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Comments 54201 to 54250:
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Dale at 20:28 PM on 12 September 2012Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
"There are much larger threats to the budget bottom line than this." Yes there are, the crashing economy and the brainless promises of billions more spent on the eve of a huge revenue drop. Oh well, such is life. :) -
Riccardo at 19:49 PM on 12 September 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
We don't even need light bulbs, just adapt. We have plenty of light at the poles ... seasonally ... just move north and south. -
Bernard J. at 19:37 PM on 12 September 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
I can't believe that we've missed the David Duff defense: "But I like the dark: the darker the better. These light summers are so miserable". -
JasonB at 18:02 PM on 12 September 2012Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
Dale,So it's not a case of "reducing the carbon tax compensation" as it is a case of "reducing family payment" or "reducing Commonwealth Disability Pension", etc. In other words, it's a lot uglier to force down as those existing programs are seen as essential to those who receive those payments.
This looks like a prime candidate: http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/clean-energy-supplement I'm not eligible for any of the supplements so I don't know if they're broken out as a separate amount in the statements, but if so, it's only logical that if the amount of the supplement is more than it turns out is required to cover the actual costs then it can be reduced. The alternative is to simply freeze it or increase it at less than inflation to reduce it with less backlash. I think the possibility of a backlash is overstated, however. It's all swings and roundabouts, anyway; not all of the money collected from carbon permits goes into compensation, so if need be they can always reduce grants for clean energy research, which is also funded by the proceeds. There are much larger threats to the budget bottom line than this. -
JasonB at 17:47 PM on 12 September 2012Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
Dale,And on the Federal front, the whole toxicity of "climate change" stems from one simple statement that Gillard made for the last election (no need to repeat it, everyone knows it).
Ironically, what really made me angry was that one simple statement itself, shortly after Rudd's backflip on the CPRS, because it represented a broken promise of the last election! However, looking more carefully at her position prior to the election shows it was a bit more nuanced than that. For example, the day before the election:JULIA Gillard says she is prepared to legislate a carbon price in the next term. [...] In an election-eve interview with The Australian, the Prime Minister revealed she would view victory tomorrow as a mandate for a carbon price, provided the community was ready for this step. "I don't rule out the possibility of legislating a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a market-based mechanism," she said of the next parliament. "I rule out a carbon tax." This is the strongest message Ms Gillard has sent about action on carbon pricing.
(Source) She wasn't opposed to pricing carbon. That was actually a message to the Greens that she wasn't going to support their model, not a message to the electorate that a carbon price was off the table. And she didn't support the Greens model! The fact is that the current "carbon tax" is actually an ETS with a fixed-price initial period, just like the CPRS was, but everyone called the CPRS an ETS while this gets called a tax. I suspect that her advisers have told her it's better not to argue this point because it looks too "tricky", but it's also true.The sad thing is, the whole "thing" around the Gillard agreement with the Greens and Indies to put a carbon tax on and then slamming it through, all with no involvement of the public (in fact quite the opposite as it was put through in an Authoritarian way), will set environmental policy (not just CC but any environmental policy) back 5-10 years.
"slamming it through"? You mean "passing it through both Houses of Parliament despite having a minority in both Houses, following the formation of a multi-party parliamentary committee to determine policy on climate change that spent months working out the details, following the failure to pass the previous legislation that was also worked out over months of negotiation between Labor and Turnbull's Liberals"? "put through in an Authoritarian way"? Exactly how should the government put bills through Parliament? We are a Parliamentary democracy, we elect representatives to sit in Parliament and act on our behalf. Are you suggesting that the public should have a referendum on each and every bill? It's not like this came out of the blue. An Emissions Trading Scheme was the policy of both Labor and the Coalition at the 2007 election. The Coalition reneged on their policy after months of negotiation over the CPRS with Labor following Tony Abbott's replacement of Turnbull. Gillard went to the 2010 election saying she was prepared to legislate a carbon price. Following the election, where the Greens won the balance of power with a carbon tax policy, she set up a parliametary committee that devised a scheme almost the same as the CPRS and managed to pass it through both houses. The only complaint that could be made is that she said she ruled out a carbon tax prior to the election but the ETS she introduced behaves like a carbon tax for the first three years before becoming a full-blown ETS. It seems to me that the rhetoric is somewhat overblown. -
Dale at 17:21 PM on 12 September 2012Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
JasonB: The "Household Assistance Package" was a once-off initial payment, and then will be reflected from March 2013 as an increase in already existing Govt pensions/assistance programs (FTB, seniors, disability, etc) as well as tax breaks. It's not a once-a-year lump sum thing. http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/subjects/clean-energy-future So it's not a case of "reducing the carbon tax compensation" as it is a case of "reducing family payment" or "reducing Commonwealth Disability Pension", etc. In other words, it's a lot uglier to force down as those existing programs are seen as essential to those who receive those payments. So it's a political problem in that the Govt set it up to be a political problem for a future Parl (of either party) and a budgetary problem because the public backlash to remove the carbon tax component from those programs will be high. -
P.T. Goodman at 17:13 PM on 12 September 2012Book review of Michael Mann's The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars
@doug_bostrom Yeah, that's pretty much it. Many of the very early reviews of Mann's book were personal attacks, barely or not mentioning the book. It looks like Watt's' call to his followers unleashed a rabid pack---and he had to know what they would write. I'll read the book, then provide a review. Even if it is not a positive review, it won't be a personal attack. -
JasonB at 17:09 PM on 12 September 2012Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
Sceptical Wombat,The danger with cap and trade systems is that carbon allocations are in effect a form of money and (as with water allocations or money itself) there will be a strong temptation for governments to simply create more, which of course results in a lowering of the price. It is crucial that the integrity of the system be maintained.
Sure. But auditing each country's issued permits is straightforward, and if someone is found cheating then their permits can be declared invalid or worth less than face value by the amount of the over-subscription (a form of inflation, if you will). Also, my understanding is that Europe has moved to a centralised cap and registry so individual countries won't be able to do that anyway.Unfortunately Jason is wrong in thinking that a lower carbon price will result in lower compensation. The household compensation is fixed so a lower carbon price will result is a budget problem.
Well, that just means that rather than the compensation being automatically calculated each year it just becomes part of the normal budget-making process. Each year, Treasury could forecast the carbon price for the following year and estimate its impact just like they did when the carbon tax was introduced, then the government could add a buffer to minimise the risk that the price will rise higher than expected and the compensation would be insufficient, and then include it in the budget for the following year. This is true regardless of what the current legislation says. No Parliament can make a law binding a future Parliament (Tony Abbott wants to repeal it entirely, remember!), and the budget has to pass through Parliament anyway. (This is one of the things that always made me laugh about the GST legislation. Peter Costello made a big deal about the idea that the only way to change the rate of the GST was if every state parliament and the federal parliament agreed. This is of course complete and utter rubbish, the GST legislation is an Act of Parliament and can be modified by any future Act of Parliament no matter what the original Act says. The only thing binding Parliament is the Constitution.) So, it's really just a political question. If Labor is still in power by 2015 and the carbon price is still really low and this is going to be an issue for the budget, the obvious solution is to tell voters that they don't need as much compensation because it isn't costing that much. There is no reason that the carbon price should cause a budget problem. It could cause a political problem if the international price skyrockets during the year and the compensation thus calculated turns out to be insufficient, but mid-year reviews and additional handouts are not unknown. -
Bert from Eltham at 17:07 PM on 12 September 2012Climate Change and the Weightier Matters: a Christian view on global warming
As an atheist I find that we have a lot more in common than you think John Cook. I too have worked out that trashing our only home is a very dumb move. It is all about what we do now to stop this decline in our planet's health to sustain us all. It is my birthday today. When I was born there were less than three billion people on our planet. It was 1949. I do not care for myself. I have children and grandchildren. The saddest thing in life is getting a hold on 'all' knowledge just before you croak and then realising that it would have been really handy for the journey! Bert -
Dale at 15:22 PM on 12 September 2012Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
Stevo: I agree with you, but with caveats. For instance, the reason the States are removing the residential schemes is because of State debts. A lot of environmental policies have been brought in over the last 10 years in good faith, but bad economic planning. We're seeing the results of that now with increasing taxes, reductions in public spending, difficulties in balancing books and shrinking credit lines. Unfortunately no Govt can live on those parameters for a sustained amount of time. Just look at Queensland and how Newman is having to slash programs and departments all over the place. And on the Federal front, the whole toxicity of "climate change" stems from one simple statement that Gillard made for the last election (no need to repeat it, everyone knows it). I think largely that whilst good faith and intentions have been shown at all levels of Govt, things have just been approached the wrong way. There's a million BETTER ways it could have been approached. For instance, the whole topic of energy independence is of high importance to the people. If the Govt had of put the issue up as one of sustainable energy development, and the reduction on reliance on a diminishing resource and movement to an infinite resource, the public would not see it as an "environmental" program, but an "economic" program. That completely eliminates the whole CC debate as a factor as you're then at the plate with sound economic principles of guaranteed supply of resources to produce energy. No matter what anyone says, just keep repeating the economic line. The sad thing is, the whole "thing" around the Gillard agreement with the Greens and Indies to put a carbon tax on and then slamming it through, all with no involvement of the public (in fact quite the opposite as it was put through in an Authoritarian way), will set environmental policy (not just CC but any environmental policy) back 5-10 years. -
Ari Jokimäki at 15:16 PM on 12 September 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
Well, I see that trace amount angle already got used, but I'll post my version of it anyway: "I didn't even notice bulb breaking because light from a bulb is just a trace amount compared to sunlight." -
scaddenp at 14:26 PM on 12 September 2012Antarctica is gaining ice
Barry, we have two different measurement systems, ICESAT and GRACE. If Zwally's results are correct, then there is a problem with the methodology, calibration or assumptions of one of them. For the moment, the published results say Antarctica is losing ice, and GRACE result indicate that it is accelerating. If it becomes clear that the ICESAT result is better, then obviously (and fortuitously), the conclusions will change. -
barry1487 at 14:15 PM on 12 September 2012Antarctica is gaining ice
No worries, Albatross. Maybe the bee in my bonnet is buzzing a little loudly. Anyway, I was scoping google scholar for recent assessments, and found one I'd read a few months ago that probably informed my comments here (as well as remembered SkS posts)."Notably, the acceleration in ice sheet loss over the last 18 years was 21.9 ± 1 Gt/yr2 for Greenland and 14.5 ± 2 Gt/yr2 for Antarctica, for a combined total of 36.3 ± 2 Gt/yr2. This acceleration is 3 times larger than for mountain glaciers and ice caps (12 ± 6 Gt/yr2). If this trend continues, ice sheets will be the dominant contributor to sea level rise in the 21st century."
Rignot, Velicogna et al 2011 [PDF] -
Albatross at 13:25 PM on 12 September 2012Antarctica is gaining ice
Hello Barry @131, "Those responses seem a bit cynical." I hope that you did not interpret my response that way. I'm just advocating caution, especially given the potential significance of this result. This is probably the first step towards Zwally et al. submitting a paper for publication and things can, and do, sometimes change a lot in the intervening steps. These types of data are incredibly finicky and all sorts of corrections need to be made especially for a long-term space-based monitoring platform. It would be nice to have Dr. Zwally post here, maybe once he has had his paper accepted for publication? If these preliminary findings hold true, this would be the first good news on the global warming front in quite some time. -
Stevo at 13:19 PM on 12 September 2012Obama, Romney, and Various National Climate Policies Around the Globe
Dale @ 27. I agree with you. Just because a tactic will make something more difficult does not mean it will become impossible.Whether it is the ending the monetary incentives which encouraged installation of solar panels, reversals in plans to buy off brown coal power stations, or any of the other incremental changes being made I cannot help but feel that now global warming is no longer a hot political topic the carbon scheme will be hailed as proof something was done. Now that the record shows some action as having been taken governments of both political stripes can dismantle any real ecological benefit one small step at a time. The economics are complex enough for any change to be argued as a positive or negative step depending on how you'd like to see it spun on the day. Sorry, but neither major Australian political party seems willing to state their actual conviction on this subject. I can only conclude this as meaning that neither of them cares enough to make a real stand for anything other than the next poll. -
Albatross at 13:17 PM on 12 September 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
This is very entertaining, and there are some great one liners here. Please share this as widely as possible and let others share (and join in on) the fun. There is a YouTube video too. -
eric.steig at 13:05 PM on 12 September 2012Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
I agree that Rasmus's evaluation at RealClimate was too deferential. I'm not sure why he bothers, to be honest. Some papers are so obviously bad that they seem ludicrous to even comment on. Salby's is certainly in that league. If someone ever actually is able to show that the recent rise in CO2 is not anthopogenic, it will be on the cover of Nature, Science, Quaternary Research and Physics today simultaneously, and I will be the first to write to the Nobel Committee encouraging them to award the prize. Until those things happen, papers making such claims can safely be assumed to be not worth reading. -
barry1487 at 13:02 PM on 12 September 2012Antarctica is gaining ice
Daniel, first thing I've done is to check the papers referenced in the intermediate version of the top post. Velicogna 2009 [PDF] discerns comparable mass loss for Greenland and Antarcica, with comparable contributions for sea level rise. Chen et al 2009 [PDF] conclude with a mass loss for the whole of Antarcica of 190 +/-77 Gt/yr, comparable to higher Greenland mass loss estimates of ~220 Gt/yr. Chen posits that "Using a simple linear projection for the period 2006 - 2009, Antarctic ice loss rate can be as large as -220 +/-89 Gt yr." Sea level contribution is, again, comparable to Greenland. Inferences on sea level rise from Antarctic mass loss mentioned here (upper bound 1.4 meters by 2100 from Antarctic ice loss). I'll have a better look for papers specifically about sea level/Antarctic ice loss. A quick search of SkS articles on Antarctic ice mass balance yields a range of estimates from -26Gt/yr to -300 Gt/yr, and acknowledgement that new data showing Antarctic ice loss (as wel as Greenland etc) contributes to higher sea level projections. The main SkS article on Antarctic ice mass balance (and mentioning sea level) is probably this one. Watts cites it in his article, and for once I find myself agreeing with him (on SkS updating), particularly in light of the final comment on that page..... but multiple different types of measurement techniques (explained here) all show the same thing, Antarctica is losing land ice as a whole, and these losses are accelerating quickly.
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Doug Bostrom at 11:44 AM on 12 September 2012A 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. -
scaddenp at 11:21 AM on 12 September 2012Obama, 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." -
Mal Adapted at 11:20 AM on 12 September 2012A 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. -
villabolo at 11:18 AM on 12 September 2012Do 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. -
JasonB at 11:07 AM on 12 September 2012Obama, 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"? -
scaddenp at 11:02 AM on 12 September 2012Antarctica 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. -
JasonB at 10:59 AM on 12 September 2012Obama, 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. -
Daniel Bailey at 10:55 AM on 12 September 2012Antarctica 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. -
Daniel Bailey at 10:52 AM on 12 September 2012Record 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?
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barry1487 at 10:49 AM on 12 September 2012Antarctica 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. -
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? -
Mark-US at 10:28 AM on 12 September 2012Do we know when the Arctic will be sea ice-free?
@villabolo (76) You forgot Release of arctic fossil carbon stores (by us) -
John Hartz at 10:26 AM on 12 September 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
@Skywatcher #70: Thanks for responding to the questions. Re a prominent British alarmist, Winston Churchill would be my first choice, -
Bob Loblaw at 10:13 AM on 12 September 20122012 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." -
bill4344 at 10:02 AM on 12 September 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
Sphaerica @ 64 - yes, their output is measured in µWatts... -
Dale at 10:01 AM on 12 September 2012Obama, 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. -
JohnMashey at 09:59 AM on 12 September 2012A 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. -
vrooomie at 09:50 AM on 12 September 20122012 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 -
Bernard J. at 09:46 AM on 12 September 2012Obama, 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. -
ajki at 09:40 AM on 12 September 20122012 SkS Weekly Digest #36
"Changing bulbs is useless - the darkness isn't sensitive, anyway" -
skywatcher at 09:39 AM on 12 September 2012Record 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? -
quokka at 09:27 AM on 12 September 2012Obama, 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 -
Zibethicus at 09:24 AM on 12 September 20122012 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! -
Bernard J. at 09:24 AM on 12 September 20122012 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. -
skywatcher at 09:23 AM on 12 September 20122012 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. -
M Tucker at 09:18 AM on 12 September 2012Obama, 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. -
Bernard J. at 09:16 AM on 12 September 20122012 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. -
John Hartz at 09:06 AM on 12 September 20122012 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? -
John Hartz at 08:58 AM on 12 September 20122012 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." -
M Tucker at 08:57 AM on 12 September 2012Obama, 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. -
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. -
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."
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