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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 59501 to 59550:

  1. Lessons from Past Predictions: Vinnikov on Arctic Sea Ice
    In Figure 1 caption "~250 years"; should be ~2050-1900~=150 years? I'm feeling a little conflated between Antarctic and Arctic, max and min extent. IIRC, Antarctic min bottoms out near zero. The Arctic still exists within an all positive range. When comparing the two as 12 month averages, as in Figure 5, there is a comparison between Arctic, which I believe has seen more of a drop in minimum than maximum, and has not seen a flooring of minimum, with Antarctica, which does experience a flooring. If I'm right, there is a bias in the comparison.
  2. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    Minchin's regurgitation of a meme (and incorrectly too) "No warming for past 15 years" was not pounced on by anyone. Amazing. I point out to people that deniers regularly abuse the intent and meaning of scientific statements. Probability and appropriate time scales in science are difficult for laypeople to understand. I ask them to consider the calculated odds of a football team (2/3rds through a season) placed 2nd on the ladder (representing a pretend 90% confidence level) playing a team on the bottom of the ladder. The football expert predicts that based upon past form and current injury levels, home ground advantage, weather etc that the top team is expected to win by 6 goals. Now 1/4 into the match, imagine that after a bit of scoring from both sides that the scores are such that the predicted winning team is only winning by 1 goal. The deniers would be screaming that "The prediction is wrong. The expert should be sacked." This serves to illustrate a number of points (pun intended): (1) Even the best predictions of a football game and climate science are never certainties. (2) It is respectful and appropriate to not dismiss a prediction until an appropriate time period is reached (Waiting till the fat lady sings is ok) (3) Scores go up and down throughout a game and you cannot gauge a teams performance from watching a short time interval. (4) Unforeseen things can occur (a major injury to a key player) which can change the outcome but does not dismiss the basis for prediction.
    Moderator Response: TC: All caps modified to comply with the comments policy. Please read it and comply. Failure to comply with the comments policy can result in text simply being snipped, or posts simply being deleted.
  3. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    While perhaps not a totally analogous, this discussion reminded me of a documentary I saw recently on the hunter gatherer method of 'persistence hunting' where hunters would chase prey who could run much faster than the hunters could. The narrator explained that the hunters could catch their prey because the speed that the animals were running at prevented the prey from panting, their only method of reducing body heat. The last scene showed an antelope, standing, unable to move because of heat stress, while the hunter walked up and killed it with a spear. High "Wet bulb" temperatures seem to have the same effect for people, inhibiting or preventing the cooling produced by the evaporation of sweat.
  4. Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
    Sphaerica, OK, sounds good. Moderators, can you move my deleted comments to the climate sensivity thread? I would do it myself, but I didn't copy them and don't have them anymore. Thank You.
  5. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Thanks to adaptation our grandchildren will have to live inside in a fully air conditioned city? What a wonderfull world!
  6. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    Bernard @12: BEST exposition of the issues, using humor and pointed facts! TEN thumbs up! As an earth scientist, I'm always striving to explain this extremely complex science to laypersons, and I will utilize your concise statement..with proper attribution, natch...;)
  7. Lessons from Past Predictions: Vinnikov on Arctic Sea Ice
    IMO opinion the term "death spiral" is properly applied to the September sea ice extent. There is a very real possibility that we will have ice free periods at the North Pole within 10 to 20 years. In contrast, an ice free Arctic requires an Arctic Ocean warm enough that ice cannot form over 6 months of without sunlight. That is not likely this century. The extended survival of winter ice will also likely result in a radical slowing in the rate of loss of summer ice in the near future. The situation will arise where each season of summer melt will need to melt one winter season of ice to become ice free, with at which time the mean reduction in summer ice will match the mean reduction in winter ice. That will still leave us with the North Pole being frequently ice free, and occasional ice free summers (no water in the Arctic with more than 15% sea ice).
  8. Lessons from Past Predictions: Vinnikov on Arctic Sea Ice
    pauls @1, yes it depends how you define "death spiral". We're talking ice free after just ~200 years of anthropogenic influence, which as John Mason @2 notes, from a geological perspective certainly is "a flash". The Arctic may or may not be ice free by 2030, but I think it's fair to characterize what's happening as a 'death spiral', personally.
  9. KeefeandAmanda at 02:20 AM on 27 April 2012
    Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    To address that some posters may seem to be confusing thermometer temperatures with wet bulb temperatures (my apologies if I read them wrongly): This is not about heat killing people and animals that need evaporative cooling to survive, but a combination of heat and humidity killing people and animals that need evaporative cooling to survive - this is not about the heat, but about the heat index, a measure of heat and humidity. Over the very long run, with the atmosphere containing more and more water as the planet accumulates more and more heat energy, it may be harder and harder for the thermometer temperature to go up and up. But we will see at the same time the heat index - the wet bulb temperature - continuing to go up and up. This simply reflects the facts of what we see: For instance, in the US, in humid environments like Florida we see high thermometer temperatures being almost always no higher in the summer than in the 95 degree F range, but in the dry climates in the southwestern US the thermometer temperatures can reach well over 110 degrees F. Yet the heat indexes - a measure of heat and humidity - can be the same, overwhelmingly uncomfortable if not yet high enough to be deadly to everyone. The online heat index calculator I linked to at #11 shows that even with just thermometer temperatures of 100 and 105 degrees F, which are thermometer temperatures that humans and animals experience today and survive just fine, we would see heat indexes of 150 and 176 degrees F respectively with just a relative humidity of 75%, deadly to humans and some animals even just within hours. The wet bulb temperature that would be deadly within hours to all humans and some animals talked about in the article is 35 degrees C and 95 degrees F, a heat index of 170 to 196 degrees F according to Huber. Side note to address that some seem to think that all will be well no matter what: I don't think that civilization can survive no one being able to go outside without being killed in just hours, but that's just me. But even if with super high technology in some science fiction future in a few hundred years global civilization could barely handle with extreme stress billions of people in the equatorial regions living in such summertime death zones, what about the wild animals? Whole continents in the middle parts of the planet would become dead zones, essentially devoid of all wildlife - killing off essentially all birds and mammals in these areas would disrupt the food chain so much that the whole ecosystem in these regions would collapse entirely. This impending mass extinction on so much of wildlife including on the pinnacle of evolution, the mammals, does not bother the fake skeptics? They talk as if they care only about humans. For clarity, to avoid confusion, what we need are not just graphs covering the last 50 years that show the global thermometer temperature increase, but graphs that show the global wet bulb temperature increase - graphs that show the global heat index increase. I'd bet that given that water vapor has increased by 4% over just the last 40 years, these global wet bulb temperature or global heat index graphs would uncover trends that we otherwise could not see. (And I think that it would be a good idea to break down the global data on the heat index to include comparisons of trends in heat indexes with respect to nighttime vs. daytime, summer vs. winter, and arctic vs. the equator. We should all know that globally, nighttime temps rising faster than daytime temps, summer temps rising faster than winter temps, and arctic temps rising faster than equatorial temps have been happening and are possible only with a significant increase in greenhouse gas activity.)
  10. Lessons from Past Predictions: Vinnikov on Arctic Sea Ice
    Pauls, I guess that depends on what you mean by "a flash" - that has quite different connotations depending on what sort of timescales are being contemplated i.e. wrt human generations, human history, recent (Quaternary) or longer geological ones....
  11. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    catamon #11. Seemed pretty obvious to me from the program content that [Minchin's] position is based entirely on an economic / political perspective and the science is pretty much not an issue for him. Well, if he was allowed get away with such an incoherent position, then the programme was an uter farce. Clearly, Oreskes was not letting him off that lightly. Again, it looks like the editor's strove for a "balance" that is completely not there in the science. It would have been much more honest and productive to have started with "Look, global warming is happening. What is your solution on how to handle it?" If Minchin wanted to argue for a "Do Nothing" position, well and good, but it looks as if the programme did not even get to that in the interests of giving airtime to a complete charlatan like Morano.
  12. Lessons from Past Predictions: Vinnikov on Arctic Sea Ice
    I find it amusing when "skeptics" try to "falsify" the models by comparing with global temperature observations. If they really wanted a falsification comparing with Arctic sea ice trends would give them much clearer grounds. Do you think references to a death spiral are supported by the published literature? My impression, particularly from this recent RealClimate guest post, is that most scientists don't see it. I guess it depends how you define 'death spiral', but my impression of the phrase is that it describes something going out of control into oblivion. However, I think the published literature tends to suggest the presence of Arctic Ice is relatively stable - i.e. it will respond to persistent GHG forcing but won't simply disappear in a flash.
  13. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    Dagnabbit. "Ms AGW" in the penultimate paragraph of my last post should have been "Ms Ecology" Cooee nice mods?
  14. Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
    It's definitely a confusing issue. What we're talking about here is basically the amount of unrealized warming, whereas the radiative forcing tells you the total net energy imbalance since your choice of start date (the IPCC uses 1750). So they're not directly comparable figures. The unrealized warming has been fairly constant over the past ~50 years whereas the radiative forcing increases the further back in time you choose your initial point. So if you look at the unrealized warming starting at any date from 1950 to 2010, it will be a fairly constant number. But the radiative forcing from 1950 to 2010 is larger than the forcing from 1990 to 2010, for example. Hopefully I got that right.
  15. Anne-Marie Blackburn at 01:34 AM on 27 April 2012
    Two Centuries of Climate Science: part one - Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930
    Nice read, thanks for that - look forward to the rest of the series. I'd definitely recommend Spencer Weart's book and website. A very interesting read.
  16. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    Definitely should be aired. All guns firing I say...
  17. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    If anyone can find, if it's available, the Admiral Titley clip that was also cut, I'm sure that would be also most interesting. I suggested to QandA/ABC that it should put it's hand to curing cancer as well. No oncologists or anyone of a medical background, what would they know. A panel of miners and politicians should be able to nut it. Catalyst, the science show before this documentary on balance fallacy was good. http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3488105.htm
  18. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    I concur with Sceptical Wombat that Q&A does not geniunely balance the denialist pseudo-evidence with real scientific discourse. On the episode tonight Clive Palmer trotted out trope after trope with nary a correction. As an example the "humans are responsible for only 3% of the increase" canard was repeated by Palmer a number of times, with almost no attempt to discuss the effect of compound interest - which surely warms the cockles of Palmer's heart when he's contemplating his bank balance... Even Matthew England didn't corner this rat, although time constraints might explain why. Too often I find myself wondering how an obvious error of science, or a fallacy of logic, or a plain old untruth, is simply allowed to stand and contribute to the overall impression of "debate", especially on the public broadcaster. Better than having the clip of Naomi Oreskes would have been to have her as a panel member, even if by satelite. She would have sunk Palmer quicker than would have a pair of cement shoes. On the matter of denialism itsef, as embodied by Minchin, Palmer and so many others, it's like this... ...There's a corspe, formerly known as Ms Ecosystem, lying on the ground, and the corpse has a CO2 bullet in its head - a bullet fired at point-blank range from a Coalington-Oilchester rifle. There's a medico autopsying the corpse, a Dr Climatologist, and she concludes that the cause of death was an AGW brain injury resulting from the impact of the dissected CO2 bullet, now lying in the bloody kidney bowl. Watching the autopsy is a member of the NRA, a Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr, who (although he has no experience in medicine) variously asserts that: 1) there is still a scientific debate about the capacity of CO2 bullets to inflict serious damage to brains 2) well, OK, bullets might cause small bumps, but something else caused the corpse to actually die even though the autopsy showed no other plausible factors 3) that the corpse isn't really dead anyway 4) that CO2 bullets are good for the brain 5) alright, so maybe the bullet did kill Ms AGW, but if you control firearms, my life will fall apart, it just will. Nothing that Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr asserts has any objective relationship to the science that determined the cause of death. Several are ideological knee-jerks in response to the implications of the investigation, but these knee-jerks do not alter the fact of cause and effect. The debate isn't about the cause of death, no matter how strenuously Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr attempts to make it so. The debate is simply about Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr's unfettered ability to continue to do what he's always done, no matter that control of this activity would result in less harm in the future. If Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr wanted a genuinely honest discussion, he'd openly admit that CO2 bullets will kill most, if not all, of Ms AGW's family if they are all thusly shot, and he would argue that his right to shoot those CO2 bullets at these folk outweighs the rights of Ms AGW's family not to be shot at. Of course, that is a much harder argument to win, so Mr W.A.S.P. Warming-Denier Snr is going to avoid it at all costs, even if he can never admit it even to himself...
  19. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    "and it is a pity they have prevented Naomi Oreskes pointing out that Nick Minchin is (metaphorically!) naked of any scientific case for his views." Seemed pretty obvious to me from the program content that his position is based entirely on an economic / political perspective and the science is pretty much not an issue for him. Much surprisement here given his background. That said, the linked vid in the op here is well worth watching and i thought quite insightful. I thought the comment from one of the QANDA panelists about the ABC's online survey being worthy of lining a kitty litter tray was pretty apt. But how did Clive Palmer wind up there??
  20. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    It might have been uninspiring, but it wasn't quite as awful as I feared. I confess I didn't watch all of it, but I was really, genuinely surprised that Nick M. trotted out the Nova-Evans duo and Marc Morano! of all people. Perhaps it wasn't just Oreskes that was cut, maybe some halfway reasonable people chosen by Minchin were also omitted. I did think Minchin was a bit taken aback by the suggestion that the whole idea of the program was ill-advised for Rose (Goldacre's rather vivid remarks). It seems not to have occurred to him before that anyone relying on scientific evidence was at a disadvantage in dealing with people who dished up "bad science" in 'debate'.
  21. Michael Whittemore at 00:06 AM on 27 April 2012
    ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    Having such a young person stand for the side of anthropogenic warming not be in the field of climate science was appalling. She could not state a single fact about anything. She must have known who she was going to have to visit, and if she did not know the ABC has made it impossible for her to debate anything, she is just there to look good. The show was a complete waste of time that really gave no hard hit home on either side. When at Hawaii the fundamental facts of CO2 being increased by man and the measured amount of extra infrared radiation hitting the Earth should have been stated by her!. With Lindzen she should have asked him what climate sensitivity value he gives the doubling of CO2, and she should have explained that his value is small to all the others. The young girl plays the part of an emotional undergrad that is sticking to her guns because her lecturer told her so. The ABC has played this issues off as a joke, the only time that there was real facts been pointed out was during the Q&A show by the Oceanographer in the audience. And the CSIRO CEO on the Q&A show was ridicules, she completely thinks we should do nothing to stop the emission of CO2 and only focus on making solar cheaper, in the hope it will be as cost effective as coal. She does not even want government help regarding this, just let industry do it??
  22. Climate Change Boosts Then Quickly Stunts Plants, Decade-long Study Shows
    Having given the paper a quick read, I'm surprised there is no measure of CO2 included at both sites. My understanding is that CO2 partial pressure decreases with increasing altitude (roughly 10% less CO2 per 1000m), thus transplanting from high to low sites would also impose a CO2 enrichment effect. It is also my understanding that CO2 enrichment causes a short term boost in plant productivity which is then lost as other factors become rate limiting (photosynthetic acclimation). This sounds familiar to the findings in this paper, although I am unsure on the time-frames on CO2 photosynthetic acclimation.
  23. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    The best "adaptation" we've made in Adelaide after our disastrous record-breaking heatwave 4 years ago is organisational and behavioural. The Red Cross has a list of people who've signed up to be contacted for all kinds of problems. When heatwave conditions are predicted, they get on the phones and start nagging people to drink water and remove their shoes to cool off. (Elderly men are notorious for maintaining "decent" dress - singlet, shirt, tie, jacket, trousers, wool socks, lace-up leather shoes - and sticking to routines like a cup of tea at 10.30am rather than frequent drinks of plain water.) Radio and TV stations also broadcast messages, not for people at risk, but for families and neighbours to get on the phone or visit to make sure that old or sick people are drinking enough and actually using their fans and air conditioners rather than trying to economise in their usual way. And changing the colour of cars won't save kids trapped in hotboxes. The temperature difference is measurable but nowhere near enough to be survivable for a child or an animal left there for more than a matter of minutes when the outside temperature is over 35 or 40C. The car temperature rockets to 50+ in a virtual blink of an eye. "Full physiological adaptation" is a nonsensical concept for a fortnight or more over 35C when some of those days also exceed 40C. I've lived through it. By the time you're at 6, 8 or 10 days of this stuff, you might have better water drinking habits, but you're exhausted. And so is everyone around you. Tired people make mistakes - and they can't sleep properly either. If they're susceptible to illness, they become more susceptible.
  24. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    Thanks, Excellent video clip. Should have been aired IMO.
  25. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Re some posts above: seasonal flu deaths can run pretty high (3k to 49k per season). adaptation: there's a mess of inexpensive adaptations to heat waves, but we have known that we need them for decades (we've had heat waves before, and they've killed before), and there's no evidence that we are getting smarter or learning any faster than in the past. It's likely that people pay more attention for a few years following a bad heat wave; it would not be surprising to see some reduction in the deaths-per-degree rate afterwards. Cheap adaptations range from color of automobiles (some of those heat-related deaths are kids left in a car in the sun -- we make mistakes, sometimes horrible ones) to siting and shading of houses (and zoning and homeowner's association codes) to learned-but-unconscious reactions to heat (living in CA, over the years got to see about a half-dozen Gulf Coast friends-and-family get slightly dehydrated because they did not notice they were sweating). A sudden heat wave in a normally cool place will catch people without full physiological adaptation (takes a week or two), and without having already learned heat-friendly habits (e.g., hydration cues), so some adaptations are just not available. But most adaptations entail a minor expense/inconvenience, else we would have made them already. About the only one that does not is albedo change (white cars, white roofs, white pavement, white clothing) -- and notice that generally we don't do that yet, either.
  26. Two Centuries of Climate Science: part one - Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930
    Nicely written! I got hooked into the story, didn't intend reading to the end just at the mo, but ended up doing so.
  27. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    That was a pretty uninspiring two hours. I doubt anyone had their mind changed.
  28. Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
    anthony: As a non-scientist, I often find the varying forcing amounts confusing myself. What appears to be consistent is that, the shorter the time period under consideration, the smaller the forcing number. I'm sure those fully in the know can explain better.
  29. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    The concern I have about this program is that is once again lets the media portray a non-existent balance. The ordinary viewer is left with the impression that for every climate scientist, there is a climate science denier with valid arguments. That is just not the case, and it is a pity they have prevented Naomi Oreskes pointing out that Nick Minchin is (metaphorically!) naked of any scientific case for his views.
  30. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    Sceptical Wombat, you said @2: I don't think it is profitable to waste time impugning Minchin's motives - it is much more important to include as much as possible of the evidence for global warming. This clip maybe not profitable for us - who understand science - but it surely is profitable for people like Dibble's mum. Or just look at the comments in John's ABC Env article: many people don't understand (for whatever reasons) basic concepts of physics of climate science. Therefore, basic arguments that Naomi puts forward in this censored clip (about GHG being major driver of AGW) must be repeated until large audience understands that there is no legitimate debate left at scientific level. I understand that listening to this deja vu basics is waste of time for you but it's not for the audience the program is directed at. So, like others, I'm disappointed that ABC censored it, giving false impression that Naomi & Minchin are having equal stance here and thus reaffirming denial in very large part of public.
  31. Two Centuries of Climate Science: part one - Fourier to Arrhenius, 1820-1930
    Chris, good point. A better wording would be "they will still restrict heat-flow out into space."
  32. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    Naomi Oreskes did quite a good job in highlighting the weakest point of the conservative climate policy. The longer we wait the more invasive will be Government intervention, one thing not many will welcome. What they're trying to do is really short-sighted, delaying mitigation measures may be profitable in the short term but it will leave the world in an undesirable situation in the longer term. This is exactly what ConservAmerica (former Republicans for Environmental Protection) is trying to avoid, making it clear that environmental protection is not a partisan issue per se, while the solutions are or might be. It's only the distorted views of right wing fringes (fundamentalists?) that gives this impression to (presumably) gain political benefits. In the meanwhile, we're still waiting for a conservative climate policy other than attack the science, ignore the problem and keep going. To moderators: although my intention is to show that environmental protection is a non-partisan goal, I understand that I may have crossed the line of "no politics". Please delete if appropiate.
  33. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    #71 You really think its not subsidized? These are deals companies make before they will build a new plant. In Australia there are even special government departments whose only job is to come up with deals to get industries to invest. No company is stupid enough to build a new power station without a deal. They don't have to invest in NZ, they can take their money and invest where they will get a deal. Its all done under confdentiality agreement. No subsidy Is the equivalent of someone paying full price for a new car. Doesn't happen (except for the very stupid).
  34. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    I agree with Stevo that this footage should have been aired. Having said that, I can see why it was dropped. With this programme, ABC are doing exactly what she says the denial industry are setting out to do. They're shifting the debate to be about the science, in order to delay doing something about the problem. My mum wouldn't understand either side of the'argument', but she'd watch this and think there was one.
  35. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    Oh, and ETS increases cost of power to consumer, not decrease it. Where is your evidence that $0.24/kwh is not the unsubsidized price?
  36. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    So where are the subsidies in New Zealand? That is what I am pointing out. ETS only came into play few years ago if you are regarding that as "subsidy". Not that relevant as no new carbon-burning generation has been built since.
  37. Sceptical Wombat at 14:37 PM on 26 April 2012
    ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    I disagree with Stevo - I don't think it is profitable to waste time impugning Minchin's motives - it is much more important to include as much as possible of the evidence for global warming. My complaint is that the the ABC is forever pitting seasoned political campaigners on the right against young relatively inexperienced idealists from the left. In Q and A it is often a representative of a conservative think tank versus a celebrity of some type. Anyhow most Australian's surely know that Minchin is famous for apologising to the John Nicholls Society for the fact that Work Choices didn't go far enough and that the coalition would do better in the future.
  38. Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
    Levitus find a forcing of 0.39 Wm-2 for OHC to 2000 m since 1955 due to GHGs, which corresponds to a global forcing of 0.27 Wm-2. AR4 concludes a net global, anthropogenic forcing since 1750 of +1.6 [+0.6 to +2.4] W m–2. So, Levitus find a decrease in forcing since 1955?
  39. ABC documentary demonstrates the how and why of climate denial
    It annoys me intensely that footage such as this failed to make it to air. What other gems have been edited out so that the media could maintain an illusion of fairness?
  40. Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
    RW1, I suggest you take your comment to the climate sensitivity thread.
  41. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    #68 Despite looking, I have not found any country where that electricity market financial model actually exists ie zero subsidies during development or during operations. Are you aware of its existence? Nor aware what is/would be the electricity tariff under in unsubsudised market? Would be rather high.
  42. Levitus et al. Find Global Warming Continues to Heat the Oceans
    Stumbled onto news release for today "Warm Ocean Currents Cause Majority of Ice Loss from Antarctica" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120425140353.htm
  43. Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
    Can you move my deleted comments to an appropriate thread of your choice? If Tom wishes, he can continue the discussion there.
  44. Why Are We Sure We're Right? #1
    Which thread, DB? How about suggesting a thread before deleting comments?
  45. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    If a generating company wants to build a hydro, windfarm, etc. then they must buy the land and build it unaided, and raise capital in normal way. You can only make money from say a wind turbine if your price is competitive enough to bid into the market. Transmission costs ($0.17/kwh) are passed to directly to consumer. While a government owned company, the transmission provider has to raise capital with bonds, pays tax at company rate and dividends on profit. What is coming into play slowly is effectively a "subsidy" on non-carbon generation - the Emission Trading Scheme. However, renewables were more than competitive with coal/gas before it arrived. Also, emitters were given credit for current rate of emission, the ETS so far only counts against expanding carbon-generating emissions. The clear message here is that government is doing its level best to ensure there are no direct or indirect subsidies.
  46. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Eric#67: Thanks for your kind words. Here's another take on the 'more people die in winter, but not necessarily due to extreme cold' story. Most of them are due to strokes and heart attacks. "This is because the blood becomes more liable to clot in people who are exposed to the cold." ... Studies show elderly people, and particularly those on low incomes, are at the greatest risk. There are a number of reasons why. Those that succumb are not necessarily sick already, but older people's blood vessels tend to have rougher linings than those of younger people, which makes them even more susceptible to clotting. We know that there will still be winter even under the worst global warming scenarios, so this cause of death may not vary all that much. Indeed, it may rise as the population ages. However, when the hot get hotter, heat-related deaths will rise. Unless, of course, we do as Chip suggests and simply 'adapt.' We can simply evolve so that we are born wearing one of these.
  47. Eric (skeptic) at 11:38 AM on 26 April 2012
    Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    It's such a simple question that I asked above, that I was sure there was a simple answer. But while there are some simple answers, e.g. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090209-flu-humidity.html they are incomplete.
  48. Eric (skeptic) at 11:30 AM on 26 April 2012
    Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Muoncounter, I am sorry to hear of your father's death. I don't know why there are 60k more deaths in the U.S. in winter than there are in summer. I would appreciate any references anyone has to help explain it. In the absence of such references I have to assume that cold weather is a factor in some of those deaths even indirectly. For example more people confined indoors with less ventilation than summer.
  49. Renewables can't provide baseload power
    There are hundreds of ways of subsidizing, or externalising costs. For the hydro, who paid for the dam, the land the dam is on, the land the power station is on, the transmission lines, the land the transmission lines are on, the roads, the water costs, the compensation for flooded farms etc. For the gas power station, do the gas producers pay full taxes on gas provided to powers stations, or do the gas producers have an obligation to provide gas to power stations at a defined and reduced cost as part of their approvals with the government? In Australia green energy is cross subsidized by power companies having a mandatory renewable energy target, so they pay the subsidy by installation rebates and feed in tariffs as high as 66 cents/kwh. So subsidies can be well hidden. The point is if you remove subsidies, you change the economics of supply, whic means you move on the supply-demand curve and get a new price equilibrium. The other way of looking at it is, what is the role model country for electricity generation and do they have subsidies and what is their cost?
  50. Global Warming Causing Heat Fatalities
    Here's another data point: Texas temperature-related mortality, 2003-2008: -- sourced above Texas is 'highly adapted' to heat, however, the figures in this period - which, of course does not include the record-shattering heat wave of 2011 - show that more people still die of heat-related causes on an annual basis. This argument that "heat-related deaths are less common in hotter cities" is totally bizarre and suggests a very jaundiced worldview.

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