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Comments 57001 to 57050:

57001. david.appell at 12:03 PM on 10 July 2012
       Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
       Excuse me, but how do we know these emails are legitimate? The site they come from is poorly written with no names attached.... Why doesn't the FOI have a cover letter? Every FOI I've ever received has a cover letter showing where the information came from, and from whom....
57002. Tom Curtis at 10:59 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Tony O @41, I have no doubt that in the long term investment in renewables is good for the economy, and in particularly if compared to the difference of the effect of AGW on the economy if we do not invest in renewables. In the short term, however it is a cost. It is a cost because in the sort term it requires more workers for the same level of power production. (I believe in the long term that will reverse.) The economy is a means of allocated limited resources, and the crucial limiting resources are human work, and energy. If we have more people working to generate the same amount of electricity, that means we must pay more for the same amount of electricity - or pay the workers less than they would otherwise have been payed. In either event that is a cost on the economy. In the simplest terms, because those extra workers are producing electricity, it means they are not producing other goods or services that we might otherwise have desired. You may argue that the extra wages come from the money saved by not needing to pay for fuel. That is a fair point, but the cost of the fuel comes from wages paid to extract and transport the fuel (including the costs of building the equipment used for that purpose). So if revenue neutral, ie, the saving in fuel exactly match the increased wages, we are merely substituting wages paid in our nation for wages paid overseas. This is not exact, because there are variations in returns on investment, and variations in wages paid. But the principle is essentially correct and means the equation of more jobs ergo good for the economy does not hold. This issue is different from the question of full employment, which is good for the economy but can be accomplished independently of investment in renewables. Effectively the choice with appropriate economic policy is full employment with renewables and without; and if renewables require more employment for the same electricity supply, full employment without renewables results in more goods and services being produced, and hence is better for the economy.
57003. MMM at 10:57 AM on 10 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Hi Tom: What I'm trying to do is put myself in the mindset of the closest-to-sane of the contrarians. It is possibly useful to understand their mindset if we have any chance of convincing them, and possibly also to convince the fence-setters. I agree that the Law Dome is a strong argument - I think it has a better chance of standing alone than does the mass balance - you'll see I brought it up in #37. Of course, in combination, the law dome plus mass balance becomes nigh-indisputable. Hmm. The acidity argument might actually work too. At first, I was going to dismiss it based on the "pool" analogy - the pool having more water doesn't change the vapor pressure of the water - but yes, an ocean with higher total-dissolved-carbon does change the "vapor" pressure for CO2 in the atmosphere. -MMM ps. Sphaerica; The analogy is meant to be: pool water = CO2 in the ocean. Humidifier water = fossil fuels. Not a perfect analogy, but pretty close to what I think the Roy's & Salby's and other "sophisticated" contrarians must be thinking...
57004. henanlkf at 10:45 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate's changed before
       "Greenhouse gas increases have caused climate change many times in Earth’s history", in the article it is amazing to me to listen this news, could you tell me what are the cases of climate change caused by greenhouse gas increasing? what is the status of the greenhouse gas incrasing caused?
57005. Tom Curtis at 10:33 AM on 10 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       MMM @36 the atmosphere and ocean maintain an equilibrium with regard to the vapour pressure of CO2. Therefore, if you increase the concentration, and hence vapour pressure', of CO2 is the atmosphere, the ocean will absorb more CO2. But if you increase the temperature of the ocean the equilibrium ratio will shift, raising the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere In the former case, the acidity of the ocean will increase, in the later the acidity of the ocean will decrease. So, unlike the case in your analogy, we have a simple means to check whether the increase in CO2 is due to increasing emissions or from warming of the ocean. It is the former. Further, we have a simple check of the theory that the rise in CO2 is due to increased temperature. The following is the CO2 record from Law Dome: (Source: Wikipedia) Multiple reconstructions of past temperatures have shown MWP warmth to be comparable to that in the 1950s, with an error range which does not exclude it being as cool as the 1910s or the 2000s. Fake Skeptics are convinced that those reconstructions underestimate MWP temperatures. If follows that if ocean warming is driving CO2 rise, the CO2 levels in the MWP should match current CO2 levels. So while I agree that unique scenarios can be constructed that void the mass balance argument, they do not show that the mass balance argument is faulty. The merely show that it is an inductive rather than a deductive argument, which has arrive at the correct conclusion (as sound inductive arguments typically do).
57006. John Hartz at 10:32 AM on 10 July 2012
       Remote Siberian Lake Holds Clues to Arctic--and Antarctic--Climate Change
       Phillipe: Lake E lies in about the center of Beringia, the largest contiguous landscape in the Arctic to have escaped continental-scale glaciation.
57007. skywatcher at 10:14 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Clyde, you did not answer my question. It is an observed fact that there has ben an observed progressive increase in extreme heat events across the globe over the past 50 years. What is causing that increase? An analogy: Striker V Natural always scores about 20 goals a season for his football club. They are distributed at random through the season, and the club win about half their games in the season, finishing mid-table. The club then sign another striker to play alongside V Natural, called Ant Ropogenic, who starts slowly, scoring only a few goals in his first few seasons, but gradually increasing his scoring rate to more than 20 goals a season. Eventually Earth United are winning more games and ultimately win the league. You are looking at the final scores in the league-winning season, and don't know who scored each goal in each game (just as we can't tease out every specific storm, low presure or blocking high that is caused by AGW). Maybe V Natural scored all the goals? Yet before Ant Ropogenic started playing, the team were mid-table and mediocre. Not so many wins! [ie extreme events] How confident are you that V Natural scored all the goals in the league-winning season? How confident are you, for any one game [any one extreme event], that Ant Ropogenic didn't contribute to the victory? The analogy is far from perfect, but you have to ask yourself, in a world that is warming rapidly, why the observed increase in extremes of high temperature (commonly called heatwaves) would have nothing to do with the forced warming that is going on? From SREX:

       "In many (but not all) regions over the globe with sufficient data, there is medium confidence that the length or number of warm spells or heat waves[3] has increased." "It is likely that anthropogenic influences have led to warming of extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures at the global scale."

       Your first link is paywalled and the abstract does not contradict Hansen; NOAA in your second link say this, entirely consistent with Hansen:

       "And while the scientists could not attribute the intensity of this particular heat wave to climate change, they found that extreme heat waves are likely to become increasingly frequent in the region in coming decades."

       So NOAA are entirely consistent with Hansen et al. Trying to attribute individual weather events to climate change is a mugs game, but observing the global change in trends is actually quite straightforward. AGW plays a role in determining the pattern of weather events - a pattern that sees episodes of increased heatwaves (e.g. USA now), and increased floods and rain (e.g. UK just now), but patterns that are not static. Maybe next year the UK will suffer a heatwave (it just had a drought too before the spring/summer rains), maybe Washington will be flooded next year. Who knows where the extremes will happen? But I'd bet on the global patterns continuing and intensifying. All consistent with the intesifying water cycle in a warming world. Are you still confident that Texas and Russian heatwaves have nothing to do with climate change?
57008. Bob Lacatena at 10:03 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       16, Clyde, During the first week after a physical has shown that you have cancer you feel fine. So you figure you don't need to do anything about it, and you can let the cancer take its course until it becomes a problem? We've only gotten to 0.8˚C of the 1.4˚C temperature change to which we have already committed, and of the 2˚C to 2.5˚C that we are very, very unlikely (at our current pace of action) to avoid. You really believe that just because current extremes can't be definitively, statistically and un-categorically tied to climate change, that that means that climate change is harmless? Is that really your position? [Please don't bother to answer. The question is rhetorical. I really don't care to hear your response.]
57009. scaddenp at 10:03 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Interesting to perhaps consider that the heatwaves in Russia and US have happened while ENSO ONI index is negative. How ugly would summer be when coinciding with an El Nino event of 1.5 or greater?
57010. Tony O at 09:54 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Tom Curtis @25 Dealing effectively with global warming will not be bad for the economy, on the contrary it will be beneficial. Investment in energy efficiency would be a huge employment creator, hugely beneficial and with a surprising quick payback period. Renewables will also be an employment creator, more than the equivalent investment in coal or nuclear. The required investments can be small scale, local and will increase resilience. They will also give greater independence from the huge global financial companies. There will be no need for the multi level financialization of financialization. One reason renewables are so opposed by people not in the oil and gas industry. What I was saying is that our current economic soccial system is very much more fragile than people understand. Even if the effects of climate change are not that serious it will still be a too big a shock for the system. But the effects of climate change are already guaranteed to be serious.
57011. Bob Lacatena at 09:48 AM on 10 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       MMM, Your analogy thoroughly confuses me. What are your sources of water? In the case of CO2, it's pretty straightforward. The only viable sources and sinks are fossil fuels, biomatter, the oceans and the atmosphere. There's nothing else (there is carbon stored in the deep ocean and such, but it is in stable storage -- just like fossil fuels). There just aren't a lot of places to get the carbon from, or to hide it once it's been sucked from the ground. To violate the mass balance argument, one must show (a) where the 346 Gt of human, fossil-fuel-generated carbon went, (b) where the extra carbon in the atmosphere came from, and (c) why the mass balance, without that extra source of natural carbon, would have been zero otherwise (i.e. why the magical natural carbon increased atmospheric levels while non-magical anthro-carbon would have been sucked into whatever magical carbon sink is holding it). A whole lot has to happen, with a whole lot of carbon, to make any sort of argument that confounds the mass-balance argument. The core of the magical natural carbon source argument comes from the idea that there is so much carbon floating around in the ether that we can't possibly account for it... that volcanoes, oceans, coal fairies, carbon kobolds, petrol pixies and the like can all spread their magical carbon dust wherever they please without us silly, ignorant humans ever noticing.
57012. Philippe Chantreau at 09:24 AM on 10 July 2012
       Remote Siberian Lake Holds Clues to Arctic--and Antarctic--Climate Change
       Interesting article John. Even though it is not the point of the paper, I am curious to know how an Arctic lake could never be covered by glaciers even through the peak glacial times, when an ice cap grip a good part of the Northern hemisphere to lattitudes below 40 degrees.
57013. MMM at 08:54 AM on 10 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       (er: to clarify 36: the world that "sophisticated" contrarians live in - eg, the ones that can get published in E&E - is this short residence time world - many contrarians are in the less sophisticated territory of "natural big, anthropogenic small")
57014. MMM at 07:39 AM on 10 July 2012
       Roy's Risky Regression
       "Figure 8 shows a more realistic (subjective) attribution of the observed increase in atmospheric CO2. " Again, I wholeheartedly agree that the anthropogenic causation of the CO2 rise is (well, "should be") indisputable. Figure 8 isn't, however, an attribution so much as it is a mass-balance. A proper attribution regarding the anthropogenic contribution should tell me what the world would look like if we zeroed out anthropogenic emissions. There are 2 ways of doing that: 1) run a full carbon-cycle-climate model with no human emissions. We'd probably see approximately constant concentration since preindustrial. That gets us about 100% anthropogenic. 2) Run a carbon-cycle model with observed temperatures but no human emissions. I predict you'd see a small rise in CO2 due to the rise in ocean temps - maybe on the order of 5 to 20 ppm. So that would leave about 90% of the rise as anthropogenic (if we ignore the anthropogenic component of ocean heating). -MMM
57015. MMM at 07:27 AM on 10 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       (actually, the other killer argument is the CO2 concentrations are higher than they've been in at least 800,000 years - probably 5+ million years - but that's a hockeystick argument, and contrarians hate those. So then they attack the ice core records...)
57016. MMM at 07:25 AM on 10 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       First: I agree that the observed CO2 increase is anthropogenic. However, I disagree that conservation of mass is a sufficient argument in and of itself (even though it makes nice intuitive sense). Dikran states: "Conservation of mass is all that is required to demonstrate that the natural environment (i.e. the oceans and terresrtial biosphere) are a net carbon sink. As such it is hard to argue that the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 can be a natural phenomenon when the natural environment is taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere that it puts in." My thought counterexample: I am in a room with a pool. A thermostat controls the pool temperature. I also have a humidifier. I insert X tons of water vapor into the air with the humidifier every year. Every year I raise the temperature of the pool a bit. I measure the water vapor of the atmosphere, and see that it has risen by X/2 every year. Therefore, I know that the atmospheric increase is less than what I have contributed with my humidifier, and that the pool is gaining X/2 tons of water every year. However, that atmospheric increase is NOT due to the humidifier at all! This is because the lifetime of water vapor in the room is short, so any addition of "anthropogenic" water vapor has no impact on long term water vapor abundance, whereas pool temperature does. THIS is the world that contrarians live in: a world where CO2 lifetime is measured in a few years or less. In such a world, CO2 concentration is controlled mainly by temperature, not by anthropogenic additions. Adding in isotope data isn't a magic bullet either because while the perturbation lifetime of CO2 is long, the atmospheric lifetime is indeed on the order of a few years. (contrarians can also try the smokescreen that oceanic carbon is old and 14C depleted, but then they have problems with 13C - but the 13C signal is more subtle). In my opinion, the key point that makes the whole story fit together is the Revelle factor, and how when you incorporate the Revelle factor, carbon cycle models can do a good job of reproducing observations of multiple isotopes. But that's harder to explain in 3 sentences, especially because there are still some open questions on some facets of the carbon cycle, and contrarians don't understand "we understand the system well enough to say X, even though we can't pin down Y yet". -MMM
57017. DSL at 07:05 AM on 10 July 2012
       New research special - cloud papers 2010-2011
       Ari, I really appreciate the work. It is a tremendous help when out in the trenches trying to convince people that they do have time and brains enough to engage the science. It's often just extremely difficult to push them over that gap between assuming understanding and engaging in the learning process. Assumption is so comfortable. Yet when the summary is there right in front of you, it's also tough not to indulge in curiosity and begin walking the path (SkS is the best walking stick in climate science).
57018. Composer99 at 06:04 AM on 10 July 2012
       New research special - cloud papers 2010-2011
       Lots of great stuff in here. Makes me wish I had subscriptions to all these journals.
57019. Rob Painting at 05:43 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Clyde - it is doubtful science is sufficiently advanced to attribute specific heat events solely to natural variability. To do so one would need to tease out the man-made global warming signal which is responsible for warming the ocean basins and increasing the water vapour holding capacity of the atmosphere - two crucial components in the transport of energy around the planet, and therefore important to weather. How does one apportion blame solely to natural variability when the entire planet, and consequently all weather, is affected by global warming? And importantly, the studies need to examine upstream/downstream phenomena which may have contributed to blocking patterns. Indeed, some research suggests blocking patterns become more persistent at the Earth warms. See SkS post: Linking Weird Weather to Rapid Warming of the Arctic Whilst the science of attributing specific events to global warming/natural variability is in its infancy, the statistical basis for the expectation of increased frequency and severity of record-breaking warm extremes is both well-founded and easy enough to understand. You simply need to read, absorb and understand the links that were provided to you earlier. And one final point, the work by NASA scientists Hansen, Sato & Ruedy are simply observations of the GISS temperature record. The increase in the extreme warm events (3 sigma) are a historical fact.
57020. Clyde at 04:17 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       skywatcher 30 perhaps you can answer the question as to why heatwaves such as the one the USA is experiencing (and, for example, Texas last year, and Russia the year before) I did not write the IPCC SREX. It's my understanding the IPCC is the big chief so to speak on GW matters. “Long-term trends in economic disaster losses adjusted for wealth and population increases have not been attributed to climate change, but a role for climate change has not been excluded (medium evidence, high agreement).” You use one paper from Mr Hansen to suggest the IPCC SREX is wrong. Richard Klein might disagree with your point. He "scolds" some guy named Joe Romm for misrepresenting the findings. Read more here. one. Several studies show that the anomalous long-lasting Russian heat wave in summer 2010, linked to a long-persistent blocking high, appears as a result of natural atmospheric variability. two. The deadly Russian heat wave of 2010 was due to a natural atmospheric phenomenon often associated with weather extremes, according to a new NOAA study. Two papers that disagree with Mr Hansen. GW had little to do with the Russian heatwave.
57021. KR at 03:50 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Bernard J. - The 10.1-10.2 mid-line level is about what I've been seeing in predictions too. Much of that prediction is based on changes in the total fertility rate (TFR) (number of children born per woman over their lifespan, as a statistical average) which is dropping in much of the world. Currently it's at roughly 2.52 globallyo, dropping through 2.36 in the next 5-10 years, down from just under 5 in the 50's. In first world countries the replacement rate for stable population is ~2.1, while for developing countries it's between 2.5-3.3 due to higher mortality. However: I feel you are completely correct about the 'wheels falling off' prior to a population peak. The impacts on agriculture alone will impose additional constraints on populations. And the longer we wait, the worse it will be.
57022. Bernard J. at 03:42 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Tom and dana. I recognise that my points are not specifically about addressing climate change in order to avoid a global 'screwing', and I do apologise if they are shifting the topic somewhat, but I feel that they are important in gauging the overall measuring of the collective actions required to address the sum total of the challenges the world faces. If you'd prefer, I'm happy to carry the conversation to another thread.
57023. Bernard J. at 03:26 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       KR. As the graph below indicates the UN mid-range estimate for the global human population at 2100 is around 10.1 to 10.2 billion. I suspect that this is predicated on a complex range of assumptions, some of which are unlikely to hold for that long, including the reaching of no significant limits of essential resources. However, for my previous comment where the underlying assumption of the discussion was that energy availability is not a limit, I assumed that other limits usually taken to impinge on the mid-range human population growth estimate would be pushed back ever so slightly as a consequence of this energy bounty, and thus that a 50% increase to 10.5 billion was a good ball-park. I did this primarily to put the relative proportions of resource use into easy context for the post, and given current trends and an assumption of no resource limits I'd say that there would be a better than even chance of it occurring. In truth, I strongly suspect that the wheels to which I referred on the aforementioned wagon will have well and truly fallen off before 2100. In fact I suspect that the actual number will be much less than 9 billion - and the thing to keep in mind in that scenario is that the change in trajectory will occur with much 'premature' death, and with the accompanying anguished tragedy and economic and social damage that would inevitably occur at that scale. A growth curve simply does not change to that extent without serious intervention in population trajectories in at least a big proportion of the world's nations, and if that intervention is not premature death it would be greatly reduced fertility, which would most likely come from government-imposed reproductive austerity. This is the 'nice' view though: more likely it will be disease, famine and war that ride shotgun to the excess deaths, as a consequence of the factors to which I pessimistically referred in my post at #34. The abject failure of the Rio summit just over a week ago is, in my book, the final nail in the coffin, the straw that will break the camel's back... That the world's governments could not only not act at this point in time, but that they did in fact abdicate all pretense at moving to sustainability, signals that the time has passed for serious addressing of the world's environmental problems before significant damage occurs.
57024. KR at 02:33 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Regarding population growth - Most of the estimates I've seen (such as this 2004 UN report) indicate that we'll probably peak at a population of 9-10 billion late in the 21st century, with a slow decline afterwards, based upon decreasing birth rates and aging populations. "Peak population" is in sight. Of course, when I was born the world population was ~4B, and we're currently over 7B; 9-10B is a huge increase, with a huge impact. It seems unlikely to me that we'll ever have the entire world population at a point where it can use energy at the level the US or other first world countries now do - but I do expect that the development of renewables will provide a pathway to increasing the total energy available to the world, with benefits accruing for the average person everywhere. If, of course, we manage not to destroy our agriculture before cutting off the carbon emissions...
57025. Bernard J. at 01:25 AM on 10 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Tom.

       Bernard J @32, eco-system degradation is certainly a problem, but it is a distinct problem from global warming.

       Not entirely, as the effects of global warming will seriously exacerbate ecosystem degradation. But that's a little beside my original point, which is that providing abundant renewable energy to replace fossil energy will not solve all of the problems that beset our society and the biosphere. And in solving the problem of fossil-fueled energy sources, we need to be cognisant of not adding to ecosystem degradation in other ways.

       More importantly, it is a simple fact about human nature that you will not persuade them to downsize their demand.

       Sadly, in the context of its consequences, I very much concur with you on this point. However, a corollary of this fact is that you are just as unlikely to see humans give up their wonderful new and renewable sources of energy for use in exploiting the rest of the planet's resources. Even if desalination could provide at an environmentally neutral cost limitless water for hydroponic vegetable growth, again at an environmentally neutral cost, it's not going to happen in the next century at a scale that is going to supply food to the planet. And if it does, it won't satisfy the global appetite for meat, which correlates closely with wealth (and hence with energy use), so the pressures on soils would remain and likely increase in rate, essentially in fulfilment of Jevon's paradox. Further, there is no simple quick fix to fish stock over-exploitation, and there is no quick fix to the clearing of forests in many parts of the world. Abundant renewable energy won't reverse urban/suburban sprawl that follows energy wealth - again, it's Jevon's paradox. And a lot of that sprawl occurs in biodiversity-rich areas, so once more the pressure on ecology is not relieved. Abundant renewable energy will not slow, for decades at least, the trajectory of population growth: this is already set by the demographic structures of countries with growing populations and with little prospect of the imminent appearance of wealth, and the cultural sequelæ that follow wealth and that would otherwise put the brakes on further growth. So, with a population that is likely to be at least 50% greater than it is now by the end of the century, should the wheels not fall off the wagon before then, we would have billions more people expecting to live lives enriched by at least as much energy (and concommitant non-energy resource use) as we Westerners use now. Even if we assume that future non-energy resource use somehow decreases even as we continue to use energy, we'd need to decrease our non-energy resource use by an average of two thirds with that 50% population increase, to remain at the current (unsustainable) levels. Further, abundant renewable energy will very likely increase the complexity of the global societal and technological systems, and there is a whole discipline that recognises the vulnerability of complex systems to catastrophic failure. In the 'natural world' such failure is part and parcel of creating eventual resilience over evolutionary timescales via the mechanism of survival of the fittest. Nature red in tooth and claw, as it were... When inevitable failures of human systems occur there is damage, as we've seen in history, but a future society built to even more complexity using limitless energy, in a world damaged by previous over-exploitation, will see failures of a magnitude that would not be countenanced if we could know of them beforehand. Some might argue that we have resilience already, or how could 'it' all work as it does, but the very fact that our society is not in balance with the biosphere contradicts that notion. The very fact that our society has wobbled from are really minor financial crises contradicts that notion, and the fact that there are not-so-small hurdles on the horizon such as the intractable US debt contradicts that notion. And this is beside the flaps that our societies are currently having about Peak Oil and climate change. I'm not saying that renewables are not desperately required. They most certainly are. However, they are only a part of a solution, and of a solution that needs to be found and enacted quickly, before thermodynamics take matters into its own hands. Humanity's unbalance with the planet on which it lives is like a chain. Reinforcing one weak link - energy - isn't necessarily going to prevent breakages elsewhere in the chain, and if doing so means that we believe that we can continue hauling the same overload as in the past, then we're still going to have catastrophic failure somewhere in the chain. In other threads there are emphases on the conservation of energy, and on mass balance. The very same thermodynamic principles apply to all human activity within the biolithohydrosphere. You are correct to point out that our human nature contrains how we respond to problems, but thermodynamics is an even tighter contraint on the final results of our responses. If we can't prune our impact to live within the limits of the planet, the planet's limits will do it for us. Sadly, that outcome should it eventuate will be disasterous for many millions (even billions?) of humans,and most of those will be people who were never responsible for the problems in the first place. And in that alternative outcome, even hair shirts may be a luxury.
57026. Bob Lacatena at 01:22 AM on 10 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       dissembly,

       A carbon price resembles a flat tax (like the GST) more than it resembles a progressive tax (like income tax); which means it will affect you more by a disproportionately greater amount the further down the income scale you go.

       This is true of everyone, everywhere, and it will be true of climate change whether the problem is addressed or not. The people who will starve, become refugees, or just plain see their quality of life dissolve will be the poor. And, to a lesser extent but still a lot, the middle class. The people who will still eat well, jet around the world, live in climate controlled houses, etc. will be the rich. Mind you, a lot of people who are rich are going to see their fortunes evaporate and join the ranks of the poor. One aspect of climate change, whether handled through adaptation or mitigation, is going to be the complete reshuffling of wealth. Today's wine-grower in California or beach-front property owner is tomorrows useless-parched-land-owner or useless-underwater-land-owner. Things will change, and many of the rich who are resisting change now are going to suffer for it. But, for the most part, they'll be fine. It is the poor, average folk that you say are so fearful of being taxed who are going to lose one way or the other, either a little by investing some of their money into addressing the problem, or a lot by ignoring the problem and watching their lifestyles change in unimaginable ways. Really, climate change is just the grasshopper and the ant fable, all over again, but in this case it's not hard work that the grasshopper needs, but rather choosing to do the right hard work, and accepting that you need to do and invest your energy in what must be done, not what you wish will be lucrative, or what has always in the past been lucrative.
57027. Bob Lacatena at 01:15 AM on 10 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       dissembly, Honestly, you write so much with no clear statement of point or purpose that it's hard to follow exactly what you are arguing for, but the bottom line is this: 1) In the USA, people are programmed to shake in fear at the word "tax." 2) In the USA, people are programmed to believe that because "we won the cold war" that capitalism is God and any problem is best solved through the free market. 3) Carbon has a large, hidden cost to society which does not affect the seller or the user directly. 4) Because of these hidden costs, there are some things that governments must accept as within their sphere of influence because the free market has no way of addressing or even recognizing them. This has always been the case in any society in terms of the common defense, fire/police/emergency provisions, foreign commerce, education, regulation and law, and other things. There are simply things that the government must do. A carbon price is an attempt to address all of these issues... to avoid the fear of taxation, to allow the free market the maximum flexibility in addressing the problem (rather than the government-bureaucratic-5-year-plan-Soviet-style solution), to make sure that that hidden cost does affect both the supplier and user directly, because it is being paid by someone, eventually and last of all to make sure that the problem is engaged and not simply ignored because people don't want to think about it until it's too late. Imagine a world where you have no army or navy because you don't want to pay the tax that provides for it. That's great until you are invaded. Imagine a town where you have no police or fire department, because you don't want to pay the tax that provides for it. That's great until you are robbed, murdered or watch your house burn to the ground. Things need to get done. Money is the lever in all of today's society. Supply and demand and exchanges are how money is allocated to problems in the free market. Taxes, tariffs, fees and markets are how money is allocated (or re-allocated or funneled) to problems by governments. Not all problems are "how do we make, transport and market more widgets at lower prices, so that everyone in the world can enjoy a vast collection of widgets." You can argue all you want about the mechanics behind the best possible solution, but it must address all of these 4 factors, and many others, and in the end it has to work, and it has to get started soon, because the longer it takes, the less it matters exactly what you do and the more you will be forced to live with something even worse than you expected, simply because you took too long to get started.
57028. dana1981 at 00:57 AM on 10 July 2012
       Michaels and Cato Unwittingly Accept the Climate Threat
       Mark, I presume Michaels would argue that drug development is one way we've adapted to various diseases. For example, they want to adapt to increasing heat waves by installing more air conditioning units and other similar infrastructure. The logic is that instead of preventing the problem, you adapt to it. My analogy was that instead of reducing gun violence, you just hand out bullet proof vests.
57029. katecell at 23:36 PM on 9 July 2012
       Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
       Kate Cell Shutesbury, MA
57030. Tom Curtis at 22:37 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Bernard J @32, eco-system degradation is certainly a problem, but it is a distinct problem from global warming. So the first point is that any difficulty we have tackling eco-system degradation does not automatically carry through to an inability to tackle global warming. Further, increased energy use per capita could well be a means of tackling eco-system collapse, provided energy production can be decoupled from GHG emissions. For instance, with increase energy availability, most human water needs could be provided by desalinization and/or recycling. With a ready supply of water and energy, food can be provided by hydroponics, thereby eliminating the problems of soil degradation. Consequently I cannot accept your pessimistic prognosis. More importantly, it is a simple fact about human nature that you will not persuade them to downsize their demand. Some few you may, but the result will be simple that those amenable to your views will have less relative wealth, and consequently less influence on the course of the economy. You may consider this fact disasterous, but I consider it just as a constraint on solving the problems. It certainly does not mean the problem cannot be solved - but it does mean that pushing solutions that require us to wear a hair shirt is a waste of time.
57031. Tom Curtis at 22:22 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       Dissembly, I try to avoid discussing topics with people who persistently misrepresent what I have said - as you have done. Such people are either incapable or, or uninterested in rational discussion. In either event, discussing things with them is a waste of time.
57032. Jen at 21:18 PM on 9 July 2012
       Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
       Jen MSc. FRAS
57033. MarkR at 20:23 PM on 9 July 2012
       Michaels and Cato Unwittingly Accept the Climate Threat
       "People have been died in the past from diseases, therefore they'll die in the future, therefore we shouldn't bother investing in drugs". Isn't that following exactly the same logic as Michaels, or did I miss something?
57034. Dikran Marsupial at 19:54 PM on 9 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Marco The mass balance argument makes no assumptions about natural sources and sinks, other than that they exist. The mass balance equation tells you the difference between total natural emissions and total natural uptake, whatever the natural sources and sinks are. Thus if there are unknown sources and sinks, their net activity is still represented by the green line in figure 1. The question to ask anyone making the "unknown source" argument is "if the natural environment is a net source, why isn't the observed increase greater than anthropogenic emissions?". Then then either need to show that the rise is greater than anthropogenic emissions (i.e. the observations are incorrect), or that nature can be the cause of the increase while being a net carbon sink! However, what they will probably do is dodge the question.
57035. Dikran Marsupial at 19:47 PM on 9 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Stephen Baines Conservation of mass is all that is required to demonstrate that the natural environment (i.e. the oceans and terresrtial biosphere) are a net carbon sink. As such it is hard to argue that the observed rise in atmospheric CO2 can be a natural phenomenon when the natural environment is taking more CO2 out of the atmosphere that it puts in. Now if you can see an error in the line of reasoning, then please do point it out. The mass balance argument makes no assumptions about where CO2 from natural or anthropogenic emissions ends up. It would make no difference to the argument whether all anthropogenic CO2 were taken immediately by the natural environment, or whether it all stayed in the atmosphere permanently. The thing that causes the rise is an imbalance between total emissions and total uptake; mankind emits more CO2 than it takes up, and hence is a cause of the increase, the natural environment takes up more than it emits, and hence is opposing the increase. As I said, it is misleading to consider the fate of individual molcules in determining the cause of the rise, as their fate is largely determined by the exchange fluxes, which have no effect on atmospheric CO2 concentrations whatsoever. This in not merely academic. The mass balance argument on its own is sufficient, so it is important that any challenge to that position is resolved one way or the other.
57036. Bernard J. at 17:48 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Tom Curtis at #24. The problem of how much energy humanity uses lies not just with the energy itself (especially with how it's obtained), but with what humans do with that energy. The issues that the planet has with the serious pressures on species, on whole ecosystems, on soil and water reserves, amongst other things, are the manifestations of human energy use. Even if we were to cap the global human energy use to today's levels, we would still be eroding the natural capital of the planet such that rates of species extinctions, of ecosytem degradation and loss, of water and soil resource degradation, will all continue to increase toward eventual collapse. The only way that we can avoid the inevitable result would be to dramatically reduce our per captia resource use, and as humans are showing no inclination to reduce either that or the strong correlate that is energy use, it seems that the only choice currently is how much climate change we add to the other agents of biospheric compromise that will lead to global societal collapse. It's thermodynamics - there's no such thing as a free lunch, especially when all embodied costs are accounted for.
57037. Tom Curtis at 17:20 PM on 9 July 2012
       Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
       curiousd @37, Park and Royer (2011) is a good place to start. They find an ESS of 3 to 4 degrees C is a robust feature of the geological record during periods with no ice sheets at the the Earth's poles; and 6 to 8 C in periods with ice sheets at the poles. Hansen and Sato have also recently estimated ESS, but somebody else will have to provide the link.
57038. Rob Painting at 16:39 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Clyde - when it comes to extreme weather the increased severity and frequency of heatwaves are pretty much a global warming slamdunk. These SkS posts explain the concept: 1. Extreme Events Increase With Global Warming 2. NASA scientists expect more rapid global warming in the very near future (part 2) - see the heading entitled "damn statistics". So the basics are; that with no climate warming the probability of record-breaking warm extremes decreases with time, whereas in a warming climate the probability of record-breaking increases. All very intuitively easy to grasp. And you will note that one of James Hansen's papers shows a dramatic increase in warm temperature extremes in the observational record. See: 3. Quantifying Extreme Heat Events Bottom line: expect more severe and frequent record-breaking warm events in the future.
57039. skywatcher at 16:17 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       #27 Clyde. If you're still unable to make the connection between heatwaves and global warming - perhaps you can answer the question as to why heatwaves such as the one the USA is experiencing (and, for example, Texas last year, and Russia the year before) are demonstrably happening more frequently and with greater severity in global trends established over the past 60 years (Hansen et al 2011)? The global pattern and trend is unmistakeable. Note that this is based on observed surface temperature data, not modelled. You can pretend it's 'natural variability' if you like, but the variability is not the same as it was 30 years ago. Roll the dice now, you'll get a 3-sigma heat event in your area sooner than you'd like. Are ya feelin' lucky?
57040. Marco at 15:34 PM on 9 July 2012
       Murry Salby's Correlation Conundrum
       Bob, I fully agree with you. I have, in fact, made a very similar argument on several occasions. It's generally evaded by the pseudoskeptics that trot out the "only 5% of emissions are anthropogenic!" Just making sure others can make the same argument!
57041. scaddenp at 15:15 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Clyde, no one weather event is "caused" by AGW. The warming climate changes the frequency and severity of extreme events. This obviously is effecting insurance now and will do so more into the future. See this article and perhaps respond there. While the US might bring energy emissions down, how much of this is done by exporting emissions to China? World CO2 emissions continue to rise and climate responds to the global emissions, not the local ones.
57042. Clyde at 15:06 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Just something to ponder. I say the recession was the main cause. Others disagree. One thing for sure, it wasn't massive govt regulations or Cap & Trade that caused the drop. I guess if the economy ever starts growing at 3-4% for a couple of years we'll have a better idea if the recession was a big factor. America’s carbon emissions may drop back close to 1990 levels this year. Total energy carbon emissions were 5,473 million tons in 2011 and last year fell below the 1996 mark of 5,501 million tons. The first quarter 2012 reduction of 7.5% makes it possible that this year emissions will fall back essentially to the 1990 level of 5,039 million tons. That is shockingly good news. Details from the EIA here. PDF page. I didn't see a place to post on CO2 levels. My apologies if this isn't the right place.
57043. Clyde at 14:58 PM on 9 July 2012
       Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed
       Kevin C 17 The material on Disaster losses is quite concerning, Does the IPCC SREX say GW is causing the "extreme" weather events happening today? Theres a difference between being concerned over material loss & whats causing the events. Heres another reference. "The heat wave today is primarily natural climate variability," agreed Dr. William Patzert, an global climate change researcher with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Read more here. He goes on to say how bad things will be do to GW. He doesn't say when anybody can say GW is causing the events.
57044. curiousd at 14:29 PM on 9 July 2012
       Hansen and Sato Estimate Climate Sensitivity from Earth's History
       Tom Curtis, I Love it! Thank you! You need to look for grains of humor in this deadly serious business, and so now I get to impress my "ordinary physics" prof colleagues with the delightful wonkiness of the ESS versus the EGS. So cool. (so to speak) So.....I guess by Hanson - Sato latest, the ECS is 3.0 degrees C plus or minus 0.5 degrees by their fit, at least. So is there a latest and greatest ESS? Or alternatively a cluster of results you could recommend for the ESS?
57045. scaddenp at 14:09 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       Working properly, a carbon tax should be redistributed back on a pure per-capita basis. If you are using less carbon than the average citizen (by, for example, buying electricity from renewable generation or using non-carbon methods of transport to commute), then you should be better off under such a system. Australians should be pushing for that. Blaming carbon for price rises is only a viable business option if every competitor does exactly the same thing. Otherwise the consumer buys the cheaper product and you lose market share. Using wartime spending has a model has the problem that Americans are still paying for it. The money has to come from somewhere.
57046. caerbannog at 13:57 PM on 9 July 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       Shoot -- messed up the first two links -- let's try again. Part 1: New McCarthyism Described by Climate Scientist Michael Mann Part 2: Climate Denialists Worse Than Tobacco CEOs Lying Under Oath, Says Mann
57047. dissembly at 13:56 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       This might be interesting to people: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030 The article is called "A Plan to Power 100 Percent of the Planet with Renewables", and makes direct comparisons with the US's wartime munitions production and the construction of their highway system. When they bring carbon taxes into it, it is as an after-thought, because it "makes sense" to tax environmental damage (hardly a sustained economic analysis), and it is introduced as a part of a coordinated plan involving tariffs and the removal of fossil fuel subsidies. This, as I remember it, was reflective of the level of discussion within the environmental movement only a few years ago, the context during which the Greens opposed Rudd's version of the carbon tax. The fall in line behind the carbon tax policy has almost killed us.
57048. caerbannog at 13:44 PM on 9 July 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #27
       FYI, Bill Blakemore of ABC News (USA) just put up a 5-part video of an extended interview with Michael Mann on the ABC News web-site (the full transcript is included). Here are the links: Part 1: ‘New McCarthyism’ Described by Climate Scientist Michael Mann Part 2: Climate Denialists Worse Than Tobacco CEOs Lying Under Oath, Says Mann Part 3: Climate Denialists Would Be Remembered as Villains, Says Mann Part 4: Unprecedented Crisis for Humanity — But There’s Hope Part 5: Climate ‘Groundhog Day for Scientists and Journalists Alike (Thanks to climatesciencewatch.org for the links) Dr. Mann absolutely does not pull any punches in the interview. I suspect that WUWT could be a very popcorn-worthy place to check out over the next few days. Anyway, after you watch the videos, please do tweet, FB, blog, whatever the above links to get them all over the web where Google and other search engines can find (and rank) them.
57049. dissembly at 13:44 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       "in which business pays more, so their customers pay more, so the government reimburses the customers - leaving the government with less to spend on public services and welfare. In the end, the government is paying the carbon price with no corresponding increase in taxation on businesses or on the highest income earners." - I'm sorry, this was misleading. I got a bit carried away there. Of course business pays more *to the government* through the carbon tax (which, of course, is why it is called a 'tax'). The leakage in the system is not here, but in the cap & trade scheme, and in the wastefulness of the market allocation of investment.
57050. dissembly at 13:36 PM on 9 July 2012
       Ian Plimer Pens Aussie Geologist Gish Gallop #2 of the Week
       @skywatcher #28 "I have a question for you. Why do you think "the majority of average people" oppose the carbon price? Could it possibly be because of a massive right-wing political/media campaign that has successfully reframed the carbon price as a carbon tax?" The right may have sowed the seeds, but they fell on fertile ground. They conducted a dishonest and malicious campaign, yes, but they also conduct such campaigns on many other issues without changing most peoples minds. This campaign spoke to people because people have genuine cost-of-living concerns right now. People were nervous about the idea of a carbon price beforehand, by the way. - "the average Australian and small business actually believes they will be poorer - that they are being taxed with no benefits. I'm sure you know this is not the whole story - it's the fallacy of discussing only the costs without the benefits." But you're committing the fallacy of taking a stratified, highly heterogenous society and treating it as if everybody received the same benefits and paid the same costs. In fact this isn't true. A carbon price resembles a flat tax (like the GST) more than it resembles a progressive tax (like income tax); which means it will affect you more by a disproportionately greater amount the further down the income scale you go. Which brings us to the tax cuts and welfare benefits that will supposedly offset the carbon price: You wrote: "most ordinary people and small businesses will not be poorer under the carbon price, as they also get a raft of other tax breaks which should compensate them for the goods and services they pay for that have a higher price directly due to the carbon price." I've already addressed this in part, I'll make three more comprehensive points here; 1) It is difficult to see exactly how much more people will be paying due to the carbon price - and thus very difficult to decide what fair compensation is. The bakery chain Brumbys made itself famous recently by having an e-mail leaked from a manager instructing stores to blame price rises on the carbon tax. This is precisely what the mentality of every other business will be; pass on every increased cost, including costs that may be someway back down the chain from raw materials to store shelf, to consumers - even when they haven't even incurred such costs yet. 2) We are currently under a long-term downward trend in terms of welfare payments, both in terms of how much is paid, and who is eligible for payments. How much of weflare increases are increases the government might have been forced into anyway? Will we received a breakdown of what percentage of welfare increases in the future are to be labelled "carbon tax" and what percentage "cost-of-living increases"? Money is fungible. Both cost-of-living increases, and welfare cuts, are happening anyway. People feel they deserve income tax cuts and welfare increases whether or not there is a carbon tax. 3) So let's imagine a model, in practice, in which business pays more, so their customers pay more, so the government reimburses the customers - leaving the government with less to spend on public services and welfare. In the end, the government is paying the carbon price with no corresponding increase in taxation on businesses or on the highest income earners. The net distribution of wealth is from poor to rich, and the entire process is extremely wasteful - relying, as it does, on a market to allocate investment in alternative energy in an indirect way (which i've already argued is far from guaranteed). Society, as a whole, loses wealth, the wealth gap is greater, and the benefits - at the end of this whole messy process - are not even guaranteed anyway. "How many average Australians actually know this??" Everyone does. It's been on the front pages of newspapers (even the Murdoch press), and it's been included in every discussion of the carbon tax that I've seen in the tv media.

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