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elsa at 23:32 PM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I am not sure why Biophilia asks "how appalling that people still don't realize temperature is a measure of energy within a given system or defined space" but he will doubtless explain further. It is good to see that he thinks the trend line in the graph has been arrived at by a means "having, showing, or done with good judgment or sense." Presumably this means he also accepts the implication of this line, which shows a far slower rate of warming than he has probably thought had been happening until now. -
oneiota at 23:18 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
GreenCooling @3 Andrew Bolt and his ilk are paid to have an opinion and are not required to justify it...unlike those who are paid less than he and are required to publish theirs in a forum that demands rigour and takes no prisoners...peer review or op-ed? -
elsa at 23:18 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
I don't want to split hairs but what I criticised was repetition of views, not facts. The facts that seem under debate here are whether or not there has been warming in the last 10 years or so. That is something on which it would be interesting to see some real data (and I have put together some comments set out in the earlier section of this website that deals with this debate) rather than repetition of two points of view. The qualifications point I accept, although it seems to me that many of the supposed "climate scientists" do not have anything like as much in the way of qualifications as they claim. Phil Jones is one I have looked at in particular and it seems to me he has very little in the way of a proper scientific background and certainly his approach to science with regard to data sharing (the withholding of underlying data without which his work cannot be meaningfully reviewed) is most unscientific. Motives are interesting and possibly helpful but I am afraid that quite often these days it is motives, rather than the underlying arguments, that get criticised in many debates, not just ones about global warming. Whatever one's opponents motivations one needs to answer their points rather than question their motives. I would completely agree with your comment about evidence, unfortunately there is none in this letter. That is one of the reasons that I am critical of it. I am not sure why you think the IPCC may underestimate the situation. Clearly one of the signatories to this letter - whom you presumably think is properly qualified - thinks quite the opposite. -
oneiota at 22:51 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Elsa, Have you considered that if the facts are "merely" repeated by those who are qualified to repeat them then maybe there is a strong chance that it is the reality? Check the qualifications and motivations of those who are sceptical. However claims can only be supported by evidence and not by letters to the editor. The really scarey bit is what if the IPCC report underestimated the situation...they may have! -
elsa at 22:23 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
It is sad that this letter does not really tell us anything new but merely repeats several parts of the standard IPCC type view and states things that disagree with the earlier letter without providing any explanation for how the differences of opinion come about. We are told that the long-term warming trend has not abated but what the interested outsider needs to know is why they hold this view and the earlier letter’s authors seem to hold an opposite one. Without an explanation all that we get is a sort of “’tis, ‘tisn’t” argument that is not really a debate. The piece on computer modelling is particularly bizarre. These apparently show “that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean”. Now it may well be that measurement of temperatures in the deep ocean could show such a thing, but no explanation at all is offered about how a computer model could do so. It is also sad to see some of the less doctrinaire members of the global warming community joining in on this. One of the signatories of the letter, Robert Watson, has in the past been rather critical of the IPCC overstatement of the seriousness of climate change and has stated that his side’s view should always be challenged by sceptics. What a pity that he has chosen not to rebut the sceptic’s letter in any detail at all but has joined in on the repetition of claims thus taking the rest of us no further at all. -
oneiota at 22:20 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Thank you Dibble for the link to Derry's concise,informed and incisive response. -
skept.fr at 21:43 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
It must be noted that Murray and King are also skeptic about the coal ultimate reserves in their Nature's paper, they emphasis that China and India are net importers, US production is peaking, geological estimates from the 80s or 90s have not been recently updated, etc. If the pessimistic estimates of total fossil reserves are correct, we will never reach during the second part of this century the carbon emission rates of IPCC RCP 8.5 (this RCP is equivalent to the old SRES most fossil intensive variations of A1-A2 families). We've add approx. 120 ppmv CO2 atm since the pre-industrial period, we're pretty sure that we can add the same quantity with "reasonable" market prices for fossil fuels, but beyond that, it's quite speculative. Price is not just determined by extraction capacity, but also supply/demand ratio and EROEI, as noted in #30. The more energy you need to extract and refine an energy source, the less you leave for its final (eg socio-economical) use. -
elsa at 21:17 PM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Paul D is right in saying that many have responded to me and I am grateful to him for a polite and reasoned reply, in contrast to one or two of the others. I would agree with him entirely that temperature must include as many places as is practical. I could not agree more that we should not cherry pick the places, yet that is exactly what is being done when we look at ice cover in the Arctic, when we know that the climate in the poles is often completely unrepresentative of what goes on elsewhere. CBDunkerson adopts a different approach. He does not answer the criticism that if you are arguing about whether the world is getting warmer you should look at temperature but instead asks if “they” are making more water out of thin air. Since he has not understood the point that I made above I will try to put it in simpler terms for him. You can only use changes in the sea level as a proxy for changes in temperature if you think that temperature is the sole factor that alters the sea level. Is that what he thinks? He does not go anywhere near the obvious question “if you have a good temperature record, why would you use some other far less reliable means of looking for warming?” Composer99 claims I am “trying to dispute the reality of human-induced rapid global overheating by reference solely to a few graphs on a website”. Actually my point here was to point out the flaws in this particular article using only the graphs provided with in it, not ones picked by me. He then says that to use your eyes to assess one of those graphs is the use of a very poor scientific instrument. However he does not answer the criticism I made of the graph using the author’s statistical analysis, which shows a much much slower rate of warming than is generally put about by the (-snip-). Is he saying that the author got this wrong and, if so, what does he think the underlying trend is for the period? KR makes a polite comment but I am not really sure what it trying to say. I have said that if you want to show that the climate is warming there is one thing that you need to do and that is look at the temperature. Ice cover and sea level can change for reasons other than a general rise in temperature and so are of little or no help in establishing whether or not global warming is taking place. DSL claims I cherry picked the figures. What I did was to look at the graph provided in the article. What is clear is that temperature in 2008 is no higher than the starting point (it is considerably lower than 1998) some 10 to 11 years earlier. But we have no need to argue about reading the graph. The (-snip-) author of the article has provided a trend line for us. I rather doubt it is meaningful but what it shows, as I have set out above, is a level of warming far below the normal (-snip-) claims. Does DSL dispute that and, if so, what does he think was the trend in the period shown by the graph? In contrast to DSL, MarkR is friendly and polite. Unfortunately I do not agree with him. If you are looking for global warming I would say the primary, probably only, thing that you need to look at is the temperature. If you had no instruments for measuring temperature you could well be justified in using another indicator. But we do have such instruments and can use them. In such circumstances it may be unhelpful or even misleading to use something such as sea level, where clearly other factors can play their part in changes. (-snip-).Response:[DB] Multiple instances of ideology/inflammatory tone snipped. Future comments constructed thusly will be simply deleted.
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Dibble at 20:16 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Another splendid comment from Louis A. Derry, assistant professor of geological sciences at Cornell University here. Thanks to link from M Mann's twitter, via (bizarrely) a certain weatherman's blog. -
Doug Hutcheson at 16:46 PM on 2 February 2012Oceans are cooling
This interesting article in Australian Geographic reports that the CSIRO has found the Tasman Sea is warming faster than most of the ocean and ascribes the cause to AGW. -
Phila at 15:02 PM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Bob: That's fascinating! It does seem like a very similar tactic. Which makes sense, considering that the average "skeptic" is in the market for a personal identity rather than an actual understanding of science. So instead of cigarette brands, we've got a bunch of different theories tailored to individual pretensions. There are relatively sophisticated discussions of tree rings for the more educated "skeptics," and there's footage of snowbound American cities in winter for the illiterati. The product's basically the same...it's just packaged for upscale and downscale markets. What a way to earn a living. -
owl905 at 14:47 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Every once in a while, something comes along that gets the batteries, depleted by frustration and setback, a recharge. This made warm winter day a little easier on the nerves. Thumbs up to the Wall Street Journal for printing it. Maybe some of their constituency in harms way with this pollution can get some attention. I'd go and check up, but the last round of comments there pushed Vogon poetry into fourth place. -
actually thoughtful at 14:09 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Will this "letter" from the experts get equal billing to the shrill denial of the opinion/editorial? Or will it be put down in the letters from mere mortals section? -
MattJ at 13:39 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
@J. Bob, #36: True, but not helpful. Fracking is already under much-deserved harsh criticism for causing earthquakes and poisoning ground water. These are not the products of overactive imaginations of environmentalist, they are real and unacceptable externalities. If the externalities were truly taken into account, the oil from fracking would be considered unacceptably high priced. Also, oil industry apologists have a bad reputation for inflating their estimates of how much oil they can get for how long out of any new reserve or technology. Why would fracking be any exception? I doubt it will be. Finally, storage mechanisms are getting better. We are nowhere near the thermodynamic limits of storage efficiency with today's technologies, a decent new "smart grid" will open up possibilities for much more efficient technologies at much lower costs. -
MattJ at 13:33 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
The authors say, plausibly: "the point needs to be lodged more firmly in the minds of policy makers." But there is an important point they still don't get: it has to start with the voters, since the policy makers are too beholden to monied interests to make such a decision without strong voter support. So first, it is the voters who need to get the point " lodged more firmly in their minds" -
Tom Curtis at 13:13 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Simon Donner, one of the signatories of the above letter, has further commented on the issue here. -
Bob Loblaw at 13:11 PM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Phila @ 29:In articles like these, it's not just acceptable but also beneficial to present a mishmash of contradictory arguments; the more excuses for disbelief you can provide, the more readers you can reassure. Different claims appeal to different readers, so toss 'em all in! It's not like they're gonna compare notes.
Reading this reminds me of something my high school economics teacher said about cigarette brands and marketing. The question was, why do cigarette companies have so many brands? Aren't they competing with themselves? The answer is yes, but the marketing strategy was that many cigarette smokers change brands fairly frequently. If they change brands at random, and you have 20 brands and your competitor has 10, then you have twice the likelihood of having the switched smoker pick up another of your brands. Brand loyalty is a good thing, but this strategy helps keep the non-loyal smoker in the fold, so to speak. Bring that strategy forward 40 years, and the deniers are aided by having a huge stock of talking points (since it doesn't matter if they are incorrect and mutually contradictory), while the poor scientists (bounded by reality) have relatively few. For the mind that wants to glom onto a few points that confirm their bias, they are more likely to glom onto one of the many false denier memes. -
chriskoz at 13:07 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
GreenCooling @3, I don't know whom this Andrew Bolt fellow is affiliated with. But I did find cases of racial discrimination, e.g. here which undermine his quality as journalist and his integrity. Skimming through the claptrap you're pointing at, confirmed my opinion about Andrew. It suffice to quote him as saying "Arctic ice has not retreated since 2007" which is the old monckton myth disproved last year and abandoned by Monckton himself. But Andrew is still clinging to it on February 01, 2012: unbelievable, a rare case of 100% head in sand! What world is Andrew living on? I found that OZ media that are part of Murdoch empire (like Daily Telegraph tabloid we are talking about here) tend to provide a workplace for individuals such as Andrew Bolt. Other media, i.e. smh.com.au or abc.net.au do not. I read/watch the latter regularly and I am confident such incoherent rambling would not be published there. -
From Peru at 12:58 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Oil production since 1970:
[source]
Last time production dropped was after the Iranian Revolution and the following Iran-Iraq War.
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John Hartz at 12:51 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Talk about serendipity! Suggested reading: “Climate scientists not cowed by relentless climate change deniers” by Tony Feder, page 22 of Physics Today, Feb, 2012 To access this timely, in-depth article, click here. -
NewYorkJ at 12:49 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Good letter, but it would be nice if they had extensive references in their discussion, or at least links to them. I understand "skeptics" couldn't care less about supporting their statements, and in their case they're better off without them, but scientists should do better. Is there a WSJ restriction, related to a restriction in the print version? -
scaddenp at 12:25 PM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Hmm, except that tell story of how many new coal plants are coming on line. Coal is fastest growing fuel worldwide. -
GreenCooling at 12:23 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
It is indeed a remarkable thing that that the WSJ is prepared to publish this letter, and congratulations to all signatories. I just wish the Australian Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun would give Tim Flannery, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Naomi Oreskes and David Marr a similar right of reply to the highly offensive and arguably defamatory claptrap published yesterday by Andrew Bolt. The denier campaign is alive and well here and will only grow louder as the introduction of carbon pricing on 1 July approaches. The efforts and contributions of SkS will play a vital role in this debate, and I'd like to offer my most profound and sincere thanks for all that you do. -
Chappo at 12:22 PM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Nice article. -
muoncounter at 12:15 PM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
It would be nice to see how many other actual climate scientists could be interested to add their names to a virtual version of this letter. Perhaps hosted here? -
John Hartz at 11:50 AM on 2 February 2012Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate
Kudos to all of the scientists who signed this letter! -
Pete Dunkelberg at 11:22 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
scaddenp, coal is losing ground too. -
Chris Snow at 07:40 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
I’m not surprised that it’s a small and dwindling number of fake skeptics – if the demographics are anything to go by, they must be dying off. I went through the biographical details as best as I was able to and as far as I can tell, Shaviv is the only one under 60. Are there any psychological studies to show why males of retirement age and beyond find it so hard to accept AGW? This is one reason why I think that climate change skepticism still has a few years run, but in the end it will just die of natural causes. As Max Planck said, “Science advances one funeral at a time.” -
scaddenp at 07:12 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
If the only coal mined was for steel production, then I would doubt it would present much of a threat to climate. Mostly coal is used for fuel. The rising price of coking coal should also surely spur more recycling and substitution. You can use charcoal as a reducing agent but not with current furnace design. you need the coke to be strong enough to support the weight of material above and retain gas flow. The big threat that I can see is that rising oil prices will lead to a shift to coal-powered (via electricity) cars instead with significantly higher emissions. I'm with Hansen - we need a ban on new coal-powered stations and let market force sort out a better energy system. -
dana1981 at 07:08 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Most IPCC scenarios project an acceleration in global warming because unless we take action to prevent it, GHG emissions are expected to accelerate (and aerosol emissions expected to decline). It's very simple, if you want to stay in the IPCC 'low' scenarios, CO2 emissions must be cut in comparison to business as usual. Because right now, the IPCC projections are running almost spot-on, so there's no reason to doubt that global warming will accelerate if we continue with business as usual. -
John Hartz at 06:44 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Twenty-two high level representatives have just released their report – Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing - which sets out specific recommendations to “put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy as quickly as possible.” The report reinforces the push to phase-out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, speed up the deployment of renewable energy, and accelerate energy efficiency efforts. When world leaders meet several times this year – culminating at the Earth Summit 2012 in Rio – they must finally follow through on the commitment to phase-down these subsidies and help unleash even greater low-carbon energy action. Source: “UN panel urges phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies” by Jake Schmidt, The energy Collective, Jan 31, 2012 -
John Hartz at 06:33 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
Suggested reading: “Scrapping fossil-fuel subsidies would get us halfway there on climate change” by Brad Plumer, Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog, Washington Post, Jan 20, 2012 Click here to access this timely and thought-provoking article. -
Eyal Morag at 06:26 AM on 2 February 20122011 Hottest La Niña Year on Record, 11th-Hottest Overall
Simple "back of the envelope calculation" give 2011 as the ~ 2nd warmest year. 1 I made correction only for ENSO using Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI) 2 With Excel I got the best fit linear to 1990-2011 yearly ( GISS ) 3 year tamp' - the correction from the line 4 Average MEI for 14 months Nov Dec Jan-Dec. Because it take some months to the ENSO to spread its influence. 5 Plot a graph Average MEI to the result from 3 6 Take out 4 years 3 after Pinatubo + 1 that looks of line 7 With Excel I got the best fit [PEARSON=0.88] 8 Use the slope* Average MEI to correct the themp 9 plot the result . Red , original blue, top red the same little up for clarity , yellow Average MEI All the data + calculations at this spreadsheet
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scaddenp at 06:22 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Adam, CAGW is a very poorly defined term. If you mean, "climate sensitivity is lower than current IPCC predictions", then please present some science to support that. (and in an appropriate thread). If you mean, "wont personally effect me, so I dont care" then dont expect respect. Since you seem to be against any legislation that would mitigate emissions, perhaps then you could take the hypothetical challenge here to assure us that your skepticism is based on informed evaluation of the science and not simply ideology-driven. -
funglestrumpet at 05:54 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
It is amazing just how many comments show surprise at this issue. Peak Oil has been around as a topic in the public domain for years. I think I first read about it some 15 years ago at least. While it is quite possible that alternatives can substitute for fossil fuels, it is going to take years to convert the current infrastructure. For instance it has to be remembered that there are a lot of people who might love to have a new electric car, but will have to make do with their old fossil fuel banger until it eventually collapses and even then second hand electric cars might still be too expensive. Peak oil might be a very good thing as far as climate change is concerned as it is generally agreed that post peak oil means very limited growth at best and probably economic decline will be more the order of the day. This will obviously lead to reduced production and thus reduced emissions. It won't be a particularly nice experience and could easily lead to many countries going into depression with the attendant danger of public unrest. I recommend Oil, Smoke and Mirrors (Full length) on YouTube (beware the credits roll while there is still half of it left to watch). -
Esop at 05:28 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
A large portion of the "missing" heat is kicking around in the Arctic, as evidenced by the extremely rapid loss of Arctic sea ice volume. Conveniently for the deniers, large portions of the Arctic are still being ignored by the datasets. Over the past few years, we have seen cold Arctic air spill onto the continents where its effect on temperature is being measured. However, at the same time there is warm air going the opposite direction, to where its effect on the temperature is not being measured. The result is a cool bias in the global average temperature measurements. Most visible in the HadCRUT data. -
Paul D at 05:22 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
I think many have responded to elsa. But an obvious point is that temperature is a measurement of energy, as has been pointed out, measuring it in one place may not account for all the energy, which is why cherry picking is so, so wrong. An example analogy. You have a machine that has to locations that produce heat (it may have a transformer in one location and a motor in another), if you only measure the temperature at the motor, then you will not account for the total heat losses of the machine which must include the transformer and other components. Elsa stated "If we are looking for evidence of temperature changes then surely it is temperature that we should look at." But the point Mark has made is that the 'temperature' measurements must include as many places as is practical to assess where energy is going or leaving. -
Biophilia at 04:46 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
@elsa, How appalling that people still don't realize temperature is a measure of energy within a given system or defined space. "Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold." Also, if you're going to insult scientists, I wouldn't recommend accusing them of "judicious use of maths" Judicious: Having, showing, or done with good judgment or sense. -
chudiburg at 04:22 AM on 2 February 2012It's cooling
Climate Change Theory...There is an evident 1000 year cycle in glacial advance and retreat in the data from several locations around the world. This data also shows a net positive trend in glacial mass (two steps forward and one step back sort-of)over the last 8000 years or so. However, most of the 8000 years worth of slow glacial advance that has occurred has been erased in just a few decades. Something (aka anthropogenic CO2) is working against the natural forcing and winning. It appears that your 1000 year cycle has been supercharged. I would post charts and links, but I am not sure how to do this with my limited computer skills. -
MarkR at 04:13 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
#15 Hi elsa, there're plenty of reasons why I think that looking at all the available data, rather than a small portion, is a better way of telling whether global warming is going on or not. Global warming is caused by energy building up. Natural cycles constantly move heat between the elements (and can affect energy balance), but ultimately all parts of climate have to respond to the heating. By cherry picking dates and data you can make convincing-sounding (but wrong) arguments easily. The atmosphere has, for the past 15 years, had a warming trend below the average of IPCC models, but any claims that the trend is flat is mathematically not true for the most common meaning of 'trend'. Also, the Santer paper shows that statistically it's not outside expectations whilst the Foster paper shows that natural cycles have been acting to try and cool the atmosphere. But the trend is still positive - pretty much impossible to explain without a background warming. Is there an energy imbalance? Well, sea level rise + buoy data shows there is. Sea level rise comes from water expanding as it warms up and from adding water. Added water comes from melted ice, and the latent heat of ice is pretty hefty. Sea levels have risen 40 mm since the journalist tells people global warming 'stopped'. If that was from melting ice, then the heat required would be enough to warm the atmosphere by 1 C. If it came from thermal expansion, then we're talking over 10 C of atmosphere warming worth of energy. So the energy imbalance is clearly there, Earth's building up heat as the theory predicts. This is what think tanks and journalists have to try and hide, and that's why they only use 15 years of one type of observations. -
DSL at 04:10 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
Elsa, not again . . . please, please have some perspective. You are capable of thinking for yourself, right? You cherry-picked the "2008 is not higher than ten years earlier." Are you simply blind to the fact that 1998 was extraordinarily warm, even within the context of global warming? If 2008 was as warm as 1998, and no unusual conditions existed for 2008 as they did in 1998, wouldn't you agree that the trend for the decade was realistically positive (it's positive from 1998 to 2011 anyway, according to two and soon to be three temp records)? If three of the next five years are warmer than the extraordinary 1998, will you finally spit the cherry stem out of your mouth? -
Phila at 04:09 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Adam S. It will be very hard to convince a mostly scientifically-challenged public, who have become accustomed to an energy rich lifestyle, to give it up. Attempt to take it away and they will rebel (politically). The key phrase here, of course, is "scientifically challenged." That's exactly why the denial industry works so hard to keep them misinformed. Thanks for conceding this point, if only by accident. It's a common right-wing meme that people don't care about the environment and are unwilling to make personal sacrifices for its sake. But that claim isn't really supported by history, which is why a major climate disinformation campaign is necessary. It's also a common right-wing meme that all mitigation efforts involve loss and lack; they're careful to ignore or sneer at gains in efficiency, the advent of interesting new technology and the personal satisfactions of making a difference, for the precise reason that they know these things appeal strongly to people pretty much across the board. You often see the same argument in regard to the Third World, where populations are supposedly clamoring for the exact model of development favored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In the real world, opinion is not quite so monolithic, to say the least. Also, I spend enough time on right-wing sites to know that a lot of people are doing their best to get off the grid, purge unnecessary technology, grow their own food and so forth. They're not doing this for the sake of the environment, granted, but it still gives the lie to the denialist meme that people won't voluntarily give up a convenient, "energy-rich" lifestyle that they feel is unsustainable, dangerous or spiritually empty. In short, the smug vision of American consumers as invincibly self-centered, careless and reactionary is an important one for "skeptics" like yourself to promote precisely to the extent that its a grossly misleading oversimplification. as the Yale study concluded, the more educated one is, the more skeptical he/she is of CAGW. The people who are most educated on climate are climatologists, who overwhelmingly accept AGW. I assume you're referring to The Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change. If so, that paper is a lot more nuanced than you seem to realize. You might try reading it sometime. The paper attributes the very slightly higher degree of skepticism among the educated to "the reliable capacity of individuals to conform their personal beliefs to those that predominate within their respective cultural groups," and points out that "cultural worldview variables predict...risk perceptions independently of science literacy and numeracy." Significantly, it adds, "This conflict between individual and collective rationality is not inevitable. It occurs only because of contingent, mutable, and fortunately rare conditions that make one set of beliefs about risk congenial to one cultural group and an opposing set congenial to another." In short, the study doesn't really say what you claim and its authors directly contradict the conclusions you've drawn. Meanwhile, here are some conclusions from another Yale study: "In a national survey completed in November 2011, we found that a large majority of Americans (66%) support signing an international treaty requiring the US to cut emissions 90% by 2050. Breaking the result down by political party (among registered voters), we found that large majorities of Democrats (81%) and Independents support such a treaty (61%), while almost half of Republicans support such a treaty (49%)." -
Michael.M at 03:52 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
As the Chief Economist of the International Energy Agency IEA, Faith Birol, has put it, some time ago: "We have to leave oil before it leaves us." This is the opion of an agency that directly advises the members of the OECD. So this opinion should not be easily dismissed by the polluters. -
Tom Curtis at 03:33 AM on 2 February 2012Climate change policy: Oil's tipping point has passed
J. Bob @36, I'm sure what you meant to say is without good energy storage like batteries, hydro-power, hot rock thermal storage, liquid salt thermal storage etc., and without extended long range electricity transmission, and without smart grids all the solar and wind won't provide power in the period of the night when electricity companies already offer discount rates because they are currently over generating for that period because conventional power stations are not responsive to demand. You may be right. That might mean in a renewable energy based grid, power companies may offer discounts to use power during day light hours rather than offering discounts to use electricity after dark as they currently do. How could we possibly cope. Heating our water during the day instead of at night? It's the end of civilization as we know it! /sarc -
JohnMashey at 03:27 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Scott Armstrong: Heartland ICCC-1, Manhattan Declaration 2008, ICCC-2, NIPCC, ICCC-4. Science advisory board for ICSC... -
Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa - The issue highlighted in this post is the tendency for 'skeptic' commentators to focus on short term temperature. Which, in the noisy climate, has little statistical significance over short stretches - it's hidden in the weather, the short term variance, much as the difference between winter and summer is much higher than the clearly identified climate changes. The various ice measures, ocean heat content (which, not incidentally, is a temperature measure), sea level rise (thermal expansion and added water from ice melt), and most importantly of all checks on air temperature trends over statistically significant intervals: these all show something important. And that is the climate is warming. Add to that the understanding developed over the last 100-150 years in spectroscopy, known emissions of various greenhouse gases, and recent declines in solar and volcanic forcing - and the conclusion is we're doing it. --- That's what folks focusing on short term (10 year) temperature variations are trying to ignore, or, perhaps, to distract people from recognizing. -
dana1981 at 03:20 AM on 2 February 2012The Latest Denialist Plea for Climate Change Inaction
Eli @39 - indeed interesting that several of these 'signatories' would 'sign' a letter which did not even get their professional/academic affiliations correct. It certainly suggests they didn't read it very carefully, at least. -
Daniel Bailey at 03:12 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
The 2nd generation eyecrometer, Eyecrometer Mk 2.0TM is somewhat superior in that the operator uses both eyes instead of just one... -
Composer99 at 03:04 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa: Your comment is abject nonsense and is a textbook case of denialism: instead of referring to basic physics and the scientific literature you are trying to dispute the reality of human-induced rapid global overheating by reference solely to a few graphs on a website. The eyecrometer (kudos to whomever at this site coined this term) is a very poor scientific instrument, and I heartily recommend you avoid relying on it to perform statistical or empirical analysis. -
CBDunkerson at 03:01 AM on 2 February 2012Measurements show Earth heating up, think tanks & newspapers disagree
elsa wrote: "ice cover (all needless to say in the northern hemisphere)" Actually, the pie chart is global... the Arctic and Greenland ice graphs are indeed 'limited' to those portions of the Arctic and Greenland in the northern hemisphere. Maybe we should add in the Antarctica ice mass chart to show it is declining too? also: "sea level (which presumably you think is moved by temperature alone)" Are they making more water out of thin air in 'elsa reality'? Damn! Why do I always get stuck with the boring worlds with silly things like the 'law of conservation of matter'? :[ also: "something that you call 'heat content'" Yes, what an absolutely impenetrable term. Well, clearly this 'heat' stuff has nothing to do with temperature. >plonk<
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