentially cashing in billions of dollars personally as CEO of this monster scam fueled by climate change fear mongers. Look at the natural temperature cycles that have gone on for CENTURIES! We are coming near to the end of 30 year warm cycle that was preceded by multiple 30 year warm/cold cycles. We also may be near the end of a 300 year warm cycle that was preceded by multiple 300 year warm/cold cycles. Read up or goggle on the last mini-ice age. Man made polluting probably factors in somewhat, but the vast ocean’s carbon cycling capacity is still poorly understood. Natural animal respiration (including humans) still adds more CO2 to the atmosphere than all the cars and factories and other man-made sources do. But while we are still figuring all this out, Al Gore and the other climate change fear mongers are looking to Cash In BIG TIME! They want the US to pitch in 100 billion a year at a time of economic crisis while they let China keep polluting as well as sabotage our economy by illegally pegging their currency to the dollar. Do you think for one second that Gore and Obama and the other climate data manipulators aren’t going to get a backroom “commission” for hauling that $100 billion in? It’s all about the Cash. They win, the American and Western European tax-payers lose.
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I am all for developing alternative fuels to lessen our dependence on the middle east for energy. I particularly like the potential to use genetically altered algae and bacteria to generate fuel from our waste products. Keep more US funds home, decrease pollution. Everybody seems to have forgotten about acid rain and known carcinogenic pollutants like totally unnecessary use of herbicides by homeowners. Why doesn’t the liberal left work to ban herbicides? No money in it. It’s in our drinking water, the fish we eat, but nobody cares. It would be so simple, just ban them. Golf course owners worried it could affect them. It should. Liberal leftist hypocrisy. Where’s all the “Change” we were promised? Fagetaboutit! As the Who feared, we’ve been fooled again.
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#80 John Lloyd wrote:
"Stopping the destruction of the rain forests could certainly help - why not simply start by funding that."
I'm definitely opposed to the destruction of the rain forests, but I'm not convinced that it would make such a big difference to CO2 absorption.
Assuming that the amount of CO2 absorbed is proportional to the amount of photosynthesis going on, I wonder if forests really are such efficient "factories" of photosynthesis? Trees have big wooden trunks because they compete with each other for the light, and the result is often a distinctly un-green forest floor in deep shade, where little photosynthesis occurs. Where trees are cut down, other plants crowd in (often younger trees), and it is at least conceivable that these other plants absorb as much CO2 as the trees they replace.
By the way, plants also crowd in where ice melts, and a warmer Greenland would become a green land again. The more green there is, the more CO2 gets absorbed.
Just speculating -- as I said, I think forests should be carefully preserved, even if they are not the "lungs of the earth" (or whatever silly inaccurate things we call them).
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The developing countries are saying that this climate problem is caused by Developed nations. the answer for this could be to ask the developing countries to reduce the corruption to nearly nil so that they can have some concessions on "greenhouse gases cut". May be this corruption cut might indirectly cut greenhouse gases, b'se less corruption means more transparency which leads to people being able to know more things which automatically makes poorer people in developing countries to be more aware of this climate problem. To me it seems 2 birds at one shot, solving the corruption in developing countries which is good for all.
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Most curious indeed. On the day when the gate-arch at Auschwitz bearing the words "Work makes us free" was stolen, nations cannot agree on the climatic regress brought about by unbridled work after the age of the Industrial Revolution and mainly caused by coal-fired and fossil energized energy production.
Agreement or no agreement, the debate in the years to come, besides temperature, emissions and funding levels, will surely have to be on balancing life styles and clean energy production. Limits as to style and consumption levels would have to be imposed commensurate with the carbon foot-print of each country and other social and economic needs.
Certainly it is going to be heyday for science and a time for mathematical formulae, plenty of them.
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bowmanthebard @ post 25
Don't be a party pooper. ;o)
manysummits
My son did some computer optimizations and 'Home' now plays beautifully thanks. If you can, get to see the new movie Avatar but see it in the 3-D version.
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@Bowman: ooops, a couple of corrections: Natural sinks absorb about 11 Gt CO2 not 15, otherwise the sums don't add up; I don't think the figure of 26.5 includes emissions from deforestation, so it may actually be about 35 (deforestation accounts for between 20 and 25% of CO2 emissions). Current emissions are probably higher but I don't know what the latest figures are. So that would mean 35 - 11 = 24 Gt CO2 extra atmospheric CO2 per year.
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#84 Zydeco wrote:
"I doubt if you'll find such a link."
...and in keeping with the spirit of openness we have come to expect, the cited Wikipedia article has mysteriously disappeared!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions
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The BBC doing their own little Nero, fiddling whilst the treaty burns ( The only thing that is burning ,because the world isn't due to CO2)
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#87 EbAmerica wrote:
"Do you think for one minute that Al Gore is promoting this because he cares about the whales and trees?"
I think he's a religious fanatic, and like most religious fanatics, he's completely sincere: which makes him a dangerous religious fanatic.
Yes, he will make a huge profit from the apocalyptic panic he stirs up, but I imagine he rationalizes all that, probably by telling himself that "putting his money where his mouth is" indicates his sincerity and passion.
Almost everyone in this debate is sincere and passionate -- but that has no bearing on whether what they believe is true, or what they do is right.
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We are I am afraid long past the time when action by politicians will bring about much in the way of solutions to this crisis.
There are still so many who do not believe or believe only because it is in their own personal interest to pretend to do so .
Meanwhile the changes made to the environment are already precipitating into irreversible and dramatic climate change on a global scale.
This will in the next few years be obvious to all.
There is no solution which can be effected at this time other than to plan for the catastrophes which will inevitable now occur .
Wide spread flooding of delta areas low lying cities and massive changes to the cultivation of crops are in our future no matter what we do or pretend to do..
The thing we should be doing now is not pretending that we can stop this ,because we cannot ,but rather begin planning to mitigate its effects on our civilizations.
We still have a short few years in which we can do that before it will even be too late to do much of that.
We have lost the decade we needed in which to act to stop this we should not lose the next decade which is the one in which we can turn this from a civilization destroying event to one that merely changes everything
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This site estimates emissions of 31 Gt CO2 in 2010, again it does not include deforestation, which would bump it up to around to around 40 Gt, but I've seen conflicting data since that suggests it may be less.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/emissions.html
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/11/04/20-of-co2-emissions-from-deforestation-make-that-12/
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any idea when you're going to enlighten your flock about this Richard:
http://www.domain-b.com/environment/20091218_manmohan_singh.html
comedy quote time:
'my position is and must be studiously neutral'
R. Black
rofl
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@bowman: Yes I've just realised that it is an odd link, just click the top item of the page that comes up and you get another page, click the top link on that and you get the page I was linking to. I had the right link but somehow this happens. (?)
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@bowman: I just clicked link that I presumed you pasted from my comment and it is there again. Wtf?
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Anyway looks like they will be going up for a while yet because Obama left his superman suit at home. George Monbiot seems particularly upset.
http://www.redd-monitor.org/2009/11/04/20-of-co2-emissions-from-deforestation-make-that-12/
Expect lots of doom and gloom editorials tomorrow.
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Re 76:
It is perfectly valid to combine two datasets representing the same property. If you have one dataset of temperature up to 1960 and another of temperature post 1960 it is valid to combine the two to get a temperature record covering the entire duration. This is similar to 1000 year co2 records which consist of ice core measured co2 up till about 1950 when the instrumental record takes over.
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#101 selfevidenttruths wrote:
"I just clicked link that I presumed you pasted from my comment and it is there again. Wtf?"
Ah yes, it seems to be working again now -- does Wikipedia go offline when someone is "updating the info" or something? -- Anyway, thanks!
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new thread my friends. click the 'next' link this time!
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Copenhagen Carbon Footprint: 40,500 Tons
If they fail to reach a climate deal in Copenhagen, world leaders flying in their private jets and huddling in five-star hotels will have little to show for their efforts beyond a big, fat carbon footprint.
The U.N. estimates 40,500 tons of carbon dioxide will be pumped into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference - 90 percent of it from flights. The rest comes from waste and electricity related to transport to and from the conference center and lodging in and around the Danish city.
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#103 infinity wrote:
"It is perfectly valid to combine two datasets representing the same property. If you have one dataset of temperature up to 1960 and another of temperature post 1960 it is valid to combine the two to get a temperature record covering the entire duration."
But the reason why they did not use "data" of one set after 1961 was it didn't give them the result they wanted. This indicates either that the data was untrustworthy, in which case it was untrustworthy before 1961 too and shouldn't be used, or else that it is trustworthy and the post-1961 data must be used as well as the pre-1961 data, unwelcome and all as the result it gives may be.
But really, it's all academic -- the observational evidence for any hypothesis consists of its passing tests, not its being cobbled together ad hoc to fit pre-existent "data": that consuitutes no sort of test at all. Calling it "data" is a misnomer, as at best it can suggest an initial hypothesis rather than function as evidence.
Philosophers of science distinguish between the "context of discovery" and the "context of justification": how you arrive at a hypothesis has very little bearing on whether you ought to believe it. For example, Kekule thought up the shape of the benzine molecule in his sleep, but no one was entitled to believe it till it had produced a few predictions that turned out to be true when observations were made. It was those observations that counted as real evidence, because it was only then cthat the hypothesis genuinely stuck its neck out -- and as it happens, it survived.
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Re: my post at 102. Obviously the wrong link, but I'm sure anyone who wants to can find him.
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Re 107:
"But the reason why they did not use "data" of one set after 1961 was it didn't give them the result they wanted"
The reason they can't claim data after 1961 represents temperature is that we know it doesn't. The instrumental record overrules anything paleodata say. When paleo data disagrees, it is wrong. It would have been fraud if they had claimed a temperature decline after 1961, or even implied the possibility of one, when the instrumental record shows a rise.
"This indicates either that the data was untrustworthy, in which case it was untrustworthy before 1961 too and shouldn't be used"
Or the divergence problem affects some reconstructions and this is unique to recent decades. This is the hypothesis they put forward.
"the observational evidence for any hypothesis consists of its passing tests, not its being cobbled together ad hoc to fit pre-existent "data": that consuitutes no sort of test at all."
The reconstructions are calibrated against the early instrumental record before they show divergence. Any reconstruction that cannot match the LIA or early 20th century warming is junk. You are right though this is all acedemic - whether their hypothesis is correct or not is a case for acedemic argument. Far from fraud.
The fraud claims are based on an ignorant and simplistic understanding of the subject wherin usually the accuser thinks "hiding the decline" means the earth cooled in the last few decades and scientists "hid" this and put warming instead.
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bowmanthebard wrote: "This indicates either that the data was untrustworthy, in which case it was untrustworthy before 1961 too and shouldn't be used"
infinity wrote: "Or the divergence problem affects some reconstructions and this is unique to recent decades. This is the hypothesis they put forward."
The "divergence problem" is more honestly called the "untrustworthy data problem". If tree rings don't reliably reflect temperatures as measured by thermometers after 1960, then they wouldn't reliably reflect temperatures if they been measured by thermometers before 1960. Nothing magical happened in 1960 to make tree rings suddenly start telling lies.
It's quite simple really: tree rings don't reliably reflect temperatures. End of story.
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RE:-
94. At 5:51pm on 18 Dec 2009, bowmanthebard wrote:
#84 Zydeco wrote:
"I doubt if you'll find such a link."
...and in keeping with the spirit of openness we have come to expect, the cited Wikipedia article has mysteriously disappeared!
Bowmnan, you've lost me! Maybe I am misreading you.
Are you stating that the Wiki link you posted on #94 has disappeared? Or is there some other link that has disappeared. The wiki link appeared on my browser in less than a second.
So lets get back to Richard's report. What's happening at Cop 15.
Horse trading.
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@infinity #109
That you persist in this belief when it's so fundamentally flawed calls into question your ability to determine ANYTHING objectively.
You would have no problem tacking the overall reliability of automobiles in general onto a specific manufacturer's reliability information (or the other way around) to "hide the decline" in their quality...it's all the same, right? It's all about reliability.
You would have no problem tacking the overall performance of a division of a sports team onto the specific team's performance (or the other way around) to "hide the decline".
We calibrated the temperature proxies about 50 years ago and outside of that period ON EITHER SIDE they turn into a freaking spaghetti graph. If ANYTHING is out of place IT IS THE CONVERGENCE! But you're not saying the convergence is out of place because it fits your narrow slit of a world-view that CO2 MUST be causing vast amounts of warming.
Honestly, what you're REALLY doing is defending the convergence...an anomalous period shorter than 100 years...and tacking the temperature record on just makes that convergence look LESS like the red herring that it OBVIOUSLY is. Are you doing this because you refuse to accept any alternative view...or are you actually incapable of perceiving it?
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I fish and hike, I love truly love the environment. But this is just all about panhandling by poor countries run by cruel petty dictators in cahoots with corrupt politicians from rich countries. I didn’t like a lot of the things Bush and republicans did. I blame our current mess on Democrats AND Republicans, big corporations AND greedy union bosses. We have a lot of serious problems. We MUST think logically. We can NOT afford to waste effort. More research into green tech, YES! Cash handouts to corrupt dictators, NO! I am sorry, but that is what cap-n-trade is really all about.
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In breaking news:
Stone Age 'car factory' found in Scottish Island
"A unique discovery of submerged man-made structures on the seabed off Orkney could help find solutions to rising sea levels, experts have said.
...
Geomorphologist Sue Dawson said that people have survived and adapted in the past and it is that adaption to climate change that needs to be learned from. "
Not sure about the grammar or even about what exactly a geomorphologist does - but what can we learn from these ancient people ?
"In general Scotland's mainland has been getting higher..."
Hang on ? What ?
"... Scotland's mainland has been getting higher..."
I thought we were all going to - er - drown ?
"Caroline Wickham-Jones said: "The really interesting thing about this bay is the stories relating to things under the sea and sea-level change. Our ancestors were dealing with similar problems to ourselves and we'd like to see how they coped with it."
So these ancient people faced climate change. The only logical conclusion is they had cars. SUVs. 4x4s. And aeroplanes.
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When I looked at the link Bowman gave in #94, one thing became glaringly obvious.
There are only two major players in this issue.
America and China.
America.....once THE dominant nation on the World stage.(I can elaborate if you wish but I am sure you all understand what I mean)
China......the RISING nation who are not just threatening to replace America as "King of the Castle" but are actually succeeding and racing ahead.
America's Stars are fading and soon the national flag will be full of Stripes and holes.
A bitter pill for Americans to swallow.
COP 15 is just a massive "ego" battle between these two nations. The rest of us are (to a large extent) are just caught up in the backdraft.
Horse trading on a massive scale
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Speaking of greenhouse gas producing travel: Has the EPA checked Santa’s magic reindeer? True, they only consume “green” fuel, good; but how about their methane emissions? More or less than ordinary reindeer? Possibly more due to greatly increased activity, but we don’t have the efficiency data; they may be wonderfully efficient, and knowing Saint Nick, they probably are! Also, how about the head reindeer’s guidance system? It appears to work on infrared, but is there also a sonar component? Do whale beachings increase mysteriously on 24 December each year? Further study is warranted.
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richard, pretty soon, you're going to have to do something like this you know:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/climategate_analysis.html
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re 110:
"The "divergence problem" is more honestly called the "untrustworthy data problem". If tree rings don't reliably reflect temperatures as measured by thermometers after 1960, then they wouldn't reliably reflect temperatures if they been measured by thermometers before 1960"
Not true if the divergence is caused by something unique to recent decades.
"Nothing magical happened in 1960 to make tree rings suddenly start telling lies."
The 1960 is a rough date. Some proxies don't even show divergence since then (the divergence is much of an issue in that different proxies diverge). A possible explaination is some kind of anthropgenic influence. co2 levels for example have shot up since the mid 20th century.
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junior 57;
"MarcusAureliusII #48.
"Let's talk about real shared sacrifice."
what, like the (estimated) 750,000 dead civilians of Iraq??"
750,000 aren't enough of a sacrifice for you? Would a million be enough? There's still time, we're not pulling out yet.
I love it when this kind of gratuitous America bashing pops up out of nowhere for no evident reason. It makes me so certain that pointing out Europe's endless shortcomings, idiocies, irrationalities, and inhumanities to Europeans themselves is the right thing to do. And Europe has been kind enough to give me so much ammunition I'll never run out. To show my gratitude, I think I'll just go out to my driveway, start the engine of my car, and let it idle for a few hours. The area where I live seems to be benefitting from global warming. Bring it on.
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re 112:
"That you persist in this belief when it's so fundamentally flawed calls into question your ability to determine ANYTHING objectively"
You've yet to convince me it's fundamentally flawed. Merely claiming it means nothing to me. Can you show me a paper that finds the divergence problem invalidates use of proxies in temperature reconstructions?
"We calibrated the temperature proxies about 50 years ago and outside of that period ON EITHER SIDE they turn into a freaking spaghetti graph."
We know there is a divergence post 1960. Some proxies follow temperature, others don't and decline.
We don't know there is such divergence in the past. Some of the proxies which diverge recently follow each other fairly closely over the medieval warm period.
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MarcusAureliusII #119.
"To show my gratitude, I think I'll just go out to my driveway, start the engine of my car, and let it idle for a few hours."
don't forget to run that hose from the exhaust-pipe, will you? painless, I heard. ;)
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@infinity #120 (previous thread)
"We know there is a divergence post 1960. Some proxies follow temperature, others don't and decline."
Right, because the proxies are so coherent the rest of the time...
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
During the calibration period the proxies suddenly come together and this takes up about 10 pixels or...about 2% of the graph. Is there ANY line you could draw through that spaghetti graph that wouldn't show a substantial divergence problem everywhere except the early 1900's?
Now...
if you cheat and remove the medieval warm period (which they did at one point) you're being deceptive
If you "hid the decline" when the proxies show their TRUE colors (which they did and you're actually DEFENDING THEM!!!!) you're being deceptive.
If you do both and then average the proxies...you get a lie...the hockey-stick graph
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/gore_hockeystick_fig2.JPG
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9. At 10:01am on 18 Dec 2009, DisgustedOfMitcham2 wrote:
Slightly OT, but I have a couple of questions about the famous leaked emails. I haven't had the time to read what they're all about as deeply as many of you, and would be interested if anyone could answer the following questions:
1. Do they really call the science into question?
2. Is there anyone who previously believed in AGW who now doesn't, as a result of seeing what was in the emails?
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1. They call the peer-review process into question and hence the science, and also demonstrate that the writers had doubts and concerns about some of their own conclusions.
2. As far as I am concerned it's more a case of having suspicions confirmed although you may be interested in reading the analysis of a guy (John P. Costella) who used to be a firm AGW supporter and who admitted -
"As a scientist who formerly accepted the results of climate change science almost without question, these emails have devastated me. I have apologised to my wife, family and friends for previously dismissing climate sceptics almost out of hand, in discussions on the issue. It has been a distressing time.."
His analysis of the mails is one of the most comprehensive, complete with links to the individual mails and can be found here -
http://www.assassinationscience.com/climategate/
Ignore the use of the word 'conspirator' in the 'Cast of Colourful Characters' - (although it may be earned!!) that's for you to decide. And don't just go to one source. Also go to Real Climate for their alternative explanations. It makes for some interesting (and amusing at times) reading!!! Though I'd be wary of any sites who complain that the mails have been taken out of context and then do exactly the same themselves giving no link to the actual mails they're talking about.
However there is no substitute for reading the mails yourself and making your own mind up
Mails can be accessed at
http://www.eastangliaemails.com/index.php
which provides a searchable database.
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Unless I've forgotten my Latin in my old age, 'conspirators' are those who 'breathe together'. That certainly is a good description for these 'scientists'.
But yes, I call a spade a spade. It is just my opinion, after all.
The emails and documents are also at my site, and are browsable (and downloadable), but not searchable.
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