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Comments 53951 to 54000:

  1. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Before: "The IPCC is directing research results in pursuit of a political agenda therefore global warming is falsified." After: "I don't like be called a conspiracy theorist therefore global warming is falsified for reasons that have become impossible for me to mention without being laughed at." I'm not sure there's any input necessary at ArsTechnica. Once air is admitted into the package the process of decomposition becomes inexorable; people will read the article, then they'll read the comments, then they'll form conclusions.
  2. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    Also to note in China, while building coal faster than retiring, they are also retiring old inefficient coal stations. According to our marketing people (got software for sale for thermal plants), "From 2006 to 2010, China retired almost 71 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity, including 11 gigawatts in 2010, and it plans to retire an additional 8 gigawatts in 2011."
  3. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Meanwhile, over at ArsTechnica, John Timmer's piece on the survey is attracting hordes of deniers, offering the full menu of denier tropes. Input from people who understand climate science is needed.
  4. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    @Mark-US (#78) We both forgot ~1F down the pipeline although that's technically not a feedback.
  5. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    gws, Perhaps a better analogy would be: A head-on collision with another vehicle is imminent. You're travelling three times as fast as the other vehicle. Do you: 1. Brake as hard as you can to minimise the impact as much as you are able to? 2. Signal to the other driver that you'll only brake if he does? 3. Say "Braking won't prevent the collision so there's no point, let's just adapt to what happens afterwards"?
  6. Antarctica is gaining ice
    GRACE, Icesat and models all agree on that interior of Antarctica accumulates ices while there is iceloss on the margins. However, size matters and the mass loss or gain depends of the relative magnitudes. Any GCM model-based estimate of sealevel rise would be based on Antarctica accumulating ice. As far as I know, these have only very primitive icesheet dynamics (if any) so sea level results from such an approach are so uncertain that the AR4 statement excluded them entirely. Vermeer and Rahmsdorf instead a semi-empirical approach. This also doesnt incorporate any icesheet dynamics so I dont think this result has any bearing on the estimate at all.
  7. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    M Tucker,
    I really think you have given India and China too much credit.
    I don't think we give them enough. Seriously. It's a bit rich for people in Australia, Canada, or the US to complain about China's emissions when their per-capita emissions are only about 1/3 of ours and they are responsible for only about 9% of total emissions to date, which is what got us into this problem in the first place. I use "per-capita" there very deliberately because the only reason why "China" has a lot of emissions is because you've drawn a line around 20% of the world's population, added up all their emissions, and pointed out how big it is. Why stop there? Americans could draw a line around the US and then add up everyone else's emissions and say "Look, that pesky RoW is responsible for over 80% of the emissions, I think we should wait until they get their house in order before we start cutting." Each country should be focussing on their own per capita emissions. That way it doesn't matter if you're a big country or a small country, you're only being asked to take care of your fair share. We often hear that Australia is only responsible of less than 2% of global emissions, for example — that's fine, we're only being asked to take care of that 2%. Nobody is expecting us to counteract somebody else's emissions. What makes it even more ironic is that China really is doing a lot. They have 25 nuclear reactors under construction right now, and planning to have a nuclear capacity of 60 GWe by 2020, then 200 GWe by 2030, and 400 GWe by 2050 (ibid.). Their growth in wind power has been absolutely phenomenal — over 60 GW added in six years, equivalent to about 20 GW of nuclear or coal capacity. Yes, they have also added huge amounts of coal power over the years as well, but they seem to be actually doing an awful lot more than many countries who actually should be doing a lot more.
    Do not confuse investments in wind and solar industries with actually constructing wind and solar plants in their own countries.
    If other countries were actually constructing wind farms as quickly as China has been in China then that would be great.
    If you are willing to believe any of China’s “five year plans” I have a bridge I’d like to talk to you about.
    Back in 2005 China set a target of 30 GW of wind capacity by 2020. 18 months later they increased it to 40 GW because they were ahead of schedule. They reached 40 GW three years later instead of 13 years later. Now their target is 150 GW by 2015 — an increase of 90 GW over their 2011 capacity. Given their history of under-promising and over-delivering, and the fact that they've managed 20 GW/year in the past, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
  8. Antarctica is gaining ice
    Barry, please do look up those projections. I suspect you'll find them weighted more to the Northern Hemispheric contributions and to the thermal expansion component.
  9. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    Additionally, Arctic sea ice extent and area have been declining in every single month of the year for over 30 years. What's up with that?
  10. Antarctica is gaining ice
    Those responses seem a bit cynical. Yes, (AR4) climate models projected increasing mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet over the 21st century. Observational analyses since then have tended to discern a mass loss, which was a surprise result - although I can't remember anyone ever mentioning that recent results were in opposition to the models (and perhaps I'm being a bit cynical here myself). The "big deal", to my mind, is that if the ICESat analysis is robust, there are implications for sea level projections, which of late have been much higher than AR4. I need to go back and read some of those papers, but IIRC the recent hike in sea level projections is strongly rooted in the perceived loss (acceleration?) of Antarctic ice sheet mass balance. AR4 projected a negative sea level contribution from the Antarctic ice sheet. I don't think SkS should wave these results away, but present them as an update with the appropriate caveats. If Zwally was up for it, a post by him here would be terrific for all sorts of reasons.
  11. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    The mass of a bulb is tiny compared to the contents of the room - how could such a trace item have any effect on the light?
  12. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    @villabolo (76) You forgot Release of arctic fossil carbon stores (by us)
  13. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    @Skywatcher #70: Thanks for responding to the questions. Re a prominent British alarmist, Winston Churchill would be my first choice,
  14. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    John Hartz@68 Oh, yeah, there was more to the post than the cartoon, wasn't there? Re: James Hansen. Alarmist? No, not with any negative connotation. Realist, is more like it. The alarmists are the ones that have been saying for years that we'll destroy the economy and send everyone back to the horse and buggy days if we try to reduce fossil fuel use. (We may send everyone back to the horse and buggy days, but it will be because we failed to deal with global warming and society collapsed because of it. Now that's getting alarmist.) Re: similar figures to Paul Revere in my country? Well, in Canada, many years ago, a national radio program had a contest to see who could come up with a phrase "As American as apple pie" for Canada: i.e., "As Canadian as ...." The winner was... "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances." We're not renowned for sticking our necks out, but the Paul Revere reference made me think that the most famous alarmist in Canada's history was probably Laura Secord. There was a time when every kid in school heard the story of her warning the troops in the War of 1812, but her fame is probably more related to the use of her name to sell chocolates. ...but returning to the important task of filling balloons: "I know that 97 electricians have said you need to change that light bulb, but I've got an expert plumber and a petition signed by 30,000 landscape designers that says it doesn't."
  15. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Sphaerica @ 64 - yes, their output is measured in µWatts...
  16. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    Stevo @4 "will make dismantling of the Australian scheme more difficult" Not really. No law cannot be undone. Besides, if it's "too difficult" all the Libs would have to do is raise the threshold where the tax sets in to some ridiculous level that no company meets. Voila, carbon tax gone. It will be interesting to watch the circus in Canberra, but the end of the day is we need to get off fossil fuels. Now or later, that's the reality. Even if you don't believe in climate change, the economic justification for moving towards self-sufficient energy policies (alternative energies) far outweighs the economics of continuing to import a reducing-supply commodity.
  17. A vivid demonstration of knee-jerk science rejection
    Chuck101 @ 121 Eric did not inquire of my meaning in comment 66, but since he brought up CATO in #65. Since this topic includes the relationship of anti-science beliefs and {"free market ideology," "laissez faire free market," "free market fundamentalism" or "market fundamentalism," or whatever one wants to call it}, it seemed apropos. Although the extreme versions of those are uncommon here in the heart of Silicon Valley, they are wonderful excuses for taking money to do PR & lobbying for companies that "privatize the profits and socialize the losses/risks." The tobacco companies are especially well-documented by virtue of the tobacco archives. Hence, Fake science noted the connections of Heartland and Fred Singer to tobacco, especially pp.37-46, including the fact that almost all adult smokers start by age 18, typically around 13-14. That wasn't about CATO, but p.39 showed the 1991-2001 $ from Philip Morris alone: of the thinktanks there, CATO was #3 after the Washington Legal Foundation and Americans for Tax Reform. p.40 includes a line on CATO as to the key actions CATO would take for PM: Op-eds, media policy briefs, Letters to Editor ... CATO was acting as a PR agency, but doubly tax-free. But that's just $ from PM, who seemed better organized or turned over the documents. RJR was harder to find, but see CATO President Edward H. Crane, in this 1995 letter to R.J.Reynolds: 'Just a note to add my thanks to those of Bob Borens for the generous $50,000 contribution from RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company in support of the Cato Institute's Regulatory Rollback and Reform project. We are delighted to have RJ Reynolds as a significant corporate supporter of the Institute and look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead . For now, I've enclosed a copy of a piece I had in the Washington Post last week along with information on our upcoming Benefactor Summit, which we'd be delighted to have you attend. Let's get together for lunch on one of your upcoming trips to Washington . Thank you again for your support and best wishes for the New Year.' CATO has taken money, year after year, to help Big Tobacco first steal the personal freedom and eventually the lives of many children by addicting them to nicotine. In comment 65 Eric writes "I accept this challenge for the right with the important caveat that I support much of CATO's stand on personal freedom" Maybe Eric will return to discuss a possible contradiction with the material above. CATO publishes Pat Michaels' books, and spent $$ to run this ad in a bunch of US newspapers. There has been some ExxonMobil money and of course, much from the Kochs, for whom CATO has been a long-term project. Thus it is no surprise that extreme free-market ideology correlates well with anti-science: a few people get paid to generate the beliefs. Curiously, many of the thinktank folks who do so don't seem to actually have spent much time in any real, productive, competitive free market, but they surely talk about it a lot. That was similarly true of the 4 scientists at the focus of Merchants of Doubt.
  18. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Poor John Cook...he must reading this thread, holding his head in his hands, and thinking, "What have I *done?* {=:D
  19. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    Given that this is a policy thread, it's probably as good a place as any for commenting on something about which I've been thinking for a while. I suspect that AR5 will be the last assessment report that will be focussed on what humans need to do in terms of emissions to prevent serious climate change. AR6+ will be more focussed on beginning the documentation of how we missed the boat, how we set in train the destruction of a benign global climate, and how we can best slow the trip to the calamity that is so disparaged by the denialati. Basically, after 2013 these reports will be musak for the CO2/temperature elevator.
  20. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    "Changing bulbs is useless - the darkness isn't sensitive, anyway"
  21. Record Arctic Sea Ice Melt to Levels Unseen in Millennia
    JackW #45, one other point, in case it hasn't been made explicitly, is that Arctic ice is declining in all seasons. See for example NSIDC data here, and illustrated excellently in Tamino's animated Arctic graphs. So it's a bit of a fallacy to state that Arctic ice recovers every winter - it's not. But September ice extent/area is declining significantly quicker than March ice extent/area. And on volume plots, the zero point is not very far away. It's a blunt rhetorical question, but what will the extent be when volume hits zero?
  22. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    How can an assessment of climate policies pretend to be complete without including nuclear policies. Here's a reminder of the significance: OECD Electricity generation by fuel
  23. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    I have come into possession of a (stolen) email from one of the so-called 'electrical engineers' from the company responsible for the power supply. In it, the engineer talks about 'buying more light'. This proves beyond a shadow (ahem!) of a doubt that there is plenty of light available to the company, and the rumours of a so-called 'dead light bulb' are actually an insidious plot to impose Socialist power restrictions in pursuit of a fraudulent, sacrilegious austerity drive against The Free Market and with the long-term goal of a one-world government blah blah blah... (snip seven paragraphs) For your convenience in understanding and properly interpreting this crucial information, I have omitted the other thirty thousand emails as irrelevant distractions, as well as the rest of the sentence in the email, which continues 'milk for the tea room tomorrow'. An obvious attempt at obfuscation, not to mention further sinister evidence of CONSPIRACY and attempts to disguise incriminating evidence. Most of the other, equally incriminating emails will be released in due course, following the imminent publication of my paradigm-shattering paper on this subject in the PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL /Entropy and Entertainment/. The paper will be modestly entitled 'The Final Final Nail In The Coffin Of The Communist-Inspired So-Called 'Dark Room Theory'. I ask no reward for my services for sanity beyond a Nobel like the one which was given to Monckton. Genius must, after all, have its due. PS: Einstein was wrong, and Al Gore is still fatty fat fat!
  24. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    And anyone who complains that my graph of the data is scaled in degrees kelvin should remember that space, which is dark, is also cold so of course my graph will span 0-300 K.
  25. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    JH #68, I would probably respond to your first poser by noting that most climate scientists, and summaries of climate science in general like the IPCC are very conservative (rather obviously pointing to SkS argument #34), making reference to the loss of Arctic ice and rises in sea level that are well above the IPCC projections. Depending on the circumstance and readers, I might point to Freudenberg and Muselli. If it were about Hansen specifically, I'd note that Hansen's views do tend towards the more pessimistic, but also that he's been correct on a lot of things, which is not a comforting thought. I'm sure there are good figures from British history to fit the term "alarmist"; my terminally softened brain can't think of any just now.
  26. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    GWS, Those downward curves are to my way of thinking fantasy. Wishful thinking. And, if you really think that we have not already ensured that the world will experience 2 to 3 degrees of warming after equilibrium with our current CO2 levels you just haven’t been reading the science and have been spending too much time listening to bureaucrats. “Dire Predictions” by Michael Mann and Lee R Kump. Any article by Dr Kump. Article in American Scientist by Marci Robinson May-June 2011 “Pliocene Climate Lessons.” With CO2 levels similar to today’s the earth warmed 2 to 3 degrees and sea level stood about 25 meters (yes meters) higher at equilibrium.
  27. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    This is all a storm in a teacup. How can something that we can't see (carbon dioxide) cause something that we can't see (the dark)? It's a fraud, a conspiracy. In fact, if one looks carefully at my graph of the data one will see that there is no relationship between the two.
  28. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    If you need to take break from writing toon balloons, please answer the two questions that I posed in the "What say you" section of the OP. The two questions: How do you react when somebody labels you or a prominent climate scientist such as James Hansen an "alarmist"? Paul Revere is perhaps the most famous alarmist in the history of America. Is there a comparable figure in your country's history?
  29. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Back in the saddle... "More than 35,000 people with high school and/or college degrees have signed a petition rejecting the theory that electricity causes a lightbulb to glow."
  30. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    From today’s (Sept 11) Bloomberg Businessweek. "Inner Mongolia’s rivers are feeding China’s coal industry, turning grasslands into desert. In India, thousands of farmers have protested diverting water to coal- fired power plants, some committing suicide. The struggle to control the world’s water is intensifying around energy supply. China and India alone plan to build $720 billion of coal-burning plants in two decades, more than twice today’s total power capacity in the U.S., International Energy Agency data show. Water will be boiled away in the new steam turbines to make electricity and flush coal residue at utilities from China Shenhua Energy Co. (1088) to India’s Tata Power Co. (TPWR) that are favoring coal over nuclear because it’s cheaper. With China set to vaporize water equal to what flows over Niagara Falls each year, and India’s industrial water demand growing at twice the pace of agricultural or municipal use, Asia’s most populous nations will have to reconsider energy projects to avoid conflict between cities, farmers and industry." Just part of the article. Search China Coal in google news. It paints a rosy picture of the “green giant of Asia” doesn’t it? I wonder why China is putting pressure on those islands that Japan claims? Could it be natural gas? Yep, China sure seems to be committed to wind and solar… DSL I'm not abandoning anything. Our governments have abandoned us.
  31. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    A short aside before I go pick up the kids: Interestingly, and for what it's worth, the 10-yr linear trend on average thickness projected to zero intercept lands on 2021 for Aug 23rd. That date has the highest rate of decline when using a 10-year trend. When using a 30 yr trend, zero intercept is 2020 for the same date.
  32. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    M Tucker, I don't think you're not disturbed. I was just concerned by the way the sentiment was concluded. Just because mitigation has thusfar failed to any significant extent, that's no reason to abandon it. The message your final sentence might send to the science-naive individual is "Ah, so I don't need to cut back on energy or buy those Shasta White shingles, because we're screwed anyway." It might be saying that even though you want to say, "Plan to adapt, but continue to try to mitigate, because mitigation at any level makes adaptation less painful -- whether it's you or your grandchildren."
  33. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    wait, wait until the bishop comes over the hill ... he will say "let there be light" or something ... never mind
  34. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    China's nothing if not pragmatic, at least in a selective way. China is also a fascinating case of a political system where grand experiments that economists elsewhere can only dream of may be implemented overnight, arbitrarily and without hesitation: A Chinese City Moves to Limit New Cars The municipal government of Guangzhou, a sprawling metropolis that is one of China’s biggest auto manufacturing centers, introduced license plate auctions and lotteries last week that will roughly halve the number of new cars on the streets. Leaving aside the many defects of the context in which this is possible, it's incautious to dismiss China's ability to pivot around emerging challenges. By skipping the details of discussing what might go wrong, how to let the invisible hand of the market brainlessly grope its way to a decision, where to stop the endless process of R&D (aka "perfection") and instead "choosing" to move quickly to deployment China has installed more than the equivalent of 40 nuclear plants' worth of solar domestic hot water production in the past few years. Here in "progressive" Seattle we can't get the building code to steer new home construction toward installation of solar DHW, in spite of the fact that a reasonable deployment density would eliminate consumption equivalent of the single coal power plant now operating in Washington state. All sorts of excuses were made over this, including from unlikely sources such as architects who are presumably wringing their hands over feng shui. We talk, the Chinese do. We don't want to emulate their political system but we should strive to imitate their alacrity.
  35. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    DSL, if you think I’m not disturbed then I guess I need to use more forceful language. People who deny climate change have nothing to say about adaptation because it is unnecessary because nothing unusual is happening. Please direct me to any mitigation in progress that has done anything to end the relentless rise in CO2 or even slowed the increase. I mean actual numbers because I am well aware of the pathetically small increases in clean energy installations. I’m not saying we should not try to mitigate this tragedy I’m saying that the majority of the polluting nations are doing nothing to mitigate this tragedy and they will continue as before. China is the most polluted nation on earth at the moment. What little installations of wind and solar China has actually done is insignificant to the amount of coal they consume. And they are only consuming more. Their domestic sources are not enough to keep up with their relentless demand. So much so that they have created an environmental nightmare in Mongolia…AND THAT IS NOT ENOUGH. China requires coal to be imported from Australia and Indonesia and even from as far away as the US. They are a coal consuming monster. And will they simply walk away from those coal power plants 10 or 15 years from now when they are still in their prime? I doubt it because they are very economically pragmatic people. So I’m not calling for governments to adapt to the climactic catastrophe thundering toward us I am saying that prudent individuals need to look for adaptive strategies because our governments have other priorities.
  36. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    Tucker @16 Think of global warming as a train wreck that we know is going to happen. "We" are the people on Earth, the people on the train. Your suggestion implies that we should not intend to slow the train because it is going to crash anyway, so just get cushions and hold on ... while that makes sense, it also does to try to slow the train down so that the wreck will be less horrible and easier to cushion. Check out the post here
  37. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    Michael Mann's Amazon reviews falsify global warming, is that the gist? Starvation diet in some quarters. When you're boiling your boots for your next meal it's time to consider quietly slipping out of camp.
  38. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    I'm trying to make a list of positive feedback loops that would affect the Arctic melt. I'll list some of the obvious ones but there are some, in this list (in bold), that I've never heard mentioned before. Please tell me if there are more of if some of the ones I’ve mentioned are too insignificant: 1) Change in ocean albedo as well as land albedo 2) Ponding. 3) Rotten ice. 4) Siberian Permafrost. a) Increased surface area and depth of permafrost melt b) Increased metabolism of Methanogens throughout the melted permafrost. Microorganisms have a highly reduced metabolism in temperatures slightly above freezing which dramatically increases with small changes in their environment. I’ve brought this up before but I haven’t received an answer. c) Another amplification of both temperature and methanogen metabolism would be the albedo effect of the numerous and (ever increasing) number of lakes. 5) Increased melt of fresh water from Greenland. 6) Rain (occasional) at the fringes of Siberia and Canada + runoff into the ocean + enhanced glacier melt from the rain. Are there models that take all of these factors into account?
  39. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    DSL: Yes, that makes sense. It's not a summer minimum thickness, but a minimum when you're adding lots of thin ice in the early fall/winter. The idea of an "average thickness" is complicated by the large areas that transition from ice to no-ice. Calculating an average for the entire Arctic ocean (including ice-free areas where thickness=0 would decrease the average) would give a different number from calculating average ice thickness only for those areas covered in ice (which is what Tamino's volume/area number represents). Tamino's graph also has it at around 1.4m now. Sort of like the difference between calculating average income for everyone (GDP/population), or average income only for people that actually have an income (GDP/number of working people).
  40. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    villabolo, by my calculations, average thickness was 1.43 meters on day 246 (Sept. 2). Thickness declines during freezeup, and min thickness usually occurs right around mid-November, but this has been changing quite a bit. It occurred on the 29th of October last year.
  41. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Sph@64.... Sphaerica's Just Dessserts.... {;-D
  42. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    villabolo: Neven's sea ice blog is an obvious place to look for information, but you can also go over to Tamino's blog, where he recently did a post that looked at sea ice volume/area (which basically is thickness). His third graph is the one to look at - it shows that back around 1980, the thickness ranged from 2m (summer) to 3m (winter max), whereas now it is more like 1m summer and 2m winter. [6'=1.8m for the conversion-impaired]
  43. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    M Tucker @16 - I don't think you're being fair to China, which is installing a lot of solar and wind. Yes they're also still installing new coal because of the sheer speed of their development, but they recognize not only the climate impacts, but also the air quality and direct health impacts of those new coal plants. It's also not an either-or choice between mitigation and adaption. We will have to do both, but the more mitigation we manage, the less adaptation (and suffering) will be necessary.
  44. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    M Tucker, while I don't have anything to say (right now) about the bulk of your comment, the last sentence really bugs me, because it's the new meme going around from the professional doubters. It ostensibly assumes (wrongly) that we're going to move in step-like fashion from one climate regime to the next, and since we now cannot stop that step from happening, we should just start preparing. I know that might not be what you're after, but it's disturbing to read anyway.
  45. Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
    I suppose his is the best place to bring this up. It's a new (to me) prevarication by AGW denialists. The accusation is that Michael Mann has been: ' caught astroturfing Amazon.com with the help of none other than John Cook author of your climate bible Skeptical Science. Seems Mike sent John a pre release copy of his book "The Hockey Stick Wars" that was distributed via the back door to a number of people to read and write reviews to be "in the holster" for the day of release. ' Another related accusation (by the same culprit, dalyplanet, in the same blog on the same day) is that the reviews were manipulated by John Cook and Michael Mann. Dalyplanet has posted to SkS under the same ID. The offensive accusations occur here. I provided a short defense, but there is no point in trying to convince dalyplanet of anything. No one listens to him anymore and he is as much an Internet troll as anything else. I can see why Michael Mann saw the need to write this book. I may even read it.
  46. Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
    I'm curious, what's the average thickness of the ice cap? I heard it was around 6' but I believe it's thinner.
  47. Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
    I really think you have given India and China too much credit. Are they still building coal power plants? How are their coal imports given the fact that they both have active coal mining industries? Do not confuse investments in wind and solar industries with actually constructing wind and solar plants in their own countries. It is a well know fact that China wishes to corner the wind and solar markets IN OTHER COUNTRIES. If you are willing to believe any of China’s “five year plans” I have a bridge I’d like to talk to you about. They remind me of the endless succession of unfulfilled “five year plans” that the old Soviet Union used to come up with during the 1960’s and ‘70’s. And China lies all the time about what their industrial and power plant emissions actually are. India is a completely different story. Not in the same league as China. It is basically a basket case. It still takes aid money while doling out aid to even poorer counties. It still subsidizes kerosene for lighting rural villages. In the most prosperous cities freshwater is delivered by truck. Power outages are a common occurrence in the nation’s capital. I certainly don’t expect India and China to be able to do anything to stop their relentlessly increasing CO2 emissions, or any of the other pollution problems they suffer from, anytime soon. Likewise I don’t expect the US to be able to do anything to initiate a carbon tax or a cap’n trade scheme. It is not up to the President it is up to congress. Now, I’m taking a chance here because I have been deleted before for “political remarks” and it does say “Political…comments will be deleted.” But SkepticalScience did choose the topic. So I will carry on…Since it is up to congress I’m sure you are all aware of the rampant conspiracy theory loving anti-science Republicans who dominate the House of Representatives and who are the minority party in the Senate. Since they dominate the House no climate bill will originate there and they will not take up a bill from the Senate if, by some miracle, the Senate were to pass one. Since, due to the “filibuster rule” in the Senate, the minority party actually has the majority by the throat, they can stop any bill the majority brings up. And it is possible for the Republicans to win the majority in the Senate with the upcoming elections so ending all possibility for climate legislation. The President and the Executive branch can do some minor things with the EPA but those new rules are being fought out in the courts and the court of ultimate appeal is dominated by the ultra-conservatives. As for the XL pipeline I think relations with our largest single nation trading partner has more to do with the final decision than CO2 emissions. Canada has only one way to get that sticky mess they call oil to foreign markets and that is through the US. US courts have granted that foreign multinational corporation eminent domain rights to force farmers to allow the pipeline to cross their land. So Obama will probably allow the pipeline to say on good terms with Canada and the farmers are powerless to stop it. So whatever the other more intelligent nations of the world might do, carbon pollution will not be reduced in the next 10 years or so. And most probably CO2 emissions will continue to increase for at least another 15 to 20 years. When we finally get the majority of the polluting nations to agree to some kind of policy it will only reduce CO2 emissions not end them. So world wide atmospheric CO2 will continue to go up at a slower pace. What we all need to do is start thinking about adaptation because mitigation seems out of the question.
  48. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    Okay, I waited far too long for this. I can't believe no one else did it... But... *drum roll, please* "How many climate skeptics does it take to change a light bulb?" "None. They don't have enough Watts to power it even if it's changed." Get it? Watts? Anthony Watts? Oh, never mind.
  49. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    @ John Hartz #62 - You know how I have to deal with all those Gish-Gallops. I can do 'em too - that was the short version!
  50. 2012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
    @John Mason #60: Due to its size, your balloon will require its own toon. We can dub it, "The Never Ending Story."

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