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One Planet Only Forever at 02:30 AM on 9 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric,
I suspect that a simple 'tornado count' of each intensity level is not the best measure of tornado activity. A better measure would be the sum of the length of tornado impact, either in time or physical distance travelled, for each intensity level.
That probably also applies to cyclones. The total duration or distance of each level of intensity would be more meaningful than a simple count. And, of course, the measure has to be of all cyclones, not just the Atlantic ones called hurricanes, and definitely not just the cyclones that make landfall on USA territory. And Tropical Storm level cyclones also need to be part of the evaluation, especially the magnitude of rain fall from them.
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MA Rodger at 00:49 AM on 9 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
One criticism of Ellis & Palmer (2016) that can be hurled with some confidence is that it has not exactly set the literature alight since it was published six long years ago. That tends to suggest it presents a badly failed hypothesis.
I note one of the citations listed by Google Scholar is for a later unpublished work co-authored by Ellis (evidently 2019 or later) which doen't make such a big thing about this CO2-dust mechanism, although it does continue to stress that CO2 was not the main driver of the ice-age cycles, which most would agree with.
One of the factors working against the grand assertion of Ellis & Palmer (2016), that CO2 leads to reduced plant-growth and thus more dust & lower albedo; one factor is the switch of ice-age period from 40k to 100k. This switch is usually explained by the dust during the earlier 40k phase being diminished as the bare plantless lands close-by glaciated areas were being scoured clean of any dust-generating soils by prior glaciations, scoured back to the bedrock. If this dust is alternatively explained by reduced CO2 suppressing plant-growth, the 40k-100k transition requires a new explanation. And given this requirement the apparent silence by Ellis & Palmer (2016) on the matter is entirely wrong.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:41 PM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Eric:
What source of rainfall data did you use in your U.S. analysis? How did you determine the frequencies?
Analsysis of rainfall data suffers from three major complications:
- The observing network is very sparse. It is capable of providing a pretty good representation of regional temperatures that change relatively slowly over moderate distances, but precipitation (especially short-term localized storms such as thunderstorms) often slips between the gaps and gets missed.
- Records from individual stations are often lacking in detection of extreme events, so determining a "100-year storm" is not as simple as looking at the biggest storm in a 100-year record.
- Relatively few stations have rainfall data at sub-hourly time resolution. The instrumentation that can provide data at this time scale is usually different from what is often used at hourly or 6-hour time scales.
The solution to these problems involves looking at many stations over a region, and fitting statistical distributions to the records. The statistical distributions are then used to derive estimates of 5-minute, 1-hour, 6-hour, etc. duration extreme events.
There is also rainfall data available from radar systems. An example of a system that incorporates station precipitation gauge values with radar and model estimates can be seen here:
https://centreau.org/en/events-news/events/introduction-to-the-canadian-precipitation-analysis-capa/
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Bob Loblaw at 23:20 PM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
nigel:
You have to read the paper to try to follow the logic (as such) of their argument about CO2 and temperature. It is rather convoluted.
Section 2 of their paper discusses the Milankovitch cycles, and introduces their "see - huge difference in input of energy on summer solstice at 65N" calculation. They use this to argue that albedo reductions due to dust on snow are the real feedback factor explaining how Milankovitch cycles can grow or melt a continental glacier.
In section 3, they do their bogus comparison between the dust-albedo feedback and CO2 radiative effects.
In section 4, they expand on the dust albedo factors.
In section 5, they give their hypothesis how low CO2 leads to reductions in vegetation cover, and how this is what leads to high dust concentrations that accumulate on the ice/snow of the glaciers. It's this last step that allows low albedo that allows the increased solar input (again, summer solstice at 65N) of the Milankovitch cycles to trigger deglaciation.
At the end of it all, they are basically saying that nothing else makes much difference as Milankovitch cycles go through their many wiggles, until vegetation gets so low and albedo of the snow and ice gets low enough so that a high in the 65N summer solstice Milankovitch cycle can finally melt a continent worth of ice.
It's all hanging together by a very thin thread, and their "analysis" is sadly lacking in any sort of model that actually incorporates anything of global/regional climate, the carbon cycle, and glacial dynamics and accumulation/melt.
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Eric (skeptic) at 23:14 PM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Clausius-Clapeyron means that with global warming the atmosphere can hold more water vapor. Whether it does hold more water vapor depends on a surprisingly complex set of factors. Drought intensification is a simpler case. C-C means there almost always be more evaporation and will often (not always) be more transpiration.
Short term rainfall is a much more complex case. I have found no trend in US 1 hour to 6 hour rainfalls in 500+ stations over 70 years. However as rainfalls get progressively longer (6 instead of 1) there are consistently more increasing trends and fewer declining trends. That's also why we almost never see a new 1 or 5 or 10 minute rainfall record. C-C has essentially zero influence at the very short term. But C-C definitely has more influence at the longer durations which is why we see new 24 hour (and longer) all-time records being set like with Harvey. But Harvey brings up an important point, the water vapor has to come from somewhere and it came a warmer gulf of Mexico. That much is quite obvious.
There are changes in regional tornado climatology. I have yet to do that analysis and it will be a bit difficult with relatively rare events. But overall in the US EF-3 and EF-4 tornadoes are declining, EF-5 are statistically flat. There are flat statistics for winter and generally declining statistics for warmer months, but fewer declines 1990-present than 1950-present. In short, complicated and dependent on time periods affected by natural cycles. Easy to cherry pick.
My Atlantic hurricane analysis found a notable uptick in >= 120 knot storms. I set that threshold to avoid the small numbers problems using categories. RI is interesting, someone needs to write a paper with a new definition because the old definition (>= 30 knots increase in 24 hours) is true for 60% of Atlantic hurricanes. The increase in RI from warmer oceans shows up most strongly at >= 40 knots in 24 hours. Ian met that threshold. But there's also an increase in rapid weakening over water. Over land weakening is expected and I exclude all such cases. Globally Ryan Maue's data shows fewer hurricanes but the average hurricane in stronger. Also have to be careful not to cherry pick intervals.
Overall I agree with the article above that there are many other impacts that need to be considered. That's particularly true if we are going to decide how to rationally spend money on impact mitigation.
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nigelj at 08:07 AM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
Something obvious seems to have been missed here. The paper says that increased CO2 leads to more greening of the planet and thus less dust on the ice sheets, and so a cooling effect (parpahrasing). But we have had increased CO2 and increased greening of the planet and a warming effect. Doesn't this failure of their prediction kill their idea dead, all other things being equal?
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nigelj at 07:59 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
Sea level rise appears to be following a quadratic (parabolic) curve. Perhaps this is not surprising because steadly increasing and accumulating CO2 levels in the atmophere and known positive feedbacks causing the warming trend, would be consistent with a parabolic function, and not so much a linear or exponential function. But if antarctic ice sheets physically destabilise that could be a local exponential function.
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Bob Loblaw at 04:09 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
To pick a nit, I think your trajectory after jumping off a cliff is best described by an elliptical function, with the centre of the earth as one of the focii. You are launching yourself into orbit - albeit a short one once the earth gets in the way.
Next best approximation is a parabola, and that probably fits an exponential increase in vertical speed to a pretty high accuracy.
The one thing it definitely is not, is linear. That very rapidly becomes obvious.
But then, the contrarian industry has long had a habit of trying to force reality to fit their beliefs - e.g. the infamous North Carolina effort to declare that sea level was only allowed to change based on a linear extrapolation of past readings.
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ubrew12 at 03:51 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
If the authors of this paper find no statistical evidence of climate change on weather events, it seems incumbent on them to posit a reason.
From the conclusions section: "It would be nevertheless extremely important to define mitigation and adaptation strategies that take into account current trends." This seems reasonable except for two things:
1) the authors are saying the current trends are indistinguishable from zero.
2) Even if nonzero, nobody expects 'current trends' to remain current for long, in an exponential phenomenon.
You can't look at what is happening and conclude anything else: that we're in the midst of something best explained by the exponential function. Which is also used to describe things that are exploding.
After sea level rises 3 feet, it's easy to say we should have done something. But the actual moment to do something is when you jump off the cliff, not when you hit bottom (btw, your trajectory after jumping off a cliff is also best described by the exponential function).
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Bob Loblaw at 02:46 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
...just as a rigorous, thorough medical examinaton of a person falling off a high-rise building could say "no signs of any harm yet" - as long as they finished before the person reached the ground.
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One Planet Only Forever at 01:51 AM on 8 October 2022No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis
I am sure that a rigorous accurate detailed evaluation of water use in the Colorado Basin could also conclude that there is no evidence of a crisis or emegency.
Only a few users of water have been getting less than they want ... so far.
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Bob Loblaw at 01:41 AM on 8 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
OPOF:
In the paper, Ellis and Palmer make no direct mention of any implications of their work for future climate. As it stands, it is a simple attempt to understand what might have happened in past climates.
Of course, the reason why the discipline of climatology looks at past climates is due to the old adage "the past is the key to the future". If we understand how and why climate has changed in the past, we have a greater chance of being able to predict future events. The IPCC reports give extensive coverage to past climates, for this specific purpose.
We can only guess what Ellis and Palmer wished to imply - if we restrict ourselves to what they say in this paper (which is the proper way to review a paper). But it is easy to see why this paper is attractive to those that wish to imply that CO2 has no radiative effect.
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One Planet Only Forever at 07:47 AM on 7 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
Ellis and Palmer's story and its potential appeal, in addition to presenting significant misunderstandings, is an example of what can happen when scientific investigation of a part of the bigger picture fails to be presented in the full context of the bigger picture.
Even if the investigation and reporting about the part is accurate, failing to situate it in the bigger picture, especially failing to investigate and present the potential harms associated with the part being investigated, can end up being applied to develop harmful popular and profitable beliefs and activity (it actually often happens).
Learning about the constantly improving understanding of what is harmful and unsustainable is fought against by people who develop a powerful interest in 'evading learning to be less harmful and more helpful'.
Bee's even offer an example. The scientific development of chemicals that can be profitable did not include an indepth investigation of the more complex potential for harm to be done (that is difficult because of the complexity, and it would be expensive and take time). And now the people profiting who did not do that 'harder to do' investigation of the potential harm get to 'legally' demand that 'others have to do the harder work of conclusively proving the harm done (like the tobacco people still claim that the exact biological mechanisms of harm caused by smoking are not conclusively proven'. The scientifically beneficial development of the chemical was quickly embraced and exploited without serious concern for potential harm done.
Back to the story made up by Ellis and Palmer. Aspects of it are attactive to people wanting to ignore the harm of fossil fuel use ... because they benefit from fossil fuel use, and fossil fuel use got to be popular and profitable before the harmful consequences were investigated and better understood.
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Bob Loblaw at 23:37 PM on 6 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
ubrew12:
The mechanism that Ellis and Palmer argue for their low CO2=low vegetation (cover, not height), is rather convoluted and you need to read their paper to see what they say. It's covered in their section 5.
Part of what they do is summarized in table 4 of their paper, where they list reductions in CO2 affecting treeline. They use CO2 values of 150 for alpine treeline (2000m altitude), and 115 for tropical treeline (4000m altitude)....
...but you need to carefully read the table to notice that they are using CO2 values in μbar, not ppm. How do they get these numbers? Well, at sea level (1 bar, or 1000 mb pressure), an interglacial CO2 concentration of 300ppm equates to 300 μbar, and a glacial CO2 concentration of 190 ppm translates to 190 μbar. They then use the standard decrease in pressure with height - at 4000m, pressure drops to about 620 mb - and 190 ppm translates to a partial pressure of CO2 of only 115 μbar.
When I read the Gerhard and Wort paper Ellsi and Palmer cite, it does not support using CO2 values in μbar. It does discuss plant response vs. altitude, and plant response at low CO2 levels, but nearly all the discussion focuses on units of ppm.
So, like the flying bee example, Ellis and Palmer choose to do a unit conversion and calculation that favours the conclusion they want to support, without really justifying the logic. Perhaps someone who knows plant physiology better than I can provide a solid argument why partial pressure rather than concentration is important for plant uptake of CO2, but Ellis and Palmer do not convince me.
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David-acct at 12:26 PM on 6 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
Jim Hunt
the Vx2 technology looks to be a really good and promising idea to supplement the CA power grid, especially since solar has such a rapid drop off in electric generation from solar starting around 5-6pm, and since wind doesnt pick up the short fall as the peak demand continues through 10pm on a daily basis. (this is typical of the electric generation by source recurring on a daily basis with seasonal variations)
Details are available at US Energy Information administration.
Be sure to select the California grid / CISO grid .
EIA is a great source for actual real time data.
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ubrew12 at 11:59 AM on 6 October 2022From the eMail bag: A Review of a paper by Ellis and Palmer
"the paper...[argues] that low CO2 leads to low vegetation, which leads to increased dust" How does this comport with general knowledge? Vegetation requires sunlight, soil, and water, primarily. In what ecosystem is CO2 the limiting factor... deserts? In deserts, low CO2 should shrink the Hadley Cell, shrinking the desert, i.e. more vegetation, not less. I can't think of another ecosystem for which 'low CO2 leads to low vegetation' sufficient to rob the surface of all vegetation, i.e. create dust. As long as there is sunlight, soil, and water, you're going to grow stuff. And, as we've seen with hydroponics, you don't even need soil. Perhaps below 200ppm of CO2, the authors have a case. But, if so, do they prove it? And do they prove it for CO2 above 200ppm? It seems to me that for most vegetative areas, a CO2 above 200ppm precludes it as a limiting factor in vegetative growth.
"low CO2 leads to low vegetation... increased dust... reduce[d]... ice sheet albedo... end of a glacial period...[= higher temperature]." Condensed, the claim is "low CO2... = higher temperature". This demonstrably hasn't been true at any time in the last 400,000 years. If these guys think low CO2 leads to higher Earth temperature, it seems they should have to demonstrate that.
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Eagle the Greek at 05:23 AM on 6 October 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
As a Greenhouse gas, CO2 makes life possible on Earth but also threatens it's inhabitants with extinction. Both side of the argument have big misunderstandings on this issue and that's what makes things really frightening. To see a US Senator babble about what the"ideal temperature" is without realizing that it is ∆T, is, the rate of change is of crucial importance. We are still in a glacial period and we need to learn more about being able to control the Earth's climate.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:39 AM on 6 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
Jim Hunt @3,
With my "pursuing increase awareness and improve understanding" hat on, I would add that it is also important to consider the 'need for a new vehicle'. And, related to that 'consideration of need for a new vehicle', it is important to seriously limit the energy demand and use of any vehicle, existing or new.
There are now many presentations of the merits of reduced consumption. One of the more entertaining ones I have become aware of is a study by sufficiency researcher Maren Ingrid Kropfeld mentioned in J. B. MacKinnon's book "The Day the World Stops Shopping". That study evaluated the level of harmful impact of 4 different types of consumers: Environmentally conscientious, Frugal (buy bargains), Tightwads (dislike spending), Actively pursuing limited consumption (only buying what is 'needed' and buying and repairing more durable things). Those 'Choosing to consume less' and the Tightwads had the lowest level of harmful impact. The Frugal and Environmentally conscientious (who were not Tightwads or Actively pursuing limited consumption) had far more harmful impact because they did not limit their consumption.
So, the best things for people to do are (in the order I believe is best given the above):
- Reduce the use of any existing personal vehicle. If you are able, adapt to living Free from the burdens and impacts of owning a personal vehicle.
- Maintain the vehicle to minimize the impact of its use (no oil burning) and maximize its potential use (impacts of end of use are significant)
- If the existing vehicle is higher impact than you need because it is larger, heavier or more highly powered than 'needed' buy a replacement 'now' so that someone needing what you have but don't need can use your used vehicle rather than buying a 'new' one.
- If you are buying a new vehicle, buy the lowest impact vehicle available rather than waiting for 'better options' be become available.
- If you are unable to afford a 'new electric vehicle' to 'impact downsize' from the vehicle you do not 'need' buy the lowest impacting available vehicle you have access to, prioritizing used vehicles. Avoid buying a fossil fuel burning vehicle. If you must buy a 'fossil fuel powered vehicle' try to find the lowest impact hybrid that meets your 'needs' (new or used - but note that a new hybrid is not likely much cheaper than a new electric). Note that some quirks exist(ed) where larger hybrids had better fuel efficiency that smaller models (older Honda Accords vs Civics are an example).
Purchasing the 'potentially better' vehicles of the future should be done following the same steps. The ability of a vehicle battery to be reverse used in the power grid would not justify replacing a usable personal vehicle that is minimally used. In fact, that 'system improvement' encouraging more use of personal electric vehicles would likely not be an improvement at all. Environmentally conscientious consumers continuing to do unnecessary things, or doing more, is likely not helpful in the overall pursuit of sustainable improvements for the benefit of the future of humanity.
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BaerbelW at 23:35 PM on 5 October 2022The Conspiracy Theory Handbook: Downloads and translations
On October 5, we added the Slovak translation of The Conspiracy Theory Handbooks thanks to the work of the Science+ project of Free Press for Eastern Europe.
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slumgullionridge at 22:50 PM on 5 October 2022Climate Change: They Lied
Very entertaining person. It leaves me with the question of where the blames should lie. Fossil fuel companies are making the stuff, but we are the one's burning it. When the price of motor fuel practically double this past spring, it, not the war in Ukraine or the overturn of Roe V Wade or the 8.5% inflation rate, commanded more attention. It seems to me that in order to reduce and finally eliminate most of the fossil fuels we fault as the leading cause of climate changing emissions, we need to severely ration, even outlaw much of its production.
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Jim Hunt at 19:03 PM on 5 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
With my "professional" hat on, here's some recent interesting news from California:
https://V2G.co.uk/2022/09/california-is-keen-on-v2g/According to Gavin Newsom:
"The opportunity now with electric vehicles, and the vehicle-to-grid technology, and the bi-directional opportunity of two way charging creates opportunities for million and millions of batteries on wheels...Low carbon green growth!"
Perhaps the question should be "Wait and buy when V2x is readily available" versus "Buy now and upgrade later"?
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:01 PM on 4 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
Really good regional government action would be trying to most rapidly make their regional power generation fully renewable.
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Charlie_Brown at 02:56 AM on 4 October 2022Thinking of buying an EV? Hurry up … and wait … or?
For some, the incentive is not just financial but also an interest in doing their part to reduce CO2 emissions. To this end, the source of electrical power adds another complication. In locations where the source is primarily coal, EV’s do not provide as much benefit. A couple years ago, the MIT Trancik Lab produced an interactive carbon counter for lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions by vehicle model which could be tuned to the source of power. Knowing your utility's source is best, but a quick filter allows selection by state as an estimate. However, to complicate it further, consider the source of increased power as demand for EV’s surges. A good government program to reduce CO2 emissions could incentivize EV sales in regional areas where they would be most effective.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:23 AM on 3 October 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
The following recent articles reinforce the understanding I presented in my comment @1.
NPR item "Facts come to the rescue in the age of gaslighting"
CBC Ideas item "American democracy is at a precipice, experts say. And time is ticking"
A harmfully selfish group has teamed up to fight as dirty as they can get away with in pursuit of personally benefiting the most and defending or excusing their ill-gotten gains. They argue that popularity and profitability must rule, as long as they benefit from what is popular and profitable. Think about Elon Musk's claim that Social Responsibility is to be judged by popularity and profitability.
Popular and profitable beliefs and actions can be undeniably harmful. And they develop powerful resistance to change. The more popular or profitable something has become the harder it can be to learn about how harmfully incorrect it is (corporate or political team secrecy is key). People benefiting unjustly will try to fight against investigation into the harmful incorrectness of the beliefs and actions they benefit from. And even if, by some fluke, the harmfulness of developed popular and profitable ideas and actions becomes knowable it can be very hard to get adoring passionate fans to change their made-up minds. Many people will simply resist learning about the harm and the need to correct and restrict popular and profitable beliefs and actions. Their interests are contrary to learning to limit the harm done to the future of humanity. And they will be tempted to believe they are justified to do what many did on January 6, 2020 (when a gang 'visited and toured' the USA Capitol)
Climate science is one of the many fronts that the diverse collective team of harmfully selfish people fight on. The people opposed to learning about climate science because they oppose the required corrections of what has developed can be seen to be teaming up with people who desire to resist corrections of understanding on other issues. They have a common sense of the need to prolong their ability to benefit unjustly. They sense the threat of evidence and constantly improving understanding that contradicts what they have developed a liking for.
Their way of fighting is to tempt people to like to believe misleading claims, often using carefully made messages that are likely to powerfully trigger unjustified fear or anger in easily impressed fans. And many people will become so unjustly fearful and angry that they will even persist in believing utter non-sense, and publicly act out in unjustified anger (January 6, 2020 comes to mind, but it is not the only example).
That harmful reality is on bold display in many of the supposedly 'most advanced nations' on this planet, not just the severely harmfully compromised USA. But the USA can be seen to be the likely origin of the global harmful plague of harmful fictions claimed to be Truth, including semi-fictions based on selective evidence like the claims that the global climate science conspiracy has been exposed by selected bits of stolen emails taken out of context.
Clearly, the future of humanity requires some people to be severely disappointed by having their beliefs and desired actions publicly robustly declared to be harmfully incorrect. Some people will powerfully resist learning, will not responsibly self-govern. They will require external governing to limit their ability to influence what happens ... because everybody's actions add up to form the future including, but not only, the future global surface climate conditions.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:59 AM on 2 October 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #39
Re: "How Do We Deal With the Polarization Around Climate Change? by Renee Cho, State of the Planet, Sep 23, 2022.
People like Peter Coleman (I also read his book "The Way Out"), appear to deliberately evade acknowledging the harmful realities of injustice and inequity developed and excused by the American Experiment's selfish competition for perceptions of superiority any way that can be gotten away with. They correctly identify that the GOP, with Gingrich as the poster boy, was the origin of the current political polarization. But then they fail to tag the leadership driving the GOP as the source of the problem. Polarization only requires one side to be denying the ‘evidence-based improving understanding of what is harmful, how to be more helpful and the requirement for significant changes of what has mistakenly become popular and profitable through marketplace failure, including political marketplace failure, to learn about, identify and limit harm done' (Note that Elon Musk claims that the marketplace will determine if Tesla's robot AI developments are ethical - a BBC article "Tesla boss Elon Musk presents humanoid robot Optimus" includes the following "Mr Musk contended that shareholders would determine if the publicly traded company was socially responsible.").
Political promotion of beliefs that are contrary to the best, and constantly improving, understanding based on all of the related evidence can undeniably create very challenging polarization, especially when the learning requires changes of perception regarding what is harmful and, as a result, changes perceptions of who deserves to be considered to be superior.
That evasion of understanding of the harmful selfishness developed in systems like the USA experiment in "the greatness of unfettered freedom" leads researchers to believe things like the following: "Research has found that people usually have one of two basic motives: preventive—those desirous of preventing harm; or promotive—those aimed at fostering tolerance or harmony."
Either of those two attitudes can be claimed to be a person's motivation when 'harmful selfishness and a related resistance to learning to be less harmful and more helpful' is more likely the motivation:
- Personal loss of status or loss of opportunity for higher status by externally forced corrections of beliefs and improved understanding and related restrictions on harmful actions can be considered to be "harming people who would lose if they cannot maintain harmfully incorrect beliefs and are less able to benefit from being more harmful". It can be considered to be even more harmful if the people who benefited from past harm done have to lose some status by being required to help those who were harmed.
- A person wanting to benefit from being harmful can believe they are right to demand compromises of understanding of what is harmful in order to "foster harmony and tolerance". That is like claiming that all beliefs are equally valid and therefore harmful beliefs have to be excused and accepted to show tolerance for, and have harmony with, people who oppose learning about a diversity of important evidence-based matters (learning to change a developed belief or lack of awareness and make amends for related harmful results on a diversity of evidence-based matters like the compendium of understanding regarding the Sustainable Development Goals.
There is little doubt that unjustified resistance to learning, excused by selfishness, is powerfully motivating the polarization on issues related to Climate Science.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:46 AM on 28 September 2022Why Eco Products aren't Climate Friendly
slumgullioridge,
What you see is the result of several trends. One is the enormous increase in productivity brought by automation and other factos. It is such that pretty much any industry nowadays has the potential to quickly reach production overcapacity, the capability of making far more of its products that the public can absorb.
The public is subjected to the highest possible advertisement and marketing pressures to incite buying, even in the absence of any real need, but that too reaches a limit. Programmed obsolescence is the next solution. Decreasing the quality and durability guarantees that a level of need of the product is retained that allows to channel the ridiculously excessive production. It also has the advantage of increasing profit margins, since lower quality products are usually cheaper to make.
Some manufacturers find even better ways, by actively controlling performance, like Apple, who intentionally slowed down older versions of their I-Phones to incite consumers to buy the newer models. This is the latest iteration in that trend, made possible by the company retaining control of a product that the consumer never really "owns." John Deere creates a somewhat similar situation with their farm equipment, by introducing electronic hardware and software that the end user can never have full control over, depriving them of the option to repair the equipment themselves.
The goal of these manufacturers is to place everyone in the position of a leasee rather than owner, with essentially no control over the product, how long they are going to keep it, what changes can be made to it, what data it collects, compiles and shares with what entities, etc.
It is also far more interesting for the manufacturer to be in a position where they receive a subscription, of an amount fixed by them, on a regular basis and for a predictable period of time, than a one time lump sum with no clear idea of what more is to come from that consumer in the future. The subscription/lease model is also more favorable by reducing the options for second-hand markets of used goods, which ideally for them would be completely eradicated.
Calling them "manufacturers" has itself become a misnomer. They are financial-industrial conglomerates that outsource the real manufacturing work to third parties, who interestingly can make products at the same plant that will come out wearing a variety of appearances and brand names (this is especially true for appliances, but also applies to automobiles and innumerable other products).
The very meaning of a brand has been considerably diluted. It is mostly a construct of advertisement, an abstraction that advertisers attempt to have us establish a relationship with. Keep your old power tools and take good care of them, they will soon be true things of the past, not just as objects, but as concepts.
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Elinaofsolarinverter at 23:59 PM on 27 September 2022Renewable energy is too expensive
Very much Informative
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Bob Loblaw at 22:39 PM on 27 September 2022Temp record is unreliable
To follow up Eclectic's comment at 525, there are many environmental/geological records that indicate various features of past climates. Vegetation and animal populations are often linked to local climate, and fossil evidence of past vegetation and animal abundance gives indications of past climates.
Tree rings go back thousands of years in some cases, and fossil trees can generate longer tree ring records - earlier than the oldest living tree in the area.
Pollen deposited in lake sediments indicates vegetation at the time the sediment was deposited. In many areas, the lake sediments have annual layers due to summer/winter variations in hydrology, so the layers are easily dated. Thickness of layers gives indications of rainfall/stream flow variations that affect the amount of sediment.
Eclectic mentioned ice cores, which can give both temperature information and atmospheric gas concentrations (CO2) going back hundreds of thousands of years.
A search here on "proxy" yields a couple of useful posts:
https://skepticalscience.com/Peter-Brannens-Paleo-Proxy-Twitter-Thread.html
https://skepticalscience.com/Tai-Chi-Temperature-Reconstructions.html
Wikipedia has some discussion of the "Hockey Stick"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_graph_(global_temperature)
Unless your friend knows details of the "reliability" of these many methods of examining past climates, he/she is arguing from a position of lack of knowledge.
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Eclectic at 21:55 PM on 27 September 2022Temp record is unreliable
Wongfeihung1984 @524,
please ask your friend to study how earlier regional temperatures were demonstrated by changes in Oxygen18 / Oxygen16 ratios (as in ice-cores drilled at Greenland & Antarctica) or Magnesium/Calcium ratios in marine sediments (or Strontium/Calcium ratios, likewise). Those, plus many other proxy measures of temperature in the natural world. can be brought together to give a fair guide as to past conditions.
It would be interesting to know if your friend has greater expertise in scientific matters, and can give a better accuracy than the usual knowledgeable scholars who study the topic extensively. From your description, the word "skeptic" is not what your friend qualifies as.
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Evan at 20:50 PM on 27 September 2022Warming climate makes extreme hurricane rains more likely for Puerto Rico
This paper does a good job of summarizing the complex interdependencies in the physical world that make modeling and prediction so difficult. A 7% increase in atmospheric water content per 1C warming does not sound like that much, until you combine it with the increased updrafts that draw in moisture from further out, and the linkage of a warming world to slower-moving storm systems.
But even if we don't understand the physics, the evidence for hurricanes becoming stronger is compelling from what we're routinely seeing on the evening news.
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Wongfeihung1984 at 18:57 PM on 27 September 2022Temp record is unreliable
Hi, a skeptic friend of mine told me we can't know what were the tempratures on the last 10 000 years before the invention of thermometers - let alone in prehistoric times - therefore data published by scientists is unreliable....
What can I tell him? -
scvblwxq1 at 05:42 AM on 26 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #38
The climate that the Earths is in is a long-term ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation or fifth ice age. The climate of the Earth alternates between normal temperatures and ice ages. The cause is the orbit of the Earth changes from a near circle like the present, and it is warmer, but not warm enough to melt all of the natural ice, to a slight ellipse. It then receives much less sunlight and the glaciers grow and advance and that ususally lasts about 90,000 years. The warm, near circular, time periods last about 10,000 years. This is all because of the pull of the other planets, mainly Jupiter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
Moderator Response:[PS] I am not quite sure what point you are trying to make, but note detailed write-up in this here https://skepticalscience.com/Milankovitch.html. Note that the Milankovich orbital cycles were only able to induce ice age when the CO2 level in atmosphere dropped by ~400ppm.
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slumgullionridge at 12:31 PM on 24 September 2022Why Eco Products aren't Climate Friendly
This is truly most perplexing. We have a cabin in the hills of WV, a family heirloom. It has a 1952 Kelvinator electric stove and oven, a 1948 Maytag wringer washer, a 1938 Coldspot refigerator that we replaced the Freon and gaskets about six years ago, a Rheem water heater built in 1971 and a 1952 DeWalt radial arm saw in the shed. They all work. I realize their styles are outdated, but their "looks" has little to do with their utility. It seems to me that industry could change the looks of an appliance, but retain a much longer reliability of the "guts" of the appliance that provide much more "in service" time and the opportunity to have it repaired when finally inoperative.
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nigelj at 07:19 AM on 24 September 2022Why Eco Products aren't Climate Friendly
Good advice, however while we try to keep our appliances as long as possible the industry is going in the opposite direction. The days where you could expect to own an appliance for 20 years and spare parts were kept in stock a long time, and made readily available to anyone, are long gone. It appears the latest home appliances are designed to only last about 10 years, and spare parts are only kept in stock a few years. My oven had some problems just last week, and I was talking to the repair technician about such issues. And sometimes now even simple repairs are more expensive than replacing the appliance. And forget repairing things yourself. The industry makes that as difficult as possible.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:44 AM on 24 September 2022The deadly connections between climate change and migration
Pursuing increased awareness and improved understanding leads to learning that the real problem is the reality that the highest harmful impacting over-consuming portion of the global population is not correcting their harmful unsustainable ways of living. The most harmful people are having the harmfulness of their actions in pursuit of personal interest 'effectively curtailed with the added requirement to make full amends for harm done that they benefited from'. In addition, many people incorrectly perceive those harmful over-consuming ways of living to be 'superior'. And many people strive to develop to become more harmful over-consuming people.
Also, the population problem is being more successfully addressed than the problem of how harmful and unsustainable the developed ways of living of the supposedly superior portion of the global population actually are. The recent study published in the Lancet "Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study" indicates that 'the rate of global population increase is declining'. And the peak value is expected to be lower (below 10 billion) if the Sustainable Development Goals are more rapidly achieved and improved on. In addition to achieving the SDGs resulting in a reduced peak global population, everyone pursuing more sustainable ways of living would reduce the per-capita harm done resulting in dramatically less harm being done to the future of humanity than failing to, or being slower to, achieve the SDGs.
Contrary to that success regarding global population, the 'rate of accumulating global warming climate change harm' has not yet peaked. And the rate of other harmful over-consumption has also not yet 'peaked'.
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slumgullionridge at 08:17 AM on 23 September 2022The deadly connections between climate change and migration
We must somehow face the problem of population. Statistics estimate another two billion humans by mid century. Every additional,human is another carbon footprint, another resource user, another potential liability on government and a contribution to more scarcity on a planet not getting any bigger or better.
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:01 AM on 23 September 2022Why Eco Products aren't Climate Friendly
This presents a great understanding regarding Sustainable Development that is Nothing New.
The older video "The Story of Stuff" is a great 20 minute presentation that is just one example of this issue being well presented many years ago. It is presented in a way that children can understand (tragically, this type of learning is resisted or discouraged by many adults, even some supposed Adult Leaders).
You can find "The Story of Stuff" on YouTube. But I suggest you go to the website that has been developed after that video was produced: Homepage - Story of Stuff at https://www.storyofstuff.org/
"The Story of Stuff" video is linked at the bottom of that webpage. But many other helpful videos have been developed as can be seen on the Homepage.
People should indeed learn to be careful about, and limit, their purchases of Stuff to limit the harm done by their actions (everybody's actions add up to become the future). But everyone should also be limiting their personal use of artificial energy. Even 'renewable energy production and use' has negative consequences. So it is important for people and societies to collectively limit their artificial energy use to 'essential Needs', not 'Popular and Profitable perceived to be essential Wants'. That reduction of energy use will help more rapidly reduce fossil fuel energy use.
There are many regions where renewable energy generation is being built in parallel with increased energy use. This can mean the fossil fuel use continues longer than it has to. And in some cases fossil fuel use increases even as more renewable energy generation is developed.
In closing. The harm limiting thing to do is download the Story of Stuff video and show it to your friends. Each download, or streaming, or sharing of all the data in a video is an increase of 'less-than-essential use of artificial energy', especially if the data for the video is higher definition transmitted over 'faster data transfer systems'. 5G is not necessarily a 'sustainable improvement'.
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michael sweet at 00:15 AM on 23 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
This Skeptical Science article describes Jacobson's plan from 2015. The plan has greatly changed since then as renewable prices have declined so much. The basic outline is similar but the costs are much lower for renewables.
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michael sweet at 22:51 PM on 22 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
David-acct,
How does comparing the energy generated for a few days in a small location like Minnesota relate to a study covering the entire USA for several years? Jacobson compares a complete renewable system with required power. What currently exists is a small amount of renewable energy added to a fossil system. I note that hundreds of papers support Jacobson's analysis while your "due diligence" is simply ignoring the data. What data do you have to show Jacobson's thirty second analysis is faulty? The unsupported word of an anonymous internet poster cannot be compared to hundreds of peer reviewed papers. Because you do not understand a paper does not mean that the paper is incorrect.
You provide no data to support your wild claim that 4 hour batteries cannot support renewable supplies. I note that if you have two four hour batteries you have enough power for eight hours.
I note that in the most recent heatwaves both California and Texas were saved from blackouts by strong renewable energy production and batteries that contributed at the key times of highest energy use. The problem in Europe is that the gas system is failing (as was the case in the Texas freeze).
You obviously do not understand that renewables are much more efficient than fossil fuels. For example, ICE engines in cars are less than 20% efficient while electric motors are 90% efficient. Switching from ICE to electric reduces the needed energy by a factor of four or greater. Likewise heat pumps are more than three times more efficient than fossil furnaces. Nuclear and other thermal power plants send 60-70% of the energy as waste heat into the cooling water. Wind and solar have no waste heat. Add all the efficiences together and you need 40% less primary power.
Read the background to educate yourself. The people at Skeptical Science can help answer your questions once you have aquired some basic knowledge.
Hint: if you think you see an obvious logical error in a peer reviewed paper if means that you do not understand what you are reading.
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pattimer at 20:25 PM on 22 September 2022Why Eco Products aren't Climate Friendly
Great to hear that more people are realising that we really need to stop by stuff that we don't need and with Christmas coming up a very important message.
There are of course things that we do need and what we need to think about is values. At present we measure success in terms of indescriminate growth regardless of its usefulness or value. Our economic models need to change otherwise we will never solve the energy/ environment problems.
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David-acct at 10:33 AM on 22 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #36
M Sweet
interesting study in cost of renewables , though
In my world, due diligence is paramount. We compare our results against real world data.
The purpose of providing these links is so that the reader can perform some level of due diligence based on real world data provided from government sources.
I have attached the EIA.gov link for the electric generation by source for the United States.
I have attached the link to the German government website that provides similar data for Germany.
I have also attached the link for the electric generation from wind and solar for the state of Minnesota.
https://healthy-skeptic.com/2022/09/21/renewable-energy-and-false-advertising/
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48
Jacobson's claim is that he tested his model every thirty (30) seconds without failure. Based on a due diligence review of the electricity production, the claim of success every thirty seconds is dubious.
So far, Jacobson and his team have run simulations for the all renewable, four-hour battery roadmaps for six individual states – Alaska, Hawaii, California, Texas, New York and Florida, and the contiguous 48 states taken together. (For the rest of the states, Jacobson has approximate simulations, which are available here.)
Jacobson's claim that 4 hour battery backups is not a reasonable assumption based on real world data. Please see the EIA link which shows 3-5 day periods without wind or solar. a 4 day battery storage is 20x short for the typical 4 day doldrums that occur most every month across the planet.
Also note the wind lost 90% of power across the entire North American continent during the Feb 2021 freeze for 4 full days,
Another statement by Jacobson - " Efficiency alone reduces projected 2050 electricity demand by 39.3% – even as every end use, including transportation, converts to electricity. "
Can anyone spot the logic error
In Summary - due diligence is paramount.
Moderator Response:[BL] Much of the previous discussion of Jabobsen's work has taken place on the "Is Nuclear Energy the Answer" post. If this conversation is to continue, I suggest moving it there, for continuity's sake.
Also, statements such as "Can anyone spot the logic error" are not constructive. If you see some sort of logic error and want people to respond, make your point.
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ubrew12 at 22:23 PM on 21 September 2022Lithium: Storing more clean power with less pollution
It's possible, at least for grid-scale batteries, to use Sodium instead of Lithium. That's obviously very abundant in ocean water.
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pattimer at 21:18 PM on 21 September 2022Lithium: Storing more clean power with less pollution
Just noticed that the article nigelj posted above partly addresses my question above. :-"Choi adds that the approach might also prove useful for recovering lithium from discarded batteries, giving the metal a second lease on life—and potentially supercharging the ascendancy of electric vehicles".
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pattimer at 21:13 PM on 21 September 2022Lithium: Storing more clean power with less pollution
This article gives us some reassurance. Just a question though. In estimating 40% of the world's future needs how much has recycling been taken into account? I have heard/read negative comments regarding the future recycling of lithium. Perhaps you already have an article on this?
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nigelj at 07:42 AM on 21 September 2022Lithium: Storing more clean power with less pollution
Another potential source of lithium: "Seawater could provide nearly unlimited amounts of critical battery material. New technique uses electrodes to extract lithium from seawater" Refer here.
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One Planet Only Forever at 05:51 AM on 20 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
MA Rogers,
Another way of describing the likes of Epstein is 'people with a developed bias for excusing what they personally benefit from because they can understand that what they like to believe and benefit from is harmful and unjust'.
And making up excuses like claiming that 'a warmer Arctic is better' is part of the absurd nonsense they seem to faithfully, loyally, and passionately believe.
And, tragically, many people are easily tempted to want to believe harmful nonsense and claim that learning about the need to change their mind to be less harmful and more helpful to other people and other life would cause Too Much Progressive thinking for their mind to deal with ... too much awakening and improved understanding threatens their developed mental state and related personal desires.
And, of course, the likes of Epstein evade the reality that any perceptions of benefit from fossil fuel use cannot be sustained when the fossil fuels become too difficult to continue to 'benefit from'. Humanity has millions of years of habitability to adapt to and improve ways of living as part of a robust diversity of life on this amazing planet. Fossil fuel use ruins that future no matter how optimistic the Destructive Utilitarians are that things will always only get better for humans.
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MA Rodger at 04:54 AM on 20 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Epstein apparently prides himself on being "known for his willingness to debate anyone, anytime" having "publicly debated leading environmentalist organizations such Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and 350.org over the morality of fossil fuel use." This I find difficult to understand. Have none of these numerous debates managed to nail-down what Epstein is actually proposing? In the last decade fossil-fuel-use runs to something like 75Gt coal, 45Gt oil & 35 billion m^3 gas. Epstein is proposing we use more of this stuff. How much more? With eight decades to run until 2100, what level of FF-use is he suggesting through that period? And if he answers, it will then be plain what he means by a +5°C temp rise being "extreme speculation."
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One Planet Only Forever at 03:38 AM on 20 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Epstein appears to be a Destructive Utilitarian. He seems to argue, like many others who prioritize 'pursuits of personal benefit' over 'learning not to harm other people or other life', that harm done in pursuit of personal benefit is justifiable ... because of the benefit.
A recent development by these Destructive Utilitarians (harmful selfish people) is claiming that increased awareness and understanding of developed harmful beliefs and actions (developed injustice) is 'being woke in a way that is Too Progressive'. They are likely to try to claim that any increased awareness and improved understanding of the need to change what has developed and make amends for the harms done is Too Progressive, and that promotion of that type of learning proves (in their harmfully made-up minds) the unacceptability of encouraging people to be more Woke (woke beyond the injustice of treatment of Blacks in the USA).
The following CBC item is just one example of the New Right anti-Progress attempts to denigrate the term Woke in harmful unjust ways.
So who's 'woke,' what does it mean and how is it being used in Canadian politics?
Increased awareness and understanding regarding the climate change harmfulness of fossil fuel use and the need to rapidly end the accumulation of harm from fossil fuel use is just another subset of what the New Right will try to denigrate as being Woke - Too Progressive.
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MA Rodger at 02:41 AM on 20 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Eclectic @1,
The vocal denialist you raise here, Alex Epstein (Wikkithihg page), is a vacuous non-scientific motor-mouth. He has nothing to say yet still says an awful lot.
He brands himself a philosopher & energy expert and says his approach to AGW & its mitigation is "pro-human."
There is a Dessler/Epstein thing from Nov 2021 (MP Podcast #126) which is 80 mins long with Epstein being interviewed in the first half and Dessler in the second, so you would perhaps waste less of your life on it than the hour long March 2022 debate. And the Nov 2021 does include Dessler recommending some go-to climate site called 'ScepticalScience,'
In his Nov 2021 40 mins Epstein tries to set out his own crazy AGW debate with the impacts of AGW being considered as side-effects of FF-use which apparently are trivial relative to the benefits of FF-use.
For instance drought is no problem as FF can enable a water supply to be provided. And even within climate, we must balance positive against negative. So Arctic amplification is making a cold place less cold, which is good. And don't forget the fertilizing effect of CO2. His message is that we "should be using far far more FF."The Epstein interview does address AGW for a portion - 23:00 to 26:00
So we are far safer today from climate problems than ever (because, for instance, there are far less climate-related-disaster deaths). And we also ignore adaptation to AGW.
Three things would worry Epstein with AGW. (1) Runaway AGW but that's impossible. (2) Storms becoming 3 or 4 times more powerful but they are only 10% more powerful. (3) SLR at multi-feet per decade but it's only 3ft in a century.Later he says we've invested (in how we live today) AGW and that "could be inconvenient based on SLR and temp change and stuff " but it is really slow - +2°C (so a second 1°C rise from now) by the end of the century. This is not a problem. Concern over AGW is "a total denial of human mastery." (36:00).
...
There is also Epstein's "20 myths about fossil fuels, refuted" from August 2022. This is mostly about energy & power supply. The only climate stuff is #13, 16, 17 &18 for which he strangely has the same answer - AGW's impacts as "speculation" or in the case of a +5°C temp rise "extreme speculation."
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Eclectic at 19:39 PM on 19 September 20222022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #37
Apropos not very much ~ I came across a reference to a momentously important "debate" between scientist Andrew Dessler [Atmospheric Sciences] and author Alex Epstein [contrarian] which was held in March 2022 . Published on YouTube . . . and showing 19,000 views in just over 6 months.
Knowing something of Epstein's propagandist track record, it seemed unlikely that Epstein would come up with anything worth giving consideration to. And indeed, Epstein's later written "rebuttal" to Dessler showed tiresome banality & word-shuffling of the usual denialist type.
(Please let me know if anyone here at SkS has seen that particular video and thought it worth viewing. I gather that Dessler occasionally gives face-to-face "debates" with such non-scientists, but I have never yet heard of any contrarians who have raised any valuable points.
There was also a Dessler debate against Steven Koonin [physicist & contrarian] who definitely qualifies for a [non-climate] scientist, but who likewise failed to make any valid points against Dessler, IMO. )
