US driving climate process - but where?
En route from the UN climate talks in Bonn: After the brutal medicine of Copenhagen, no-one was quite sure how much of the UN process would survive through the harsh winter intact and emerge into the warming weather of Bonn in springtime.
Judging by the three-day meeting here, at least one UN climate convention tradition is alive and well: a total incapacity for punctuality.
The agenda for the final session on Sunday afternoon looked simple enough: decide how many meetings to have through the year and roughly when; tell the chair what inputs she should use in drawing up her draft text; recall this agreement and recognise that document - and that's about it, really.
We should have known better. The session didn't begin within four hours of its scheduled 3pm start time, as wrangles continued behind the scenes.
The Russian delegate had brought cheers and laughter on the first day by suggesting that sufficient sleep is probably part of the essential recipe for effective negotiation; two days later, his enjoinder was history, forgotten, as debate stretched until midnight and beyond.
A sardonic observer might be given to imagining some Masonic-style ritual you have to go through when you become a UN climate negotiator, wherein you vow in blood that whenever the chair entreats you to stick to the point and be brief, you see how long you can go for and how many times you can repeat statements of your basic position.
Once the gallows humour of another hopeless overrun had faded in the early morning light, the reflection came that after all, there were sound reasons for the delays and the wrangling - and that they have something to tell us about the big questions relating to this process, namely whether there will be a treaty-style agreement this year, and if so, what it might look like.
Countries perceiving themselves vulnerable to climate effects are determined it should look nothing like the Copenhagen Accord, the political declaration drawn up by a small group of countries and presented to the rest on the final day of December's summit.
Trust was broken by the manner of its emergence, of that there can be no doubt. Many developing-country delegates said so; Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate convention said so.
That was why developing countries were so adamant here that the accord should not play a major role in shaping the treaty they want this year - and why they took so much time and so many words to prevent it being acknowledged as a major source of ideas for the chair.
But exactly which are "developing countries" now? Copenhagen made manifest what had actually been clear for many a year - that the world now is very different from the one we saw in 1992 when the climate convention came into being.
The single most obvious example is the emergence of China as the world's biggest emitter and its swift progress along the pathway to being the biggest economy.
But more generally, it's pretty obvious that if economies are growing at 10% or thereabouts per year, eventually their per-capita incomes and per-capita emissions are going to rise to Western levels. What constituted their self-interest has changed; and some of the internal discussions within the G77/China bloc (which now includes 130 countries with widely disparate wealth and climate-related concerns) were, apparently, rather fruity.
Still, at the end of the day (or the middle of the night, to be more accurate), this bloc is pressing for some kind of deal this year that will be as binding as possible - certainly, binding in some way on Western nations' emissions.
No-one, not even the US, is overtly opposed to that. But the US is adamant that there must be "symmetry" between itself and China - not an equivalence in the size of carbon constraints, but certainly in the "bindingness" and the monitoring and verification of those constraints.
Yvo de Boer, who's been at the nexus of this all for years, flagged this up as a potential deal-breaker, as did Artur Runge-Metzger, the European Commission's lead negotiator.
Some said before Copenhagen that if the US and China could sort out their issues, a global deal would be possible.
That was shown to be a little naive, because if you focus only on two countries only, some of the other 190 get pretty annoyed. Nevertheless it remains axiomatic that a US-China agreement is absolutely necessary, if not sufficient, for a global deal.
The next few months see a sequence of meetings at which the two governments will have a chance to sort things out between themselves, beginning with the Major Economies Forum in Washington next week, and running through the German-hosted ministerial gathering in Petersberg next month up to June's G20 summit.
If they smooth their own bilateral path, there is still a mountain of obstacles to a new UN-style global treaty.
Some countries - notably the South American and Caribbean Bolivarian republics - are still incandescent about Copenhagen. And there remains the suspicion among experienced observers that the traditional blockers and slowers-down - Saudi Arabia is often named in this context - have changed neither their tactics nor their end goal of avoiding any constraints on fossil-fuel use.
The role of the US is, of course, crucial.
Barack Obama pledged new global leadership on climate change even before assuming office; and many people interpreted that as meaning the US would steam at full power towards a new global treaty.
Copenhagen suggested that might not be an accurate deduction: and during the Bonn meeting, a document fell into journalists' hands that seems to back an alternative view.
It is titled "Strategic Communications Objectives", and appears to outline what impression the US wants to create during the year, opening with:
"Reinforce the perception that the US is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change. This includes support for a symmetrical and legally binding treaty."
It continues:
"Create a clear understanding of the CA's [Copenhagen Accord's] standing and the importance of operationalizing ALL elements... Deepen support and understanding from the developing world that advanced developing countries must be part of any meaningful solution to climate change including taking responsibilities under a legally-binding treaty."
US delegation chief Jonathan Pershing declined to comment on whether the document is genuine - it certainly appears to be - but did confirm that the US was indeed pressing to "operationalise all elements" of the Copenhagen accord, even taking the position that countries that decline to endorse it will be unlikely to receive money raised under its auspices.
His argument is that endorsing the accord means committing to emissions curbs - and this entitles you to some cash.
But many of the pledges to restrain emissions rise submitted through the accord are so undeveloped as to mean virtually nothing concrete, certainly nothing quantified; Benin's, for example, talks simply of increasing public transport in the capital Cotonou, preserving forests and developing plantations, and getting energy from waste, with not a number or a date in sight.
In addition, Article 4.4 of the UN climate convention [84KB PDF], which the US signed and ratified, makes clear that developed nations with historically high emissions have a duty to compensate all poorer countries affected -
"The developed country Parties and other developed Parties included in Annex II shall also assist the developing country Parties that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting costs of adaptation to those adverse effects"
- whether or not they have endorsed any particular political agreement.
What we can conclude from this is that the US sees itself as being back in the driver's seat, perhaps sharing it with China - but it may or not be driving in the direction of the binding treaty that most nations say they want.
Rather, the US appears to be leading in its own chosen direction - and if the Bolivarian republics or some of the more vocal (and vulnerable) small island states don't want to travel in that direction - well, that's tough.
It's a tangled web here. And the complexity and the spin have clearly survived the winter alive and well - just like the inability to begin a meeting on time.
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.
© 2012~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~55~RS~)
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After Copenhagen is this not a dead issue except for raising spurious green taxes ? Caledonian Comment
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US driving climate process - but where?
Wow, this is an absolutely great question!
Your reference to the sardonic observer imagining some Masonic-style ritual that he must go through to become a UN climate negotiator may be closer to the mark than you imagine; at least, where the American negotiators are concerned. Do you think those poor, developing countries are privy to the back-door meetings that often cause the prolonged delays of which you speak?
I think that the United States likes nothing better that for the world’s eyes to be focussed on China or India, or some little developing country – anywhere but on America.
But I would ask that you remember one very important thing: The United States wanted the cheap labour of China and India; so, it let the cheap labour production go eastward. Cheap production leads to emissions from cheap power sources, especially coal.
The Major Economies Forum – there’s speculation that “other” groups will take on a greater role this year in climate negotiations. The next few months will see a sequence of meetings at which governments will have a chance to sort things out among themselves, beginning with the Major Economies Forum in Washington and running through the German-hosted Ministerial Gathering in Petersberg next month, right up to June's G20 summit. There’s only about 8 months left before UN-sponsored global negotiations on climate change set for Cancun, Mexico, and countries have not so much as worked out the protocol.
American progress, of course, is stalled in the US Senate. The stalled bill calls for a curb to domestic emissions, and this stalling has helped to stall global talks. Will the bill pass this year? Not if the Senate can help it!
Last but not least, I must conclude with what I believe is really going on:
The United States has developed a weather weapon. This weather weapon is called HAARP. HAARP can cause weather havoc - floods, draughts, hurricaines, tornadoes, earthquakes.... (This is the reason that the US no longer cares about nuclear capacity. Why bother contaminating land when you can kill so cleanly by drowning, starving, freezing, mud-sliding, etc.)
For the life of me, I don’t know why responsible persons are not more interested in inspecting HAARP.
By the time the US is ready to formerly present a perfected HAARP, it will be too late because no country will want to confront the US and thereby become first in line to be HAARPed.
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I am beginning to wonder if either the United States or China, or indeed, any of the powers that be are relevant anymore?
Wans't it Einstein that pointed out that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?
If the geophysical reality of the state of the planet is reasonably accurate, then politicians and nation-states of the business as usual stripe will eventually be consigned to the dustbin of history, where they most emphatically belong.
The sooner the better.
- Manysummits -
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To Richard Black & the BBC:
I hope you are flying to Bolivia Richard?
I have just been reading the proposed Universal Declaration of Rights for Mother Earth and the proposed modifications to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -
This is what we need, this is the future.
Drop those same old talks you have been attending like the leaden weight they are, and go to South America - please.
- Manysummits -
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Sorry to be a pedant, but get those hyphens looking like en-dashes (or em-dashes) soldier!
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Governments and bureaucrats like to pretend that meetings are the same thing as actually getting things done. Until someone comes up with a new viable alternative energy or a country or set of countries dry up and blow away in a dust storm, not much is going to happen. The governments are only interested in cap and trade as it does not solve the problem and provides a revenue stream. Coal and oil have great influence in corrupt governments (meaning most,if not all) and thus any changes will be incremental and costly. I don't understand the expectations of the environmental groups when there is no history to support that the governments will do the right thing. What is,is. Governments are corrupted by the money of fossil fuel industries....save your money and corrupt them yourselves...seems to be the process they respond to best. You can replace them or buy them..whichever works for you, but don't think that "educating" will make any difference. In the upcoming elections in any country see where this is in the campaigns, if mentioned it will be in far off future terms, vaguely committed or about cap and trade. Politicians deal in counterfit goods. Change buying habits and the world will change.
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bye, bye soon tens of thousands of the remaining manufacturing jobs in the UK.
Thanks to carbon 'emissions' - relocate elsewhere and keep on emmiting of course.
from the Guardian!
"This is death by a thousand cuts."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/11/manufacturing-carbon-emmissions-pollution
"In the next month, the European commission will decide how industry will meet tough new targets for the third phase of the EU emissions trading scheme, which begins in 2012. The scheme sets a cap on companies' emissions by issuing permits to pollute and imposes a penalty if they exceed this. Under the scheme, which runs until 2020, the cap is tightened each year. The EU wants the scheme to achieve its targets of reducing Europe's emissions by a fifth in 2020 compared with 2005 levels. But industry fears the extra costs will put them at a disadvantage against rivals outside the EU.
One large steelmaker in the UK, which spoke on the condition of anonymity, estimates that to maintain current production, it would have to buy millions more permits, at an estimated cost of at least €100m (£88m). The steelmaker warned that moving production overseas would be an inevitable consequence. One executive said: "This is death by a thousand cuts."
The chemical industry in the UK, which employs 180,000 people and represents about 12% of value added in manufacturing, is likely to be similarly affected. More than two-thirds of chemical companies are multinationals with overseas headquarters, making relocation more likely."
When these jobs are going, maybe the genearl public, and perhaps the unions are going to be asking the harder questions regarding the AGW debate, than the BBC and Richard Black have ever made.
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HAARP (BluesBerry's post above) is now up there with Area 51, the moon landings were faked, G.W. Bush ordered 9/11, the Illuminati, shape-shifting aliens, climate change is a hoax and other great conspiracy theories of the Internet age.
HAARP is routinely blamed for every earthquake that occurs, will be blamed for any hurricanes this year and just about any other natural phenomena that observers don't have enough education to explain. Being a US military project of course drives the X Files nuts wild - 'that just proves it man!' HAARP is even credited with mass mind control. WHOA-HOHO!
So for example, this video of a water spout (a twister over water, a naturally occurring phenomena observed for centuries) is now blamed on HAARP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCMDg-ST7FY
(Search for water spout on You Tube and there are many other examples of water spouts to compare this with.)
Attempting to debunk it simply makes you part of the conspiracy, refusing to believe it means the mind control has got to you.
For a sanity check to all the HAARP bunkum see this site:
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4122
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I think someone should go into past newspapers and see how many times the private sector has said that if some regulations or taxes would pass that thousands of jobs would be lost. Scrub-board salemen complaining about washing machines. I think cap and trade is nothing more than another scheme between the governments and the banks but I would favor taxing the cause and not the effects. Tax coal and oil and alternative fuels become more viable...that is why they are going with cap and trade, and that the banks will make a lot of money too.
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Manysummits, No. 3: to be wished for, perhaps, but we don't have enough time left to wait for that eventuality.
Ergo, like it or not, the politicians -- and the professional diplomats -- are what we are left with. The public's role? To spread the message, to press on with the agenda -- and to remind the politicians that, when push come to shove, the Kyrgyzstan option is one everyone needs to keep at the forefront of their understanding.
Yes, when politicians fail, anarchy does break out and then no one is safe.
Bowman, you and I share another passion: for the em-dash. Well said.
Richard Black, and everyone else who is a friend to human survival: thank you for the perseverance.
Thank you for putting up with all the protocol and just forging ahead.
My practiced eye, forgive me for saying so, doth discern some small progress, forsooth!
The planet daily reminds us that we are on the right track (whatever Professor Lovelock might opine, from the convenient perch of his ninety years).
An agreement on climate is not an option; it is not a luxury: it is a necessity for coherent survival without massive systemic breakdown.
Broad agreements need to be reached; at the same time, every sovereign state must be urged to formulate a vigorous pro-active approach tailored to its own specific circumstances. The Brazilian mudslides are an indication that the poor must be properly housed, or else provided with incentives to disperse to safer ground. Ditto, Haiti. The atrocious weather of the past winter -- and the flooding that comes with the spring thaw -- challenge a number of countries in similar ways. Naturally, these countries should cooperate & share experiences & expertise in managing severe weather.
We need to counteract the "Saudi bloc" (let's call it that for the sake of simplicity) with Action Blocs that actually address practical concerns in tangible ways. The results of collective action initiatives that work will be a visible argument to invoke when dealing with those forces who for purely political, ideological or economic reasons prefer to be obstructionist.
The mining accidents that took place at roughly the same time in China and the US, for example, quite possibly point to increased hazard from methane gas that may be turning into a higher risk for miners than it has been in years and decades past. Investigations into the status of methane trapped in geologic formations (permafrost first and foremost) need to take into account all the potential risks, across the board, for anyone who may be endangered from rapidly changing methane data.
It may be necessary to push hard against the mining industry in some countries to get them to take the methane hazard much more seriously, as all too often executives & management operate on assumptions derived from their decades-old experience, whereas the real situation underground has changed significantly.
We also need to consider whether the accelerated venting of methane via mining operations, including the most egregious models that level mountains in the US (for example), makes coal extraction that much more undesirable as a fuel source.
There is no alternative way of arriving at a sound global policy for the coal industry except via a binding convention that is up-to-date. For some reason we have devoted decades of energy to matters such as free trade which, while consequential, are not nearly as critical to our capacity simply to breathe clean, safe air -- yet some still attempt to argue that a global agreement on climate issues is far too ambitious a concept.
It is not. It is required by the times we live in.
Bee colony collapse accelerates. Coastal regions are increasingly subjected to devastating floods. Soil erosion imperils more and more communities. Deforestation proceeds unchecked.
Hand-wringing won't solve anything. Neither will tears. The fact that even in the USA, at times reluctantly, almost haphazardly, "green ways" are becoming de rigeur in all 50 states, is proof positive that a general consensus does exist -- even in places that used to vehemently protest against any kind of public policy approach to environmental protection. That consensus will be used to bear down on the political will of the key players, and to get them to repeat what they have already proven themselves capable of: only with greater enthusiasm, more alacrity and improved coherence.
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Massive new COAL power stations in South Africa
Hear from the BBC:
World Bank backs loan for South Africa power station
"The World Bank has approved a $3.75bn (£2.45bn) loan for a huge new coal-fired power station in South Africa, despite environmental concerns.
Utility firm Eskom says the plant is needed to end power shortages, which have recently plagued South Africa.
But environmentalists say the World Bank should not finance plants which could increase carbon emissions.
The US, the largest lender to the World Bank, the UK ... abstained from the vote."
Yes the UK government could have vetoed this COAL power station.
4,800 megawatts is bigger than the UK's biggest Drax power plant.
If you like pretzel-shaped thinking then here is the UK's Guardian:
The fight against eco-imperialism
"It is not acceptable to use climate change as an excuse to limit growth in poor countries as the west's carbon emissions rise"
So carbon is the enemy - except when it isn't.
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Barry Woods @ 7: Flipping heck bazzer - to think that you accuse eco zealots of 'scaremongering'!
Throughout history, people have argued that 'insert issue here' will destroy the economy. The minimum wage, ending child labour, ending slavery, environmental regulation.
Nonsense the lot of it, but when have facts ever got in the way of a good old fasioned 'conservative with a small c' rant.
Post 9 is spot on.
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Ghost #6 & 9:
"Change buying habits and the world will change." [6]
"Tax coal and oil and alternative fuels become more viable..." [9]
=====================
James Hansen's most recent op-ed piece, 5 April 2010 (see his website):
"The fundamental requirement for solving our fossil fuel addiction, and moving to a clean energy future, is a rising price on carbon emissions...
An essential corollary to the rising carbon price is 100 percent distribution of collected fees to the public – otherwise the public will never allow the fee to be high enough to affect lifestyles and energy choices."
=============
George Monbiot of the United Kingdom showed in his book "Heat" that we can move to a near zero carbon economy and maintain a good lifestyle - I would say a better and more fulfilling lifestyle.
Lester Brown of the United States in his book "Plan B 4.0" shows another way to achieve a similar result as George Monbiot.
And the list goes on...
So it can be done, but we currently lack the will and the nerve.
In his marvellously comprehensive and easily read book, "Global Warming, A Very Short Introduction," (2009 edition, Oxford University Press), the United Kingdom's own Mark Maslin, leading climatologist, Director of the University College London Environment Institute, starts his chapter 7, on 'Politics,' as follows:
"The most logical approach to the global warming problem would be to cut emmissions significantly." (p. 124)
=============
I would add this is the most intuitive response as well.
That makes it a win-win as far as I am concerned, with both minds working as one!
Let's see what Evo Morales comes up with in Bolivia, April 19-22, 2010!!
http://pwccc.wordpress.com/
- Manysummits -
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To Maria Ashot:
Good to see you back.
Are you going to Bolivia?
I agree the word is spreading.
In reading Mark Maslin's "Global Warming," I was struck by the depth of his scientific expertise, and equally by the disconnect to reality as I, a mountaineer, see it.
He speaks convincingly of possible threshold bifurcation possibilities in the climate system, pointing out that the IPCC coupled ocean atmosphere general circulation models all "assume that there is a linear relationship between greenhouse gas forcing and climate change." (Ch 6, 'Surprises', p. 106)
His response however, is for more study. Of course more study is welcome, and the faster the better.
But the response of a mountaineer, or of myself, more precisely, to exactly the same information is quite different, which is to immediately move to emergency measures, as the threat and its possible or probable consequences, taken together, pose an entirely unacceptable risk.
Societal meltdown and geophysical collapse do not have to be 100 percent certain before dramatic and effective measures to counter the threat are taken.
No sane person would tolerate what we collectively have tolerated these last three decades. There are two possibilities, of course:
1) The majority of first world citizens are no longer sane (my belief)
2) The theory of environmental degradation, planetary boundaries, limits to growth, rights for the environment is fundamentally flawed.
It is time to decide which camp you are in, admittedly difficult if #1 is correct. That is the problem, not the science!
- Manysummits -
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As hurricanes were mentioned above in connection with HAARP (which I thought was a rather bland lager) it may be worth mentioning that the Caribbean and Gulf will probably see quite an active hurricane season this year. Buckle up.
Colorado State University's widely respected Tropical Meteorology Project has issued its yearly forecast: 15 named tropical storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 intense hurricanes in the S. Atlantic this year. The forecast calls for 30% above-average chance of a major hurricane hitting the U.S.A.
An 'average' season has 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes.
http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/index.php?date=apr10&search=Submit+Query
Other forecasting organisations - NOAA, AccuWeather.com and Tropicalstormrisk.com - have also forecast an active 2010 hurricane season, based on similar lines of thinking.
Two main reasons are given for expecting a higher than usual hurricane season this year.
Sea surface temperature temperatures in the tropical Atlantic are at their warmest levels on record (going back to 1850).
Warmer than normal waters provide more heat energy for developing hurricanes.
Hurricane activity in the Atlantic is lowest during El Nino years (El Nino increases west to East wind shear across the S. Atlantic) and highest during La Nina or ENSO neutral years when wind shear is lower.
Colorado State expects the current El Nino conditions to transition to neutral and perhaps weak La Nina conditions by this year's hurricane season.
Needless to say the people of Haiti are at particular risk, many are still in temporary, makeshift accommodation. Four hurricanes crossed Haiti in 2008.
Hurricanes are a natural occurrence, and recorded by Columbus on his voyages in the 15th Century. Nothing at all to do with imaginary 'weather modification beams', bland lager or the suchlike.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/hurricane1.htm
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Jack Hughes, No. 11: Thank you for that vitally important contribution!
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Manysummits, No. 14: Won't be going to Bolivia, unfortunately, because did not think of it in time enough to plan for it. Of course, I will be following closely, courtesy of the BBC, but also Spanish-language resources.
Working on getting back to the UK, though.
As for the sanity issue: in a general sense, I agree with you that we have a shortage of sanity where it would matter most.
That puts the burden on the rest of us.
Take comfort in the thought that the Sane can always outmanoeuvre those who are unwell. We may get tired of using our elbows, but we'll get it done, in the end.
For one thing, we tend to be younger. Plus, we have these little nagging voices pursuing us wherever we go, and keeping us honest. You know, those voices? The voices of our offspring already here, or planning to arrive at any moment?
How is Cloudrunner these days?
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To Maria Ashot #17:
Cloudrunner is well, thank you, and has two wobbly baby teeth (front bottom), and two adult teeth coming up to replace them. He was just here singing a song, vying for attention with the computer, which is why I write from libraries very often.
I wish I was just fooling around when I speak of public insanity, but I am quite serious. It is a process of elimination - what other explanation for any group to watch their only life support system being systematically destroyed - and do nothing?
- Manysummits -
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re #6. At 8:20pm on 12 Apr 2010, ghostofsichuan wrote:
"The governments are only interested in cap and trade as it does not solve the problem and provides a revenue stream."
Exactly. Alternative energy sources are only economically viable with either 1) massive susidies or, 2) artifically inflating the price of coal and oil. Governments prefer the second option because it lets them rake in enormous sums in taxes which they can then spend on whatever they like.
From a government point of view the worst thing that could happen is not climate change but the development of an alternative energy source that could provide power at reasonable rates without the need for extra taxes on oil and coal. Not to worry though, there's almost no chance of such a thing being developed much less allowed to come to market.
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Regarding the mention of hurricanes and Haiti; the Dominican Republic shares the island Haiti is on yet we rarely hear of disasters requiring massive international aid efforts there like we do in Haiti. Now is it bad luck in that hurricanes hit the Haitian side of the island harder, or could it be that the Dominican Republic is doing something differently than Haiti so that natural disasters are less devastating and don't cause such widespread suffering?
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6. At 8:20pm on 12 Apr 2010, ghostofsichuan wrote:
" Change buying habits and the world will change."
Great idea !
How ?
If you don't buy,someone doesn't sell.
If someone doesn't sell, someone doesn't produce! The "money-go-round story". Etc.
So not just being sarcastic, just asking you to be more specific.
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One thing for sure, do not buy any product that has to do with Carbon Offset Trading, or windmill power generation or solar power. Buy anything to do with coal and oil and nuclear power.
Let Mother Nature do what she has done for millions of years [please don't suggest our pathetic 3.8% CO2 output is wrecking the planet] and play with the climate as she sees fit!
A new word has been coined - ecocide - in my dictionary it says "A collection of seven letters forming nothing whatsoever of any significance"
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"Now is it bad luck in that hurricanes hit the Haitian side of the island harder..."? #20
Haiti faces multiple problems; high population levels, great poverty and so on.
"A country once thickly wooded has been stripped to less than 2% of tree cover - a shocking denuding compared with neighbouring Dominican Republic, which is 28% forested. This leaves Haiti extremely vulnerable because even light rain can wash away the crumbly topsoil, triggering mudslides and flash floods.
Impoverished families seeking wood for charcoal have driven the deforestation, an environmental calamity compounded by a population boom that has packed 9 million people on to a small half-island."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/08/haiti-hurricanes
Needless to say this year's earthquake leaves Haitians more vulnerable.
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Well at least you are waking up to the elephant in the room - china is now the biggest and fastest growing emitter. Shame so much of the 'environment' retoric still focusses on the US/EU
Pity all this time, effort and money is being wasted on yet more agreements they will all fail to comply with.
I'd like to see all these resources put into developing and deploying serious replacements for fossil fuel energy - no need for treaties, taxes or back to the dark ages life styles.
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#12 Yorkurbantree wrote:
"Throughout history, people have argued that 'insert issue here' will destroy the economy."
I would have thought a more ubiquitous fear was that the "end is nigh" because of human misdeeds.
Can you find many references to X-will-destroy-the-economy-type fears in Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, Shakespeare, etc.? I would have thought there are many many more references to the-end-is-nigh-type fears.
I wonder: If someone could convince you that the-end-is-nigh-type fears are part of the human condition, would you re-consider current end-is-nigh fears about AGW?
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Yorkurbantree wrote:
Barry Woods @ 7: Flipping heck bazzer - to think that you accuse eco zealots of 'scaremongering'!
I was merely reportiing what the Guardian was saying in the Business section!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/11/manufacturing-carbon-emmissions-pollution
Energy intensive manufacturing jobs will go, because of carbon credits. they will relocate where they don't have to pay them.
might get a few credits to sell, beacuse 'reducing' emmission in the EU.. just to start up again somewhere else.
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In the picture at the top of the page is, what looks like, a large stack of cash. How would you spend the money if it were left to you to do something useful for the environment? I am asking the bloggers on this site ;-)
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Barry Woods at post 26
Energy intensive manufacturing that is relocated to other countries to avoid carbon tax? Surely the powers that be trace the manufacturers back to their point of origin and still charge the carbon tax? Surely carbon exploitation is a crime against humanity and the environment and sanctions are in place to prevent it? Surely we as consumers have the right to know if the products that we buy are produced in other countries as a means of avoiding carbon tax?
Should we not have labels on our non food goods similar to the traffic light system used for food? It would be good for us to know which countries are using up their carbon credits on producing goods for us in the UK and it would be good for us to know which finite resources are being used up in the manufacture and transportation of such goods. I would prefer to know that my choices are informed at point of sale rather than have to search to find the information.
Has our manufacturing base has moved away from our own country in an attempt to avoid carbon tax? Surely if this is so then we are setting ourselves up for job losses and reductions in the skills base that any country must maintain. We as consumers and potential employees have a right to know whether the products we buy directly impact job opportunities in our own country and we surely have the right to make informed choices.
On one hand understand that we are a global economy and I understand that manufacturing must be traded world wide. On the other hand if world leaders are calling for a reduction in carbon output as part of their strategy to attenuate the effects of climate change. Is this now the time to redefine the world impact of modern consumerism?
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@ 27
protecting the rainforest- setting them up as world reserve sites and policing their protection.
investment in large scale geothermal and nuclear plants
studies into population increases and what can be done (socially) to reduce the population of the planet.
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#28 sensibleoldgrannie wrote:
"Surely carbon exploitation is a crime against humanity"
Let's stay sensible, shall we grannie?
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@sensibleoldgrannie #27
I use the cash to make the climate scientists redundant
;)
/Mango
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sensibleoldgrannie at #28
In Sweden, the two major certification bodies, KRAV and Swedish 'Sigil' (seal), have developed a climate label for food. The climate label covers the GHG emissions produced in the chain from farming to the sale of the produce. So far, criteria for meat, fish, milk, greenhouse vegetables and agricultural crops have been set. Food produced and distributed with at least 25 percent less GHG than comparable products can be labeled with a respective note. The climate label is accompanied by an information and education campaign. In addition, the initiative works with the industry to implement measures to reduce the GHG emissions of food production.
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The whole dodgy process has come to a sticky end - GOOD!
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The costs difference of alternative energies and fossil fuels has been reduced to a smaller difference but most would conclude that the price for fossil fuels do not include the true costs of fossil fuels such as pollution, fly ash disposal and human health, etc. Governments are tied to fossil fuels based on tax revenues. Alternative does not necessarily mean that it must be capable of "plug-in" to the existing system but that is how this is being developed. Technology allows for individual production and use but that would dramatically alter the tax system so governments are not supportive of individual based energy production alternatives. This is about maintenance of the status quo. If something new is developed the plans are that the new source will be controlled by and applied to the existing infrastructure. This keeps the existing energy producers in power and the revenue stream in place for the governments. This also restricts other applications and innovation for products and uses.
The changing of buying habits is already occuring. Ten years ago a hybrid car would not be considered vaiable in the market but today every major company is producing those models. Home solar and wind is being applied and energy efficiency in home appliances has been advanced. Although the producers like to limit choice there is always someone out there willing to produce for a market that is not being met, i.e., tankless water heaters.
The most interesting aspect is that of human phychology. People tend to be lead and not understand their own individual and collective power. Governments and big business attempt to regulate and limit choices to their own benefit but it is the changes in what people want that eventually drives the production. When the banks stole everyones money, people cut back on spending and the economies have suffered. This of course baffled governments and big business as they tend to believe that people respond to their commands regardless of their misdeeds. Goverments become afraid when the people stop listening or believing them or in them. Individual and collective power can be given and taken away. People don't need the governments to prioritize these issues as they can prioritize these issues through any number of actions. Political power like energy is only beneficial when used by the many and not the few.
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#34 ghostofsichuan wrote:
"Governments are tied to fossil fuels based on tax revenues."
It isn't just that. There are lots of people today because food is cheap. Food is cheap because agricultural technology is advanced, and energy is cheap. Tractors and other agricultural machinery run on fossil fuels. Food processing similarly relies on cheap energy. If energy were more expensive, food would be less cheap, and if food was less cheap, people would die of hunger.
It isn't just governments trying to wring more tax out of the general populace -- the lives of the general populace depend on fossil fuels, or other cheap sources of energy, which we would do well to develop. But the development must be slow and careful, if we are to avoid the famines that kept the population down in the not-very-distant past.
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Interesting way of using graphs to represent global warming:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/13/lies-damned-lies-statistics-and-graphs/#more-18419
Anybody see anything wrong with this?
/Mango
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@Richard Black
Looking at the full briefing from the US, we can also see:
Media outreach
• Continue to conduct interviews with print, TV and radio outlets driving the climate change story.
• Increase use of off-the-record conversations.
• Strengthen presence in international media markets during trips abroad. Focus efforts on radio and television markets.
• Take greater advantage of new media opportunities such as podcasts to advance US position in the field bypassing traditional media outlets.
• Consider a series of policy speeches/public forums during trips abroad to make our case directly to the developing world.
Key outreach efforts
• Comprehensive and early outreach to policy makers, key stakeholders and validators is critical to broadening support for our positions in the coming year.
• Prior to the 9-11 April meeting in Bonn it would be good for Todd to meet with leading NGOs. This should come in the form of 1:1s and small group sessions.
• Larger group sessions, similar to the one held at CAP prior to Copenhagen, will be useful down the line, but more intimate meetings in the spring are essential to building the foundation of support. Or at the very least, disarming some of the harsher critics.
http://infowars.net/articles/april2010/120410Document.htm
"Off the record conversaions"
"Disarming the harsher critics"
Not a mention of the science
/Mango
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\\\ Who Speaks for Earth? ///
The United States? China? Nation States?
Carl Sagan asked the question at the head of this post many long years ago in his book and TV series "Cosmos."
I am here at the University of Calgary, where I have just printed off two articles from Geophysical Research Letters, one on the West Antarctic's Pine Island Glacier, and one on freezing levels in the tropics.
But as I have said many times, the science is the easy part. It's human psychology that has us stuck in the mud.
Here is something I came across that means more to me than the two articles on science:
At the multi-faith chaplain's office here at the University, there is a nice looking poster which is titled "The Golden Rule," and it then goes on to display quotations from twelve major world religions which support this worldview.
But there is a thirteenth worldview, right at the bottom of the constellation of religious wisdom.
It is a Native American motif, with the words of Chief Dan George, and here are his words:
\\\ "We are only as alive as we keep the Earth alive" ///
This is the only saying which explicitly speaks for Earth, which is not solely anthropocentric.
Were Carl Sagan still with us, I would think he would appreciate these words of Chief Dan George, who is also the only contemporary of ours amongst this vast tomb of ancient received religious wisdom, which has aided and abetted in many cases the destruction of our world.
Evo Morales is Aymara - a Native American - in the truest sense of the word. I have high hopes for the upcoming conference in Bolivia, and I think those hopes will be justified.
Mother Earth - I can see the first world's citizens cringing.
It is time for change, and perhaps that change will begin in the highlands of Bolivia, where the great mountain Illimani, the 'golden eagle,' presides.
- Manysummits -
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Barry Woods at post 26
Energy intensive manufacturing that is relocated to other countries to avoid carbon tax? Surely the powers that be trace the manufacturers back to their point of origin and still charge the carbon tax? Surely carbon exploitation is a crime against humanity and the environment and sanctions are in place to prevent it? Surely we as consumers have the right to know if the products that we buy are produced in other countries as a means of avoiding carbon tax? "
That would be sensible would it not.
Good idea to have a system that did not shift the 'pollution' elsewhere!
And give bankers, hedge funds massive profits.
And give companies that were relocating, away (to keep on 'polluting' carbon credits to Sell. more profits...
But no, this government are NOT sensible, neither is the EU...
But if a 'sceptic' points stuff out like this that the politics/solutions are stupid..
they get shouted down for being evil 'deniars/sceptics' that want to kill the planet..
Forget the emotive stuff, look at what is actually being done.
and the folly of it all.
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Bowman:
You and others make the assumption that an alternative would be more expensive. I don't know how that can be predetermined. With any new product there will be costs but it is the long run when discussing energy that matters. You may notice the oil is going up in price and will continue to do so. The industrial farms are not that efficient and other factors like fertilizers and genetic engineering are also involved, maybe good, maybe not. Food production is also dependent on water and there are indications that the supply may also be restricted in the near future in different places in the world. Mankind worked the fields for much longer than machines have been around and did a fairly good job of production. A freeze, cyclone, lack of rain, natural factors can leave the machines with nothing to harvest. As I stated before, cheap is only cheap because the related costs are not included with fossil fuels. I find the arguments about CO2 interesting simply because no one discusses the much more harmful chemicals that are by- products of fossil fuels that impact human health. We are creatures of habit and sometimes we must change. There are people starving all over the world right now so distribution is more of a factor than production...industrial production obviously hasn't helped the poor. I'm not sure most would want to know how their food is grown and what is used in the process. In Xinjiang Province there are these wonderful Fragrant Pears, but because of a growing export trade they were sprayed with chemicals and periodically banned for import by other countries. The sweetness and fragrance are gone and only the name remains. I will need to travel to the Gobi to see if a local farmer may have one that has not been reduced in quality by industrial growing methods.
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@ghostofsichuan #34 who wrote...
"The costs difference of alternative energies and fossil fuels has been reduced to a smaller difference but most would conclude that the price for fossil fuels do not include the true costs of fossil fuels such as pollution, fly ash disposal and human health, etc."
No it has not! First off, you cannot complain about the health costs of pollution AND the pollution control measures. If pollution control measures are in place then your health issues from pollution are negligible. If there are no pollution control measures in place the health costs are higher but there is no pollution control cost. You people keep double counting everything.
And another thing, the average life expectancy during the times of high pollution still continued to rise. CLEARLY the benefits of the power infrastructure far outweighed the negatives of pollution. The only way it can become an issue is for the society to become advanced enough that it isn't considered a burden to implement pollution controls.
========================
"Technology allows for individual production and use but that would dramatically alter the tax system so governments are not supportive of individual based energy production alternatives. This is about maintenance of the status quo. If something new is developed the plans are that the new source will be controlled by and applied to the existing infrastructure. This keeps the existing energy producers in power and the revenue stream in place for the governments. This also restricts other applications and innovation for products and uses."
Wrong again. There is simply no reasonably priced solution for this and some of the "solutions" (like wind) DO NOT scale well to smaller sizes. They make plans to connect homes using alternative energy to the grid because batteries DOUBLE the cost of the already overpriced system. Its not some conspiracy or attempt to keep power...its fundamental economics. To even get renewable power installed they usually provide subsidies as high as 5-10 times the generating costs of coal. Other types of renewable energy cannot scale to be any significant portion of the energy use (biofuels) and are therefore only useful when the raw materials would otherwise be wasted.
Another aspect is the astoundingly high up-front costs. While everyone loves to talk about the energy being "free" the actual cost of any energy source (coal, sunlight, oil, wind) is in harvesting it. Nobody actually paid to produce the initial energy/material. Coal is literally dirt cheap. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find such large quantities of dirt at such low prices. The pay as you go nature of fossil fuels lowers initial costs.
If you want to encourage SUSTAINABLE development of renewables the most that should be provided is cheap loans to cover the up-front costs. Otherwise you're just paying to prop up wasteful, immature technologies.
Also sad is this push for over-engineered solutions. Solar water heating is cheap and efficient. All you need is slightly modified heaters, cheap collectors on the roof...and to set the thermostat on the unit low enough that it will provide sufficiently hot water on cloudy days if the tank temperature drops. HVAC units could use solar-thermal quite effectively, even using the heat off the roof in the summer to power adsorption chillers. You know the only people I see pushing these sorts of systems...skeptics.
There really is a group of skeptics (like myself) that are just trying to be practical. In its current form, the green energy movement would only manage to grind its self to a halt by crushing the economy and forcing us to use cheaper energy sources (possibly without even using pollution controls). You people may think you're looking at the bigger (long term) picture...but the big picture includes the short term as well. Going crazy immediately to fight off a far off and rather unlikely future danger is actually more damaging/dangerous. The impacts of rash decisions are far more likely to be negative and compounding.
In a decade we'll have developed more practical technologies and we'll also know better what we're in store for.
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bowmanthebard at post 30
I am sorry if I used strong language. I feel a deep and personal anger at the way some groups of people are exploited to manufacture the goods that we buy. We rid our own country of such exploitation years ago, only to inflict it on others elsewhere. I think most civilized people would feel heartily sickened if they became aware of the working conditions and pay conditions of those working to manufacture the cheap goods that we have become accustomed to.
I fear that carbon trading will increase the problem of exploitation. Manufacturing is being offered to vulnerable groups of people attempting to break free from grinding poverty and deprivation in countries already under intense environmental stress. The environments in such countries will break down further and cause the sort of issues that world leaders are supposed to be trying to prevent.
simon-swede at post 32
I would like to take a closer look at such a system as it sounds very good.
manysummits at post 38
We all speak for the earth here otherwise we would not blog. It is good to see you back on the page;-)
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#36: Look past the title and the shiny graphs with pic's of Half Dome in them and Eschenbach's post on WattsUp is quite interesting; he's conceding the IPCC is correct in a number of significant areas.
Key quotes below:
"My point in all of this is that the temperature changes that we are discussing (a global rise of a bit more than half a degree C in the last century)". W. Eschenbach: WattsUp.
And: "In addition, the changes are generally occurring in the winter, outside of the tropics in the cooler parts of the planet, and at night." W. Eschenbach: WattsUp.
Eschenbach is accepting:
A) There has been a rise in temperature during the past century.
His figure of a "bit more than half a degree C" is his grudging way of conceding the IPCC figure of 0.74 degrees C is correct.
B) "the changes are generally occurring in the winter, outside of the tropics in the cooler parts of the planet, and at night."
That's also consistent with statements in the IPCC reports.
Both the 2001 and 2007 reports say that the increases have been highest in the high northern latitudes and greater over land than ocean.
And: "Warming is expected to be greatest over land and at most high northern latitudes, and least over the Southern Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic Ocean." IPPC WG1 Summary for Policymakers. Page 15, para 2.
And at night: "In addition, there was evidence to suggest a decrease in the intra-annual temperature variability with consistent reductions in frost days and increases in warm nighttime temperatures across much of the globe." IPCC. WG1 Report. The Scientific Basis: Chapter 3.8.2.1.
So, temperatures have risen and in line with how the IPCC have said all along. Even WattsUp now says so.
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SheffTim: @43:
"So, temperatures have risen and in line with how the IPCC have said all along. Even WattsUp now says so."
So when have they NOT said so? I's a bit disingenuous to imply that sceptics are only now beginning to 'see the light', as it were.
No sceptics I know of are arguing that temperatures haven't risen over the last 150 years or so.
As for the IPCC 'predictions', well, most of the temperature rise they 'predicted' occurred before the IPCC was even dreamed of.
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@MangoChutneyUKOK #36
OK those sine wave shaped graphs are a reminder that recent warming has yet to bring summer warmth to winter. Which really shouldn't need pointing out, even warm winters are substantially cooler than cool summers.
They are also potentially useful in helping explain the concept of temperature anomaly. Temperature anomaly = actual temperature minus expected temperature (expected temperature based on average temperatures for the same time of year for a range of years).
But there are problems for people looking at them.
Firstly people naturally look at how wide the spread of graph lines is at right angles to the graph lines. This is not appropriate. The thickness of the graph lines is more meaningful in strict vertical and horizontal directions, corresponding to temperature spread at a specific time of year (vertical) and date spread for a particular temperature (horizontal).
For instance the "US annual temperature by month" graph shows a temperature spread of about 5 degrees Fahrenheit in high summer and a much larger spread in deepest winter. It also shows that there is a spread of over a month for the start of spring for a temperature based spring.
There is also the issue that all the graphs, including the anomaly graph, are for the US rather than global. The US was very warm in the 1930s. This does not appear to be true globally.
Similarly using US temperatures allows the effective cherrypicking of 2009 for the highlit red line in "US annual temperature by month". 2009 appears to have been relatively cool for the US. Again, this was not true globally.
The spread is smaller when looking at decadal averages, but there is still a spread of over two weeks for the start of spring.
Finally I remind you that the impact of consistently warmer temperatures on agriculture is not immediately obvious. Eschenbach's sine waves downplay that extra warmth as much as traditional anomaly graphs emphasise it.
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Bowmanthebard, No. 25: So let's not think of it as "end-is-nigh." Or even on the level of Byron's "Darkness" (a must read; only 7 minutes of your time required, anyone who hasn't read it yet.)
I agree, it clouds the issue -- slight pun intended -- and so provides a convenient escape hatch for those who would like to pretend AGW is akin to the Y2K scare.
Actually, AGW is much more like the global financial meltdown: a calamity to be avoided at all cost, predictable, excruciating -- even life-ending for some -- but not necessarily "the end of human life on earth" (most likely).
I am making that concession to help those of you on the opposite side of this debate get a little more serious about how genuinely vital it is to confront what we can see is already happening:
1 - soaring food prices
2 - shortages of potable water & water for irrigation
3 - worsening famine in the most vulnerable zones (cf. Sudan)
4 - accelerating rise of violent crimes in zones under extreme stress (cf. Haiti, Kyrgyzstan)
5 - explosions of primitive rage, xenophobia, supremacist ideologies (cf. Hungary, South Africa inter alia)
6 - accelerating loss of glaciers with negative impacts on oceans and marine life
And let us also consider the puzzle of intensifying volcanic and seismic activity. Because that is also happening. I have not felt an earthquake as strong as the Easter Sunday Baja California quake since the SF earthquake of 1989 -- and the curious part is that we are right around 350 km (225 miles) away from the epicenter of that earthquake. That it did not strike on the San Andreas fault, but instead on a smaller fault very close by, may have spared Southern California and even Northern California considerable disruption.
Of course, the scientists insist all these events are "unrelated." In the sense that we have not yet proved the connection, they are, indeed, "unrelated."
But in the sense that they are all occurring on the same planet, at the same time, without let-up, and increasingly involving areas that are populous, makes them "related": they are happening to all of us, this year, and we have no more reason to pretend they will not cost us, than we have to assert that they will.
In other words: it is an open question. Yet it stares back at us, and won't simply disappear.
A key obstacle on the path to achieving international consensus about the climate threats that certainly have a lot of important people worried has been the insistence that "scientists prove the case" before reasonable action is taken. And of course, as we have seen, it takes decades & billions to prove the case.
Then, even when it is proved to the satisfaction of 98% of the scientific community, naysayers & people like Sarah Palin still jump up & start waving guns around at the rest of us, saying "Nothing has been proven!"
But let us for a moment look at the problem a different way.
Just the past dreadful winter -- dreadful pretty much for everyone -- with floods, droughts & earthquakes thrown in -- and the hurricane / typhoon / cyclone season only beginning to warm up -- has given the people who make the decisions in this world enough to say (in defiance of Professor Lovelock): "Let's err on the side of caution and move to as many mitigation strategies as we can quickly & not-too-painfully implement, instead of arguing about the Argument, for a change."
Who should lead? Well, it can't be the US in Position No. 1, because I am sitting right here in California and let me tell you there is no coherence to the American position just yet. There are good people here and there, including the well-meaning Obamas (and now he has more notches in his belt, not to mention experience, he might avoid some of the pitfalls of Copenhagen better; in other words, today's Obama tangoes better than the COP15 Obama) -- but there is the quite terrifying 2010 midterm election to get through, Scylla to the Charybdis of the still murky economic outlook.
I can see one American fit to lead even a global initiative on climate, and that would be Jerry Brown if he reprises as Gov. in Sacramento. Yes, California does carry a little bit of weight, so that might improve the US position.
But from where things stand now, there is no alternative really but for the EU to gun the engines, for China to be even more forthcoming (and step it up), for India to rise to its fullest potential. Because China & India, with their populations, are indispensible to any serious programme.
Brasil & Russia, with their vegetation resources, also carry considerable weight.
The South Americans, having made enough points about the Norteamericanos, can now turn their attention to bringing their particular flair for impassioned speeches to winning over the Real Obstructionists. Seriously, South Americans make excellent propagandists. They have passion, flair, tenacity, commitment. I would specifically delegate them to win over the obstreperous parties, and yes, even the Saudis. After all, México & Venezuela -- and now Brasil --are oil producers, too. They can speak that language as well as anyone.
And yes, there is a huge role for African nations, where the pain of neglected climate issues is already being felt acutely.
So, in a sense, what I am suggesting here, Mr Black, is that Everyone should lead. No, that doesn't mean "no one." It means identifying, perhaps at the UN organisational level, what the particular strengths of different parties are. Japan, for example, has the distinction of its stature as cradle of Kyoto and technological powerhouse. The Scandinavians have some of the most successfully road-tested green policies on the planet. You Brits understand money like no one else. (Except maybe the Chinese.) Certainly, you own the language, and therefore the semantic realm, of any Agreement, which shall of course be English.
And so on.
Instead of assuming there will be no agreement, or there can be no agreement, we ought to proceed from the opposite end: An Agreement Will Emerge: now what will it look like? What does every party present have to contribute in a positive fashion? And not just in terms of pledges to cut, but also in Applicable Skills, Talent for Teaching -- whatever.
I remember in uni, at the end of term, being exhausted and a little overwhelmed, with papers to write that I was not always keen on having to generate... I was younger then. One would think that would mean I had higher energy & better ideas. Quite the contrary. Today, I can do much more -- back then, I had just as many ideas, and probably the same skill set.
The difference between then and now? Confidence. Experience increases confidence.
The people who survived COP15, who worked on Kyoto, who just got through these Bonn meetings you describe so vividly: these are professionals.
What got me through my papers, in my salad days, was looking at a blank piece of paper and visualising what it would look like covered with the words I was about to write, that I had not yet composed.
And then just beginning to put words down, one after the other, ticking thoughts and ideas off as I went.
In the same exact way, an Agreement will be achieved by the end of this year. It will have words in it we have yet to compose. But the thoughts and ideas are already cooking up; some are on already on the counter, even if others are still waiting in the fridge; others are already in the saucepan, bubbling up, simmering hard and coming to a boil. These thought & ideas are actually not new. They include things like: forest preservation; cleaner coal, safer coal & reduced coal dependency; cleaner petrol, less petrol, more efficient extraction of oil; greener construction and smarter appliances; less paper and even more paper-free processes; improved efficiency, more sharing & reuse & recycling...
And above all: more sharing of expertise. More sharing of talent. More openness.
There is a way of getting this done. But it can only happen if we all get closer, as nations, as people, as groups, as communities. This is not, ultimately, a scientific problem to the exclusion of all others. Far from it. It is an interdisciplinary problem in which the average homemaker and under-employed jack-of-all-trades has a contribution to make that is no less essential to the ultimate success of the programme than the decisions of Prime Ministers and Presidents.
The leaders will make the policy decisions, but it will take a billion or so cooperating households -- literally -- to make the shift away from climate-damaging habits to climate-protecting habits stick.
Yes, Manysummits, I know you are not kidding, and I inclined to agree with you on the mental health assessment... but I will say that most people are creatures of habit, and tend to take their cues from the people around them (just look at how popular tattoos & piercings have become when I can remember just two decades ago these were not popular fads at all).
We can even get the afflicted ones to come on board. Habits do change. Slavery unfortunately persists, and some people still smoke -- but both bad practices are considerably less fashionable than they were not all that long ago.
Even the masses can be trained to be a little bit more considerate and deliberate in their habits. Even the masses of Norteamericanos.
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Lab munkey @ 29: A list of things that I suspect most people would support regardless of their politics etc. That no one has challenged it is instructive.
Bowman @25: For as long as human societies have contrived controls on human behaviour, there have been people whinging about it. I can't remember of the top of my head any passages from the Gospels where someone is whinging about the opportunity cost of the new grape tax, but i'm sure there is something in there. I'm not going to disagree that history is littered with people saying the 'end of the world is nigh', but frankly that's irrelevent. The science of climate change does not say 'that we are all going to die in a great storm', but uses research to show that if we don't stop polluting the atmosphere, then things are going to get worse. You are the only person who thinks there is a religeous aspect to cold hard dispationate science.
Politis @41: You're right about solar heating and other things like the dangers of immature technologies but you are fundamentaly wrong when it comes to the concept of externalities. I suspect you are old enough that when you were in education, the idea of non-market costs was not properly established in economic theory. In the same way that my parents just don't get computers, I guess you will never get 'externalities'.
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#47: Perhaps it was all the AGW sceptics who argued that the Earth was not really warming up of a decade ago. (And even less far back then that, occasionally one re-surfaces today.) Interesting that most now accept it did.
If the temperature measurements then that fed into the IPCC are now considered correct, then there's no reason to doubt them now.
Some recent ones:
e.g. Last Decade Was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years, NASA Research Finds.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121170717.htm
The WMO: 2000–2009 The Warmest Decade
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_869_en.html
Australia has got 0.7 Degrees C Warmer over Past 50 Years. 14/03/10
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gSMhzJlxY-feCKAbLpnD0sZy3G1Q
And this during a solar minimum (began March 2006.), now considered: "The deepest solar minimum in nearly a century."
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/03sep_sunspots/
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@JaneBasingstoke #45
“There is also the issue that all the graphs, including the anomaly graph, are for the US rather than global. The US was very warm in the 1930s. This does not appear to be true globally.
Similarly using US temperatures allows the effective cherrypicking of 2009 for the highlit red line in "US annual temperature by month". 2009 appears to have been relatively cool for the US. Again, this was not true globally.”
Do these graphs, which you say are not consistent with global graphs from the same time period, not weaken the case of the validity of using global average temperature (and CO2) data for historical and for predictive purposes. Should we not be looking at all reliable regional historical data around the world, where we have the records to do this, and look more at historical regional changes and create computer models to provide regional predictions.
This way we could concentrate our efforts on reducing the impact on places which are more likely to be affected by dangerous climate change should it occur.
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@ADMac #49
It depends what you are using the temperature data for. And I believe regional data is used where applicable in the models. Of course the drawback with models is that there is a trade off between certainty and region size.
Meanwhile Eschenbach's implicit use, looking for recent warming that may be associated with greenhouse gas emmissions, needs to use global temperatures. Hence using US data instead of global data is inappropriate, and potentially misleading.
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To Maria Ashot #46:
I just returned from the University of Calgary, where I met an old climbing partner, who works in the geophysics department there. He is very very concerned about the state of the planet, and of course I told him about Bolivia. (He and his wife have two children)
Speaking of which, albeit indirectly - I just bought the 2010 Worldwatch Institute's State of the World book.
Why?
Paradigm shift!! They have identified cultural patterns as the 'elephant in the room.' (nicer than saying we are insane)
Just found out what some of us are, according to one of the Worldwatch's lead authors - \\\ Cultural Pioneers ///
I like it - I like being out front. How human is that? And why are so many of us afraid of our humanity? Why?
===============
Sensiblegrannie!
Thanks for the welcome back. I write to people on the blog now because I think it more human. The internet is useful, but a machine, or a 'cloud,' is not a person. Nor is a corporation. The sooner we start seeing well again, the better off we will be. I say again, if a corporation is not a person, why have we enshrined it in our laws as one? It can have rights, like trees, or the climate, or bacteria - not the same as a person. A corporation is a legal construct, period! Let's find another way to enfranchise them.
- Manysummits -
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Maria Ashot @ 46 makes great reading, lots of words, many thoughts and suggestions that could transformable into workable solutions.
The solutions will not be arrived at through locked-horn politics at formal Copenhagens but could evolve through the pressures of the Bolivias.
It will be really important not to belittle the Bolivian attempt to establish a social (and first world) dimension to this world-wide problem.
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Sensibleoldgrannie at #42
Here's some more info which I hope will let you have a closer look!
The Swedish food chain climate labelling initiative was started in 2007. The purpose is to “create a certification system, which will reduce the negative climate effects in food production and give consumers a chance to make a conscious climate choices as well as strengthening the competitiveness of the food producers”.
You can find some information in English on the Swedish climate labelling initiative at the following site: http://www.klimatmarkningen.se/in-english/
There you will also see a link to the document “Standard for reducing climate impact in the production and distribution of food”, which was adopted by the project’s steering group in mid-2009.
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@Yorkurbantree #47 who wrote...
"You're right about solar heating and other things like the dangers of immature technologies but you are fundamentaly wrong when it comes to the concept of externalities. I suspect you are old enough that when you were in education, the idea of non-market costs was not properly established in economic theory. In the same way that my parents just don't get computers, I guess you will never get 'externalities'."
I'm not sure what you're trying to get at here but if you're implying that the economy will magically, harmlessly (or with little impact) absorb the ungodly materials, maintenance, reliability and work-force costs created by the rapid adoption of the current crop of renewable energy systems...I don't think you've thought it through properly.
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You gotta love it. An AGW missionary encouraging people to fly to Bolivia for a meeting! Perfect.
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Bowman at "25
"Can you find many references to X-will-destroy-the-economy-type fears in Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible, Shakespeare, etc.? I would have thought there are many many more references to the-end-is-nigh-type fears."
Perhaps I may suggest Adam Smith may be included as one of the "etc" in your list?
In 1776 Smith wrote about the difficulties faced by nations “who have attempted to tax the revenue arising from stock,” in a world in which capital “may wander about from place to place, according as it can either buy cheap or sell dear.”
He noted that “The proprietor of stock is properly a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country. He would be apt to abandon the country in which he was exposed to a vexatious inquisition, in order to be assessed to a burdensome tax, and would remove his stock to some other country.”
Perhaps it is time for you to think again Bowman?
------------------
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. R.H.Campbell and A.S.Skinner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 364, 848-849.
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Look out folks here comes another official WHITEWASH.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8618441.stm
"It does exactly what it says on the tin."
Lord Oxburgh has reviewed over 30 years of climate science in just two weeks!
If you believe that then you will believe anything.
It is little wonder that people are increasingly sceptical of climate science - it has become a joke.
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I think we have all become unnaturally obsessed with AGW to the exclusion of logic and rationality.
I personally support SGW (Solar Global Warming) as having a far higher probability of being a likely 'cause' of Global Warming (I am not going to engage in any lengthy discussions here - read my many dozens earlier postings.)
The key to this is the word and term 'probability' and this is where it seems that the University of East Anglia's team have had problems - that is in assessing error in their data and the consequence and cumulative effects of these errors on the uncertainty of the correctness of their CO2 hypothesis. (If early reports of the Royal Society's investigations are correct.) Sad for science, but perhaps now we can get back to a rational, logical and scientific discussion of Climate Change and what are the best steps that we can take to ameliorate the undesirable effects and to benefit from the positive effects of such variability.
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Thank you simon-swede
I shall read your link and the ref. at the bottom of post 56. You have pinpointed the exact reason for the powerlessness of individual governments against such behaviour. However, if world constitutional law were changed... perhaps all 'proprietors of stock' will have to acknowledge that they also have obligations to the planet. We have such a sophisticated worldwide Internet system that chasing these itinerant institutions around the globe should be quite easy once the laws were firmly established. It would also be good if companies were constitutionally prevented from growing more powerful than the countries they exploit for resources.
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#56 simon-swede wrote:
"Perhaps it is time for you to think again Bowman?"
The original claim was that "Throughout history, people have argued that 'insert issue here' will destroy the economy." History did not begin at the end of the eighteenth century, with one of the first economists!
Although the study of economics is a recent development, I think it can be said that throughout history, people have believed that the world has a divine "order" that it is perilous to disrupt. This idea lives on in the minds of people who claim to be non-religious, and it has a sacred place in the AGW "community". But really anyone who has given evolution any real thought knows it's rubbish. For the most part, nature re-establishes its own balances. Adam Smith thought a free economy re-established its own balance too, although the process might be painful.
It seems to me that with all of these "balances", it's important to consider in a reflective, realistic way how much pain is likely to be involved in their disruption and/or re-establishment.
By the way, unlike many sceptics I'm not a great believer in the free market. Famines happen when food prices soar upwards because of market forces, as in a monopoly. We have to be careful not to let that happen.
Speaking of monopolies, members of the AGW "community" seem to think they have a monopoly on caring, because they "care enough to prevent the end of the world". Well I'm a realist and I think all that end-is-nigh stuff is religious baloney. I care about preventing famines.
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Bowman at #60
"This idea lives on in the minds of people who claim to be non-religious, and it has a sacred place in the AGW "community"."
What rot. The "sacred place" is firmly located in your imagination!
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Just watched "The Age of Stupid."
Recommended.
Nice having a real life 82 year old French mountain guide in this documentary.
- Manysummits -
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#61 simon-swede wrote:
bowmanthebard #60: "This idea lives on in the minds of people who claim to be non-religious, and it has a sacred place in the AGW "community"."
simon-swede #61: "What rot. The "sacred place" is firmly located in your imagination!"
No it isn't. Honestly now: hands up everyone who thinks there's a delicate balance in nature that humans are in danger of disrupting.
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As the US voter is under the impression they have a God-Given right to cheap fuel and its industry has the same right to exploit resources world-wide then the US led direction for climate change, is into the abyss.
That may sound cynical but as the history of US led campaigns have always yielded results entirely to the US's satisfaction, I expect no other result.
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bowmanthebard #60: "...people have believed that the world has a divine "order" that it is perilous to disrupt. This idea lives on in the minds of people who claim to be non-religious,..."
Why would the "order" have to be "divine" to be "perilous to disrupt"?
There is nothing "divine" about the "order" we have. It just happens to be the only one in existence at the moment; which does make it rather important.
The problem with disrupting this "order" is not just the fact that that the "order" will be changed but that it may no longer support "life as we know it"; which is also rather important to us.
/davblo
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How is infrastructure paid for? Has infrastructure always been established through taxation or were there other methods of getting it? Some infrastructure appears to have been donated by individual rich families or companies in exchange for recognition. The lottery finances improvements in the arts infrastructure through many small donations (gambling) Is there a world lottery for the improvement to life-giving infrastructures such as desalination plants and sustainable irrigation methods? Islam has a system of giving 10% of personal income to charity (I think that is right, correct me if I am wrong) What constitutes a worthy charity?
My current definition of a worthy charity would be to create something sustainable to maintain human life in harmony with the natural environment.
Years ago I did wrestle with the meaning of absolute poverty. As time progresses so does this meaning. To be part of a group of people with no country to call home and to be sent from place to place as a refugee has to be the worst condition. How can the world make the lives of these people sustainable as they have absolutely no power over their own environment other than to exist. Perhaps the world could do something with them first. I would have thought the refugee would do anything to make their lives have meaning beyond mere existence. Refugees are a bountiful resource of skills from all professions caught up in a situation beyond their control.
As the planet shifts and changes according to its own set of rules there will be more environmental refugees. All the more reason to have established systems to quickly enable these people to live in new environments. If we have the technology to send people into outer space then we should be able to adapt technologies to create sustainable emergency environments.
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Have you read Lord Oxburgh's report on Climategate - ALL 8 PAGES OF IT.
Yep, just 8 pages.
Compare that to the 264 pages from the Science and Technology Committee on Climategate.
This is not a WHITEWASH, this is a UEA-CRU WHITEWASH.
Can Sir Muir Russell do better than 8 pages?
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#65 davblo wrote:
"Why would the "order" have to be "divine" to be "perilous to disrupt"?"
I'm calling it "divine" because it's assumed to be a very special sort of order. It's not just "the way things happen to be" as a matter of chance, but "the way things were meant to be". Obviously, when we think about what or who could mean things to be ordered in a particular way, some sort of superhuman agency is involved.
It isn't really perilous to disrupt the order of things, it's just assumed to be perilous to disrupt any very special sort of order (rather than just changing the way things happen to be).
"Man is a religious animal", as Burke said, and that can't change in a few hundred years.
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Sensiblegrannie at #66
A propos paying for infrastructure...
* Labour would establish a Green Investment Bank for energy infrastructure, financed by sale of assets matched by private sector contributions.
* The Conservatives would establish a Green Investment Bank to finance new green technology start-ups.
* The LibDems would establish a UK Infrastructure Bank to finance energy and transport projects.
(By the way, I think the 10% figure you gave - for compulsory charitable giving according to Islam - is a bit high. More like 2 or 3%, perhaps?)
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@manysummits #38
Of course I don't know which version of the Golden Rule is on that poster.
The version I know goes "do unto others as you would have done to yourself".
Now even if that "others" is confined to human beings it implicitly covers the planet. Our descendants depend on us to leave the Earth in a state that can support them, and preferably still be a beautiful place to live.
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Minuend at #57
"Lord Oxburgh has reviewed over 30 years of climate science in just two weeks!"
As the Panel's report notes at the outset: "The Panel was not concerned with the question of whether the conclusions of the published research were correct. Rather it was asked to come to a view on the integrity of the Unit’s research and whether as far as could be determined the conclusions represented an honest and scientifically justified interpretation of the data."
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I see that the 'independent' inquiry into climate gate has reported.
The totally unbiased chair of the panel says everything is good with global warming. Of course we must take into account that he runs a windfarm corporation and a carbon capture trust - both income streams which would dry up if people continue to rebel against the global warming scam.
The professional statistician on the panel thinks there should be more (well paid) work for professional statisticians in future.
I think this is a wonderful example of why ordinary people are becoming increasingly sceptical. Global warming has become a tax, business, academic, activist etc etc gravy train. So many people have jumped on the gravy train that it is increasingly impossible to find anyone who could be trusted.
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Here are a few ideas:
We now transport goods in containers around the world and the containers come in a standard size.
The world population with disposable income could buy lottery tickets to sponsor a container of vital equipment or supplies.
These containers could be stored in the conventional way in locations around the world.
Forget nasty stained second hand clothing. Send old clothes to a recycle centre to be converted into fleeces and layered clothing more suitable for extreme environmental conditions.
There must be a way of manufacturing foot ware that does not require labour intensive methods of manufacture and can be made from recycled materials. Foot ware and suitable clothing is a vital necessity.
Mass cooking facilities are more economical than individual cookers. (The army has coped with eating canteen food for centuries)
Some of the more efficient army technologies could be containerized for immediate readiness for airlift to emergency zones.
Years ago I watched the open university program on how refugee camps are set up and how local resources are measured. I expect that these calculations are a bit more sophisticated now.
We are living in an age of environmental uncertainty and the world population needs to adapt its thinking to cope with strange new times.
I expect most of these ideas are in operation now but more could be done as more groups of people get caught up in crisis.
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... checked on Wiki and it looks like Islamic charity contributions are 2.5% of income. Any comments from the Islamic population as to how this is controlled?
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#70 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Our descendants depend on us to leave the Earth in a state that can support them"
Our actual descendants will (future tense) depend on us in the same way as we depend (present tense) on our ancestors. Do you regard yourself as depending on your ancestors? I don't regard myself as depending on my ancestors.
Our merely potential descendants do not depend on anyone at all, because they are not real.
I mention it because it is very easy to get confused about issues involving "potential people". For example, do you think contraception is evil? -- I don't. But there are those who think contraception "deprives potential people of existence". No doubt we are all genetically programmed to go forth and multiply, but let's not suppose that anything morally important turns on it. If anything, we are morally obliged to resist that programming.
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This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain
I have said on many occasions that what's really wrong with climate science is its "inductivist" philosophy. I have often played down the relevance of the "climategate" affair.
However, to say that there is "absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatsoever" is extremely suspicious. It seems to bear out the claim of the London Times' environment correspondent (Ben Webster March 23, 2010) that "Lord Oxburgh, the climate science peer, 'has a conflict of interest'"
Absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatever? I'd like to hear from some of the more honest AGW supporters about this. Do you all agree with this? Do any of you think there is a whiff of whitewash here?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7071751.ece
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"Absolutely no evidence of any impropriety whatever": if David Cameron doesn't get his finger out and start to question this sort of claim, he'll lose the election, mark my words. He'll deserve to lose it too. Common sense recognizes clear cases of corruption like this.
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# mangochutneyuk
"Not a mention of the science" - the core science is pretty much settled.
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bowmanthebard #60: "I'm calling it 'divine' because it's assumed to be a very special sort of order. It's not just "the way things happen to be" as a matter of chance, but 'the way things were meant to be'"
"...the way things were meant to be"?
Why oh why, are you putting those words into our mouths.
I (and I'm sure many others) have absolutely no delusions that the current "order" is in any way contrived or "meant to be".
It is "the way things happen to be" and is special solely because it happens to be the "order" which is supporting our current existence.
/davblo
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#66 sensibleoldgrannie
although i give to charity i'm no fan of charities. to a large extent i believe they exist to paste over the cracks left by state failures.
imho i don;t think cash will fix the problems we have, they are systemic problems based on pretty outdated concepts (primarily of states and economics).
only when we all start to realise we inhabit a small lump of rock with a wafer thin atmosphere winging its way through a very hostile universe will these problems get get fixed (e.g. there would be no such thing as a refugee......unless we get the odd alien crash land!).
in this respect i think maybe the realpolitik that richard describes is the start of an uncomfortable transistion from competing/warring nation states to something closer to a pan-national structure (extending the work on things like international criminal court, udhr).
the real leap forward happened after ww2, maybe the current environmental crisis could finish the job.
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#58 john_from_hendon
i totally disagree i'm afraid....see my earlier posts
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@bowmanthebard #75
Er, I think you are venturing into the sort of grammar issues flagged up in "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" by Douglas Adams.
I also point out that many people with political influence (politicians, scientists, voters) already have descendants, living and breathing in today's world, some of whom are way too young to have any direct influence on politics. The present tense would seem applicable to them even taking grammar pedantry to extremes.
I also point out that unless we are extremely unlucky, billions of the potential people you mention will be born. Or are you assuming the human race is as doomed as some of the extremists make out?
Meanwhile you have not been specific enough in your discussion of contraception. Contraception can be evil if enforced or combined with some creepy eugenics, and there are people that want this on the political agenda.
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“I'd like to hear from some of the more honest AGW supporters about this. Do you all agree with this? #77.
I never thought there was any deliberate impropriety to begin with.
To look at the much seized on (and distorted in many opinion pieces) quote from Jones and use of the word ‘trick’.
The use of the word 'trick' is used widely in many fields of science to denote a 'technique', not deceit. Below is an example from a calculus exercise.
"How would I take the derivative dy/dx of the function x^2y+xy^3-3x=6. x=4, y=1?
The TRICK IS to always add a dy/dx whenever you differentiate a function in y."
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Calculus-2063/2009/6/Taking-derivative-function-variables-1.htm
I bet you’ve explained something to someone and used the expression ‘the trick is’ meaning technique, not deceit.
The Jones' paper was written in 1999, so attempts (see link below) to make out that the quote "in the last couple of years" was meaning the hiding the decline in temperatures between then and now has been another example of:
a) biased & uninformed opinion or b) deliberate disinformation. e.g.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/profile/?userid=14242510
As for the ‘decline’ - it is known that K. Briffa’s ring density proxy (but only this one) diverges from the temperature records after 1960.
In other words the summer temperature record for that region records rising temperatures after 1960, but the tree-ring data doesn't. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v391/n6668/abs/391678a0.html
This is known as the “divergence problem” and has been discussed in the literature since, e.g. Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682).
The authors always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, whilst undertaking further research to understand why this happened; so not using that data was appropriate. Splicing an actual temperature record onto the record post-1960 (and it was accurate) was a logical means of bringing it up to date.
--------------------
Lord Oxburgh has reviewed over 30 years of climate science in just two weeks! #57
No, the committee looked at the methodology of those involved in research at CRU (after all the main charge by those that seized on the emails is that of deceit) and found: “We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the Climatic Research Unit and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it.”
The CRU scientists have been criticized for not using the best statistical techniques at times.
Complaining that recommending that statisticians become more closely involved is promoting an agenda of “more work for professional statisticians in future” (#72) is a bit rich. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
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There is this idea called "progress". We didn't start with coal and oil. The lack of trees in England and most of Europe or virgin forest was a result of misuse, or dependence on wood for a long period, both for building and fuel. England went to America in search of trees. Gas lamps, when not blowing up or poisoning people in their homes and work was changed to electic and oil based fuels. The coal furnace also had many dangers for users. There is no need to discontinue advances in fuel technology simply because those industries have a strangle hold on political systems. I don't think wind or solar have the capacity to provide the levels of energy required but can be useful for individual homes. There are other alternatives, hydrogen being one, that have great promise for individual production and use. Don't start that danger of hydrogen talk as those issues have been resolved and is much safer than your auto and the tank full of gasoline you drive around sitting on or the electical fires in your homes or business. There are and will be other resources captured for use as well. Think beyond the present system.
Potisplace professes that pollution controls have all but eliminated health related issues. Doesn't seem to be supported in medical journals, mercury and other dangerous elements are spewed into the air daily. I believe London had a smog that killed 5,000 people and lead was only removed from gasoline after many deaths and health related issues. The regulations are always after many deaths. It is just odd that people resist the creation of cleaner air and water in defense of fossil fuels that have a hundred year history of environmental and human health negative impacts. Cheap seems to be the only criteria that matters and cheap is calculated without the consideration of related costs to individuals and the societies. The life span of humans is due more to advances in medicine and the regulations that restrict fossil fuels from entering the air and water systems and better diet. Although some will argue that the rise in autism, asthma and other respirtory diseases and cancer have a link to fossil fuel pollution. Of course, it wasn't until the plague killed over a quarter of Europe that people decided that open sewage wasn't such a good idea and public health in cities needed to be considered. They never did connect the dots of the rats and the fleas. One of the more interesting aspects of the fondations for a global economy. Remember all the dead coal miners when you turn on the lights...this has been going on for as long as they have mined coal and in every place where it is mined...but no need to include that in the costs.
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#80 davblo wrote:
"Why oh why, are you putting those words into our mouths."
Because a lot of people don't have the honesty to clearly express what they really think. For example:
"It is "the way things happen to be" and is special solely because it happens to be the "order" which is supporting our current existence."
Then there's nothing special about it. So why do you bother trying to keep it the way it is then? It may as well be different.
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The Lord Oxburgh report was last seen being flushed down a toilet. It appears that is the only use for a report only 8 pages long.
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To JaneBasingstoke #70:
I welcome the opportunity to expand further my thoughts, vis a vis the golden rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
I agree that implicitly the many religions of the world extend their compassion to all of the creatures on our planet.
And yet in his poem "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" Coleridge thought it necessary to write:
"He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small."
As we are all aware that words, especially fine words, are often not followed.
I just watched "The Age of Stupid" last night. What struck me the most was a line by the last man on Earth, the man sending the Earth archive into space in the year 2055. He said something to the effect:
"Why didn't we save ourselves when we had the chance? Is it because many of us suspected that the human being was in some sense unworthy, not worth saving?"
This is not as far fetched as it appears. The Catholics, for example, believe in original sin. In effect, without a dispensation, one is in deep trouble, having literally been born unworthy. Most of our big religions were founded in the time of high civilizations, when the inequalities in standing between humans were often very pronounced - Buddha, for example. Then is also now.
May I digress for a moment?
I am just starting the Worldwatch Institutes' 2010 book on the 'State of the World.' The cultural roots of our current dillemas are the central theme of this report.
But I have detected a cart and horse problem already.
Science and technology have enabled population growth - and they enabled us to survive two and a half million years of Ice Age climate fluctuations, growing stronger all the while - the brain enlarging, the sophistication of our tools and their use increasing, if sporadically.
But what enabled science and technology, and what enabled the multi-variate cultures of the world, from the beginning of the Pleistocene to the present?
Is it the increasingly large brain, culminating in the 'great leap forward' of fifty thousand years ago, plus or minus twenty thousand years?
And what is one to make of Cro-Magnon Man, with his shamans and cave paintings, his rituals and musical instruments, his mind-altering use of drugs?
Can we detect an incipient schizophrenia, or even the real thing?
Instinctively we are hunters, technically we are at the genius level, physically we are attuned to hunting and gathering and foraging and nomadic wanderings - it is who we are, and have been for enough time for this to be hard-wired in. But we were then few in number, as all predators are, and lightly dispersed upon the land.
Suddenly, we are in the Holocene, and if Ronald Wright is correct, a victim of our own success - the dragon slayer who has slain the last dragon is out of a job!
So we farmed - and industrialized - and here we are. We are now short of elbow room. Every pioneer and mountaineer has felt the compulsion to rectify this, and hence our love of deserts and mountains and the open ocean, where we are again lightly dispersed upon the land, and thrown upon our own resources - rejoicing in the feeling of being truly alive again - as in days long since past.
Richard's question to us is essentially about where we are going?
Watching the documentary last night, and relecting on our religious propensities, or should I say compulsions, and on our Ice Age heritage, I am led to a few startlingly simple conclusions:
1) The magnitude and proximity of the environmental disaster engulfing us is quite obviously not understood or appreciated by the world community. Paradoxically, this is true of the first world also, where information is supposed to be greatest.
2) In the first world, we are intellectually aware that there is a problem, but it is not yet visceral - it does not threaten us directly, physically - or so it is perceived.
3) In the rest of the world, the threat is visceral, present now - empirically certain. But what is perhaps not understood in the widest sense is the ultimate cause, which is understood at some level by the first world.
There are in effect two solitudes.
Why?
Let's return to culture - the Worldwatch Institute's centerpiece in 2010.
They appear to be concentrating on a culture of consumption, which is certainly relevant.
But it isn't what got us to this place, in my opinion.
Rather a culture of conquest.
The same science and technology which allowed us to survive and to thrive in the Ice Age has been appropriated by the few, and used to bring into servitude the many. And this at many levels in our society - religious institutions included.
The Jesuit missionary, amongst the most highly educated of our species, accompanied the conquistador to America, and it has been some 470 years since a Native Aymara has been in charge of the Aymaras, democratically, in Bolivia.
\\\ Do we, the Ice Age Hunters of a Warming World, have the 'right stuff' to avert environmental Armageddon? ///
Yes, I think we do, but we are going to have to dig deep into our inner selves, abandon the idea that we are in any sense unworthy, and live once more the life to which we were born.
And that is what Bolivia and Evo Morales are all about.
- Manysummits -
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#84 SheffTim wrote:
"The use of the word 'trick' is used widely in many fields of science to denote a 'technique', not deceit."
I was the first sceptic on this blog to explicitly say just that. But there most definitely is evidence of some impropriety, even if it is impropriety of a minor sort... To say that there is ABSOLUTELY NO evidence of ANY impropriety WHATSOEVER is to "protest too much". It is to do the very thing that got the CRU into trouble in the first place, and it clearly shows the investigation was not independent (enough). I am willing to bet there will be trouble as a result of this -- it looks too much like Nixon digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself.
The public will not stand being treated with this degree of dishonesty. Just watch.
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#80 davblo wrote:
"Why oh why, are you putting those words into our mouths."
Recently, in connection with krill in the Southern Ocean, you wrote:
'Are you sure "more heat" would be good for them? They seem to thrive in the cold.'
OK, let's suppose more heat is not good for them. So they inhabit a smaller part of the ocean. So they support fewer whales. So what? It is a matter of indifference to me if there are somewhat fewer whales, and somewhat more marlin (as an example of a species that lives in warmer water). Why is this not a matter of indifference to you as well?
I suggest that you think some sort of "balance" will have been disrupted. So a balance is disrupted -- what's the big deal? A new balance will become established, because that's how life works. Nature finds its own equilibrium.
My feeling is that many AGW-supporters think it can't find an equilibrium on its own, that it needs to be in the "special" balance it is in now, or better was in 1000 years ago, as if there's something special about it. As if it's been designed. Surely you can see that?
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#46 Maria Ashot wrote:
'the past dreadful winter [...] has given the people who make the decisions in this world enough to say [...]: "Let's err on the side of caution [...]'"
But you're missing something vitally important here. BOTH sides want to err on the side of caution. Most AGW-ers think the danger comes from climate change, whereas most sceptics think the danger comes from economic collapse.
BOTH sides want to be cautious, they just disagree over HOW to be cautious.
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Ghostofsichuan @85:
"There are other alternatives, hydrogen being one"
Hydrogen uses more energy to produce than you get from it.
"mercury and other dangerous elements are spewed into the air daily."
Mercury??? Where do you get your 'facts' from? Just about the only place you'll find mercury nowdays is in low-energy light bulbs.
"I believe London had a smog that killed 5,000 people"
The "Great London Smog" you're referring to happened nearly 60 years ago - there's been nothing even remotely like it since.
"lead was only removed from gasoline after many deaths and health related issues."
Lead was removed because it's incompatible with catalysers - not because of any deaths or health effects.
"Although some will argue that the rise in autism, asthma and other respirtory diseases and cancer have a link to fossil fuel pollution"
Air pollution is only a small fraction of what it was decades ago, yet the incidence of asthma etc is rising. Kinda disproves that theory, doesn't it?
"Of course, it wasn't until the plague killed over a quarter of Europe that people decided that open sewage wasn't such a good idea and public health in cities needed to be considered. They never did connect the dots of the rats and the fleas."
No, they only connected the dots and cleaned up the cities long after the plague had passed from living memory. At the time, they really didn't have any clue as to what caused the plague.
"Remember all the dead coal miners when you turn on the lights"
I wonder how many fishermen and farmers have been killed in the course of their work. Perhaps you should spare them a thought when you sit down at the dinner table.
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#83 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"you have not been specific enough in your discussion of contraception."
Sorry if I repeat myself here, but imagine someone plants a huge bomb in a big city, timed to go off in 100 years. That would would cause a huge amount of harm, because 1000 (say) actual people would be killed. But the handing out of contraceptives is a good thing, even if it prevents 1000 potential people from being born.
So there's a very important difference between actual (future) people and merely potential (future) people. Wouldn't you agree?
It seems to me that it's quite hard to think straight about this very important difference. We all get confused. I may be a grammar pedant, but I'm also interested in avoiding confusion.
For example, you wrote: "unless we are extremely unlucky, billions of the potential people you mention will be born."
I'm wondering why we (or they) would be "unlucky" if they were never born. They wouldn't be upset if they were never born, because they don't exist. There are no minds to be upset.
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#88 manysummits wrote:
"But I have detected a cart and horse problem already."
Perhaps it is time to detect what lies on the road behind both the cart and the horse?
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bowmanthebard @90:
"OK, let's suppose more heat is not good for them. So they inhabit a smaller part of the ocean. So they support fewer whales."
It's not even that much of a problem. Whales travel many thousands of miles every year between their spawning and feeding grounds - as do many other sea creatures.
Even if the planet warmed (or cooled for that matter) by double-digit degrees, there would still be vast areas of cooler (or warmer) oceans and land where temperature-sensitive creatures could happily continue to exist.
And most creatures and plants do better in a warm climate than in a cold one.
Even humans, throughout history, have either migrated or adapted - it's only in very recent human history that civilisation as we know it has come into being. If things change, so will civilisation - with probably no great hardship.
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manysummits:
your positive view of human capabilities is always refreshing. In China, Chu Hsi won over the thinking of Wang Yang Ming and China's fate was set, order won over freedom. Mo Ti and his ideas of compassion and universal love were gaining on Kung-Fu-Tze when Huangdi unified what was then China and burned all the books. The scholars remembered the ideas of Confucius but no so much those of Mo Ti. I would suggest our ancesters are a mix of neanderthal and cro-magnon, and they are finding evidence to support this. Whenever given the option mankind will dumb-down.
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Where to from here?
Perhaps Livy's 'Early History or Rome' has some valuable insights for our current culture of conquest and affluence?
Livy (59 B.C.-17 A.D.)
"Of late years wealth has made us greedy, and self-indulgence has brought us, through every form of sensual excess, to be, if I may so put it, in love with death both individual and collective...
when we can endure neither our vices nor their cure."
=====================================================
Let us hope we are not that far gone.
- Manysummits -
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Ghost!
I'm glad to be of service. I suppose I am a hopeless romantic, in the final analysis. There must be a Confucian saying to cover this, something akin to "You can't change the spots on a leopard"?
I have something for you as regards history and its lessons, also from Livy:
"The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid."
===============
I suppose I can be accused of looking for the silver lining, in history as elsewhere. But you know, even on the stormiest peak, of the mountain or in life, I have actually found this saving light.
To be more serious, I wonder who is the more natural - the Ice Age Hunter, or the Civilized Man?
Of course this is in a sense unawswerable, but I keep going back to my actual seven years in the mountains and deserts, which were very real, and are still in me.
Isn't it quite extraordinary that a man so much a part of civilized life, and so confused, should have found himself, his wife and child, in the pursuit of a devotion so utterly devoid of financial gain, or rational purpose?
You know, in that same Worldwatch Institute book (2010) I am currently reading, the project leader and lead author of the cultural roots section mentioned in his piece every person in "The Age of Stupid" except the 82 year old mountaineer!!!
This is also quite extraordinary, for in my opinion, watching the doumentary, the guide of Chamonix was the only sane person present.
Bias perhaps - who can say?
Well, if our planet was not disintegrating before my eyes I would agree.
But seeing as how it is collapsing as we write, I believe I will stick with the idea of being a cultural pioneer.
I have never forgotten the words of a song I heard as a youth in Montreal, where I was born and raised:
"Get in the wagons rolling west, out to the great unknown;
Get in the wagons rolling west or you'll be left alone."
Ghost, I am going crazy here in the city trying to figure what to do next.
I must constantly remind myself that figuring is bad for me - and I have had experience enough to say this with absolute certainty.
And so I shall follow my heart, for better or for worse.
Hasta Luego, and I shall be following that conference in Bolivia next week with everything that I am,
Manysummits
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Maybe there is a clue there Ghost?
As you wrote:
"Whenever given the option mankind will dumb-down."(96)
Perhaps a way forward would be to recognize this inherent weakness, and avoid affluence, and court danger?
"And then Arthur learned, as all leaders are astonished to learn, that peace, not war, is the destroyer of men." (Steinbeck)
"none has been free for so many generations from the vices of avarice and luxury" (Livy)
"My mistress still, the open road and the bright eyes of danger." (Robert Louis Stevenson)
=============
War is no longer an option, but danger is easy to find, and space offers both danger and purpose, and as a bonus, new resources. And it's cold out there - perfect for an Ice Age Explorer!
- Manysummits -
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@bowmanthebard #93
"evil"
Obviously we are agreed that murder is evil. But murder is not the only evil. Enforced contraception can also be evil, particularly if complemented with a eugenics breeding programme.
"unlucky"
I would be extremely interested in any scenario you could come up with whereby less than a billion people are born in the next hundred years and no one referred to the cause as "unlucky". The least nasty scenario I can think of is voluntary submission to some sort of extreme baby rationing, and that would only happen if things were desperate.
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Manysummits;
A bird does not sing because it has an answer It sings because it has a song
Sometimes the Abbot will say to me: you think too much.
Understanding is in a clear mind.
There is only what is before you and if acting correctly the future will be taken care of by the actions of today.
Divide your thinking in half: 90% positive and the rest on anything else.
Too early to tell if modern man (modern is always a relative term) is better than ice age man, I do not see enough difference in motivations to determine recognizable change. Little bands wandering around stealing from each other...bankers mentality.
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@manysummits
Interesting you bring up Livy - he lived in very interesting times. As a young man, he saw the death of Julius Caesar and of the Republic and the birth of the Empire. Which, as history tells us, began with the 'good empirers', after the Caesar's death and the beginning of Augustus' rule (Octavian), times were good for Rome...a hundred years after his death, not so good...
Many interpretations can be made of the transition - we can find good and bad, so it is hard to judge...
Sound like today?
Cheers.
Kealey
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#82. rossglory wrote:
"#58 john_from_hendon
I totally disagree i'm afraid....see my earlier posts"
I have been back through your posts to early March and can find very little of substance apart from simply supporting 'authoritative sources' in your contributions.
My contributions were the result of attending a number of climate seminars over the last decade and carefully considering the data and the science, several degrees in physical sciences and many decades of professional scientific endeavour. I found that the models being proposed by the CO2 fanatics did not fit with observations at all well. I also found that one of the more reliable ways of long term weather forecasting is through the use of sun spot analysis, the solar wind, the moon's position and changes in earth's obliquity. You will note that the Met Office has recently given up long term forecasting as its forecasts were consistently wide of the mark indicating that their model was not good enough. (I am also not dependent on raising funding for research and in consequence I feel able to dispassionately review the data and models.)
I am particularly concerned with error estimation within the modelling and I find that it is almost entirely absent - which is ridiculous for such a multivariate problem. I am myself a little versed in asymptotics and chaos and the construction and analysis of multivariate problems and I find that climate science is hardly worthy of the name of science.
I am particularly struck by the historic analysis of the level of atmospheric CO2 estimated in the past and the estimated global temperature. The models in use today by so called reputable climate scientists if applied to paleo CO2 and temperature would have had the planet's temperature so hot that all water would have boiled of off the planet - now this clearly did not happen as this would have extinguished all life and that clearly did not happen. Thus the climate models must be wrong and thus CO2 does not cause climate change (it may reflect the planet's temperature which is what the data appears to show). And then it follows from the models being wrong that the effect of artificially modulating CO2 is unpredictable and also not causative. Hence I prefer a model that at least is one of the best predictors of long term weather - and far better than the Met Office. (Weather over decades becomes climate.)
That is why I disagree with the idea that climate change is down to CO2 - I do not however disagree with the need to plan for and indeed expect climate change. I just see that it is a total waste of our limited resources to try to limit something that will not in all probability have any effect at all. We should concentrate on amelioration of the consequences.
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@ghostofsichuan
Does a bird sing only because it has a song? Does it not sing to warn of danger? To attract a mate? For many reasons we yet not know?
Perhaps not because it has an answer...but I think more than just because it has a song...
Cheers.
Kealey
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@rossglory
"...the core science is pretty much settled"
OMG, you believe this? And of course, the answer is the 'new world order' and from your other writings, we only need charities because of the 'failure of the state'...and for that reason, you don't believe in them...I am appalled.
I will be perfectly honest - you scare me very deeply. Anyone who thinks they have 'the answers' scares me very deeply - anyone who thinks its so 'black and white' or 'clear as day'...
Kealey
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#100 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"I would be extremely interested in any scenario you could come up with whereby less than a billion people are born in the next hundred years and no one referred to the cause as "unlucky"."
But I didn't ask you to refer me to what most people think -- surely that's obvious from my suggestion that most people are mistaken on this issue?
You need to re-read what I wrote and think more deeply about the question.
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@bowmanthebard #106
The content of your #93 suggested to me that you had not understood my #83 comment about "unlucky". Hence my #100.
So I try again. I cannot imagine a pleasant scenario whereby less than a billion people are born in the next century. Something nasty would have to happen for lower than a billion people to be born. Even voluntary baby rationing would involve something nasty as motivation. Hence "unlucky".
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Davblo at #80
I agree wholeheartedly. It's ironic that Bowman proclaims so frequently upon the "divine" while claiming that it is others who have problems admitting to religious obsessions! Bowman's religious pop-psychology crusade, perhaps?! :-)
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Minuend at #87
Grow up!
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#108 simon-swede wrote:
"It's ironic that Bowman proclaims so frequently upon the "divine" while claiming that it is others who have problems admitting to religious obsessions!"
This is a misuse of the word 'ironic'. I'm straightforwardly and openly accusing other people of having religious beliefs without acknowledging it. To bring their attention to it, I have to use words such as 'religious', 'God' and 'divine' to attrubute beliefs to them. I'm constantly tying to point out that belief in "delicate balances in nature" are really beliefs in cosmic design or teleology, and that is really belief in "God's design", which I emphatically reject as an atheist.
You're hardly trying to say that all oratio obliqua is "irony" are you? -- That is an overly promiscuous use of the word 'ironic'! We need to use words to attribute beliefs to others, even when we think they are false beliefs.
Are you saying that I must have religious beliefs myself simply because I used the word 'divine'? That is a strange inference. Do you think that someone who uses the word 'ghost' believes in ghosts? That someone who uses the word 'unicorn' believes in unicorns? Do you think all doctors are ill because they use names for diseases?
I know many people are unused to talking about beliefs, but you're going to have to do better than this, even as a beginner!
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Bowman at #110
Perhaps I should have said that you "pompously proclaim upon the divine". I hope that is clearer to you? However with your special insight into what others are really thinking I am sure you know what I mean.
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One of the volcanoes has popped and it is now making headline news. I just hope that appropriate relief gets to Iceland as soon as possible.
bowmanthebard
I truly believe in the divine omnipresence of God and you can throw custard pies all you want, 'cause it won't change my mind one bit. I can instantly think of several interlocking scenarios where less than a billion people are born in the next century and I don't think it is a good idea to make light of it as it could be any of our future families that suffer.
As for the cryptic bird song analogies in this blog. Birds sing a memory which is passed from generation to generation. They sing it like we would stretch or yawn or do something so instinctively that we are unaware of it. Babies have instinctive gestures which are memories passed from generation to generation adaptive practice for potential change. I believe that most of the things we learn are only memories coaxed out by careful reminders and teaching. The songs may change slightly but the message is the same.
There was a bird-song type sound several days before the volcano erupted, a warning of events to come perhaps?
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84. At 4:27pm on 14 Apr 2010, SheffTim
"Complaining that recommending that statisticians become more closely involved is promoting an agenda of “more work for professional statisticians in future” (#72) is a bit rich. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t."
===========================
Hi shefftim.
Absolutely - that's exactly the point I'm making, not a criticism of that individual. The global warming industry generally have destroyed their own credibility by their blatant self interest in the message they promote.
Politicians use it to justify more tax. Business uses it to sell dodgy products at bloated prices. 'Environment' campaigners use it to just justify the same old back to the dark ages policies they always had. Academics use it to justify the next fat research grant.
So when a statistician jumps on the gravy train and wants some global warming money for statisticians, you'll excuse me if I get a bit cynical.
With the self interest and pecuniary advantage becoming so obvious, my question would be: who can we trust?
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#87 minuend
"The Lord Oxburgh report was last seen being flushed down a toilet. It appears that is the only use for a report only 8 pages long." - of course if it had said what you wanted in 4 pages it would have been a magnificent and incisive report i guess.
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# bowman
"But you're missing something vitally important here. BOTH sides want to err on the side of caution. Most AGW-ers think the danger comes from climate change, whereas most sceptics think the danger comes from economic collapse."
i think you're being especially specious here.
firstly, there are options that many economists believe will not cause economic collapse (e.g. stern).
secondly economies collapse regularly....i vaguely recall something happening a couple of years ago.....and we go on (apparently without learning lessons).
thirdly, if the worse-case scenario occurs (say 4.5 degrees) then the impact will be orders of magnitude more damaging than any econimic collapse and will last for many, many generations.
once again reminds me of gore's inconcenient truth and the scales with lots of yummy money on one side and the entire planet on the other.
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#bowman
btw has it ever occurred to you that it's not everyone else?? :o)
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#95 Peter317
"If things change, so will civilisation - with probably no great hardship." - do you really believe that, even with double digit warming?? surely the reality is that even a fairly small fluctuation in food prices can cause great hardship.
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#103 John_from_hendon
"My contributions were the result of attending a number of climate seminars over the last decade and carefully considering the data and the science, several degrees in physical sciences and many decades of professional scientific endeavour."
i've debated this with larrykealey and others. i've completed a degree in environmental science (larry calls it a baby degree) with the open university, including lots of seminars and talking to many people working in climate science. i was following the science back in the 80s and have read numerous papers. i have a background in computing and statistics and have done some modelling.
however, i'm not an expert on climate science and neither, i can say with almost certainty, are you.
so i say once again, i totally disagree....and you can disagree with me etc, etc, etc. and that is why i don't try to argue the science here. there is a minute chance one of the 'amateur climate scientists' (and that's not meant to be derogatory, i am one myself) here will pick up on something significant but from what i've seen neither you nor anyone else has.
and going back to authority, there is no reason why your arguments (many of which have been addressed in the literature) should hold sway over those that have dedicated their lives to climate science and put together a pretty convincing message.....imho
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#115 rossglory wrote:
"firstly, there are options that many economists believe will not cause economic collapse (e.g. stern)."
Few economists take Stern seriously, because they know he has a mighty climate change axe to grind. And economics remains a pretty "dismal" science, so it is probably a mistake to put too much trust in any but the "broadest brushstroke" economic principles.
Prices fluctuate, but there are two main reasons why food has been cheaper than ever before in the last few hundred years: (1) technology and (2) cheap energy. We can be confident that technology will keep advancing, but over-reliance on "green" energy will definitely push food prices up. A lot of cheap food involves energy-demanding processes. If these processes cost more, or even become prohibitively expensive, then food prices will start to climb. Once they start to go up, they can spiral out of control under market forces. There is real danger here.
Many people assume humans are "naturally sensible" reproducers whose minds have been corrupted by "modern society". They think the recent population explosion is the result of "modern society" (or something vaguely like it). In fact it's just the result of cheaper food. When food gets more expensive as a result of reliance on expensive "green" energy, the forces that kept the population down before will re-establish themselves. Just consider at the famine in Ireland that followed its population explosion. It is folly not to learn this important lesson from history.
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Lockwood demonstrates link between low sun and low temps (Prof. Mike Lockwood, IPCC author
"The BBC reported Wednesday that Mike Lockwood at the University of Reading has established a statistical link between cold weather and low solar activity.
The UK and continental Europe could be gripped by more frequent cold winters in the future as a result of low solar activity, say researchers.
“By recent standards, we have just had what could be called a very cold winter and I wanted to see if this was just another coincidence or statistically robust,” said lead author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading,"
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/14/lockwood-demonstrates-link-between-low-sun-and-low-temps/
now, this logic would imply, high sun high temps as well?
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#112 sensibleoldgrannie wrote:
"I truly believe in the divine omnipresence of God and you can throw custard pies all you want, 'cause it won't change my mind one bit."
I have absolutely no objection at all to anyone who honestly and authentically believes in God. Most of the people I admire most are religious believers.
What I find contemptible is the intellectual dishonesty and inauthenticity of claiming to not believe in God, -- i.e. claiming to reject religion -- at the same time as believing in "design" in nature. No one can believe in design in nature without at the same time believing in a designer.
You're fine -- it's the unreflective hypocrites I'm objecting to.
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As an undecided I just find the way the climate change professionals just state everything as facts. They are not facts they are theories, they may be correct but they can not be totally supported. I find it very worrying that they either try to discredit any evidence that questions their superstitions. I also get confused by the fact that cold winters can be down to solar activity but warming must be down to us. Now let me say that I do believe that we do not use our resources thoughtfully and we do not respect our planet or nature. However I do not know what is causing climate change. I was always taught that a scientist would question all evidence. It does appear that money sways views. Also the language used in the leaked e-mails was not that of a true professional and does raise questions about their ethics. Let us get back to being true scientists being questioning and inquisitive while staying impartial until something is proved unequivocally. Remember we can be asked to respect the planet without the scare mongering.
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Bowman at #121
I don't believe in design in nature.
I don't consider that you have religious beliefs simply because you use the word 'divine'. That would be daft.
However I do consider that you are obsessed by religion and you wrongly imagine that other people are 'falsely denying' their own beliefs - what I have called your religious pop-psychology crusade.
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#119 bowman
"Few economists take Stern seriously, because they know he has a mighty climate change axe to grind. And economics remains a pretty "dismal" science, so it is probably a mistake to put too much trust in any but the "broadest brushstroke" economic principles."
but that is exactly what you did when you claimed that 'the dangers come from economic collapse'. i agree totally with the inability of economics to make predictions but to claim economic collapse is on a par with climate change assumes that:
1. economic collapse has at least as much impact (which as i said before, it doesn't)
2. policies to combat climate change will lead to economic collapse (which you've just said is impossible to predict...and your broad brushstroke rider doesn;t really wash because i could say the same about stern)
so once again i'm at a bit of a loss as to what your point is :o(
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#122 Chris London
"As an undecided..I find it very worrying that they either try to discredit any evidence that questions their superstitions.." - you don;t strike me as an undecided
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#120 Barry Woods
I think you may have missed this part:
"But they added that the phenomenon only affected a limited region and would not alter the overall global warming trend."
otherwise it makes it look as if you're suggesting this conflicts with the agw theory
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@ #124 rossglory:
"Cheap food depends on cheap energy" is such a broad brushstroke it's more a matter of common sense than economic theory. Just think of all the ways in which fossil fuels are used in agriculture, and to process, store and transport food, and to manufacture and transport the materials needed to grow food.
"The population has risen hugely because of cheap food" is a matter of basic evolutionary theory.
So if food gets more expensive, the "ceiling" has to come down a bit. That means death, unless we're very careful.
By contrast, the claim that a bit more heat and CO2 would lead to economic collapse is much more speculative and "theoretical", as it depends on the abstract and abstruse reasonings of economists, and the ignorant quasi-religious claims of climate science, whose stupid inductivist methods were discredited long ago.
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@bowmanthebard #121
(@davblo)
(@simon-swede)
(@sensibleoldgrannie)
"No one can believe in design in nature without at the same time believing in a designer."
No room for Dawkins' "blind watchmaker" metaphor then?
Personally I see design all over nature, frequently combined with the sort of design flaws that no god like designer would have introduced, flaws that are frequently strongly suggestive of the evolutionary pathway of that design by natural selection.
The vertebrate eye is designed for seeing but it has a blind spot because the blood vessels are on the "wrong" side of the retina. The mitochondrion is designed to give eukaryotic cells access to aerobic respiration, but, due to its evolutionary history as a symbiote, it contains some of its own DNA, which makes that DNA more susceptible to oxidative damage. The vertebrate heart is designed for pumping blood, but again the design process was natural selection.
Do you really need the rider "as selected for by the process of natural selection" when referring to the heart being designed to pump blood round the body?
Meanwhile there does seem to be an element of "projection" in your accusations of religion. Time and time again people here seem to have to clarify their posts to show that they don't contain hidden religious assumptions. There are people here that are overtly religious. There may be people here that have attitudes towards nature that might be described as crypto-religious. But I can't remember the last time you exposed a genuine hidden religious assumption in an argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
@sensibleoldgrannie #112
"custard pies"
:-)
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#120. Low solar activity link to cold UK winters
I’m unconvinced. This has been claimed many times before, but then breaks down for lack of uniform effect (see below) or a mechanism for causing such blocking highs.
I don't deny that minimums and maximums have some effect on temps, but they are thought to produce no more than 0.1 degreeC (0.18 degree F) of cooling or warming.
I doubt you'd even notice that difference outdoors.
Nor is there any clearly identified mechanism of how they might otherwise affect changes to weather.
Any direct connection between solar minimums and lower temperatures is vague at best.
The current solar Minimum started in March 2006. (There’ll be a solar Maximum around 2012.)
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/06mar_solarminimum.html
Yet 2007 was a warm year in the UK
2007 was the hottest April ever @ 11.2 C = some 3.3 degrees higher than the average Central English Temperature.
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cet_info_mean2007.html
Winter 06/07 also saw above average temps.
Nov. 2006 was 1.5 above ave CET
Dec. 2006 was 1.8 above ave CET
Jan. 2007 was 3.2 above ave CET
Feb. 2007 was 2.6 above ave CET
Mar. 2007 was 1.6 above ave CET
The current solar minimum was at its lowest in 2008; yet the recent 09/10 winter was much colder in the UK than that of 08/09.
Correlation between solar cycles, weather and temperature is very poor.
2008/2009 was generally cooler – but because of a strong La Nina in the Pacific. (See below.)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2517868.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7574603.stm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080114085128.htm
Looking at the winter we’ve just had:
February 2010 was the coldest for the continental USA since February 1979.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100310_cooler.html
Yet Canada had its warmest winter on record:
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/ccrm/bulletin/national_e.cfm
Our Easter earlier this month was cool; cold & snowy over Scotland.
Yet, over continental USA many places had excellent Easter weather.
'Nearly 500 record high temperatures (and another 172 record high minimum temperatures) have been broken in the Midwest & Northeast USA this April'.
Temperatures were up into the 90s (F) in places.
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/weathermatrix/story/27070/heat-wave-500-record-highs-90s-40-above-norm.asp
Toronto in Canada (43 degrees N): has just broken (April 2nd 2010) a 40 year record for warmth at this time of year with 23 degrees Celsius (73.4 degrees F).
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100402/to_wx_100402/20100402?hub=Toronto
March 2010 Now Officially India's Warmest March on Record. 08/04/10
"As if the unusually high temperatures of March were not enough, April, too, is likely to be warmer than usual over the country."
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100409/main7.htm
I'm not seeing any clear connection between a quieter sun and colder than average weather.
Ocean/atmosphere interactions are the main driver behind major weather variability.
It's what's happening to and over the oceans we should be paying much more attention to.
El Nino/La Nina events involve only changes in temperatures of a few degrees, yet have major worldwide impacts. (They could also be good analogs for changes to climate, if ocean temperatures change on a long long-term basis.)
Why was the past 2009-2010 winter so different, particularly over the USA?
The answer is we experienced the effects of a rare combination of an El Nino plus an Arctic Oscillation in its most negative phase in 60 years of record keeping. Negative AOs are also connected with blocking highs. (Interestingly Prof. Lockwood doesn’t even mention El Nino, despite noticing warmer than average global temp’s this winter.)
If you've not seen it I've been running a web-page on this winter, impacts and causes. I've now updated it to the end of March, due to the recent historic flooding in parts of the USA, followed by a heatwave - whilst the drought in S. China & SE Asia is - in some parts - now the worst in 60 years.
http://sites.google.com/site/whythe2009winterissocold/
Its possible that the answer may lie with the Indian Ocean dipole and whether any solar activity affects that. See below.
One explanation for the blocking highs forming in 09/10 is this:
"What caused the cold outbreak was a stratospheric warming event during late Nov / early Dec. This caused the polar vortex to slow...split in two...and reverse direction...creating an anti-cyclonic (clock-wise) circulation aloft. The reversal took 3 weeks to propagate to the surface...creating HIGH pressure over the pole....which in turn created favourable conditions for arctic outbreaks and high-latitude blocking...such as the one currently observed.
These reversal events occur preferentially during years (such as this one) where an east wind is observed in the tropical stratosphere...the quasi-biennial oscillation - QBO...and solar activity (sunspots) is low. Above normal snowfall in eastern Eurasia this fall played a significant role in initiating the stratospheric warming event."
‘Improved Skill of Northern Hemisphere Winter Surface Temperature Predictions Based on Land–Atmosphere Fall Anomalies.’
Cohen & Fletcher. Journal of Climate. 2007.
There may be a link between that and research suggesting that an autumn positive (warmer) phase of the Indian Ocean dipole can also induce heavy snow over eastern Eurasia - e.g. Mongolia, Korea and Japan - during the following winter and spring seasons.
Delayed influence of the Indian Ocean Dipole mode on the East Asia-West Pacific monsoon.
Kripalani et al. International journal of climatology. 2010.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=22338278
This appears to have happened during the winter of 2009 - 2010, adding to the heavy snow-falls over Northern China, Korea and Mongolia.
Interestingly, 11 yr solar cycles may be linked to changes to El Nino/La Nina
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090716113358.htm
So it’s possible; if there is some (as yet unknown) connection with the Indian Ocean dipole.
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@Barry Woods #120
(@SheffTim)
I am not impressed by Steven Goddard's take on Mike Lockwood's work.
Firstly he appears to ignore Lockwood's "We stress that this is a regional and seasonal effect relating to European winters and not a global effect.".
Secondly he ignores an obvious implication of a 1985 maximum (after taking account of the 11 year sunspot cycle the Sun's output has been declining since 1985). If the Sun's output had been driving recent global temperatures we would have had global cooling since 1985.
Finally his comment about modern science catching up with Hershel is grossly unfair to AGW scientists who take solar activity into account precisely because of Hershel's work. Basic solar output is one of the easiest contributions to the Earth's climate to understand. It looks as if Goddard believes that AGW scientists only believe in the greenhouse contribution to climate. This is plain wrong.
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The west is terrified that compliant regimes in the middle-east could, at any time, be replaced by fundamentalist ones who would use oil as a weapon against countries who resist Islamic law & customs, weapon of mass conversion. This is the real reason for the push for bio-fuels, CO2 is just a pretext. We can grow fuel at home and we can buy vegetable oils from anywhere in the world, it is therefore inevitable that food and energy will soon become two forms of the same product. Prices will equalise causing even bigger food inflation than we have already seen, this will be inconvenient for us in the west but a disaster for the third world. In the years ahead the world will have to face up to population control, possibly population control will be have to be a condition of aid.
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#128 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"No room for Dawkins' "blind watchmaker" metaphor then?"
The watch metaphor was Williams Paley's, so we were sort of stuck with it already... and Dawkins only added "blind" to the metaphor in order to dispel it. When he wrote that book he was tired and irritated with what many people had done with his own supposed metaphor "selfish" (Dawkins himself explicitly denied that it was a metaphor).
Metaphors seem to be necessary when a theory is in its infancy (uh oh -- a metaphor) but as a theory develops metaphors have to be cashed (uh oh -- another metaphor) into literal terms. If not, they feed (uh oh -- yet another metaphor) bad habits of thought. Few habits of thought are worse than that of thinking there is design in nature (except in the limited places where there really is design, of course).
"Personally I see design all over nature"
No you don't. You think you see design, but mostly all you see are bodily organs having a "usual purpose", such as the heart having the purpose of pumping the blood. (In symbiosis, two or three organisms in effect act like organs of a single organism.) Talk of "purpose" in that context is really shorthand for purely a causal (i.e. non-teleological) story of how it came about and what it does. But once we leave the context of organs inside an organism and move on to organisms in an ecosystem, talk of design is misleading poison. It gives people the mistaken impression that there are "delicate balances" in an ecosystem the way there are delicate balances in an organism. Just think how common that idea is. Much of the anxiety over climate change is anxiety that these "delicate balances" will be "knocked out of kilter", and that as a result the Earth's ecosystem (as if there were just one!) will completely "unravel" in some vague but definitely catastrophic way.
But life just doesn't work like that. The balances are settled on by nature itself, and they are nearly all in stable rather than unstable equilibrium. When something changes, a new balance is settled on rather than "the whole thing unravels in a catastrophic chain reaction", which is what metaphors of design lead us to assume, and wrongly assume.
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JaneofBasingstoke at post 128
I glad you liked the custard pies:-)
I am a keen observer of what is happening all around me and I noticed a marked drop in sound transmission at precisely 2.52pm followed by a further drop in sound at 2.56pm. The sun was shining brightly this morning and it was sufficiently warm to wear lighter clothing. Popping outside to why the sound quality seemed different, I noticed a drop in temperature, a strong breeze and the start of clouds. We have an airport near by and it might have been that going quiet due to air traffic being grounded. I almost expected the Internet to be down due to the (expected) high altitude dust cloud from the volcano coming overhead. The clouds look normal enough at the moment, all big and fluffy with patches of blue in between. If I see any big ominous cloud that look like volcano spew I will let you know.
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Icelandic Ash = No aircraft pollution and no com trails - a once in a lifetime opportunity to investigate the clouds free from man made aircraft water vapour.
And peace and quiet that has not been known for 80 odd years. Glorious!
I immediately noticed the loss of the persistent low level hum inside my well soundproofed home - I had never realised just how bad it had become. It raises one's spirits to be free from the noise of aircraft (and I do not normally notice aircraft and I am not under a flight path). It is as if a burden has been removed from one's head. My guess is that the sound I feel unburdened from is infra-sound below the normal hearing threshold.
Please gather together stories about this for your blog.
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LarryKealey #104
It is a proverb. it is to have a meaning or lesson.
For you: To talk much and arrive nowhere is the same as climbing a tree to catch a fish”
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Volcanic Ash and Climate Change.
This cloud contains considerable quantities of sulphur. And sulphur in the upper atmosphere quite rapidly undoes warming (from whatever cause) so this 'experiment' may be of considerable value!
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#118. rossglory wrote:
"however, i'm not an expert on climate science and neither, i can say with almost certainty, are you."
It is so sad that you scientific education has not caused you to question that which you are told.
I thank god I am not a 'climate scientist', but a proper one!
Neither am I as arrogant as you - I would not expect such baseless rudeness from any on my post doctoral students and again it causes me to be amazed that you actually gained an Open University degree an institution I have known and respected from its inception, indeed some of my undergraduate physics lecturers helped start up the OU.
If you are not sceptical you are not any kind of scientist. If a theory does not fit the facts it is wrong or incomplete and you should revert to the drawing board not fiddle the data to fit the theoretical model! Learn this one thing and you may one day make a scientist, but not yet!
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Ah Jane but we have had global cooling since 1985, well not quite, Phil Jones stated on the BBC that "there had be no statistical warming in the last 15 years"
However, as the Lord Oxburgh 8 page report points out quite clear the statistical method used at CRU was not to a profesional standard.
What I found very funny was "hid the decline" in which the report puts the blame for this on the IPCC. In true climate science farce, Lord Oxburgh use a lovely trick in that "hiding the decline" is an IPCC problem with the chapter authors, when the chapter authors are from CRU. You couldn't make it up if you tried.
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#130. From Lockwood’s et al abstract:
“We stress that this is a regional and seasonal effect relating to European winters and not a global effect… the results presented here indicate that, despite hemispheric warming, the UK and Europe could experience more cold winters than during recent decades.”
I think much will depend on the NAO and AO. Both were unusually negative this winter. (The El Nino also pushed warmer air up into high latitudes and contributed to the high pressure area over Greenland this winter.)
The only winter months with a lower NAO index were February 1978 (-2.20) and January 1963 (-2.12).
January 1963 was one of the coldest in the both United Kingdom and the eastern USA.
Low NAO index’s are associated with blocking highs and weaker jet streams bringing Polar air southwards.
Strong and weak jet streams tend to cluster in groups: a series of mild and stormy winters, followed by three or four cold and snowy ones.
Cold clusters in the past half-century were 1962-65, 1968-70, 1978-82, 1985-87 and 1994-97.
If the NAO and AO are negative during the next few winters then we might see a short series of colder winters, but any relationship with solar activity still looks tenuous to me. The NAO has its own cycle.
--------------------------------
“It looks as if Goddard believes that AGW scientists only believe in the greenhouse contribution to climate. This is plain wrong.”
It seems to be a standard ploy to pretend that the IPCC don’t take natural climate variability into account; regardless of the true fact that they do.
Canadian sceptic Tim Ball ran into serious difficulties attempting to pretend that climate models only consider human contributions to climate at a recent meeting in Canada’s Victoria University. The University has a climate modelling dept (one of Canada’s best) and students from it were in the audience.
Ball: “It’s [Milankovitch Cycles] not even included. The models they’re doing here on campus. They’re not in there. Sorry."
Student: "We do include it, though. I am with the UVic climate lab and we do include it in our models. It’s a standard parameter."
It carried on like that for around two hours.
http://www.desmogblog.com/tim-ball-concert-battered-facts
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Ho hum. Another word to add to the growing list of words with some of their definitions banned by bowmanthebard.
"probability"
"algorithm"
"design" (noun)
(sigh)
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125. At 12:30pm on 15 Apr 2010, rossglory wrote:
#122 Chris London
"As an undecided..I find it very worrying that they either try to discredit any evidence that questions their superstitions.." - you don;t strike me as an undecided
I am afraid but I am very undecided. It is just when anyone does not respect any other points of view I find it disturbing. This often happens in religion, you either believe or you are a non believer. You are not allowed to have a different opinion.
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@sensibleoldgrannie #133
Yes, I've been looking at the sky this afternoon as well.
The thing is, unlike December 2005, photographs of this ash cloud appear to show it as much more cloud coloured.
December 2005
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4517962.stm
April 2010
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/8622055.stm
Perhaps it might affect tonight's sunset.
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Many years ago I watched an open university program about plumes of smoke. Smoke has to come down at some point, usually in a cone area away from the source. So who is going to get the volcano fallout and what can they expect?
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To Ghostofsichuan #101:
"A bird does not sing because it has an answer It sings because it has a song." (Ghost)
--------------
I like it Ghost - thank you!
We have a western country singer over here, Emmy Lou Harris, and she sings that:
"It's a hard life wherever you go."
I think this is true. It seems a very human thing (Livy) to look back in hopes of finding a time when this was not so. I am guilty of this at times.
Perhaps it is more revealing to look back simply to gain perspective?
Apparently, we are Ice Age hunters in mind and body, and today we find ourselves in different circumstances.
My hope is that the proven strengths which we have built into us for adapting to changing times will again reassert themselves, for I do think that affluence is debilitating, both mentally and physically.
We seem to thrive, or perhaps to work at full capacity, only when we are confronted by hardship and danger. What could be more natural? In between, we rest.
It also seems that Ice Age hunters are very collective, at the same time that they are indivduals. Both propensities are useful at various times - circumstance dependent.
The West has been promoting, and perhaps being, overly indivualistic these last decades. Perhaps it is time now to assert our more tribal propensities - for example, Bolivia and the World Democratic Conference upcoming.
I searched three newspapers this morning here in Calgary - a national paper and two local papers.
Not one single word or reference did I find regarding one of the most unique events in my memory at least - one in which two billion people are expected to participate in a global referendum.
This lack of coverage cannot be attributed to ignorance, or perhaps anything other than that it contravenes business as usual in a potentially very serious and meaningful way.
I suppose one cannot change the world after all, but yin and yang appear to be the essential elements in producing the energy of life.
It remains only to choose sides.
All the best from here,
Manysummits
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#140 janebasingstoke
but you can use 'belief' as much as you like (although everyone else will accuse you of religiosity)
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#141 Chris London
Of ocurse you can have an opinion on this (who am i to deny that). however, whether that opinion is scientifically credible is what really matters.
so accusing very talented and hard working scientists of 'discredit(ing) any evidence that questions their superstitions' without anything that appears to be evidence that years of published research is just 'superstition' just didn't seem to be the words of an 'undecided' fence sitter.
also i think it's very important to understand the origin of some of the 'alternatives' to agw such as 'solar' (john mashey is an excellent source).
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#138 kamboshigh
"However, as the Lord Oxburgh 8 page report points out quite clear the statistical method used at CRU was not to a profesional standard."
i couldn't find that in the report. i did find this:
"Although there are certainly different ways of handling the data, some of which might be superior, as far as we can judge the methods which CRU has employed are fair and satisfactory."
i also found this regarding the critics of prof jones:
"but it seems that some of these criticisms show a rather selective and uncharitable approach to information made available by CRU."
that's as close as you'll get to a mauling in these types of reports.
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#140 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Ho hum. Another word to add to the growing list of words with some of their definitions banned by bowmanthebard."
I think you're being a bit unfair. I'm not trying to ban any things, just trying to be clear about how we use words, because I agree with Wittgenstein that language "bewitches out intelligence". People who aren't aware of how much their intelligence is bewitched by language are still under the spell!
"probability"
I'm just trying to be clear about the difference between statistics ("7 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas") and credibility ("it is probable that the US manned space program will continue"). By all means use the word 'probability' all you like for credibility, but be aware it is out of place when used in statistics.
Far from wanting to ban things, I'm trying to liberate minds! If that scientific "expert" Sir Roy Meadow had grasped the difference, poor old Sally Clark might still be alive.
"algorithm"
Computers and beginner cooks are great with algorithms. But science is more like art in that it involves creativity and imagination. What's wrong with that? -- It's said by a true lover of science.
"design" (noun)
Once you really see that there is no design in nature, the scales will fall from your eyes about all sorts of things, such as the stability of various biological equilibria. Then you can sit back and enjoy the ride of constant global climate variation!
Far from wanting to ban things, I'm trying to get everyone to enjoy themselves a bit more. Enjoy the sunshine instead of worrying about the warmth, for goodness' sake!
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#137 John from Hendon
if you had checked my previous posts (which i never expected you to do but if you claimed to i would expect you to do it properly) you would have found several that showed just how sceptical i am of climate sceince. but i am far, far, far more sceptical of those that have opposed climate science to date and even more sceptical of posters on here
you would also find posts that indicated that i don;t believe 'scepticism' is an attrubte but an approach. i applied my scepticism over the years (i mourn the countless hours following links to 'sceptical' websites full of nonsense) and came to the conclusion that the science from places like nasa, uea, woods hole etc is superior to anything that opposes them (monckton, pielke, spencer, soon, singer, m&m etc). just objecting to what is the current scientific view is not scepticism. in fact the closest i've seen to a true 'free thinking sceptic' is james lovelock, a genius who knows the subject well is anti-authority but accepts the agw theory (should he be more sceptical).
so if i've offended you with my views that's a shame, but i find it very, very odd that you criticise me for not being sceptical of climate scientists and their thousands of peer reviewed papers but lambast me for being sceptical of your views posted anonymously on the bbc website.
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#134 John from Hendon
"And peace and quiet that has not been known for 80 odd years. Glorious!" - this is something we can agree on
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#127 bowmanthebard
"Cheap food depends on cheap energy" - intensive farming depends on cheap energy, unhealthy and gluttonous eating habits depend on cheap energy, being able to throw away half your food depends on cheap energy. you need to engage your 'free thinking' brain bowman.
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#145 rossglory wrote:
"but you can use 'belief' as much as you like (although everyone else will accuse you of religiosity)"
The word 'belief' is the standard term for thinking something is true -- in other words being committed to its truth, or in other words accepting it as true. If you don't like the word 'belief', you're not interested in truth.
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"A bird does not sing because it has an answer It sings because it has a song."
Birds sing for much the same reasons as teenage boys (used to) do the "Stairway to Heaven" guitar solo: it's difficult, and if you can do it well it shows you've got one helluva talent. And then you're a "babe magnet".
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bowmanthebard: "Cheap food depends on cheap energy"
#151 rossglory: "intensive farming depends on cheap energy, unhealthy and gluttonous eating habits depend on cheap energy, being able to throw away half your food depends on cheap energy."
Exactly. Now add low infant mortality, and low death rate by diseases of malnutrition in impoverished parts of the world. Lots of fat, protein and carbohydrate may do us fat Westerners little good, but they are life as opposed to death in less fat places.
We leave "fat balls" out for birds in the winter to save lives. We would probably call the human equivalent "junk food". It isn't "junk" to those whose lives have been saved by it.
Do you really want to condemn impoverished people to death because you don't like cheap energy?
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#152 bowmanthebard
"If you don't like the word 'belief', you're not interested in truth."
you strike me as someone 'inebriated by the exuberence of their own verbosity' :o)
#154 bowmanthebard (again)
i like cheap energy but i love free energy.
now please try to follow, i was making a point about western intensive farming. generally, with a little help, impoverished parts of the world are able to feed themselves by using very little mostly free energy. it's only when we insist they turn over most of their agriculture to producing our food or even worse, buy up their best land for ourselves, do they really start to suffer (there's a lesson to be learnt from the indian famines under british rule which had nothing to do with cheap energy).
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#155 rossglory wrote:
"generally, with a little help, impoverished parts of the world are able to feed themselves by using very little mostly free energy."
I agree with you that gliding is a magnificent experience. However, protein is not a thermal. Impoverished parts of the world need cheap energy. Their children will die if they do not get cheap energy.
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rossglory @117:
"If things change, so will civilisation - with probably no great hardship." - do you really believe that, even with double digit warming?? surely the reality is that even a fairly small fluctuation in food prices can cause great hardship."
Firstly, my comment about double-digits and the one about human hardship were not meant to be in the same context - sorry if it appeared that way.
Secondly, why should a warmer world not lead to an overall increase in food production? A cooler world is an entirely different story though.
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rossglory @115:
"firstly, there are options that many economists believe will not cause economic collapse (e.g. stern)."
Excuse me for being a tad cynical about people like Stern - whose report was quietly altered after being released.
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JaneBasingstole @130:
"It looks as if Goddard believes that AGW scientists only believe in the greenhouse contribution to climate. This is plain wrong"
I think Goddard's point is that they seem to attach a greater or lesser importance to natural variability, depending on how it suits them.
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#157 Peter317
apologies if i misinterpreted your post. however with respect to a warming world i can only speak about the papers i read during my studies and they definitely imply significant issues from warming and changes in precipitation (note that's not necessarily less precipitation).
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rossglory @160:
"they definitely imply"
So that's a given then?
sorry, couldn't resist ;-)
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@Peter317 #159
The contribution to global climate from the changing power output of the Sun is one of the most straightforward components of climate. Its position as an important component of mainstream climate science predates the IPCC, and is unchanged.
Mike Lockwood's work is new. It applies to a regional effect and it is partly based on new evidence. Because it covers a regional effect it does not affect the mainstream position on solar activity on climate.
None of this is clear from Goddard's own text in the article. Nor is it clear that Goddard has actually registered it.
Someone new to the subject could come away with the impression that mainstream scientists had been ignoring variations in the Sun's power output and had suddenly discovered it. Which is wrong.
And if that someone new skipped over the abstract of the Lockwood paper they might also miss that Lockwood's paper was about a regional effect.
This misleading lack of clarity does not help the debate.
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@John_from_Hendon #134
Twice in a lifetime, surely.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg17523553.600-jets-blanket-the-earth.html
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Bowman at #148
Seems to me that you focus too much on scales you assume are covering others eyes and fail to realise that you have a massive blindfold covering your own.
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Jane at #162
In the same edition of Environmental Research Letters as the paper by Lockwood et al, there is also a "Perspective" piece by Rasmus E Benestad.
This concludes with the following: "The results of Lockwood et al (2010) fit in with earlier work (Barriopedro et al 2008) and provide further evidence to support the current thinking on solar-terrestrial links. Thus, it is an example of incremental scientific progress rather than a breakthrough or a paradigm shift."
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@JaneBasingstoke #162 who wrote...
"And if that someone new skipped over the abstract of the Lockwood paper they might also miss that Lockwood's paper was about a regional effect. This misleading lack of clarity does not help the debate."
Well in a way they have. The mainstream climate scientists have essentially written off almost all long term impacts of solar activity, assuming instead that TSI is the absolute measure of forcing and that the impact a normal solar minimum has on climate was close to the maximum forcing.
They have also used this assumption in an attempt to work out the feedbacks of earth. They have built assumption on assumption. Total Solar Irradiance may not represent the sum total of the solar variability's net forcing...and there may be longer term aspects we are unaware of. Similarly, the initial forcing of CO2 has its self NEVER been worked out.
It is entirely likely that the sun has additional impacts ...although its fluctuations are obviously not the single greatest influence on earth's climate fluctuations.
GHG forcing is almost certainly weakened at higher and higher levels, not simply because of its logarithmic absorption curve but because the very tropospheric temperature gradient it creates short circuits and could in extreme examples almost entirely replace radiative transfer through the troposphere.
Also, as I've mentioned before, Venus is a bad example of GHG forcing as it applies to earth since the phase changing liquid in its atmosphere does not pool at the surface, has a MUCH higher boiling point and does not its self drive additional convection (water vapor is lighter than air...venus' sulfuric acid vapor is heavier than the rest of the atmosphere)
"Little" errors here and there eventually lead to a whopping great failure of a hypothesis.
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@bowmanthebard #148
"probability"
Well b***** the dictionary then.
:-p
"algorithm"
Hey, it wasn't me who simplified the scientific method to something that looked like an algorithm.
"design" (noun)
Personally I think that "purpose" (noun) (your #132) is at least as teleological as "design" (noun) but far sneakier in hiding ideas about what constitutes the design process.
I also resent little homilies based on an assumption that I am using definition X of a word when I have made it clear that I am using definition Y.
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@poitsplace #166
"assuming instead that TSI [Total Solar Irradiance] is the absolute measure of forcing"
Naughty scientists. Using the First Law of Thermodynamics for working out the forcing from the Sun. Total energy in a closed system remains constant. Bad bad bad scientists. No beans on toast for you.
Er, except what should they use instead?
Any exotic effects from the solar wind would complement rather than replace the contribution from the varying power of the Sun. These exotic effects are still under investigation. And remember, they are believed to work by affecting cloud cover, which mainstream climate scientists already acknowledge is one of the biggest sources of uncertainty in climate science.
More to the point solar wind exotica don't appear to be covered by Goddard's article either.
"logarithmic"
Yes, this is why climate sensitivity is expressed in terms of doubling of CO2. (sigh)
"the very tropospheric temperature gradient it creates short circuits and could in extreme examples almost entirely replace radiative transfer through the troposphere"
Oh, you mean a temperature inversion. Get those anyway. They get fixed by, what's the word. Oh yes, that's it. "Weather".
"Also, as I've mentioned before, Venus is a bad example of GHG forcing as it applies to earth since the phase changing liquid in its atmosphere does not pool at the surface, has a MUCH higher boiling point and does not its self drive additional convection (water vapor is lighter than air...venus' sulfuric acid vapor is heavier than the rest of the atmosphere)"
Venus is actually a better example than Earth because some of the processes are simpler. No cloud seeding by dimethyl sulphide (CH3-S-CH3) from plankton for instance. And there is plenty of convection in Venus's atmosphere.
(Incidentally why "additional"? So what if water vapour is lighter than air, that just means that another part of the water cycle needs an energy input. Unless you have some sort of perpetual motion in mind.)
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"GHG forcing is almost certainly weakened at higher and higher levels, not simply because of its logarithmic absorption curve but because the very tropospheric temperature gradient it creates short circuits and could in extreme examples almost entirely replace radiative transfer through the troposphere."
This is psuedo-scientific gibberish. A lot of scientific terms thrown together in incorrect ways.
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#167 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Personally I think that "purpose" (noun) (your #132) is at least as teleological as "design" (noun) but far sneakier in hiding ideas about what constitutes the design process."
To avoid that, I did mention a "purely causal story about how it came about and what it does", which as far as I can tell does successfully avoid teleology. How would teleology enter the picture if all we mean when we say the "purpose of the heart is to pump blood" is that that is what it normally does, and it evolved because it did that successfully?
I take your point seriously though, because I think it is vital to avoid teleology, in this context anyway when looking at "the planet". There are people who say the planet has been "raped" or "trashed" as if something very valuable has lost its value. Why do they say this? I would insist that all value depends on agents regarding something as valuable -- "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and so on. So pollution is bad, sure, but no one is making it for fun -- it's the by-product of something we humans value greatly (cheap energy, or whatever). Usually, the value of what is made is greater than the damage done to make it. So although we should make every reasonable effort to minimize pollution, the overall benefit tends to be greater than the cost.
Thus it seems to me that claims we have "raped the planet" depend on teleology: forests have a preordained purpose which is subverted when they are burned for firewood; wolves have a preordained purpose which is subverted when they are killed to protect livestock; and so on.
If you agree that all value is in the eye of the valuer, then there is nothing wrong with changing the planet in various ways, and we can and often do change it for the better. In a sense, there's no such thing as "natural", let alone "natural" being worth preserving for its own sake.
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#167 JaneBasingstoke wrote:
"Well b***** the dictionary then."
Sometimes, yes. The dictionary tells us how words are actually used. If their actual use embodies or invites confusion, it is better to use them more carefully than the dictionary prescribes.
For example, consider "anatiferous" wood.
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@simon-swede #165
Thanks for that.
@sensiblegrannie
@John_from_Hendon
@rossglory
Actually I heard some planes going overhead yesterday afternoon. However I am not near a major passenger airport and these appeared to be relatively low flying military planes (they were in close formation, and Basingstoke sees a certain amount of RAF and Army aircraft) (or feels in the case of Chinooks). The ash is apparently at its worst at twenty thousand feet, so maybe it is less of a problem for aircraft flying lower.
Nice satellite pic here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/8623301.stm
Last night I could barely see the crescent new moon through the murk. I presume that was the ash.
In the continuing absence of the Beeb's own compilation, here're some sunset photos from the Graun
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2010/apr/16/natural-disasters-iceland
@Kamboshigh #138
We have had warming since 1985, and it is statistically significant. 1995, ten years later, was a cherry pick to catch the longest period (15 years) for which to-date warming isn't statistically significant.
I would also remind you that one of the issues with statistical significance is other well acknowledged variability including the eleven year sunspot cycle and the El Niño - La Niña oscillation.
I would agree with you that the dramatic slowdown in warming in very recent years is interesting, but the timing does not match the effects looked at by Lockwood or discussed by Goddard.
There is plenty of stuff about AGW that is debate worthy, and plenty of contributions from sceptic scientists that have integrity. Please don't try and defend stuff that doesn't.
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@JaneBasingstoke #168 who wrote
"Naughty scientists. Using the First Law of Thermodynamics for working out the forcing from the Sun"
Really, you know the net impact of all of the sun's interactions, do you? Do you think the sun's black body curve remains the same between different parts of the cycle? Do the magnetic interactions disproportionately impact the poles or other parts of the planet? None of this is "exotic", it's the normal sun.
=========================
"logarithmic" Yes, this is why climate sensitivity is expressed in terms of doubling of CO2. (sigh)...
...Oh, you mean a temperature inversion. Get those anyway. They get fixed by, what's the word. Oh yes, that's it. "Weather".
No, the inversion is in the stratosphere. And indeed "weather" is what sets the level of the tropopause...the colder region between the troposphere and stratosphere that sets the theoretical maximum amount of absorption. Most of the energy transfer in the tropopause however...is through convection and latent heat. These forces increase far faster than even the theoretical maximum forcing from CO2.
While simple radiative forcing models say a doubling of CO2 should result in about 3.7 watts of forcing and 1.2C of warming...the increase in convection and latent heat for 1.2C of warming is around 6 watts. Since over half of the energy passing through the atmosphere moves through convection and latent heat...and because convection/latent heat take over increasingly large portions of the energy transfer, there's no reason to suspect CO2 has even half the forcing suggested by the raw absorption math.
==========================
"Incidentally why "additional"? So what if water vapour is lighter than air, that just means that another part of the water cycle needs an energy input. Unless you have some sort of perpetual motion in mind."
Water vapor directly drives convection. It has only about 60% the mass of air. That's why water vapor rises. It carries massive amounts of energy with it. At this point 20% of earth's entire energy budget passes through water vapor as latent heat. The energy always comes out of earth's total energy budget. Your "perpetual motion" comment comes from a fundamental misunderstanding.
Latent heat and convection are currently the dominant mode of energy transfer through the troposphere, the only part of the atmosphere that matters with respect to GHG forcing. They increase by 5%-6% for every degree the temperature goes up on the ground. While many toss around the 3.7 watts per square meter figure and say it would lead to a 1.2C increase in surface temperatures...that 1.2C figure is only enough to offset the (supposed) radiative forcing. There would need to be at least another 6 watts per square meter of forcing on average to offset the massive increases in convection/latent heat that would also be caused by a 1.2C increase. This is why I say that feedbacks cannot currently be strongly positive and are most likely negative.
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@infinity #169 who wrote...
"This is psuedo-scientific gibberish. A lot of scientific terms thrown together in incorrect ways."
No, this is an accurate description of the modern hypothesis of substantial anthropogenic global warming though.
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@poitsplace #173
Right. Easy one first.
You are giving the impression that water vapour is essential for convection in the Earths atmosphere. You also appear to be downplaying the role of the Sun. Your earlier post (#166) even made it sound as if water vapour had some sort of power source independent from the Sun (hence "perpetual motion").
Basic convection is best demonstrated in a pure gas or pure liquid so that differing gas densities don't confuse matters. So the fact that water vapour is less dense than nitrogen is irrelevant, convection happens anyway.
Meanwhile most descriptions of the convection in Earth based weather describe convection (and other weather processes) as being driven by the Sun.
The convection processes involved in weather and latent heat between liquid water and water vapour in weather do move a lot of heat around. But in doing this they keep energy well mixed in. This does not clash with the greenhouse, instead it contributes by reaching equilibrium faster.
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@poitsplace #173
The wording of your earlier post (#166) was confusing. I thought you were referring to the temperature inversion weather phenomenon that sometimes affects small areas within the troposphere, as it fitted your "short circuit" description better than the stratospheric temperature inversion.
The temperature inversion within the stratosphere is irrelevant. Most of the relevant IR emissions are from the troposphere.
I can understand that the latent heat of water is involved in climate sensitivity and in weather based mixing of the atmosphere. But how does the latent heat of water affect the carbon dioxide forcing?
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@infinity #169
You are preaching to the choir.
It would be more helpful to show why you think poitsplace's comments are incorrect and allow others to make their own minds up.
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@poitsplace #173
Any effect on global temperatures involving changes to the solar wind or changes the Earth's magnetic field would be exotic, even if the phenomena themselves aren't. This would be because their relationship to temperature would not be straightforward. Such effects would be as well as effects caused by changes in the power from the Sun, they would best be dealt with separately.
Meanwhile before your #173 I was not aware of anyone raising changes to the Sun's black body curve as a problem with current AGW science. Perhaps the scientists already have it in hand to the satisfaction of most of the scientists on your side of the debate.
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@JaneBasingstoke who wrote...
"You are giving the impression that water vapour is essential for convection in the Earths atmosphere... ...Basic convection is best demonstrated in a pure gas or pure liquid so that differing gas densities don't confuse matters. So the fact that water vapour is less dense than nitrogen is irrelevant, convection happens anyway."
Ummmm...no. Convection begins when the gradient of the atmosphere surpasses the adiabatic lapse rate...otherwise the air has no reason to move around. As you can see, water vapor causes an enormous change in that rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:795px-Emagram.gif
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"The convection processes involved in weather and latent heat between liquid water and water vapour in weather do move a lot of heat around. But in doing this they keep energy well mixed in. This does not clash with the greenhouse, instead it contributes by reaching equilibrium faster... ...But how does the latent heat of water affect the carbon dioxide forcing?"
Greenhouse forcing favors one gradient. Latent heat favors another. As a result the temperature at the tropopause is different than it would be if GHG forcing alone were responsible. The gradient is the key factor in the greenhouse effect and latent heat/convection now dominate the gradient.
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"Meanwhile before your #173 I was not aware of anyone raising changes to the Sun's black body curve as a problem with current AGW science. Perhaps the scientists already have it in hand to the satisfaction of most of the scientists on your side of the debate."
Well for a start, it muddies the water quite a bit. One of the other supposed, tell-tale signs of GHG forcing would be stratospheric cooling. Unfortunately the sun's magnetic field has been weakening for the last couple of cycles. As the field weakens...so does the sun's UV output. This impacts the stratosphere quite a bit. The changes in UV energy output are actually greater than the differences in total solar irradiance.
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@poitsplace #179
Yeah, you're still giving the impression that water vapour is an essential component of convection in Earth's weather.
Water vapour isn't the only thing lighter than air. Hot air is lighter than air as well. Boyle's law.
Do us a favour. Go out on a hot sunny day and look for thermals. You'll find them over any surface that is getting more heat from the Sun than its surroundings. Birds circle up the thermals without flapping their wings using them as lifts (elevators). And sometimes at the top you can see a little fluffy cloud forming, because the air at the bottom wasn't 100% dry, and the air at the top has cooled to the dew point.
Take a look at that hot surface at the bottom of the thermal. If water vapour was essential for driving convection then there'd be a source of it at the bottom of the thermal, a wet surface. But often there isn't, the surface can easily be completely dry rock or roofing.
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@poitsplace #179
"Greenhouse forcing favors one gradient. Latent heat favors another."
Actually I thought that gravity gave the underlying gradient, with gravitational potential energy balancing thermal energy. Latent heat contributes - which is why there is a different lapse rate for air that is saturated.
But the greenhouse forcing does not seriously clash with this. Its main effect is to move the average position from whereabouts in the gradient the infra red radiation escapes to space.
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@poitsplace #179
As to your problem with changes to UV, again there is a timing issue.
If you were correct the observed stratospheric cooling would be timed in sync with changes in the Sun's UV. I would also expect the stratospheric cooling to be at a different location within the stratosphere according to which mechanism caused it.
In other words I think they would have spotted it. But they haven't.
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@JaneBasingstoke who wrote...
"But the greenhouse forcing does not seriously clash with this. Its main effect is to move the average position from whereabouts in the gradient the infra red radiation escapes to space."
You can say that all you want...but the fact remains that the altitude of the tropopause (the limiting layer) is set by the temperature and water vapor content of the region beneath. You will generally find that CO2 is at most a footnote in any article dealing with the troposphere/tropopause...and is often left out entirely. They cite several reasons for the lapse rate being what it is...and CO2 just ain't one of them. Above the troposphere/tropopause is the inversion of the stratosphere, heated primarily from above (oxygen/UV interaction).
It is in fact the modern hypothesis of powerful CO2 forcing that is "psuedo-scientific gibberish". The entire problem stems from dodgy "science" based on inductive reasoning. It has persisted for the entire history of the hypothesis. Yes...greenhouse gas forcing DOES occur. But it grows steadily weaker as convection and latent heat take over. Its all a huge misunderstanding caused by the idiotic assumption that CO2 absorption is more or less directly proportional to the CURRENT greenhouse effect (which is currently VERY muted by convection/water vapor).
More CO2 will enhance the greenhouse effect...just not by much. This is why they have the problem with the "missing heat". Something should be warmer if this pop-science nonsense is correct...but there just isn't enough heat in the system for CO2 to be working. The energy is somehow getting out anyway. This SHOULD have been expected since GHG forcing doesn't even deal with half the energy of the atmosphere in its current state...but somehow this terrible science prevails.
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@JaneBasingstoke #180 who wrote...
"Yeah, you're still giving the impression that water vapour is an essential component of convection in Earth's weather."
It doesn't just increase convection, it greatly increases the amount of energy transported through convection.
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@poitsplace #183
But it's the infra red that escapes to space that determines the greenhouse effect.
I never said that CO2 was a major contributor to the lapse rate gradient. I said that CO2 affected whereabouts on that gradient the infra red escaped from.
And no, I wouldn't expect CO2 or the greenhouse to be covered in detail in articles about the troposphere unless and except the articles are covering the effect of the lapse rate and troposphere on the greenhouse. Greenhouses are a tweak on the troposphere, not the other way round.
And yes, the greenhouse effect does get weaker with increasing CO2 because the effect is logarithmic. This is why climate sensitivity is expressed in terms of doubling of CO2.
Meanwhile your posts seem to rule out any mechanism for the minimal greenhouse that you do admit.
@poitsplace #184
Like I said. Weather based mixing does not interfere with the greenhouse.
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@JaneBasingstoke #185 who wrote...
"Like I said. Weather based mixing does not interfere with the greenhouse."
Well now you're being silly. This is like claiming that convection and water evaporating have no impact on surface temperatures. That is an absurd proposal. More importantly, the whole of the greenhouse potential resides ENTIRELY WITHIN the regions that involve convection and latent heat transfer...which as I have pointed out over and over again...is more powerful. Latent heat and convection are just extremely powerful negative feedbacks. They have a negative response to warming in general and they have a negative response to changes in the gradient of the type supposedly caused by CO2.
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@poitsplace #186
"This is like claiming that convection and water evaporating have no impact on surface temperatures."
No. It's like saying the fan in a fan heater doesn't stop the heater from heating the room.
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But the greenhouse effect DOES require the gradient...its own gradient...to work at all. Remember, without the ability to emit radiation (which is caused primarily by greenhouse gases) the atmosphere would eventually reach equilibrium with the surface temperatures and be the same temperature as the surface all the way through. Again, this would be a magical, non-radiating atmosphere.
If an equally magical atmosphere had CO2 BUT through strange forces somehow managed to remain at the same temperature as the ground...the absorption by CO2 would be equal to its emissions. There would be no observable absorption spectrum and there would be no greenhouse effect.
The greenhouse effect occurs because CO2 is radiating energy into space from the atmosphere. As the atmosphere loses energy, it cools. As it cools a skew develops between its ability to emit (based on concentration AND temperature) and its ability to absorb (based on concentration alone). This skew slows the tranfer of energy and creates the greenhouse effect.
BUT...as the gradient becomes greater and greater, the atmosphere eventually reaches an unstable configuration and convection/latent heat begin moving energy. This is the key here. While CO2's absorption increases logarithmically...the actual greenhouse effect it can cause has a theoretical maximum.
One way the theoretical maximum is hit is for the gradient to cause convection/latent heat to take over 100% of the energy transfer within the atmosphere. At that point the skew between absorption and emissions by CO2 or any greenhouse gas are no longer relevant...the energy being radiated is simply dropped off physically. You will note that this behavior is its self logarithmic, but an entirely new logarithmic aspect that you have not considered before.
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@poitsplace #188
"without the ability to emit radiation (which is caused primarily by greenhouse gases) the atmosphere would eventually reach equilibrium with the surface temperatures and be the same temperature as the surface all the way through"
No it wouldn't. And I made this mistake too.
The lapse rate gradient reflects gravitational potential energy. Thermal energy + gravitational potential energy = near constant.
You remember gravitational potential energy from school, don't you? For small differences in height, gravitational potential energy is mgh, where m = mass, g = acceleration due to gravity, and h = height above your chosen reference point.
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Well, try as I might...you haven't actually managed to understand the relationship once. You keep falling back to a smaller subset of data. Congratulations, you've maxed out your working memory.
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@poitsplace #189
Expansion of air when heated is a core component of convection, and it works without any input of extra water vapour.
The gravitational potential gradient is the main component of the lapse rate. There would be an almost identical lapse rate if energy was mixed in by diffusion instead of weather processes. (Obviously diffusion is rather slower than weather.)
Your posts failed to show that you understood either of these core principles before I pointed them out. If you don't start with core principles, how do you do science?
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Jane at a whoel series of preeceding posts.
I'm impressed. Also I learned some things. Thank you!
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Again, working memory. I have not failed to show that I understand the core principles. You have simply been unable to put together anything but a subset of what I'm talking about. I say A+B+C=D, but you've answered in various posts that No, A+B is not equal to D. (nor is A+C or B+C). You haven't been criticizing what I'm talking about...just your incorrect perception of it. Such is life.
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@poitsplace #193
Which of your lapse rate posts shows that gravitational potential energy is the most important factor in the lapse rate?
Which of your convection posts shows that the drop in density is the most important thing rather than just the low density of water vapour? Which of your convection posts even acknowledges convection without an increase in the proportion of water vapour? Which of your convection posts acknowledges that much of the convection in the Earth's weather systems is driven mainly by the expansion of gases when heated?
These are core principles. Without getting the core principles right how can your explanation of the Earth's response to greenhouse gases be correct?
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Your gravity comment is an answer to a misunderstanding on your part...of my attempt to get you to properly combine two concepts (instead of having it just drop out of your head). It failed. Your comment is meaningless to what I'm talking about since its all about earth and therefore constant.
I have not said that water vapor is entirely responsible for convection. This is your inability to hold the concepts. Back in #184 for a quick example I said in reference to water vapor..."It doesn't just increase convection..." This implies convection exists in the absence of water vapor but that water vapor increases it...which is true.
You're just not putting it together into a coherent system and because of that you don't see what I'm talking about. We've obviously hit a dead end on this discussion.
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@poitsplace #195
Gravity gives the lapse rate gradient. But your #179 has convection doing this instead.
And don't quote your #184 at me like that. Your #184 only came after my #180 demonstrated that an influx of water vapour was not essential to convection.
Meanwhile your debate rules seem a bit strict. You seem to want to confine the debate to your proposed greenhouse mechanism, and you don't adjust it when I show problems with its core components.
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All politicians live and work in a world of words, where what is put in paper become so.
Unfortunately, this is not the real world, and in fact only barely infringes upon reality.
Obviously to such people the rapid and accurate solution to a problem takes second place to their wrangling for individual short-term benefits.
In large part this is because humans in general are incapable of seeing disaster until it looms over them like a Tsunami...and then it's usually far to late to do more than try and run.
Climate (and weather!) does change. And it can change very rapidly...this is one lesson we learned in the past 200 years of geology.
Weather is complex and difficult to predict...yet it is vital that we try simply because our lives depend upon weather.
So long as the threat is perceived to be decades away, few people will look beyond their personal short-term benefits.
At the moment, the most pessimistic projections accepted are that we can expect 1 metre of sea level rise by 2060.
But is this realistic?
Natural events are overwhelmingly non-linear, often exponential.
This means that in many cases the time between the first noticeable effects of an event and the unstoppable disaster is very, very short.
Most people, and scientists are people first, scientists second, have limits built into their ability to accept data and predictions as "reasonable." Such "unreasonable" data is often discarded as extraneous or false, not because there is reason to believe that it is erroneous, but merely because it is unbelievable.
But the universe is far stranger than we can usually imagine, and one thing we have discovered over the past few hundred years is that things can and do happen far faster and with far greater magnitude than we commonly can believe.
However, so long as the consequences of the decisions of politicians are perceived to be too far away to matter personally, jockeying for short-term advantages will persist to drive the process.
My own feeling is this:
We know that climate changes.
We know that it can happen much faster than we used to think possible.
We have good reason to believe that it is currently changing, and as usual the change is not in our benefit.
Generally, experience has shown that being prepared for disaster is cheaper than being unprepared--and the extra costs are not excessive if spread over time. After all, eventually SOME disaster inevitably occurs, and preparation is similar for all disasters.
The implication is that we should prepare for disasters rather than not prepare.
There is incontrovertible proof that humans can change climate. We have created deserts and grasslands from forests, huge monocultural areas where diversity once ruled, dried up huge lakes and rivers, torn down mountains and created gardens in deserts.
Much of this change has not been intentional.
Knowing that we can and do have such effects, and that such effects are seldom purely beneficial to us, much less other life, it makes sense that we attempt to predict such change, monitor for changes we haven't predicted and in general walk softly.
I expect that as time goes on, and our data collection, analysis and modelling improve, that we will see both the predicted magnitude and rate of change accelerate even faster than they have over the past decades. I do not expect this to be a problem form our descendants to deal with, but a very real and direct threat to most of those currently alive today.
This is NOT an intellectual argument! Millions of lives depend upon how we react to this situation. It is, perhaps, already too late for many hundreds of millions.
I do not believe we have 100 years, or even 50 years before things get critical, I believe that we have at least until 2013, but no longer than 2029.
Of course, many things can change.
The volcano in Iceland might spew enough gas and dust to cool the world into an ice age or just cool us off for a decade or two.
A large meteorite could drastically alter our weather patterns.
These events are unpredictable at present, and thus we have to rely upon the trends which we see, and those trends tell a story of an accelerating change in climate.
We can, after all, barely predict next week's weather--just how good do you suppose our predictions are for ten years from today?
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Again, I never said water vapor was required for convection, only that it increases convection. And...you haven't addressed my point. If you consider addressing what I was actually talking about is "strict", so be it.
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#197 Charles wrote:
"humans in general are incapable of seeing disaster until it looms over them like a Tsunami"
What an entirely different view from my own. I see one silly panic after another, nearly all of which turn out to be grossly exaggerated.
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@poitsplace
Your #166 appears to be saying that the lapse rate on Venus is in some way fundamentally different to that on Earth due to the different relative densities of H2SO4 vapour to Venus's CO2 atmosphere, and H2O vapour to Earth's N2/O2 atmosphere. Your #166 also strongly hints at this being due to convection.
However the laws of gravity are the same on Venus, so the mechanism of a gravity based lapse rate would also be the same.
Your #173 says "Water vapor directly drives convection." I am struggling to see how the wording of your #173 allows for expansion of air due to heating even contributing to convection, let alone driving it.
Meanwhile your debunk for a continuing greenhouse effect seemed to be based on the greenhouse clashing with your conception of a convection / latent heat based lapse rate. The lapse rate is based on gravity so it cannot clash with the greenhouse in the way you describe.
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Water vapor DOES directly drive convection. Its just not the ONLY thing that does.
My point about venus is that the "moist" adiabatic lapse rate is different because the substance responsible for it being "moist" is different. It also has some other impacts that greatly reduce radiative transfer. But of course venus has other problems...like the fact that we're not entirely sure how its atmosphere rotates around the planet at nearly ten times the speed of the planet's rotation. Our understanding of the behavior of atmospheric systems...is a bit shy of complete.
As for the lapse rate verses gradient (which is where a lot of this confusion lies)...I am not the one claiming that the gradient is going to change to something significantly different than the lapse rate...that would be climate scientists with their stratospheric cooling and tropospheric hot spot. Without the gradient change the enhancement of the greenhouse effect is greatly reduced (as 3-5C down here would translate to 2-3C up there...partly offsetting the increased absorption)...since the observations DO NOT support the idea that the altitude of the restricting layers being set by CO2 concentration.
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@poitsplace #201
(@simon-swede)
"Water vapor DOES directly drive convection. Its just not the ONLY thing that does."
OK, apologies. I have been told off by a meteorologist. Sorry, that should not have been necessary, I should have paid more attention to you.
You are right about water vapour and latent heat driving convection in Earth's weather. The energy of condensation powers the convection.
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@poitsplace #201
However there is still a lot of convection based weather on Venus. Water vapour may be important to the Earth's weather. But its comparative absence does not impede Venus's convection based weather. There are many things we don't know about Venus. But I am not aware of any serious scientist challenging the idea that convection contributes to Venus's weather.
Meanwhile a comment about Venus's rotation. You do know that Venus rotates very slowly, don't you?
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@poitsplace #201
"I am not the one claiming that the gradient is going to change to something significantly different than the lapse rate."
This depends what you mean by "significant".
The lapse rate is still mainly down to gravitational potential. The troposphere hot spot in tropical latitudes is a difficult to measure tweak rather than a dramatic difference. And although it provides a negative feedback, other latitudes have a tweak to their lapse rates giving a positive feedback.
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@simon-swede
(@poitsplace)
You may be confused by my #202, and want to know how to reconcile it with my previous statements about convection.
My previous posts were correct for basic convection, but this only applies without (or before) cloud formation, such as the start up of a thermal over a hot roof on a sunny day.
My comments about the effect of the density of water vapour in an unchanging mix of gases were also correct. My comments about the different water vapour content of Venus's atmosphere not interfering with convection in Venus's weather were also correct.
My comments about weather being driven by the Sun are correct, but this is a subtly different meaning of "drive": all weather is ultimately powered by the Sun.
However my posts ignored the effect of cloud formation on convection.
Convection associated with cloud formation is very different to convection without cloud formation. Convection with cloud formation is driven by that cloud formation - driven in the sense that the condensation of water does most of the work, powered by the latent heat of condensation.
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@poitsplace
"Without getting the core principles right how can your explanation of the Earth's response to greenhouse gases be correct?" (my #194)
Now I get to answer my own question about my own mistakes with convection.
Well as far as Venus was concerned I have answered it in my #203. Whatever makes up Venus's atmosphere there is convection and weather going on. The lack of Earth style water clouds isn't interfering with it.
And as far as Earth is concerned my only reference to convection based weather and latent heat is that they help mix in energy, like the fan in a fan heater. This remains true.
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@JaneBasingstoke
First off, thanks for the correction.
"However there is still a lot of convection based weather on Venus. Water vapour may be important to the Earth's weather. But its comparative absence does not impede Venus's convection based weather."
There is indeed a lot of convection on venus. In fact, that's about the ONLY way energy can move up through the 50 miles or more of sulfuric acid fog, clouds and CO2. Unfortunately, relative to the water-enhanced convection (and obviously the latent heat) on earth...sulfuric acid likely makes things WORSE.
On earth there is essentially a limitless (for the range of conditions that are possible) supply of water. The water vapor readily evaporates at quite low temperatures and as it does so increases the buoyancy of the local air by as much as 100%. Then as it condenses it falls...all the way to the ground...reaching the ground at a lower temperature (bet you didn't think about that (admittedly less important) part ;)
On venus things aren't quite so friendly towards energy transfer. Sulfuric acid has a much lower vapor pressure...and doesn't even boil until around 300C (and the surface temperature surpasses that). Sulfuric acid vapor is actually more dense than the rest of the atmosphere. The vapor never manages to make it to the ground. Also, its latent heat is a lot lower...about 1/4 that of water. Also, the sulfuric acid forms a haze then clouds for 50 miles or so...and it absorbs IR as well.
Basically the difference between venus and earth is that the water vapor makes earth's troposphere act like a heat pipe ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe ) While venus is restricted to plain old convection.
With respect to Venus' atmospheric superrotation...the problem is that they can't actually model that properly. Every way they manage to get it to work...breaks something else. In the end they just force it through parametrization (isn't that a great way to solve the problem...make the physics work by decree)
With respect to the tropospheric gradient and the lapse rate...my point is this. The tropospheric gradient can vary...to a point. However, the absolute maximum on the GHG forcing side...is in almost all imaginable cases...very close to the adiabatic lapse rate. The climate scientists are claiming its going to increase the gradient in direct opposition to the adiabatic lapse rate. You and I both seem to understand that this would force the climate system to respond with unimaginably powerful, exponentially increasing negative feedback.
By the way that behavior exhibited as some "forcing" tries to push the gradient BEYOND the adiabatic lapse rate (especially one that involves increasing ground temperatures)...would be logarithmic. It makes no difference what the forcing is, the response by the atmosphere is to begin PHYSICALLY shoving vast amounts more energy up into the troposphere...eventually moving so much energy that it would completely bypass any "forcing". This is that second "logarithmic" effect I was speaking of earlier. CO2's input "forcing" is logarithmic...but the impact of that "forcing" is also logarithmic. (or at least, as close to it as you can get in a chaotic system like the climate)
The hypothesis of substantial, dangerous, anthropogenic global warming has some serious flaws. It works great if you deal only with our horribly incomplete knowledge of the climate system and try to model it. BUT...if you look out a window every once in a while or get out into the field, you find the climate system simply cannot work QUITE that way.
Read up on the troposphere...it DOES NOT exhibit a behavior that shows CO2 concentration setting its maximum altitude. The temperature and water vapor content of the air does that. The altitude of the troposphere varies by enough that CO2 concentration varies by +/- 50%. Again, this all makes perfect sense when you consider that water vapor is responsible for most energy movement through the troposphere...and that its share of that increases far faster than CO2's absorption.
There have been small changes in the statospheric temperature but conditions make things very ambiguous with respect to AGW. The temperature dropped (as suggested by AGW) BUT...the sun's heating of the troposphere has been decreasing over the last decade anyway (more so recently) and in opposition to the main hypothesis of how methane interacts...the stratospheric moisture levels have actually fallen.
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JaneBasingstoke @306:
"And as far as Earth is concerned my only reference to convection based weather and latent heat is that they help mix in energy, like the fan in a fan heater."
It's more than just mixing in the energy, as you put it.
Poitsplace made a very pertinent (to me) comment in an earlier post.
The radiative forcing for a doubling of CO2 is usually quoted as being 3.7W/m^2, and also that this would lead to a 1.2C warming at the surface. However, if the surface was 1.2C warmer, it would radiate 3.7W/m^2 more.
BUT, evaporation and convection have to increase if the surface is warmer - so where does the energy for this come from? If the surface is receiving 3.7W/m^2 more and radiating 3.7W/m^2 more, then it HAS to cool because of the extra energy lost due to evaporation and convection - which means it cannot warm by as much as 1.2C at equilibrium.
Or am I missing something?
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And the increase in convection and evaporation for that 1.2C increase is about 6 watts (just using absolute humidity to rough that out). I can't imagine any way for feedbacks to be strongly positive overall...for warming...once the world is already warm. The arid, high albedo conditions of the glacial period are what provides powerful positive feedback capability during those times. That's the reason temperatures can crash even as CO2 levels remain relatively high (something that repeatedly happens during the glacial periods).
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@poitsplace
"Venus is different ... different ... we don't understand ... don't understand."
Is this a joke?
Both Venus and Earth have distinct lapse rates. Both Venus and Earth have greenhouse gases.
If I am used to petrol (gasoline) fuelled cars, and I am suddenly presented with a diesel car to drive instead, I don't say, "oh, diesel is different from petrol so it won't get me to the shops".
Nor do I say, "oh, I don't understand the details of the internal combustion engine so I'm going to ignore the simple fact that burning fossil fuels can do useful work".
Lapse rate feedback
These "new" negative feedbacks you identify are well known and accounted for. They are nowhere near as strong as you seem to imagine.
Take a look at the calculated hot spot, look at its effect on the lapse rate. It is so small that graphs of the hot spot have to be shown as changes to the lapse rate. It is so small that it is difficult to distinguish from other variability. If they showed the lapse rate with the hot spot you would have problems identifying the hot spot.
Lapse rate feedback is significant enough to get covered by the IPCC. But as negative feedbacks go, (and it is only negative in tropical latitudes,) this is not one to clobber the greenhouse.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/tropical-tropopshere-ii/
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@Peter317 #208
Peter, I do need to point out that my current conversation with poitsplace is a cul-de-sac.
Our topic is the very basic mechanism of the greenhouse, rather than aspects relating to climate sensitivity. The sceptics amongst the scientists don't challenge the very basic mechanism, instead they challenge climate sensitivity.
Poitsplace claims to accept the very basic mechanism, but has a different concept of what that mechanism is to me. So this conversation is us going over ground that has already been dealt with by the professionals and the well informed amateurs on both sides, but has been badly communicated to the public.
Some of the disagreements in the conversation are down to misunderstanding each other's posts. Other of the disagreements are down to mistakes with the science.
Back to your #208. I don't think you understand the mechanisms involved. So I am going to provide some real world examples with similar mechanisms.
Firstly you need to look at where the extra energy comes from.
OK. Cold winter's day. (Cold analogous to the cold of deep space.)
You've got a fan heater on constant. (Fan heater on constant is analogous to the Sun.)
You've got a window. (Window analogous to "window" through the Earth's atmosphere for infra red radiation.)
And you've got a thermometer which you are using as a thermostatic control for the window. (Thermometer/thermostat temperature analogous to the black body temperature of the Earth.)
There is a crude temperature gradient between the fan heater (hot) and the window (cold). (This is analogous to the lapse rate in the bottom layer of the atmosphere, where temperature is cooler the higher up you go.)
You put the thermometer close to the fan heater so that it is quite close to the heat. You open and close the window to keep the thermometer at 20 degrees centigrade (68 degrees Fahrenheit). The window is open a lot to help cool the thermometer. And the room itself is therefore cool.
You move the thermometer closer to the window. Again you open and close the window to keep the thermometer at 20 degrees centigrade (68 degrees Fahrenheit). The window is closed a lot to help keep the thermometer warm. The room warms up.
I hope you see that having the window closed more traps extra energy until a new equilibrium is reached, and that the equilibrium is based on temperature.
As for the diversion of energy for more energetic weather in a greenhouse warmed world. No it does not cancel the greenhouse.
A warmer temperature based equilibrium is still reached regardless of whether or not some of the extra heat gets diverted to do work.
Imagine there is wet laundry in the same room. The laundry dries faster when the room is warmer, the extra heat is doing work. This gives the laundry more of a cooling effect in a warmer room. But the cooling effect of the wet laundry gets offset by the window being closed even more to keep the room warm.
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@Peter317
To clarify.
My #211 post said
Some of the disagreements in the conversation are down to misunderstanding each other's posts. Other of the disagreements are down to mistakes with the science.
It should have said
Some of the disagreements in the conversation are down to misunderstanding each other's posts. Other of the disagreements are down to our (poitsplace's and mine) mistakes with the science.
We (poitsplace and I) are vanishingly unlikely to uncover anything genuinely new in our conversation. Just expose our personal ignorance.
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@JaneBasingstoke
I have a hard time understanding how you can miss that CO2 CAN'T slow energy in proportion to its absorption...when latent heat and convection increase their share of tropospheric energy transfer exponentially. The latent heat increases mean heat that CANNOT be realized on the ground and must instead be felt higher in the atmosphere. This is because ALL energy that goes into evaporation goes into latent heat instead of increasing temperatures. That's why water just boils faster instead of getting hotter when you turn up the heat.
The increasing transport through latent heat and convection is in direct and increasingly powerful opposition to GHG forcing. It opposes ALL warming and even the supposed powerful positive feedbacks would be fought by latent heat and convection.
Your heater analogy is flawed. The earth is more like the heater's coil...and increasing the speed of the fan must cool the coil. Where the heck do you think convection and latent heat get their energy from??? If a 1.2C increase in is enough to balance out even the supposed 3.7watts of forcing through radiative means...where the heck is the 6 watt increase to convection and latent heat that MUST occur going to come?
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@poitsplace #213
"hard time"
And I have a hard time understanding how you think latent heat and convection can possibly throttle further increases in the greenhouse without throttling the lapse rate first. And the lapse rate looks pretty healthy to me.
"The earth is more like the heater's coil"
Strictly speaking I could have said that the heater's coil was analogous to the ground level of the Earth heated by the Sun, and that the electricity was analogous to the energy from the Sun.
It doesn't make any difference to my basic illustration and I wanted to keep things simple. But the added layer does allow you to address changes to fan speed.
"increasing the speed of the fan must cool the coil"
thereby reducing the gradient between the fan and the thermometer.
OK, minor tweak to fan heater analogy. Make the fan heater "clever" so that its total power consumption is constant - faster fan speeds doubly cool the coil by 1. diverting power from the coil and 2. extra air flow cooling the coil more.
Now I've already compared the temperature gradient between fan and window to the lapse rate. So your example of increased fan speed would be a component of the negative lapse rate feedback. This applies even for the double cooling effect I've described above.
And I have pointed out the negative lapse rate feedback is accounted for. It is significant but too small to throttle the lapse rate.
Heater analogy intact.
"Where the heck do you think convection and latent heat get their energy from??? If a 1.2C increase in is enough to balance out even the supposed 3.7watts of forcing through radiative means...where the heck is the 6 watt increase to convection and latent heat that MUST occur going to come?"
This isn't an energy accounting problem. It's a de facto thermostat problem.
In my example closing the window more retains sufficient extra energy to do the extra work to dry the laundry (latent heat of drying laundry analogous to latent heat of evaporation from oceans). There is a similar situation with your more fiddly fan speed example. And in the Earth's atmosphere extra energy is trapped by the greenhouse.
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